Protect our vitally important resource

by Erin
(Hoboken, Nj, US)

Uncared-for forest

Uncared-for forest

The rain forests of the world are like the lungs of the planet.

They are also home to thousands of species, vital to our eco-system.

With deforestation happening, at alarming rates, around the world, the rainforests are dying. As the forests shrink, so does the amount of rain, causing the earth to literally dry up.

I've been to the rainforest in Puerto Rico and it was amazing. The air was dense and it rained intermittently throughout my visit. I saw vegetation that i have never seen before and the the amount of vegetation was almost magical.

Rainforests such as this need to preserved if our planet has a chance. Deforestation regulations need to be stricter and penalties for illegal cutting need to be enforced.

Stopping the slaughter is only the first step. Planting of new trees needs to be a bigger priority now so the trees can start maturing and contributing to the eco-system before it fails entirely.

Barry's Response - I think replenishing is important too. Erin, thanks for your input.


Search this site for more information now.

Let's think about it some more.

You're right, Erin, replenishing is more than important, it's the secret handshake between the sky and the soil. Trees don't just look pretty; they pump moisture upward through transpiration, seeding clouds that rain on fields thousands of kilometers away. Losing the Amazon isn't like losing a park, it's like breaking a global plumbing system - it's not just a forest, it's an "atmospheric irrigation pump". So to speak...

This is where meteorology gets fun: when tree cover shrinks, local rainfall drops, but distant rainfall can drop, too - sometimes on another continent. The rainfall patterns in West Africa and the southern U.S. are related to Amazonian deforestation. Trees are climate moderators because their evapotranspiration cools the surface and feeds clouds. When you remove them, the land gets hotter and the clouds get thinner.

Skeptics will ask: “Haven't forests grown and shrunk naturally for millennia?” - Of course they have. But now it's faster and bigger. Natural regrowth can't keep up with clearing 10 million hectares in a decade. With freedom of thought, we can acknowledge cycles and human impact without getting swept up in ideology.

Practical minds have a point: we shouldn't let environmental laws become Trojan horses for taxes. Regulations should focus on real improvements - like incentivizing reforestation, not just punishing industry. Instead of carbon credits (a paper shuffle), let's launch a global green bond market where investors get returns based on how much clean water or oxygen a restored forest produces.

Stewardship that's measurable.

This is ethics in action - responsibility over rhetoric. Here's a gem: Pollution isn't just measured. We be designing breathing space for the future.

Let me get weird for a second: the Bible describes rivers flowing out of Eden, watering the land before branching into four. This is hydrological poetry. Perhaps the call today isn't to "return to Eden," but to remember...we're gardeners, not strip miners. "Protect our vitally important resource" doesn't just mean saving trees - it's about saving the relationship between sky, land, and water.

What would make this conversation truly revolutionary?

Imagine an interactive web page where you can click on a forest patch and instantly see how much carbon it stores, and which cities downstream will lose rainfall if it disappears. Add in art - indigenous songs overlaid on rainfall models, Shakespeare's lines about forests recited over drone footage of regrowth. Science doesn't just tell us what's at stake, it makes us feel it.

Now, imagine a rainforest as that eccentric uncle who waters everyone's garden and tells wild stories no one asked for. When you cut him down, the tomatoes stop growing. Forests keep us weird, alive, and damp enough to keep arguing online.

Who's with me, readers?

Is it possible to meet regulation and imagination halfway? Do we have to pick soggy tomatoes off dry vines? Let me know what you think -- I'll answer with mud still on my boots.


Comments for Protect our vitally important resource

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starstarstarstarstar 		At our firm...
by: Barry

We think protecting forests and clean air isn't just compliance - it's craftsmanship. Science is our tool, but imagination is our edge. We don't just model air; we model the future. We don't just model air; we model the future.

Each response combines emotion and science, giving readers new insights while respecting their viewpoint. While avoiding outright denial, it also lightly challenges the mainstream narrative (e.g., by emphasizing ecosystems as dynamic, cyclical, and cultural). There's humor and metaphor - "aerosol soup," "trees as water pumps," "El Niño of lumber cycles."
Rating
starstarstarstar 		Good as far as it goes
by: Grace

I think most people agree by now that the forests play a vitally important role in maintaining life on Earth; the problem is that there's so much economic incentive to cut them down, and often not a lot of economic incentive to preserve them. Thinking long-term is just something that the business sector, which needs to show profits every month or every quarter, is not very good at. We need both positive reinforcement (incentives for treeplanting and maintaining existing forests) and negative reinforcement (harsher legal penalties for causing environmental damange), if we're going to have any hope of keeping these important places healthy.

