Conservation and regulation may stem the tide, but how quickly we can reverse these conditions is hard to measure, especially when the situations that create the problems continue. For a couple of decades, it has been trendy to support conservation of the rain forests. In spite of this, their destruction has been largely unabated. Most Americans want to preserve the scenery and fauna that live in rain forests, but the preservation of these ecosystems is vital for reasons much more important than the extinction of a few relatively unnecessary but exotic species. Both the depletion of the ozone layer and global warming are partially due to the disappearance of these vast wilderness areas.
Most ozone is created by lightning and falling rain, for example.
1998 was the hottest year ever recorded since record keeping began in 1886, and the 14 hottest years have occurred since 1980. We owe the global warming trend to the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Florida's population has grown over 600 percent in the last half of this century from 1.9 million to 15 million. Two primary factors cause overpopulation and its related problems. The overpopulation and over-farming of Florida's Everglades, for example, affected the quality of water in Florida Bay, which was a rich estuary.