For my final “in the news” blog post I read an article titled, “Lost trees hugely overrated as environmental threat, study finds” which was written by Ohio State University. This article debunks the common myth that deforestation is a relatively large environmental threat. Past researchers believed that deforestation contributed to around 500 billion tons of carbon since 1900. The authors of this article found that number to be inaccurate due to the researchers not taking into account forest management techniques and the planting of new trees. Although deforestation does contribute to climate change and carbon emissions, the number is around 90 billion. This is roughly ⅕ of the previous calculations and this demonstrates that deforestation is not the biggest contributor to carbon emissions. Recently, trees have been treated as a renewable resource instead of non renewable and more trees are being planted to compensate for deforestation. This forest management that is being done has led to a smaller carbon emissions and less damage to the environment. Some examples of forest management include planting trees, irrigation practices, thinning of trees, fertilization, and drainage procedures. Estimates of human made net carbon emissions from deforestation were previously overestimated at 27%, but new research is showing that a more accurate percentage is 7%. Going forward, the researchers suggest that any efforts to reduce carbon emissions should be centralized around industry. Trees are important because they can protect against climate change: this is due to their ability to use carbon and convert it into oxygen for us to use. It was also discovered that forests could be used as a source of bioenergy. Being used a source of bioenergy could be accomplished by burning forests with carbon capture/storage: this would in effect pull the carbon out of the atmosphere. This process could be really beneficial because it would lower the temperature of the Earth by taking out some carbon dioxide that is stuck within the atmosphere.The authors also commented on how forestry and land use are often seen as the biggest contributor of climate change, when it in fact is energy. We need to optimize our resources and find a way to use less energy so we don’t damage the environment any further. I think that this finding is very important and is a step in the right direction towards stopping the destructive path we are on currently. This article relates to our course because we have discussed carbon dioxide emissions and the large impact it has on climate change.
References:
Ohio State University. (2019, November 4). Lost trees hugely overrated as environmental threat, study finds: Carbon emissions from deforestation much smaller than previously thought, economists say. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 3, 2019 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191104155701.htm