Thus, previously moist soil becomes dry, cracked, and turn into desert sand (Innes). When the soil becomes dry, dust storms become more frequent. At that point, the soil becomes useless. Lack of trees to hold the ground could result in major soil erosion and increase flooding. (Paul and Anne Ehrlich165).
When forests are cut and burnt, a significant amount of CO2 is added to the atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse effect. There is a theory that as more gasses are released into the atmosphere, more heat gets trapped and average temperature becomes progressively higher. (Innes) This leads to the global warming phenomenon which is another serious environmental problem.
Global Warming is the rising of the Earth's surface temperature due to chemicals in the atmosphere. It has been proven scientifically that the earth is warming up, mostly because of the increase of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) in the atmosphere. It is now believed that atmospheric CO2 increases when a forest is burnt (Steger and Bowermaster 5). Global Warming has many threats on the climate and even the health of the people on this planet. Some of these threats include the altering of crop seasons and even effect the way organisms survive on the planet (Steger and Bowermaster 12).
Perhaps the most destructive legacy of global warming is its contribution to the melting of many glaciers that are floating in the Arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland due to rising temperatures. This in turn causes the sea levels to rise around the world. Major coastal cities and many of today's coastal wetlands would be flooded (Miller 26). Such rises would initiate a worldwide coastal catastrophe: millions of deaths caused by storm surges, cities abandoned, loss of shorelines, prime agricultural land inundated, many aquifers salinized, and millions of ecological refugees created (Paul and Anne Ehrlich 93).
One of the most worrisome potential effects of global warming is a substantial decline in soil moisture in the centers of the large continents in the temperature zones, due to higher temperatures and reduced rainfall.
