Oxygenerators
Logs and Burns
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Forests are a common and important feature of our planet, Earth. They cover at least 30% of our land area with trees, millions of flora, and resources important to some of our human needs. Trees absorb the carbon dioxide that we exhale and the heat-trapping greenhouse gases that our activities emit. They help clean our air and provide beautiful scenery for us.
Trees help with a major problem, climate change. And even with that knowledge, people are cutting trees down for us. One of the main reasons why people cut down trees are to make space for roads and homes. Another reason is that we need paper and wood for buildings, products and furniture. Although we do need those, we cut down more than we need to. Yet why is this such a critical issue?
First reason. Again, trees absorb greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide. That means trees provide clean air. Yet we still cut down our trees even tough we don’t need so much. Without so much trees, our air wouldn’t be as clean as it is right now. Even so, the air could’ve been so much cleaner if we didn’t start cutting so much trees. To put it simply, the first reason on why deforestation is a critical issue is because we need clean air. Without trees, we cannot have that.
Second reason. Illegal loggers. Although the law isn’t so related to deforestation, illegal loggers are. As they destroy forests, they effect economic livelihood of local communities and responsible companies as well. If timber is logged without payment of duties and taxes, it pushes down the market prices for timber, which then acts as an incentive for other loggers to do the same thing. This would then further increases losses to governments and starts a vicious cycle in the market. Basically, the second reason is because illegal loggers affect forests and markets.
Final reason. ‘Mining refers to the extraction of minerals and other natural materials from the earth.’ (the humane league, site in references) The mining industry is absolutely notorious for forcing their workers to extremely dangerous conditions, while destroying forests and the environment. The ‘slash and burn’ technique clears forests for agricultural uses, while the mining industry uses the ‘slash and burn’ technique to forests for clearing land for operations. While mining causes deforestation at much smaller scales compared to agriculture, it generates large and high amounts of air and water pollution that would contaminate surrounding environments. To summarize that, the mining industry not only destroys forests, but also harm and overwork their employees and make pollution.
’We’re still okay. It has not affected all of us yet, and probably won't in a long time.’ Although majority of us are still fine, we should consider about other species and people. Think about how many animals have been harmed from the Australian bushfire crisis. That is right, 3 billion animals were harmed from wildfires. ‘All mammals, reptiles, birds, and frogs-were killed or displaced by Australia’s horrid and devastating 2019-20 bushfires.’ (WWF, site in references) Even though it was 2 – 3 years ago, imagine what would happen if it occurred again. It may even be worse, and we might be affected.
And yet with all of these issues, and how it affects both humans and animals alike, we can still solve this. And we need to. If we don’t solve it now, it will eventually be far too late for us. There are multiple ways we can solve deforestation. Examples are donating to trusted organizations and examining what products and meats you buy (try to look for the most sustainably produced sources), etc. ‘For governments, they can maintain and protect ecosystems by restoring land rights to Indigenous people, which prevents private interests from clearing the land.’ (National Geographic, site in references) A study discovered that in Brazil, deforestation rates decreased by two-thirds in areas where Indigenous people fully owned their land.
In conclusion, we need to stop deforestation before the world reaches an extinction crisis, globally. If we reduce deforestation significantly, we will be able to prevent that, and help solve climate change. In order to do that, we have to work together to solve it, and save our home Earth.
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​Jamie
The Forest Lungs
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Climate change is one of the worse problems we have. A problem we are trying to solve for now, is deforestation. With deforestation, our lands are turning into buildings. The homes of the animals in the forests are disappearing. They might even go extinct because they lost their homes. Why should you help, you may ask? Animal habitats are getting destroyed, there is less air fresh air for us to breath in, and greenhouse gasses.
Deforestation causes animal habitats getting destroyed. People are starting to destroy the forests for more space for buildings. Animals that live in the forest are getting their homes destroyed. When their habitat is gone, they won’t have a home to hide from predators, like chipmunks. they would get hunted by raccoons, hawks, owls, foxes, etc.
