Building fast food joints, restaurants, bars, building places for people to socialise is not a bad thing, but it is worth considering how all that food gets there. We are in an era of globalised food production, no more do we have to wait for fruits and vegetables to be in season, it is shipped in refrigerated containers from anywhere in the world where particular produce grows. The problem being that as consumers we are accustomed to being able to order whatever we fancy at the restaurant with no conception of the processes involved to be able to have that particular food on the menu, as though there are neat rows of trees, crops growing somewhere in the world without having an impact on the existing ecosystem when in reality to meet growing demand, deforestation is happening on a global scale, online magazine Livescience cites that since 1600 we have cut down one half of the world’s forests.
Historically this would have been about ship building or house building but now it is about food production, and with the global population expected to peak at eleven billion, this situation is only going to get worse. From clear cutting in the amazon to slash and burn practices in Sumatra, local people are destroying the rainforest to make a living, unaware of the global consequences, or if they are aware, they feel that they have no choice because they need to make a living.
Clear cutting is when large swaths of land are cut down all at once. A forestry expert quoted by the Natural Resources Defense Council describes clear cutting as "an ecological trauma that has no precedent in nature except for a major volcanic eruption." Burning can be done quickly, in vast swaths of land, or more slowly with the slash-and-burn technique. Slash and burn agriculture entails cutting down a patch of trees, burning them and growing crops on the land. The ash from the burned trees provides some nourishment for the plants and the land is weed-free from the burning. When the soil becomes less nourishing and weeds begin to reappear over years of use, the farmers move on to a new patch of land and begin the process again.
Not only is deforestation a means of growing cash crops for a short period of time, it is also used to raising livestock so that we can buy our burgers in McDonald’s which presents a double whammy for the environment, not only are we reducing the planet’s ability to produce oxygen we are increasing water consumption, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, along with filling the soil with pesticides and chemical fertilisers that leech into the ground water.
Most educated people know that trees absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen through photosynthesis, we all need clean air to breathe but it is as though everyone thinks that what they are doing will not matter because there are still trees elsewhere. As we are at the moment, climate scientists are saying that the surviving forests cannot absorb the carbon dioxide that we are pumping into the atmosphere.
It is not only the world’s forests, but the oceans that play a major role in oxygen production, through microscopic organisms, such as plankton, the problem is that we are filling up the oceans with so much plastic waste that plankton is dying off, affecting marine life and impacting on the food chain that contributes to the seafoods and fish that people seem to enjoy in restaurants in every new development. Couple this with overfishing in many areas, illegal fishing in others where controls are trying to be implemented locally, our global food store is running down, and what is left we are harming.
The combination of deforestation, industrial farming, environmental pollution, is leading to the destruction of the ecosystem so that we can eat convenience foods. Add to this illegal poaching of wild animals, either for their ivory, bushmeat or simply hunting for sport, whether we like it or not we are all contributing to a global catastrophe though our choices of where and what we eat.
Work in progress on Is Architecture Enough? The Journey Beneath the Surface of Architecture Continues...the follow up to Do We Need ARCHITECTS? A Journey Beneath the Surface of Architecture, available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble published by Xlibris.
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