why is it important to have native trees in our campus ? Opinion Writing
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Answer:
order to understand how trees relate to global warming, you first have to understand what the greenhouse effect is.
Just like a greenhouse traps heat inside, Earth has a "natural greenhouse effect" in which some of the sun's infrared radiation is trapped to warm the planet. In the atmosphere, there are certain gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, ozone, and water vapor, which aid in this process by reflecting the heat back to earth. This process allows Earth to maintain a comfortable temperature. (An average of around 57 degrees Fahrenheit) If this radiation is not trapped, the average temperature on earth would drop to zero degrees Fahrenheit, (-18 degrees Celsius), and life would not be as we know it today.
In this way, these greenhouse gases are very important and central to the survival of the living organisms on Earth. The greenhouse effect is what makes Earth so unique from the other planets; we have just the right amount of greenhouse gases to make for a suitable temperature.
Yet, too much of something is not a good thing, and in this case, the excess of these greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, in our atmosphere is detrimental to life and the environment. With a plethora of these gases being released into the atmosphere by human innovations, the greenhouse effect is enhancing and this is causing the rise in temperature that we have been experiencing in the last two centuries. Since 1750, (the beginning of the Industrial Revolution), the output of carbon dioxide alone has risen about 36%, and since 1880, which marks the end of the Industrial Revolution, Earth’s temperature has risen 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Although this may not seem like an enormous increase, the effects it leaves on the environment and the organisms that live in it are damaging and deadly. Many plants and animals cannot adapt to temperature changes in their environment quickly, and this is causing many to become endangered, and for some extinct Trees play a huge role in the carbon cycle. They convert the CO2 in the air to oxygen, through the process of photosynthesis, and in this way, they can be looked at as a natural regulator of the carbon dioxide. The more trees, the less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the more oxygen.
Since we live in an age where carbon dioxide is very abundant in the atmosphere, released through man-made inventions, such as cars, factories, and power plants, it is vital, more than ever, that trees fulfill their part in the environment and take some of the excess carbon dioxide out of the air. Unfortunately, deforestation is preventing this job to be fully accomplished, and with half of all the Earth's forests gone, and four million trees cut down each year just for paper use, the amount of carbon dioxide is rising. With more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, more of the sun's radiation is being reflected back to earth, instead of space, and this is causing our average temperature to rise. In this way, deforestation is a major issue when it comes to global warming