Our planet already has its long period of existence and has already gone through several changes. One of them, which researchers consider one of the most drastic, is climate change. This has been affecting the world in many different ways and, perhaps, is heading towards a point where it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain our existence.
This climate change is caused by man and his actions with the environment. And, in the long run, it can have serious consequences for humanity. Human action has already significantly accelerated global warming. This is increasingly evident with environmental phenomena that happen around the world. For example, the frosts in Chicago in 2019 and the fires in Australia.
From large icebergs, which broke away from Antarctica, to a possible extinction of life forms on our planet. Climate change is real and affects all environments. Be it air, water or land.
Greener
As much as everything seems to be going worse and worse, there is still good news related to the environment. According to a NASA study, which was led by Chi Chen, a physician at the University of Chicago, our planet is greener today than it was 20 years ago.
To be able to see this result, Chen’s team had the help of NASA. And they found that between 200 and 2019, the amount of green space grew by 5%. Which means an increase of three million square kilometers.
According to the study, reforestation in the world had its biggest increase in recent decades. We know the importance that nature has for our survival on the planet, even so, for several times we end up forgetting and leaving this subject aside.
Even though this growth has been noticed, it is still necessary to make a great effort in all countries of the world. After all, only two nations were the ones that registered a third of the increase. They were: China and India.
Growth
The team analyzed the images obtained over 20 years and found that, gradually, more areas with trees appeared. This growth exceeded 2.3% per decade.
According to the study, other countries also contributed with reforestation actions and showed an increase in their green areas. They were: the nations of the European Union (6%), Canada (5%), Russia (3%), Australia (3%), the United States (2.5%) and Mexico (2.4%).
On the other hand, the places with the greatest loss of green areas were Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia.
According to NASA , the reason why China has a greater number of green areas is because the country’s government promotes a large reforestation system to alleviate pollution. In addition, another major factor is the amount of territory that is ceded to self-consumption agriculture, which represents 55% of the total areas.
India has also managed to increase its green spaces thanks to self-consumption agriculture. This is not surprising, as the number of people living in the territory is large.