Deforestion and Global Warming

The Effects of World Wide Deforestation

            My interest in deforestation began in my composition class at Olympic College this past quarter. Until this point in time I did not realize that the world had such a large problem with deforestation and the effects it has had in our world. My research began by exploring the contents of a novel written by Jared Diamond author of Collapse published by penguin books in 2006.  Diamonds work has shown me how societies have chosen to fail or to succeed by comparing old cultures to the newer cultures. With the information provided it has caused me to want to understand the extent that deforestation plays in our world today.

What are the effects of deforestation? According to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 defines deforestation as “land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities,” The effects of deforestation can be categorized in three ways. They are: environmental effects, local social effects, and global social effects. Many of the environmental effects contribute to the severity of the social problems. That is why it is important to understand the environmental effects of deforestation and how they contribute to the social effects of our world.

When a rainforest is cut down or destroyed, there are various climate changes that happen as a result. Desication of previously moist forest soil is a factor because when the forest is exposed to the sun, the soil gets baked and the lake of canopy leaves nothing to prevent the moisture from quickly evaporating into the atmosphere. The soil then becomes dry and cracked. There is a dramatic increase in temperature extremes. Trees provide shade and the shaded area has a moderated temperature. With shade, the temperature may be 98 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 60 degrees at night. Without the shade, temperatures would be much colder during the night and around 130 degrees during the day. When the forest is destroyed the sun has no inability to keep moisture in the ground causing the land to become useless and turning the land into a desert. The deforestation causes no recycling of water. Moisture from the oceans fall as rain on adjacent coastal regions. The moisture is soon sent up to the atmosphere through the transpiration of foliage to fall again on inland forest areas. This cycle repeats itself several times to rain on all; forest regions. Deforestation causes less carbon dioxide and nitrogen exchange. When the atmosphere is changed the chemical balance is not in order and causes problems with the exchange of gases pertaining to temperature control and the quality of the air. Soil erosion plays a big factor in how the environment is able to hold moisture in order to grow food and also effects the streams and rivers which affects the wild life and fish. There are many rewards such as clean air and clean water, perhaps the two most important, that the forest can provide. Rainforest also provide many aesthetic, recreational and cultural rewards, if the rainforest are destroyed, then these rewards disappear. This has major social repercussions for the entire world. This information I have researched through www. Earlham.edu. these finding are current as of fall of 1996 thru current.