Deforestation and Global Warming

Posted on July 2, 2009 in Latest News

Deforestation – the act of cutting trees to generate farmland,  has a great impact on global warming.  The cutting of trees is mainly done for paper production, livestock farming etc. Deforestation is responsible for about 20% emission of global warming. Experts opine that deforestation has greater impact on global warming than emissions from factories and automobiles.

Relationship Between Deforestation and Global Warming:
Forests absorb the carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. When the trees are cut, less CO2  is absorbed, thereby increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.  Carbondioxide is a greenhouse gas, which traps the heat and contributes towards global warming.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide and they are about 50% carbon. When the trees are burnt or cut down, the stored carbondioxide escapes into air, further increasing the global warming. It is said that the rapid cutting and burning of tropical forests is the second highest source of global warming, only next to emission by factories, planes, and automobiles.

Reasons Behind Deforestation
Deforestation is caused due to the following reasons:

Overpopulation and global warming are closely related. Overpopulation has resulted in increased need for farmlands to feed growing number of people. The need for land also has encouraged people to cut down trees.

Tips to Control the Global Warming Due to Deforestation:
Here are a few tips to control global warming due to deforestation:

Government can take steps to control the excessive cutting of trees due to cattle ranching, industries or capitalistic ventures. This can help in controlling deforestation and reduce global warming.

Comments

2 Responses to “Deforestation and Global Warming”

  1. Ali Says:
    July 4th, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    I think you should also mention reducing or eliminating meat consumption. This is a double whammy: all meat, chicken, fish, red meat, involves some kind of food wastage as a large volume of food must be produced to feed them but only 10% of this food is carried to our plates. So we have the deforestation and other associated emissions from this wasted cropland. Secondly we have processing and refrigeration and thirdly, (massively,) we have the enteric fermentation product: methane, associated with cattle and sheep.

    The worst foodfor the environment is red meat, which is also the worst for our health in terms of heart disease, cancer and diabetes. We can eliminate this first. Secondly we can reduce white meat, fish and poulty.

    Baby steps, but not too slow if we want a future worth living for.

  2. shailesh dahal Says:
    July 25th, 2009 at 7:12 am

    iam doing my project work on inter-relation between overpopulation and deforestration

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