| From The Newspaper (19) Environment (9) |
January 26, 2023
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| Another episode of the TV program which focused on large scale disasters that he watched recently was about 'forest fires'. Recently, abnormally sized forest fires happened all over the world, for example in the Amazon, Siberia, Canada, Australia, etc. In the case which happened in Canada, on May 1st of 2016 a forest fire started, it was about 20 km away from the nearest town, but it continued for a month, leaving 500,000 ha of forests and 2,400 houses burnt, 88,000 people were left without their houses. The burnt area was the equivalent to Tokyo plus Saitama. The damage was estimated to be about 8 billion dollars. The program explained that there are some different mechanisms to make big fires depending where they are located. The TV program introduced some examples. Areas where snow falls: Because of Global Warming, snow in an area melts faster than before. If snow melts little by little, the roots of trees have enough time to suck up the water from the melted snow. But, recently snow melts immediately and roots can't suck up enough water before summer. As they are drier inside, they are easier to burn. California's case: Because of Global Warming, droughts happened and trees  grew unhealthier. In this environment, there appear a lot of tree-eating bugs called 'bark beetles', which eat the inside of the trees, resulting in the death of the trees. A researcher said that about 120 million trees in California were killed by the bugs in 2020, and then big fires consumed them. The Paris Agreement aims to halt the temperature rise to under 1.5℃. For this, the world pledged to cut the CO2 emission by half by 2030, zero by 2050. The Paris Agreement was in 2015. But, after that, there were a lot of large forest fires. In 2019 there was a big fire in the Amazon. Brazil had been converting tropical forests into farming lands. In the tropical forests, half of the rainwater goes to the air (through leaves of trees, even from their roots) and makes the tropical climate. But if they became farming lands, the rain water would just flow away, making the lands like steppes. After clearing the forests, the farmers planted soybeans and oil palm trees for palm oil. Although it was illegal, some farmers set fire to forests to get farming fields easily, resulting in a big forest fire in 2019, producing a lot of CO2, which was 1/2 as much as the amount that Japan produces in a year. In Siberia, there were big fires from June to July in 2019. 3.3 million ha of forests were burnt. A lot of CO2 was produced, but the problem was not only this. Black smoke went up and then fell down on the white snow fields. Normally white snow fields reflect the sun rays so the fields remain very cold. But blackish snow absorbed the sun rays and it made the temperature in the area warmer. There is permafrost in Siberia, and it is melting now. The permafrost consists of peat soil, and if the permafrost melts, methane will be emitted. The fire might have accelerated the melting of the permafrost. In Indonesia, tropical forests' grounds are peat soil wetlands. A couple of decades ago, farmers started to cultivate the forests. After drying the wetlands, they planted oil palm trees. Now half of the palm oil production in the world is from Indonesia. But, there is an environmental problem. Once peat soil becomes dry, it becomes very burnable. In 2019, there were several big fires which burnt 700, 000 ha, and they produced CO2 equal to Japan's yearly CO2 emission. In Indonesia it is said that half of tropical forests have already become farming lands. But a researcher pointed out that it was not only the farmers and the Government to be blamed. Palm oil became popular because it is cheaper and has a molecular feature that doesn't allow it to be easily oxidized. Because of this characteristic, food companies which make cup noodles, cookies, margarine, ice-cream, even detergent and cosmetics like to use palm oil. In Japan, a person consumes 5kg of palm oil every year on average. Besides this, trees from tropical forests in Indonesia are used for paper pulp and Japanese paper companies are importing them. In order to resolve deforestation, an International NGO started to certify certain quality of products from palm oil, the certification was called 'RSPO'. The products with RSPO certify that this product is 'not planted with deforestation', 'to contribute to farmers' steady income', 'to maintain working environment, avoiding child labor', etc. Only 19% of products from palm oil have this certification now, though. Recently 61 companies in this country made a council in order to push forward this system. He searched more about it and found out that, as of now, 104 companies have joined RSPO. He also studied that now palm oil is number one in terms of cooking oil produced, second are soybeans, third is rapeseed oil, and the fourth is sunflower oil. Their production rate is 7 : 5 : 3 : 2. He hoped that RSPO would become a major certification. |
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No. 506
*equivalent :同等、同等の
*suck :吸う
*halt :止まる、止める
*pledge :誓う
*steppe :ステップ、大草原
*permafrost :永久凍土
*molecular :分子の
*oxidize :酸化させる、酸化する
*deforestation :森林破壊
*council :協議会、評議会
*rapeseed :菜種