Most people only link global warming to carbon emissions from power plants and cars, but a lesser known cause is deforestation. As it may come as a surprise, deforestation is the second principle cause of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation is responsible for 25% of all carbon emissions entering the atmosphere, due to the cutting and burning of approximately 34 million acres of trees per year. Trees are 50% carbon; when they are cut down or burned, carbon dioxide is released back into the air. Also, as you probably know, trees and plants absorb CO2 for photosynthesis, and they release oxygen as a product. Therefore, deforestation not only releases CO2 into the air, it prevents the process of photosynthesis because there are no longer any trees to absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen once the forest is destroyed. One clearing that has really impacted the atmosphere was in 1987, when an Amazonian rainforest the size of Great Britain was burned. This added 500 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere.
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It seems that if deforestation has so many consequences, people would just simply stop cutting down the trees. What is the other side of the issue? Why are people taking such risks to obtain these trees?
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