This Is What The Planet Would Be Like Without Trees

[turbinetree]

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

Forests account for nearly 30 percent of the world’s surface. That’s a staggering 3.04 trillion trees, each of which are continually remoistening our atmosphere, filtering the air we breathe and combating climate change by storing carbon and providing shelter for countless species of wildlife. But as the human population steadily increases, the world’s forests continue to shrink, cut for timber and converted to farms for soybean, palm oil and other food resources.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, an estimated 18 million acres of forest—an area roughly the size of Panama—are lost each year. At the current rate of deforestation, the world’s rainforests will begin to disappear within the next 100 years.

To understand the ecological importance of trees to our planet, Alton Greenhouses, a greenhouse manufacturer based in the United Kingdom, analyzed various scientific studies and comments from environmentalists to imagine a world without trees. The results are alarming. In addition to flash floods and food shortages, humanity would also have to deal with widespread animal extinctions, accelerating climate change and the loss of materials.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/planet-like-without-trees/

[MineralMan]

1. Urban Forests Are also Important

Here in St. Paul, MN, just about every single family home has multiple trees on its lot. My neighborhood was built during the 1950s, and trees that were planted when the houses were built are now huge mature trees. There's one in almost every front yard. Backyards, too, contain trees planted later by homeowners.

Flying over the neighborhoods shows a picture of a genuine urban forest in the residential neighborhoods of every city in the area. The same is true in most place. North Carolina, for example, is heavily forested in urban areas, as well.

St. Paul has an official City Forestry department. It's responsible for trees planted along streets and those in the many parks in the city. We love our urban forest here.

Plant a Tree. Help Save the World.

[turbinetree]

2. Every spring and fall

https://www.arborday.org/trees/

[eppur_se_muova]

6. When I flew in to the Minneapolis airport, I kept wondering where the city was ...

it's only when you get lower that you realize there are houses under all those trees. An interesting sight.

Down south we have pine trees all over, and you need to top them off if you don't want them falling and doing really heavy damage.

[smirkymonkey]

3. Green spaces are important and even aside from the ecological benefits, I

believe there is a psychological benefit as well for humans. Especially in cities. Trees and plants humanize an otherwise hostile atmosphere and make it less alienating and more habitable.

[turbinetree]

4. Agreed

I grew up in the Midwest, and in the West, and if people understood what is happening, they would see, that pines, aspen, scrub pines, are moving up the hills sides in the mountains, valleys are getting to hot, we need those spaces and trees...............

[smirkymonkey]

5. I grew up in a very beautiful, green area in the Adirondack foothills in upstate NY where we had

tons of deciduous trees and I always felt so fortunate to have been surrounded by them. I kind of have a thing for trees! I have lived in large cities ever since I graduated from college, but I always choose to live in the greenest, most leafy neighborhoods that I can find. I find trees very soothing and they are so uplifting to me. There is nothing more depressing to me than large blocks of concrete with no green in sight.

[turbinetree]

7. Ain't that the truth