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Ask HN: How does deforestation affect climate change?
I know the impact must be frightening because trees are such a vital part of healthy ecosystems and most people have never planted a tree in their lives.
I Googled it. This is what I found...
"One day of deforestation = carbon footprint of 8 million people flying to New York."
How accurate is that? Does anyone know?
- eru 16y agoThe Economist ran a special report on Forrest recently. That might be a good starting point.
- pzxc 16y agoThe impact on short-term climate change is negligible. If the timeframe you're looking at is the next 50 years, it makes almost no difference to climate change because climate change is affected so greatly by natural cyclic factors such as solar flare activity. However, it will most likely have a devastating effect on long-term climate change, because any damage to the ecology is cumulative and symbiotic. We do depend on plants to turn the carbon dioxide we exhale into the oxygen we need to respirate, after all.