....we are back in English now people!!! :D
Deforestation has had numerous disastrous side effects that many probably could have guess would happen, but chose to ignore. The effect on the Carbon cycle is one of those side effects that was ignored and now today is becoming an ever more increasing threat. Many people most likely do not realize that, for example, the plants and soil of tropical forests are estimated to hold around 460-575 billion metric tons of carbon worldwide. In addition, each acre of tropical forest is estimated to store around about 180 metric tons of carbon. When these forests are cut and then burned to establish something such as cropland or pastures, the carbon that was stored in the tree trunks, that is roughly 50% of the tree trunk joins with oxygen and then is released into the atmosphere as CO2. These losses of forest have a huge effect on the global carbon cycle. For example ranging from 1850 to 1990, deforestation around the world worldwide contributed to a release of about 122 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, with a current rate being estimated to be approximately around 1.6 billion metric tons per year. For comparison reasons, fossil fuel burning such as coal, oil, and gas release around 6 billion metric tons per year, thus it should be very clear that deforestation is making a significant impact to the overall increasing of the CO2 in the atmosphere.
So now that the problem is clear it is best to explain how exactly the carbon cycle works and what is the carbon cycle. Well for starters carbon is a gas that is said to be the 4th most plentiful gas or chemical component in our universe, thus there is a lot of carbon. Carbon plays a very important role in the ecosystem, however, too much can have negative side effects. It is responsible in the formation of building blocks of our earth as a living ecosystem with the help of other gases such as those of oxygen and hydrogen. Experts have discovered that the concentration of carbon is greater in a biotic ecosystem, compared to that of an abiotic one. A biotic ecosystem is where you can find things that are alive; while abiotic is where there are things that are not alive. Carbon also forms shading or a blanket that surround our earth. This blanket has the role of blocking very hot and intense heat that shoots off from the sun and is able to maintain it in our atmosphere in order to keep the earth from becoming a frozen wasteland. It can be seen that the relationship of the biotic and abiotic worlds is one where there is a stable trading of carbon between the two. The process of this exchange is known as the carbon cycle. As the name may hint it is composed of numerous steps. The Carbon cycle is a needed to insure that the right amount of carbon level is the atmosphere, however, this can be disturbed very easily and that is where the problem lies. These steps can be broken down into five main steps. They are the following: plants and other forms of vegetation remove carbon dioxide from the air, then when these plants and vegetation die, they are buried within the earth, after millions of years pass, their remains turn into that of coal and oil, people have then extracted the coal and oil, which are known as fossil fuels, When people burn these fossil fuels, they send that carbon dioxide that has been stored and the other greenhouse gases into the air.
Now that first step of the carbon cycle highlights where the problem lies with deforestation, no trees to suck up the excess carbon that is being generated from the burning at an alarming rate means that the carbon levels will rise and fast. However, surely there is a cause, a reason for why this rate of trees no longer being around has happened. Well I think the example of Easter Island explains it perfectly what is happening to an extent. Easter Island in the past before its downfall supported a sub-tropical forest complete with the tall Easter Island Palm, a tree that was used for building homes, canoes, and latticing necessary for the construction of such statues that are found in excess on the island. With other vegetation that was found on the island, natives had the ability to make rope and fire without any trouble. Within this ancient time between 1200 to 1500 AD when the Easter Island society was peaking, they built the stone heads that are famous today. However, these statues on helped to accelerate the decrease of vegetation and forests on the island because the society used wood platforms and rope from the forests to move these massive stone statues around the island. Pollen analysis have later shown that around that time period the tree population of the island was already rapidly declining as the deforestation was already taking its toll on the fragile island. It was around 1400, when the Island palm went extinct from overharvesting and the toll of rats that were brought over that ate the trees seeds. Without the trees the society could no longer function because the canoes that they once built could no longer be built. To make matters worse the natives decided that they would eat the birds on the island, thus the area that was already feeling the effects of human population, now no longer had pollinators and seed dispersers. Soon without forests on the island people ran out of water, crops ran out, fires were a luxury, grasses were fuel, and total anarchy followed. So the lesson that can be learned from the island is the effects that widespread deforestation can do to a society. As the forests are used up, the quality of life falls to a dangerous point, and then all order is lost.
It should be clear that this is obviously an issue that needs to be addressed, please keep in mind there are a lot of causes for why trees are being cut down. Too many to name in fact, but here is the important issue in terms of the carbon cycle, those trees are no longer there. This in turn means that carbon is only going to continue to increase so much until we reach a point where our earth has had enough. It has been shown that an increase of Carbon in the air will have drastic effects in our world, so much so that it would be crazy to think that it wouldn’t. The main consequence is that there is going to be more carbon in the air and this in turn will result in a higher greenhouse effect. Thus temperatures will increase and the way that we live our daily life will result in a change that no one could have ever foreseen. So what can be done? Well for starters let me tell the scary thing about trees being cut down, there used to be almost no control over deforestation around the world until laws started to be passed passed. For example, in 1911, the U.S.A. Congress passed the Weeks Law; this in turn let the government buy forests that are part of vital watersheds for rivers and streams, a problem that no doubt only supported trees being cut down. But then another law was passed in 1964, it was known as the Wilderness Act, it preserved wilderness areas in national forests and federal areas. It should be clear that some people only desire to destroy the things around them, but there are those that wish to protect what they know are important to protect. I bet many people do not realize that there are countries that have very few forests remaining. A great example of this lies within Rwanda, where it is currently illegal to harvest the trees because there are so few remaining, however, sometimes people actually steal the trees because they need the wood for fuel that badly. Another great example is the nation of China where they are trying to save their trees that are slowly being cut down because of something silly. The reason they're losing so many trees is because of wooden chopsticks, a silly reason like I stated earlier, it’s not hard to imagine when you consider that around 45 billion pairs of chopsticks are made each year in China, and that the wood they use is coming from their trees and bamboo plants. The government has gone to the far extreme of actually adding a 5% tax to the purchase of disposable chopsticks to get people to start buying and using reusable ones.
There’s a sad truth about the carbon cycle being fixed through tree’s it can only happen if humanity allows it. People are going to have to learn to look past themselves and actually learn to replace what is being taken and that is what is going to have to happen starting now and in the near future. Replacing what is taken and actually planting more to compensate for those who don’t are steps that need to be taken. Because if you think about it currently the world’s forests store 283 billion tons, equivalent to the size of 40.1 billion elephants of carbon in their biomass. If we do not replace that, then all of that is going to go into the atmosphere. So in conclusion, humans need to come together and work together to make sure that the forests that are cut are replaced to better improve the carbon cycle that is at risk of failing if new methods in the near future are not used. It also can’t hurt to actually recycle paper to make it so that the demand for trees is not so high, if a nation could impose strict laws to “force” people to recycle then there could be progress made to help change the ecosystem. Recycling paper is what I believe to be the answer to the carbon cycle and data has shown that recycling is environmentally friendlier than having to cut down a whole new tree. It should also be noted that this applies to all tree products and not just that of paper. Also use proper tree cutting management, such as using different methods depending on the environment, such as clear-cutting or selective cutting because there is not just one blue print, it ranges from area to area. If people do not act immediately to curb deforestation for good, experts estimate that in 30 years’ time from now, the earth's surface would be left naked, without forests. Governments and the people of the earth need to act now and they need to impose strict laws on how trees can be forested and also allow reforestation to occur.
Sources:
Environmental science for AP
