How Deforestation Affects The Carbon Cycle?
Today will be discussing deforestation and how deforestation affects the carbon cycle. The carbon cycle is one of the most important aspects of the environment.
It is not only a life support system but also a threshold that maintains the balance between human, animal and plant life.
In essence, it is the movement of carbon between all the living forms of life.
Carbon is a very important aspect of life, with it being the fourth most abundant element of the planet.
The presence of carbon in an organism helps in many ways, from energy formation, structure construction or in the case of large living organisms like animals, both.
Deforestation is the process by which human beings destroy tree cover in forests through cutting trees, forest fires or uprooting them for logs.
The excessive need for firewood and other wood products has led to excessive harvesting of trees on the planet.
Deforestation affects the carbon cycle because the plants in form of trees use carbon to make their food through photosynthesis.
Through photosynthesis, the plants produce oxygen for animals to use. Animals then consume the plants for food producing carbon for the plants.
Factories are one of the highest producers of carbon dioxide.
The carbon cycle is important because life forms depend on it. Trees and other vegetation take in carbon and store it up.
In fact, old and mature trees contain a lot of retained carbon. Hence when trees die and leaves fall off, they decompose and leave the carbon on the top soil.
In the decomposition process, it also releases carbon dioxide.
All this carbon is then absorbed by the other vegetation, cancelling out any real threat.
However, without plant cover, the carbon goes out into the atmosphere. However, if it happens to be too much in the atmosphere would translate to poison.
Cutting of trees for various use via deforestation affects the carbon cycle and makes it uneven.
It means the amount of carbon dioxide form cars, industries and other sources becomes excess in the atmosphere. With no trees to help in the transformation of carbon dioxide to oxygen, the very air people and humans breathe becomes toxic.
Also, the more carbon dioxide there is in the world, the more it traps heat from the sun and keeps it into the atmosphere. This also means the amount of heat in the atmosphere becomes more that there is supposed have. Due to this, the effect of the heat increases the ozone effect.
The world is losing its tree cover to deforestation because we are clearing up forests for farming or building, which is already costing us a lot in terms of clean air and a clean environment. If the ozone layer is disturbed, there are dire consequences, including the climate change.
The earth then experiences climate change, which in turn turns out badly for the human population.
In respect to how deforestation affects the carbon cycle, glaziers melt, seas overflow and the sources of water all become contaminated with salts. The world is already experiencing all these signs in many areas. All this can be corrected with enough tree cover.
Forests are the lifeline of this planet something most of us tend to ignore.
Recommendations on dealing with deforestation
As established, forests and vegetation are not a luxury but a necessity. The more we cut trees without an alternative action that we could use to carry out the same work that the trees do, the more we suffer, we still need the trees.
There have not been any developments on criteria that can do the work that trees do, so the only solution is to retain as much tree cover as possible.
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Reforestation
This is the process of rehabilitating the forests by replanting trees in areas that had trees but were cut off. Since trees take longer to grow, the solution can be to grow trees that grow faster.
Replenishing the forest where it once was is one of the best ways to correct the effect of deforestation on the carbon cycle.
Agroforestry
Since there is a growing population there is a need for food. This translates to clearing of forests for farming.
However, there is the option of agriculture being incorporated with forestry.
People can go on and practice modern farming like use of green houses, grow bags, seed pods, improvised planters and many more so as to spare space for trees.
This is a good method that can prevent deforestation from affecting the carbon cycle.This way, there will be food production and tree cover will be maintained.
Corporate responsibility on deforestation
For the factories that emit air that is poisonous need to take responsibility and use filters. This way, their actions do not have to affect the human population. It will also reduce the work load for the trees, so they can continue to produce oxygen for the living beings.
People need to make effort to retain the balance in the carbon cycle because if not, the whole population will have to walk around in gas masks just to have clean air.
We can already see it happening in the east in countries like china, where the large population is making it almost impossible for the trees to take up all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Soon enough, the situation will be the same all over the world.
