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Planting enough trees could be the most effective way to successfully overcome climate change, and it’s something we can do now by each of us helping to plant trees. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere holds the sun’s heat in like a blanket, causing serious changes in global temperatures, which in turn causes extreme weather patterns and ultimately the rising of the oceans.
Trees take this carbon dioxide out of the air as they grow, storing it as wood while also helping to store more carbon in the soil below them. Planting enough trees can restore balance to our atmosphere by converting the excess carbon dioxide into healthy ecosystems and into thousands of useful resources that people need.
While trees ability to remove carbon dioxide and restore balance to our atmosphere is simply amazing, here are 4 additional ways that trees help keep the planet cool.
1. Trees Create Clouds that Help Cool the Earth
The clouds that are created by trees and forests play a huge role in keeping the earth cool by reflecting the sun’s heat back into space before it reaches the earth. It’s estimated that if we could increase the world’s cloud cover by just 3% through tree planting, so much less of the
sun’s heat would reach the earth, that these extra clouds alone could cool the earth enough to counteract climate change.
2. Forests Keep the Ground Cool
Forests mighty canopies shade the ground and waters beneath them. This keeps the earth cooler and protects the living soil, which would otherwise dry out and become lifeless. This is very important as living soil can store an incredible amount of carbon, keeping climate change causing carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere. When soil becomes too hot and dry, the carbon molecules in the soil re-bond with oxygen and release carbon dioxide back into the air. But even areas that have become desert-like can be restored by simply planting enough trees. Large-scale reforestation can help store so much carbon back in the soil that it has the potential to remove all of the excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, allowing the earth’s climate to come back into balance.
3. Trees Cool the Atmosphere by Cleaning It
Around cities and industrial zones, air pollution molecules combine with water vapor, hovering in what’s called a “humid haze”, trapping in more of the sun’s heat. The Trillion Trees Campaign's video, “How Trees Help Create the Fresh Water Supply”, explains how many trees breathe out both water vapor and friendly bacteria that assist in the formation of clouds. These bacteria trigger the water vapor and air pollution molecules to cluster into droplets that then fall to the ground. This removes these hazes from of our skies, allowing the sun’s heat to exit again and the earth to cool.
4. Trees Convert the Sun’s Energy into Life
Since sunlight powers photosynthesis, the sun’s heat is literally used up as the leaves and needles do their job, converting carbon dioxide and water into the building blocks of plant matter while creating oxygen. This plant matter becomes food for animals, and the energy travels up the food chain. So, the miracle of photosynthesis both protects the earth from overheating, and provides the basis for all life on the planet.
Knowing that trees maintain our atmosphere, keep the earth cool by shading it with clouds and canopies, regulate much of the planet’s fresh water cycle, and create the building blocks of all life, we simply have to be in awe at the amazing service that trees provide us. We can also understand that further decline of our world’s forests is not a direction we can afford to go in.
Trees Are Awesome sees large-scale tree planting as being the world’s most affordable, practical, and multi-benefit opportunity to effectively counteract climate change. Tree planting options start at just 15¢ a tree, so you can help plant a tree every day of the year for as little as $5 a month – or you can make a one time donation of any amount.
Visit the home page to sign up to plant 365 trees a year for less than $10 a month with the tree planting partner of your choice. Or you can make one-time donation of any amount. You can also plant trees for free by simply switching your browser to www.Ecosia.org - the search engine that plants trees. Thank you!
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