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continued...
A Bad Sort of Synergy
Trees and other plant life, but particularly trees, are the most direct pathway for the "sequestering" (removal and storage) of carbon dioxide from our planet's atmosphere. It is excess atmospheric carbon dioxide, released in the burning of fossil fuels that is responsible for the majority of the increase in the greenhouse effect, which, is producing much of the excess planetary warming we're experiencing right now. As trees remove carbon dioxide from the air, they also produce the oxygen we need to breathe. In fact the photosynthesis of plants and trees is the only way oxygen is produced on Earth. So, when a tree is destroyed, so is its ability to process carbon and produce oxygen.
As atmospheric carbon is increased there is a short-term benefit to plants, since plants do grow better in higher carbon dioxide concentrations. However, any net benefits to plant growth are quickly offset and negated by damaging changes in climate, including increased drought, heat stress, fires, insects and storms—all which, as one of their consequences, eliminate trees. The net result is that, with a reduced planetary capacity to process carbon, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide increase, which increase world temperatures and, probably, the intensity of storms, further harming trees, and thus compounding the increasing cycle of negative effects.
In France, forestry records go back to the mid 1600s. In all of that time there has never been a climatic event on the scale of the ones in December 1999 that destroyed 300 million trees. Orchards, forests, great parks and plantations were devastated. The grounds of Versailles alone lost 10,000 trees. Forestry experts predict that it will take up to 100 years to reestablish the woodlands that were lost over the course of two days of storms.
Storms Can't Tell the Difference
While it boggles the mind to imagine how vast a quantity 300 million trees actually are, the costs of global warming induced climate change will harm far more than trees. The half-million citizens of France who make a livelihood from the forestry industry are just the tip of the iceberg. Consider for a moment what happened in 1998. The financial cost of damage from natural disaster that year alone was over $89 Billion dollars. Even adjusted for inflation, that was more than the total loss by natural disasters for the entire decade of the eighties. There were another 300 million effected that year as well. Only these were 300 million people—environmental refugees—forced from their homes by climatic events. That's 5% of the Earth's population.
Fortunately, unlike trees, humans are mobile and sometimes able to leave the path of a storm. Sadly, many of us may be forced to do just that in the years to come, but what can we do about trees?
by Monica Rix Paxson & Stephen Corrick,
author & contributing editor for DEAD MARS, DYING EARTH
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