The environmental problems of today started a long time ago, before automobiles, electricity, and the Industrial Revolution. As population increased along with technology advances, more significant and widespread problems arose. The Amazon rainforest was not spared from this growth. The Amazon region has long been seen as a land of great riches. “Early Europeans and others have long been fascinated by the Amazon, with early visions of a land of gold, the legend of ‘El Dorado’” (Faminow 32). The European invasion bought with it the increased population and new technologies that had a drastic effect to the Amazonian region, which was once considered safe from exploitation. This problem has continued to the present, with higher consequences. Ehrlich explains, “today, unprecedented demands o

To help in the understanding of the vast changes in the rainforest, Howard Facklam has come up with some staggering statistics. He states, “it was estimated at one point in the 1980’s that the Amazon basin was being cleared at the rate of 50 acres a minute; another estimate put the rate at 78,000 square miles per year” (53). These are astronomical numbers, to think that is the size of the state Idaho. Such deforestation has an alarming affect, “it means the loss of a multiplicity of products: Food, fibers, medicine, dyes, gums, and resins” (Facklam 53). Not stated in Facklam’s statistics are the effects to the wildlife of the areas as they are drive out of their natural habitat. What kind of condition will the Amazon be in if this trend continues? The answer, there might not be anything left of the rainforest by the year 2050.

It’s not just one thing that contributes to the deforestation of the Amazon; it’s a combination of things. Slash and burn, farming begets, cattle grazing, logging, mining, highways and land development. It’s never one thing, but the combination of many events.

n the environment from a rapidly expanding human population and from advancing technology are causing a continuing and accelerated decline in the quality of the environment and it’s ability to sustain life” (98). As a result, the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed at an alarming rate, affecting all those that live in the region, and around the world.

What can be done to ease the problems in the Amazon? There have been numerous proposals made. There are many levels to ease the situation. At a worldwide level, “the population explosion…must be reduced… Affluent nations must abandon their ethos of materialism, consumerism, and growth mania… and altering people’s lifestyles to be more environmentally conscious” (Sponsell 20). These are a few that Leslie Sponsel points out that are steps that can be taken at a global level to ease the demands of the Amazon. Living in a consumerist society such as North American, where advertising and consumption are at all time highs, we have made this society into a ‘throw-away’ society.

Some topics in this essay:
Howard Facklam, Peruvian Amazon, PIN It’s, Dorado’” Faminow, American European, , North American, Industrial Revolution, Amazon River, Highway Amazonia, amazon rainforest, loggers miners, miners loggers, construction transamazon highway, affects lives, it’s combination, construction transamazon, north american, transamazon highway,