Scottie Gilg- chapter 9, Biological Diversity (class reading 4)

 Chapter 9 of the book "Humans in the Landscape" discusses the biodiversity and its importance. Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on Earth. It is important because it provides numerous ecosystem services essential for human-well being. For example, forests help regulate the climate, while wetlands help purify water. The book also goes into detail about humans undermining biodiversity. This is because humans continue the deeply rooted tradition of pursuing our interests at the expense of other life forms. This can be related to current news happening in our world: The Willow Project. It is a massive oil drilling venture on Alaska's North Slope in the National Petroleum Reserve, owned by the federal government. The area where the project is planned holds up to 600 million barrels of oil. The detrimental effects of this project are disastrous. According to the US government's estimations, the Willow Project will release 9.2 million metric tons of carbon each year, with carbon being one of the worst contributors to global warming. The environmental harm this does is equal to adding 2 million petroleum cars to the roads. This is a prime example that the book highlights of pursuing our interests without considering everything and everyone that will be affected by this.

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