Deforestation : The Major Causes Of Forests And Climate Change

Forests control the amounts of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere therefore contributing to global warming. However we as a planet have a problem… deforestation.

Imagine all the beautiful creatures happily living their days in the forest , resting in the sun and just enjoying their time on Earth. Well ... these peacful animals just got a very rude awakening because someone decide to deforest their area. Deforestation is the process of converting forest lands into non-forested areas. It is estimated that between 50-100 species are lost each day as a reasult of forestry . Deforestation should be stopped , there is no reason to destroy our forest . It is a heartless and selfish thing to do , it needs to be put to a stop for good .

Deforestation is another known contributor to global climate change. This is by contributing to global warming. According to Nanda (2011), trees are the main absorber of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Therefore, deforestation contributes global warming because less carbon dioxide was absorbed. Furthermore, decaying of these trees produces carbon dioxide. Therefore, governments should make legislation aimed at conserving and rehabilitating destroyed forests (Solomon et al., 2011).

Deforestation is a concerning issue that has come about within the past decade that hasn’t been getting much attention. Deforestation is defined as the clearing or removal of a forest or group of trees where the land is not used for forest use afterwards. The land could be used for urbanization, farms, ranches, extra land, or anything that the country needs that piece of land for. Deforestation has become more common and the industry for it has increased rapidly. Although so many people have increased the amount of deforestation, they don’t realize the effects that it can bring upon the world and its environment. Deforestation not only affects the United States, but effects countries all over the world in multiple ways. Each way that

Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses. Half of the world’s tropical forests have been cleared or degraded. Some people ask why forests’ are being cleared. It is typically done to make more land available for other things like housing, cash crops, oil, and cattle ranching. Most of what everyone does with deforestation is said to be illegal. Common methods of deforestation are clear cutting and burning trees. The burning method can be done either quickly or slowly. Quickly for plantation use or more slowly using the slash and burn technique. The many reasons why farmers and other people do that is to get money to feed there family or like it was stated early, to make room for growing crops or livestock. Forests are cut down for many reasons, but most of them are related to people’s need to provide for there families or money. Logging operations, which provide the world’s paper and wood products, also cut a number of trees down each year. Loggers, some of them doing it illegally, also build roads to get to more and more remote forests, which leads to further deforestation. Not all deforestation is a terrible thing and intentional. Deforestation comes in handy when in need to build a new oil place. There are a lot of natural factors that play into deforestation like wildfires and subsequent overgrazing. Most of the deforestation occurs in the tropics, which is a terrible place because they have poor soil for

The world has changed a lot these past years. A lot of deforestation has occurred as humans increased their expectations for survival. This brings up a bigger issue as to over using resources and using things that we don’t need and turn them into waste. The key reason to this is to help humans grow and develop more.

Human development relies on deforestation as a method to reclaim land, to cultivate more farmlands, to sell forest products and to increase economic prosperity, but with serious consequences of environmental degradation and global climate change. The country of Nepal has an alarming rate of deforestation. Due to its geographical positioning, it is in a prime position to sequester a significant amount of carbon from our atmosphere with its forests. However, like much of South Asia, Nepal has lost much of the forest that was once widespread and only 30% of the forest that covered Nepal still remains (Niraula et al. 2013).

Throughout the world, people have been cutting trees down all through history, even back when George Washington was president and way before then as well.There have been multiple reasons for cutting down trees, whether it is for survival or to build a house, some industries cut down the forest to make room for factories. It has not always been as easy as getting a chainsaw or wood chipper, before the industrial revolution people used to have to saw the trees and it was a lot more time consuming and physically painful. That is the past, but in the present time deforestation is an even worse problem and it is affecting everyone and everything. Cutting down trees have a positive or negative effect depending on you and the environment around you.

The most destructive and harmful tragedy that our rainforests, specifically the Amazon, suffer from is deforestation. Deforestation is the clearing or destruction of land throughout forests. Unfortunately, human beings are the number one cause of deforestation throughout the world. The reason if this is simply because we use the wood mainly for things like hydroelectric dams that power communities, palm oil for its biofuel resourcefulness, and the mining for diamond and gold. Another reason would be intentional fires that are used to destroy acres of forest in a quick amount of time for things like construction. Using fires to clear out land quickly is used because taking the time to clear out the land for what will be built would be slower using any other process. The wood can be useful but little do they know that deforestation is extremely harmful to the environment.

Human needs can be illustrated by question 2 as the Physical, environmental and social causes of deforestation are predominantly created by human needs. In turn these causes hinder sustainability.

Rich black soil, towering tropical trees, the distant sound of a hollering monkey and the smell of damp leaves paint the picture of a tropical rainforest. The most famous and valuable tropical forests include the Amazon, Congo Basin, Indonesia and the forests of the Russian Far East and have been debated as endangered for decades. These rainforests mainly differ in soils, geology, precipitation patterns, the wildlife which resides there but all share the abundance of natural wealth including sturdy woods, medicines and spices and are sought out by many. However the long debated question still stands if deforestation is something of the past or an on going and current threat.

Deforestation also increases rate of change and the intensity of climate change. Cutting down trees does two things. First, cutting down and burning trees consumes oxygen for the flames and releases carbon dioxide, while decreasing the amount of “recyclers” for oxygen. Second, forest soils are moist and unused to sunlight, cutting down trees exposes this soil, and without tree cover the soil dries out quickly, turning a large part of Earth into a lifeless desert(imagery). Trees and plants also act as part of the carbon cycle, sucking up carbon dioxide and storing it(personification), while slowly converting it to oxygen. Cutting these trees down releases this carbon into the atmosphere and reduces the amount of carbon recycled. Deforestation is so bad that 15 percent of all carbon emissions now come from deforestation.

In addition, human activities like deforestation may increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is because forests help in carbon sequestration, which reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. It follows then that clearing such tress will increase the amount of carbon dioxide since carbon sequestration will not occur (3). The man-made theory of climate change also explains that when these harmful gasses reach the atmosphere, they form a blanket, which traps heat in the atmosphere. This trapping of in the atmosphere is the phenomenon that causes the planet to get warmer, hence the term global warming (Sharma, 4).

Deforestation is a serious problem today, and has been for a long time. It is one of the greatest threats to nature on Earth, if not the single greatest. It is one root cause of soil erosion, the root cause of global warming, and the greatest contributor to the endangerment and extinction of so many species throughout the world. To understand deforestation though, one must know exactly what it is first. Therefore, deforestation is defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica Online as "The cutting down and clearing of trees from forests, usually causing ecological harm. The process has occurred as long as wood has been used as an energy source." Furthermore, "In the 1990's, the deforestation of tropical rainforests threatened to increase Earth's

One of the primary and notable effects of Deforestation is Climate change, specifically in Global Warming. Climate change is defined as the changing in our planet’s temperature and is considered as the effect of deforestation. On the other hand, global warming refers to the fact that the average temperature on Earth is significantly rising and the period of warming is occurring more rapidly than before. Losing trees and forests will affect the carbon sink and the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, resulting in more carbon dioxide appeared, more heated being trapped. As a result, the global temperature is significantly rising, hence, causing climate change and global warming. The author of the article “Climatic Effects of Amazonian Deforestation: Some Results from ABRACOS” concluded that “Observations at the local scale show that deforestation produces an immediate change in the surface climate. The reduced evaporation and increased sensible heat flux in dry season pasture produce the strongest effect, with higher daytime temperatures being the most obvious feature” (Gash & Nobre, 1997).