While it is true that the ‘green’ governmental policies will be critical for achieving net carbon-neutrality by 2050, each of us can make a huge difference towards that goal by consciously choosing how we live and the simple decisions we make every day.
Climate change (global warming) and environmental degradation result predominantly from burning of fossil fuels in automobiles, power plants and industry; deforestation; and loss of wildlife habitat. These factors are tightly linked and feed-back on each other. Not only does deforestation by clear-cutting result in global warming, but global warming in turn drives deforestation by causing droughts and wildfires that demolish millions of acres of forests in a matter of hours. Global warming also results in the dying of forests due to their inability to adapt to the rise in temperatures and dry conditions.
This next series of articles will focus on how we as individuals can make an important difference in not only stopping further climate change but possibly also in reversing it.
Part 1- Regreening and Reforestation Efforts
I recently came across a short article in the Oprah magazine which explained how I could get involved for a very small sum of money by supporting the work of the Arbor Day Foundation. To my surprise, I found that it costs less than $15 to have 10 trees planted, through this organization, in the world’s rain forests or in any other type of forest.
Our lives and lives of all other species on Earth depend on healthy forests. Forests are, however, more than just trees and constitute the most ancient, magnificent, and complex living ecosystems on the planet, which provide essential services for maintaining the health of all other life on this planet. Humans have been clear-cutting forests for timber but also for development of the land for human use since the 1600s. This is highly detrimental for the climate, as is becoming increasingly evident in recent years.
We can all easily participate in the stabilization and even reversal of some of the effects of climate change by getting involved in the replanting and reforestation efforts in our neighborhoods as well as in the forests around the globe.
So, this year, during the pandemic, I joined the Arbor Day Foundation and paid them just $15 to have 10 trees planted in the world’s rainforests. As a thank you, they offered to send me one free Japanese Maple tree if I ordered one other tree from their catalog. So, for a few extra dollars, I was also able to have two trees planted on the grounds of my own condominium community.
Regreening of our neighborhoods is as critical as reforestation to prevent further deterioration of the quality of our lives. Due to overdevelopment of shopping malls, townhomes, parking lots, self-storage units, and hospitals, accompanied by an indiscriminate removal of tree cover, large cities around the world are becoming concrete deserts. This results in intense heat waves (usually referred to as the heat-island effect) and high fatality rates in the cities. Since trees naturally optimize local temperatures and reduce the intensity of the heat waves, we can counteract the heat-island effect by planting trees in and around our neighborhoods. This can be accomplished either by us as individuals or by supporting the work of local non-profit organizations, such as Trees Atlanta.
I must say that this small effort on my part has not only been rewarding for me but also inspiring and educational. For example, I learned that the rain forest rescue is not only about trees, but also about the well-being of the indigenous communities that are the stewards of these forests, about education, about restoring biodiversity, about the mutually symbiotic relationships between trees, animals, and other organisms in the forests, and therefore about our own well-being. I plan to continue my part in the reforestation efforts in the years to come.
Imagine if each of us all over the world decided to plant a single tree in our own neighborhood every year and/or have 10 trees planted in a forest somewhere in the world, how much impact we could have as individuals!
Very insightful thought!