SAVING OUR ENVIRONMENT

One problem with going green is that doing good in one area may do harm in another. For example, if you recycle aluminum cans it decreases energy used in making new aluminum products. If that can must be cleaned first, you are using clean water. Also, what happens in transporting the cans? You would use fuel, pollute the air, and if a truck picks up your recycling, need to pdrduce a truck with whatever is impacted as aide effects.

Reuse is the best. Finding a new use for something has no bad impact elsewhere.

Recycling paper may save trees, which in turn clean the air, but again the paper has to be collected and transported. In the case of paper, the fuel to transport it can be much less than transporting wood, so the positive clearly outweighs the negative. However, it is not so with everything.

What is really needed is for people to thing, not react. Once we sort through both sides we are better able to make an intelligent decision.

Trees are natures air cleaners. They take in carbon dioxide, remove the carbon, and emit oxygen. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. When a tree is cut down, it stops cleaning the air.

In deforestation in the tropics where the land is cleared, trees that are not being used are often burned. Burning releases the carbon in the form of carbon dioxide. What is worse is organic material on the ground is then exposed to sunlight and rain. In a rain forest, little light and rain ever reach the ground. The vegetation is simply too thick. Once exposed, it decays adding carbon dioxide to the air.

So, trees have multiple purposes in halting global warming.