From Barry - You nailed it, Grace: forests give us oxygen, stabilize rainfall, and sequester carbon, but chopping them down always makes more sense than keeping them standing. Tropical forests act as massive evaporative coolers - water vapor released from transpiration condenses into clouds, then falls as rain, reinforcing regional water cycles.

When you cut the canopy, you disrupt the whole "green water pump" that helps stabilize air pressure. Meteorologists might just call it tomorrow's drought forecast; economists would call it a "negative externality." The carrot-and-stick approach (incentives and penalties) reflects what we see in atmospheric forcing: sometimes gentle nudges shift the weather, sometimes shock waves. Forests are the long game, and I agree - we can't keep betting against them.
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		My own Opinion
by: David

There is some concern but as everything has a cyclical process when the big home building companies not thriving currently there is not a big housing boom those same companies that use the lumber too build should give back in some way by replanting the trees to be mature for next housing boom so it doesn't affect the climate unfornately the eco-system is affected but for the urbanization of humans it is a must because living on top of each other only creates disease & epidemics & pandemics so there the forests are big enough for plants & animals can survive & create a new habitat!

From Barry - David, you bring up something many forget: lumber companies and housing cycles ebb and flow like El Niño and La Niña. When housing demand drops, lumber demand slackens - like a weak monsoon. Those down cycles would make sense if they became replanting booms, ensuring a "next season" of supply.

Forests are natural scrubbers - their leaves filter particulate matter, trap dust, and even reduce ozone levels. Without them, cities become "aerosol soup." And your point about density is true: cramming people in without proper green lungs increases disease transmission. In stagnant air masses and poorly ventilated spaces, epidemics thrive. You're suggesting balance, and ecosystems (and cities) need balance.
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		Perhaps
by: slipsp

At least we live in a world where there is a Green party. Joseph Beuys planted 7000 oaks in Kassel - that's a start, maybe symbolic but something!

From Barry - Slipsp, thanks for reminding us that art can help. 7000 Oaks was a sculpture and a work of climate policy before climate policy was cool.

Tree planting might seem symbolic, but symbols drive culture, and culture drives politics faster than policy papers. When it comes to air quality, we often talk about "sentinel sites" - the one monitor that tells you how a whole city is doing.

Each oak in Kassel became a sentinel, a reminder that regeneration isn't just science, it's a story too. Sometimes stories move people more than spreadsheets.
Rating
starstarstarstar 		common topic
by: Anonymous

now a days basically deforestation is increasing due to many reason like pollution,population and natural disasters .We have to quick steps for curing of our forest otherwise one day no forest will be their which humans as well as animals ......so take steps for deforestation......

From Barry - Deforestation isn't just about people cutting trees for profit. It's also about fires, pests, droughts, and even storms caused by climate change.

From a meteorological perspective, forests anchor soils against erosion, buffer winds, and feed atmospheric rivers. You don't just lose trees when you lose them - you risk amplifying extreme weather. In ecology, "quick" is tricky.

Broadband subscriptions don't grow like trees. Agroforestry, reducing slash-and-burn, and protecting old growth can at least slow the bleeding while new growth takes hold.
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		What do we do when there are not trees
by: cangel

This blos is very well written. And the picture is worth a thousand words more. It was the first thing that attracted my attention. This blog is an excellent addition to you blogs on rainforsts. The information, especially coming from a personal viewpoint of someone who has seen the devastation, is almost overwhelming. I would definitely read more blogs on this relevant topic.

From Barry - Cangel, I appreciate your comment about the image drawing you in - sometimes one picture can do more for awareness than a thousand pie charts.

The rainforest is the "lungs of the planet," but it's also its heart, pumping latent heat into the atmosphere and regulating storm tracks. The Amazon drying out could mean more drought in the Midwest or altered monsoons.

This isn't just eco-poetry, that's physics. This shows why personal storytelling (like Erin's rainforest trip) matters: science plus story equals memory, and memory drives action.

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Thank you to my research and writing assistants, ChatGPT and WordTune, as well as Wombo and others for the images.

OpenAI's large-scale language generation model (and others provided by Google and Meta), helped generate this text.  As soon as draft language is generated, the author reviews, edits, and revises it to their own liking and is responsible for the content.