The Sunday July 5 Weather Page (Metro news) explains to us how a single tree can decrease overall ambient temperature within its diameter by 5 degrees, and how a forest canopy can do the same to a whole geography by up to 12 degrees. Trees do this literally by eating visible light and heat. They turn this energy into plant tissue and liberate oxygen as a byproduct. This oxygen keeps you and me alive. There is no other source of oxygen on this planet for us to breathe. Trees and algae–that’s it.
Although this is a well-known fact, environmental science and government officials seem unable to connect this with the fact our planet seems to be growing more hostile to human life every year. El Nino and global warming are blamed for summer heat waves that soar to the 120-degree heat-index mark. But no one seems to see the obvious.
For the last 300 years, man has been dismantling the very engine that modulates climatic stability–the massive continent-spanning temperate and rain forests of the world. These planetary air purification and conditioning systems now are functioning at a mere fraction of their original capacity. The result is, and will continue to be, extremes in temperature, eventually a decreased percentage of atmospheric oxygen. The catastrophic end result will be the destruction of our ecosystem and human civilization if we do not put a stop to the global madness.
In order to avoid turning America and the rest of the world into broiling deserts in summer and icy wastelands in winter, we must restore as much of the original forests as possible. We must cease and desist from indiscriminate logging, development and destruction of these wilderness areas, essential to our very existence in their natural state.
We must restore trees in massive amounts to the non-agricultural areas around and within our cities. Developers can restore the trees in a newly developed area by removing and re-planting them, or simply by working around some of them.
