Trees are life personified

| October 14, 2015

For millions of years trees have been acting as earth’s atmosphere filters. Bill Boyd urges us to get out, plant a tree and start the reversal of climate damage.

Trees have been around long before anything walked upon this earth. They grew, nourished by the carbon gases, to enormous heights and in such densities that they cover vast sections of the earth as a dense green coverage.

They, by virtue of their design, cleaned the atmosphere by capturing that pollutant gas and converting it into the wood of their being. For millions of years they acted as earth’s atmosphere filters and the air was clean.

Fast forward to the beginning of the human cycle on earth. Trees were cut down to provide timber for houses, planks for ships and open spaces in which to grow food. The damage to the climate started as the timber was used as fuel, which released the carbons back into the atmosphere.

Still later, it was the way of the food producer to clear more land of the trees as the farmer found that more money could be made from cleared land. The climate change cycle was now beginning in earnest. Scientists studied trees and found their place in the environment but were largely ignored by the food producers and now miners of coal as destroying trees became a thoughtless game in the desperate search for high returns on the investments.

30 years ago, the farmers of this country asked for financial help to combat rising salt in their farm lands and the scientists of the day found that it was from the removal of the trees. Money was now the deciding factor in the destruction of the trees. The cry is to clear the jungles of Borneo and other island jungles so that money can be made from the plantations of palm oil plants. Hundreds of square miles are being cleared on a daily basis to meet this demand to produce an oil that is converted to carbon by machinery.

The Amazon basin is almost 50% cleared. This was an area that cleaned the air for all the world but it is no longer able to do that job as the trees are not in such numbers to be able to cope with the pollutants being produced daily.

This country saw hundreds of square miles cleared for farming, from the north and central arears, to the areas of the Murray basin, to the great farm lands of WA and now these areas are non -producing areas because of rising salt and the lack of trees.

So how do trees influence the climate and affect climate change? Well, back to basics of millions of years ago.

They captured the carbon pollutants from the atmosphere and converted that to wood. They use water captured from the soil to cool the leaves, and this acts as a mass of cool air that influences air movement around the planet.

How can this be known?

By simple observations of the past weather patterns. In years gone by farmers could plant their crops and know that rain would come within the month. As more land was cleared, the rains were less and less dependable. At this point in time the southern earth was not as badly affected by pollution but the trees were disappearing in large numbers.

Now there are El Nino effects of the weather, a word that was not known until the Amazon basin and the tropical jungles of the islands were cleared.

Many are still ignorant of the need for trees but some politicians in the need to stay elected have decided to use a method or carbon payments to reduce the pollution.

And what is the largest item that gets the best return for investment? Trees, and trees in large numbers as they need little care, are cheap to buy and are seen as doing something to slow down climate change.

Trees are life personified because without trees there will be no human life. And after the next million years, trees will again be the dominant vegetation life form on the planet and the air will be pollution free and the climate will change back to what nature intended.

So do your bit for climate change – get out and plant a tree and start the reversal of climate damage!

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0 Comments

  1. Cameron Jennings

    Cameron Jennings

    October 16, 2015 at 2:08 am

    Trees by Bill Boyd

    Bill thank you for your post and for raising the awareness about the importance of trees. With approximately fifty percent of humans now living in cities we have created a larger gap between the natural environment and the man made. We see trees as being only good as a visual delight or to create shade and do not recognise their importance in the life cycle. You have highlighted some interesting and important points. I would like to mention here that World Vision Australia is planting trees overseas through an initiative called Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration – http://fmnrhub.com.au/ – Australia needs to have a more proactive approach towards sustainability and specifically focusing on climate change and food security. Agroforestry in Australia would compliment the dining boom as we move away from the mining boom. Hopefully we will soon have federal and state government initiatives that will move away from our traditional way of thinking…if it moves shoot it and if it does not then cut it down mentality.

  2. Max Thomas

    Max Thomas

    October 16, 2015 at 8:44 pm

    Trees

    A strong message Bill. May I just add that when we plant trees, it is very important to plant the right trees in the right place. Sadly, when land was cleared on a large scale, it caused problems such as dry land salinity. Planting schemes and other measures, including ground water have to be considered on a 'whole of catchment' basis if we want to give natural systems a chance to recover. For example, the Regent Honeyeater project in Victoria's northeast involves the community and volunteers to work on replanting with sound ecological principles and they measure the results carefully. The last thing we need is to plant trees without considering the bigger picture. It is possible, with best of motives, to make things worse. The other thing about carbon is to remember the importance of the oceans. Like forests, the oceans are enormous carbon 'sinks'. A high percentage of the world's photosynthesis happens in the oceans. Depending on water temperature, carbon dioxide dissolves into the oceans, but there are complex biological processes that store and release some of it back to the atmosphere. We have to look after marine ecosystems as well as forests. You know the old saying: "I didn't see the woods, there were too many trees."