#TeamTrees has a goal of planting 20 million trees to help fight climate change.
But that begs the question, of “How do trees actually fight climate change?”
So, let’s explore this question.
As you may know, the main contributor to climate change is the historically high level
of Carbon Dioxide or CO2 in the atmosphere which is a result of burning fossil fuels.
To fight climate change, there are two key efforts.
The first is to reduce the quantity of fossil fuels burnt,
and the second is to find ways to take the CO2 already released
in the atmosphere and store or sequester it.
Now… if only there were a way,
for maybe a machine or maybe an organism that could take in CO2 and store it.
Well, that’s where planting trees comes into play.
When you look at a massive 80 ft tree,
what you’re really looking at is a massive structure that is
mostly just carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Let’s take a look at the trunk of this tree.
Aside from water, a lot of the mass inside the trunk is composed of cellulose
which is made of long chains of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.
All of these atoms circled here are carbon,
and every single one of these atoms of carbon was once CO2 in the atmosphere.
As a tree grows from a small sapling into a massive tree,
it’s fighting climate change by removing tons of CO2 in the atmosphere,
and then using it as a key building block in every single one of it cells.
So then, the next question is how does a tree actually accomplish
the extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere in order to grow?
Well, the super short explanation is photosynthesis.
The leaves of the tree combine CO2 with both water
pulled up from the roots and energy from the sunlight
and then turn them into glucose and oxygen as a byproduct.
This glucose is then transported throughout the tree
and used as energy and also for providing the molecular
building blocks which grow more leaves,
branches, rings around the tree trunk, and deeper roots.
Here on the left we have CO2 in the atmosphere
and water from the roots. In the middle we have glucose,
and then on the right we have cellulose which is found in every single one of plant’s cells.
This process of turning CO2,
water and the energy from the sun into glucose and oxygen,
and then turning glucose into cellulose
and growing larger and larger until it is a massive tree is what trees do best.
And you can see how all of these carbon atoms in every plant cell of the tree
once came from the CO2 in the atmosphere.
So then, if we want to remove CO2 from the atmosphere
to help curb climate change, and knowing that every tree is just a massive structure created
from CO2, light and water, a key solution is to plant millions of trees.
And that’s where you come into play.
Team Trees is asking you to contribute to the Arbor Day foundation
to help plant 20 million trees by 2020.
1 dollar will plant 1 tree so every donation helps.
Take a look at the link below and join the effort!