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Joel Kim

Deforestation and Climate Change: An Evil Loop

Global warming is a popularly discussed topic among the people of the world. Everyone is concerned and even scared about the future, and it doesn’t seem like there will ever be a stop to global warming. So all we can do is try to at least slow global warming down. And think. Think for a way to continue slowing down this beast. And one of the big reasons that’s keeping us from doing this is - did you guess it? Deforestation.


(A picture of multiple cut down trees. This empty space will be used for agricultural reasons, road pavements, or urban areas for living. This does not look good.)


The process of deforestation normally occurs when people need space for agricultural reasons, building paths, or making living spaces or urban cities. It can make animals lose their homes, or even sometimes lose their lives. Deforestation probably doesn’t come to mind when someone says “global warming”. I mean, it’s bad enough, but believe it or not, deforestation is a part of global warming! And there’s a huge scientific explanation behind why deforestation causes global warming. I’ll explain.


Trees capture carbon and keep it inside them, helping stop climate change even more. Carbon drastically increases global warming by producing mass heat, so trees do us a huge favor by capturing and keeping carbon away from the atmosphere, slowing down the rising temperatures around the world. So, when a tree is cut down, it releases all the carbon stored in it as carbon dioxide, and all that heat captured is thrown out into the atmosphere again, making the temperature rise.


And once you think it through, you start to realize how devious this loop is. Humans need wood for fuel, resources, and other reasons, but deforestation is a part of global warming. And if we just stop cutting down trees, we will run out of resources, and turn to deforestation once again and continue cutting down more trees for resources, releasing more carbon dioxide. So, wow. It’s pretty scary. And it’s not like there are many solutions to stop this.

<A tiny tree sapling that has been recently planted and is now sprouting. (it’s kind of cute)>


One country that takes part in deforestation (quite a lot) is Brazil, in South America. Brazil has cut down almost 1,695,700 hectares of forest, which is a lot of trees. Tropical forests are the most affected by deforestation for the same reasons as normal forests. This information presents how much deforestation we human beings have been doing for the past years. And the loop continues.



Alright, we get it now. Deforestation is really bad. And it helps global warming. But there are some ways to stop deforestation, in order to slow the process of climate change! Here are some ways you could do this.


  • Planting tree saplings. Planting more saplings means more trees that will grow in the future, later capturing more carbon and slowing down climate change!


  • Donating to tree - planting organizations. If you manage to find a tree-planting organization that’s eco - friendly, if you can, donate to them so they could continue to plant more trees! (Just…make sure they’re not trying to make money off you.)


  •   Using less paper or using it wisely. Say you want to sketch something, or you have to write an essay. If it turns out bad, use the other side, or erase your mistakes to make good use of the paper!


So, to wrap things up, deforestation plays a big part in global warming. When a tree is cut down, it releases all the carbon in it as carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide captures and radiates heat, dramatically making global warming rise. And even if the world tries to quit deforestation completely, we will soon run out of wood, and once again look up to deforestation to give us more resources. But we can help stop this by donating to tree - planting organizations, using less paper, and planting tree saplings! Thank you for reading, and I hope you can take this information into mind!





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