Americans seem to have started paying for their errors. The pay, however, appeared to be too dear. The largest ever drought approaches America along with water crisis.
1,900 wells have already gone completely dry in California, and there has been so little precipitation that some toddlers have never actually seen rain.
Things are even worse down in South America. An engineer for Sao Paulo state's water company said that "scenes from the end of the world" would ensue if the city ran out of water. The drought in the Brazilian metropolis of Sao Paulo has become so severe that local authorities are considering bringing in military personnel to cope with the possible social chaos. Senior officials at Sao Paulo's water facility said residents might soon be evacuated because there is not enough water, to bathe or to clean homes. The water crisis is the worst is the last 84 years, and the dry season has only just begun.
That entire region of South America is in the midst of a long-term water crisis.
Decades of destruction in the Amazon rainforest might be the reason that Brazil's taps are running dry, Brazilian scientists say.
All these problems arise out of mass deforestation. Trees used to release water vapour, that evaporates into the atmosphere where it accumulates before precipitating back to the Earth as rain, sleet or snow. Deforestation therefore affects the weather, the water cycle, as well as global climate change.
Areas can become more prone to both droughts and flooding, impacting on plants and animals, and also humans living near deforested areas.
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