The full extent of what you're supporting by donating to FUDEBIOL's Tree by Tree Campaign, and why it matters, even if you don't live in Costa Rica
Beautiful shot of a waterfall grove on FUDEBIOL's protected lands. By contributing to Tree by Tree, you can help protect so many more areas like this that still need preservation!
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Why Costa Rica's Forests Have a Global Impact
It's easy to picture the immediate effects of protecting and reforesting Costa Rica's natural land: Preserved habitats, protection of countless species, access to clean water for the region's people, and cleaner air in the nearby communities. An in depth description of the effects on the Costa Rican region is detailed in a separate article. But the global impact can be harder to see. If you don't live in Costa Rica, how does one more protected tree affect you? And even if you do, how does that single tree really impact your life?
The answer: Forests are, arguably, the singular thing standing between us and total climate disaster. Even if you don't personally live by a forest, you can be sure that their existence is keeping you alive, and allowing you to continue living the life you're used to. Driving a car, flying in a plane, using public transportation, turning on a light, running water, or heating, purchasing clothing or other items made in factories, and eating packaged or processed food, all, either directly or indirectly, cause the release of carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gasses into the Earth's atmosphere. These gasses become trapped in the atmosphere, causing too much heat to be trapped in it, leading to an increase in Earth's temperature.
Naturally occurring greenhouse gases and the ozone layer trap some of the sun's light and heat in the atmosphere, making the Earth a warm, livable temperature. The sun's UV light passes through the atmosphere and reflects off the Earth's surface back into the atmosphere, where natural greenhouse gasses trap some of it. However, the high influx of man-made greenhouse gasses trapped in the atmosphere are causing too much heat to be reflected back on Earth, creating a dangerous rise in our planet's core and surface temperatures. Because of the high amount of man-made greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the global temperature could rise 5.8 degrees Celsius over the next 100 years, an amount that would cause severe, irreversible damage to our polar ice caps, cause a sharp increase in intense natural disasters, turn acres of farmland infertile, endanger millions with more frequent forest fires, and make large swaths of land unlivable for so many more as a result of rising sea levels. If we continue on this path, there will be an inevitable migration of people from locations where climate change has destroyed their land to areas where livable land still exists, creating overpopulation and increased pollution, exacerbating the crisis. People will constantly be forced to move off of freshly inhabitable land until there is no livable land left on Earth.
Thankfully, we still have a chance to reverse this damage before it becomes a permanent, ever worsening crisis by doing something so simple: Planting trees and protecting forests. It's incredibly important that we look to more sustainable energy sources, such as solar, water, and wind power, in order to stop increasing Earth's temperature and the damage we are doing to our planet. However, ensuring that we have expansive, healthy forests is one of the only ways to actively cool our planet and undo some of the harm we've done. This is because forests act as carbon banks, meaning that they draw carbon dioxide out of the air as trees take in the carbon dioxide they need to live. By removing this greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, there will be less of it available to trap UV light and heat, causing less light to be reflected back onto the Earth and therefore, the temperature to stop increasing. If enough carbon dioxide is consistently drawn out of the atmosphere for a long enough period of time, the temperature of our planet will begin to fall back down to a healthy, nonlethal, level.
The effects of cooling our planet are all encompassing. By ensuring that Earth is a sustainable temperature, we will prevent ice caps in polar regions from melting. If these ice caps continue to melt, sea level will rise dangerously high, eventually causing the majority of coastal cities and towns to sink underwater, making them unlivable. Other animal species are already experiencing a loss in habitat, causing thousands to experience premature extinction, and countless regions to lose precious biodiversity. In short, we need to ensure our forests can act as carbon banks so that our polar regions can continue acting as water banks in order to maintain a habitable planet for all species. Additionally, cooling Earth will help stabilize weather patterns. If you've noticed more extreme weather over recent years, it's not just your imagination. Climate change is already causing an uptick in severe storms, such as tropical storms and hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts, forest fires, floods, and extreme daily temperatures. If left unchecked, these disastrous weather events will only increase in frequency.
In total, as a human population, we are currently adding 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year. The average American household produces 7.5 tons of carbon dioxide, or CO2 equivalents, yearly. If you want to continue transporting yourself to where you need be, turning on your heat when it's cold, purchasing clothing, shopping at the grocery store, eating at restaurants, and stopping by your local coffee shop for your morning coffee, you're going to need to ensure your life's sustainability by consciously preserving our world's forests in order to offset the carbon emissions your life creates.
A singular tree will draw one metric ton of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere over the course of its life. We are clearly going to need a lot of trees if we want to prevent ourselves from spiraling into the irreversible climate crisis we are currently projected to experience within the next few decades. That is why we need to work together to prevent this destruction, and, tree by tree, move towards a cooler, more sustainable, future for us all.
Each one of us can make a difference. Together, we can make a change. ~Barbra Mikulski
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