Do you fear the amount of medicines and potential cures that have been destroyed by letting the Amazon Rain forest continue to be burned?

I think the potential cures found there are an additional benefit to having the forests but I don't think it would be my main concern. The state of the ecosystems, including world wide weather patterns, can be at risk as these limited lands are destroyed. The cures themselves are more hypothetical and alone would not make me count them as entirely reliable.

The sad part is that these countries are doing now what was done in this and other countries hundred of years ago. When we colonized, we didn't think of what we were doing to the land or the animals. You only have to look at the number of extinctions since the proliferation of man on the planet to know.

Yes some species died out due to natural causes but many due to humans encroachment on every habitable piece of land. The effect is more widespread now of course as we continue to multiply. So on the one hand, you can't blame a people for wanting the land to better themselves and their station in life.

The problem is that they are late in doing it, and the rest of the world beat them to it. Therefore, for them to stay the way we like it, and what is beneficial for the planet, the people have to suffer. They can look at these other countries and say - why can they do it and we can't?

I wonder how many cures we lost when we cleared out so much of our own country, not to mention the destruction of the people who lived here for so long and may have had answers to the questions we seek (or sought).

I am sad about the loss of the rain forest, but not for that reason at all. I am sad about it because of the loss of habitats for millions of animals. I am sad about it because of the loss of a beautiful area.

I am sad about it because of the loss of a vital piece of controlling global warming..... not everything on this earth was put here for our use, to assume the rain forest was put here for us to use for medical cures is just as selfish as for us to assume the rain forest was put here for us to rape and burn.

I don't think that fear is the right word. But the lost opportunity will never be known. As Muddy Waters said You can't lose what you never had!

Every loss can be thought of in terms of what we will never get or what could be. What potential did we lose to the plague that took out half of Europe? What could their heirs have passed on in knowledge through the centuries?

But you can't miss what you ain't got...MW.

I agree it is important to stop messing with the rain forest, not only for the habitat but also the animals and people there. Perhaps cures are being missed because of this, we will never know. However the beauty of the land, the animals and the environmental stuff is what I worry about more.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.