Water rationing is likely to become a fact of life in the near future. Although the oceans are so vast, their true biological wealth is concentrated in a relatively narrow strip along the continental shelves, coastal margins, and estuaries. Americans may empathize due to the crash of the Exxon Valdez off the coast of Alaska. Forests are an integral part of the Earth's life-support systems, playing a crucial role in regulating the atmosphere and climate through their ability to store carbon and return oxygen to the atmosphere. They protect soils from excessive erosion, regulate runoff, and reduce the effects of floods.
Natural forests are usually highly diverse ecosystems, supporting millions of species.
Unfortunately, forests everywhere are under increasing danger from pollution, acid rain, unsustainable logging, the gathering of fuelwood, and clearing for agriculture and urbanization. In South Africa, indigenous evergreen forests have been drastically reduced to just cover one quarter of 1 percent of the land. The world is covered in rubbish. If all the aluminum beverage cans Americans threw away in one month were stacked on top of each other, they would reach to the moon. Americans throw away a total of 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.