As I have watched much of the forests come down in the last 3 years in my area, I have been curious about what we are doing to our environment; our air quality. My understanding of science is pretty basic, but in elementary I learned we get the oxygen we breathe from trees and other green living plants that surround us. The recent landslide that killed 1,500+ people is being blamed on the recent rains and the logging industry, even though they pulled out over 10 years ago. Recently I found a climate change calculator. It allowed me to select average household for questions such as how much electricity and natural gas does your household use (so I didn't have to go searching through all of my bills last year and figure out my average). It also took into consideration the gas mileage of my car and the amount of miles I drove last year. I drive a 4 cylinder manual transmission. My gas mileage is an average of 27 miles per gallon. With all that information it calculated my household has an annual CO2 emissions of 47.8 tons. It also calculated the annual number of new trees needed to absorb that amount of CO2, which are 144 trees. I was shocked. I was expecting something closer to 90 trees for a lifetime. If you would like to calculate the number of trees it takes to sustain your household, you can at: http://www.americanforests.org/resources/ccc/
Top 10 Reasons Why Trees Are Valuable and Important
1) Trees Produce Oxygen
1 Mature tree can give enough oxygen to support 10 living breathing people. The forest also acts as a giant filter that cleans the air we breath.
2) Trees Clean the Soil
Trees can either store harmful pollutants or actually change the pollutant into less harmful forms. Trees act as a filter for our soil.
3) Trees Control Noise Pollution
Trees muffle urban noise almost as effectively as stone walls.
4) Trees Slow Storm Water Runoff
Flash flooding can be dramatically reduced by a forest or by planting trees.
5) Trees Are Carbon Sinks
6) Trees Clean the Air
7) Trees Shade and Cool
8) Trees Act as Windbreaks
A windbreak can lower home heating bills up to 30% and have a significant effect on reducing snow drifts.
9) Trees Fight Soil Erosion
Tree roots bind the soil and their leaves break the force of wind and rain on soil. Trees fight soil erosion, conserve rainwater and reduce water runoff and sediment deposit after storms.
10) Trees Increase Property Values
Trees can increase the property value of your home by 15% or more.
http://forestry.about.com/gi/pages/mproduct.htm
Whats was your CO2 number?
you might like this link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/"
Welcoem back to Blogdad. I don't know abt tehories like global warming but anyone who has ever sat dwn under the shade of a tree knows how much pleasentness they bring into the world.
ReplyDeleteA very informative post and I like your diversity.
ReplyDeleteI have one more use for trees Miz, if you won't laugh at me...I talk to them when I am so lonely.
:)
Very interesting post. Although DH is a logger and around here the saying is "Hug a Logger, and you'll never go back to trees". And with gas nearing $3/gallon I wish I could drive something something that got alot of miles per gallon, but I have to have 4 wheel drive to get up and down our road in the winter.
ReplyDelete