We would have less fresh air, why? Trees are our source of fresh air. Trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and reduce the greenhouse gas effect, all while providing us with clean air to breathe. Fun fact, trees breathe in all the pollutants like carbon dioxide, and breath out oxygen for us to inhale. It is a very interesting cycle if you think about it. Trees absorb these toxic chemicals through their “pores”.
Finally. greenhouse gases. when trees are being cut down the CO2 gets released into the atmosphere. Each molecule last for around 200 years. When CO2 is being released, it creates a cover trapping the sun’s heat in the atmosphere while warming the planet and oceans. When CO2 enters the ocean, it reacts with the water and creates carbonic acid.
You may say "We need wood to make furniture and many other stuffs". well, there are many other alternatives such as bamboo, wood composites, metal, concrete, etc. Same with paper. Now, there are books made of rocks. These books are not destroying trees and are waterproof. Bamboo are great alternatives as well since wood and bamboo are very similar. Bamboo requires less energy to nature, restrains soil erosion, etc.
This concludes why deforestation is bad for the environment. The Earth is slowly dying, and we need to act fast. Scientists from Nasa have stated we only have 2-5 years to act, or climate change will no longer be reversable.
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​Kenzie and Kianna
The Importance of Trees
Sung Woo and Eugene
Deforestation is one of the very dangerous global issues that is sweeping all the area of dense trees and not seeding the trees again after the work. Since the trees are the only source in the earth that giving out oxygen by taking in carbon dioxide, so if all the trees on the earth are gone, we are going to lose the main way to produce oxygen. For that reason, the amount of oxygen in the earth will be decreasing and eventually reach to the lowest point. In this text, we are going to discuss more about the reasons why deforestation is dangerous.
The first reason is the destruction of animal habitats. You might wonder why this problem is important, but actually there are 173 species of animal in the world that got effected by the deforestation every day. If this continues, many animals are going to extinct, and lead it to the unbalance of food chain. This will cause a huge disturbance in the ecosystem because of the loss of biodiversity.
Deforestation will affect the climate change for the second reason. As mentioned earlier, deforestation signifies clearing all the trees in the forest, which means this will reduce the only object that can exchange carbon dioxide to oxygen. If we continue doing deforestation, carbon dioxide will increase in the atmosphere and confine the heat energy. This will gradually increase the temperature, since the period they’re staying in the atmosphere is relatively longer with the imbalance of energy.
The third reason is about the submerge of lands. To go further with the effects, a lot of ice in the North and South poles will melt down due to the increase of temperature that led to the rising of the sea level. All the lands in the earth will be submerge and geographical changes will happen. Also, if deforestation happened around the river, there will be an erosion. It is because there is nothing can hold the land anymore. Eventually, this will cause an overflow of water that will become a flood.
Lastly, there will be water pollution. According to the recent studies, the scientists discovered that this might cause the carcinogen from tap water as well. It is because as carbon dioxide increases, there will be more dissolved organic carbons and it will give bad effects with a chemical phenomenon. Also, carbon dioxides can higher the pH of the water and make it closer to become an acidic water.
From here, you might think that if we don’t cut down the trees, there will be an economic problem because we can’t sell the things made from trees. Also, this is leading to the next problem of not enough foods and spaces for many purposes, because the trees are filling most of the lands on the earth as the population increases. However, in reality, continuous deforestation will lead to the extinct of tree, so a lot of problems including economic problem will be way worse. Even producing more crops with “deforestation” can solve the food problem, the “deforestation” will give more negative impacts like the lack of oxygen, extinction of animals, increase in temperature, and more. Also, we can produce more foods underground, from animals and specific plants or even artificially made. However, trees are only able to grown on lands, therefore, we need to stop the deforestation!
These are the reasons why deforestation is dangerous to us. We need to finish this as soon as possible, because our earth is already breaking down quickly. All we need to do is to control ourselves and see the whole forest, not the only single tree. We can do this, since it is not too late now and it is all on our hands. Okay, then why don’t we start doing it from now?
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