Why should people care about tropical forests?
BILL: Well there are lots of reasons to care about tropical forests. Obviously they are the greatest bastions of biological diversity anywhere on the planet, so there are more species of plants and animals here, and of course they are famous for that. Other important reasons: people talk about rain forests being the lungs of the planet and of course they are producing massive amounts of oxygen which help to keep our whole biosphere survivable. They also store a huge amount of carbon in the vegetation and so when those forests are slashed and burned, most of that carbon is going up into the atmosphere and carbon dioxide and methane and other kinds of greenhouse gases, of course; which is the reason we have the greenhouse affect. So maybe a quarter of all the greenhouse gases that are being produced by humanity right now are occurring as a consequence of the rapid slashing and burning and razing of tropical forests. Interviewer: How much rainforest has been lost around the globe? BILL: O
