Not so long ago many nations of the Earth were covered with wild forests. It was said by a Roman general in Spain that a squirrel could cross the entire Iberian peninsula from tree to tree and never set foot on the ground. Would that it were still true! Spain, like many nations, has suffered from rampant deforestation over the centuries.

Germany was once a nation almost completely covered with woodlands and deep, dark forests, as was England and even France (1). But in most countries the need for wood for heating and cooking made forests almost disappear. The need for wood as building materials further depleted this precious natural resource. Add to this the need to clear land for planting crops, and you get the picture: forests were in the way of progress.

Of course, Europe learned this lesson that hard way, and has taken steps to preserve ancient forests. Canada and the United States have realized that forests are more than just a barrier to be overcome. Serious efforts to save old growth forests in both nations have taken root and may be producing some small progress.

However, many people still either remain ignorant of the role of forests in the cycle of our planetary life, or see woodlands only as sources of profit. Indeed, I know that companies in Japan specialize in buying wood from Canada and the U.S. because of the scarcity of forests in Japan as the high cost of anything made of wood in a nation that has such a great desire for wood of all kinds. Entire shiploads of wood sail for Japan and Asia from U.S. and Canadian posts every day.

But it is in Brazil that my observations take me this day, for this hub, because in Brazil huge tracts of land are being bulldozed and burned to make way for cattle. To Americans, imagine an area the size of Connecticut being broken down and burned off every year and you get an idea of the magnitude of the deforestation. Add to that the infestation of insects and tree-predators and then look at before and after pictures of the Amazon region, and you'll get an eyeful of what is going on.

 Many people know what it is like when you can't breathe.  You get panicked and then gasp for air.  I once drowned when my leg got stuck on a snag under the water.  I friend dove in to rescue me but it took several others diving in before I got free.  I remember my lungs burned and I actually tried to breathe in water, which caused more pain and panic.  I know what it is like to have my lungs impaired, and I can write about it with some passion.

Earth does not write such stories and neither does it seek pity.  Earth gets revenge.  Our planet, in order to keep the current cycle of life we experience today, needs to seek and maintain a balance.  We all know that once in Australia rabbits, which were not found in that continent until they were brought there, became a nuisance because there were no natural predators to keep their numbers in balance.  So, predators were brought in, and that started a new cycle of imbalance, because predators soon overpopulated the land.  Most nations have had infestations of predator insects and larger animals, such as when starlings were introduced to the United States and now are a pest there.

As I said, Earth seeks revenge, not willfully, but because the natural balance is upset and a new set of norms come into play.  Many people believe that humans have little or no impact on what occurs on earth, but I think if the Earth could speak in words, it would tell a much different story.  Let's start with the deforestation that is occurring in ALL the major forested areas which produce oxygen that we need to live.

Trees and green growth removes carbon dioxide from the air and converts it to water and oxygen (O2).  Obviously we need oxygen and water to live, and we, in turn convert oxygen and water into CO2 and other "waste" materials.

I once worked in environmental health in Madrid where I sam0led oxygen supplies in office.  Like most modern high rises, buildings in newer sections of Madrid had closed windows and little fresh air coming into the structure.  After a time, stale air was recirculated until the CO2 levels began to rise.  If you remember the movie about Apollo 13, the astronauts there were in danger of dying because the CO2 level was rising too close to the 5% level, which is fatal for human beings.  they had to scrub the excess CO2 out and replace it with O2, otherwise they would die in space.  That is a natural law that none of us can ignore.

My examinations of buildings in Madrid showed the CO2 levels were lower than the 5% fatal level, buyt were still higher than the outside air.  Imeediate plans went into effect to introcyde fresh air to the buildings.  In doing this productivity went up, absebses due to illnesses, mostly headaches and lack of energy, went down, and people were better off.  We had reversed the buildup of CO2 within the building and had restored the balance that we humans need in order to be at our best.

So, why worry about trees and forests? Some people like to think we have replanted enough trees to make up the difference, but we haven't. Others claim that we now plant crops and these take the pace of trees, and in a small way, temporarily throughout the year, this might help reduce some CO2 from the atmosphere. But it is a multi-layered problem when long-old growth trees are replaced by seasonal crops, or by shorter lasting trees.

The truth is that deforestation is a world-wide occurrence that is slowly, or rapidly, depending upon your point of view, taking the balance of nature we need to survive and is replacing it with a new balance that may not terribly friendly to human life. There are groups, those who deny mankind's involvement with any ecological changes, that proclaim this is all a bunch of hype and fear mongering, and it could be they are right. The facts are not all in, but certain facts we know very well, and that is that there is a balance that we need to maintain on Earth in order to live here. regardless of whether you believe in human intervention in climate change, or even that climate change is occurring, it is an inescapable fact that our zone of comfort, the maintenance of an environment in which we can do more than just survive, is very narrow and fragile. raise the global temperature a few degrees Celsius and we starve. Lower a few degrees Celsius and we freeze. This is not in dispute.

Added to all of this concern by some about the level of CO2 emissions I add the following. Millions of years ago, when global levels of CO2 were reportedly much higher than they are today, billions of tons of carbon based lifeforms, mostly plants, were buried beneath the soil to become fossil fuels we use today.

These fossil fuels were out of the loop. so to speak, out of the system and definitely not in the atmosphere. Eventually the Earth went into a balance of sorts, although that balance was at times over ridden by events such as volcanoes, huge burnings of forests, etc. Just the same, the levels of CO2 were more or less fixed within a range that allowed human beings to thrive and increase. That balance has more or less been maintained over a very long time globally.

Let us consider for a moment the gigatonnes of carbon, once stored and out of the system, that has been released over the past few centuries. remember that it took millions of years to built up the carbon deposit beneath the soil, and only three centuries to begin to unleash it once again into the atmosphere.

I liken it to living in a space with breatheable air, and someone opens up a CO2 canister. The O2 levels may not radically change, but the CO2 levels will increase because of the addition of CO2 that was before safely stored in the canister. Now the CO2 may or may not equally distribute throughout the entire air mass within the living space, but it only needs to be at the level where people breathe to have a dangerous effect upon the life in that room.

Our atmosphere does not need to be full saturated with CO2, with constant levels at all layers. It only has to have a layer thick enough, full enough, with CO2 just above the surface to start having an effect upon the heating or cooling going on at ground level. That is, if the CO2 levels 1,000 meters up are saturated, but they are not at 10,000 meters, the do have some effect upon the levels above and below them.

Now the greenhouse effect is rather well demonstrated and accepted by scientists who study atmospherics and environmental sciences. Those who spend their careers looking at and observing,m experimenting and reporting on these matters have Venus as just one example of how the greenhouse effect works, and Mars as an example of what happens with little or no greenhouse effect.

We are fortunate that our atmosphere has maintained this balance for so long, because it has allowed all animal species to thrive. And remember that our atmosphere is very thin, with most of its mass about 25 to 30 kms from sea level to the upper limits. (source: http://www.pdas.com/atmthick.htm) 

The upper most parts have a very thin layer of ozone, which has been damaged by the recent additions of fluorochlorocarbons, sulfates and nitrates.  Also, we have a rather thicker layer of soot from various activities of mankind, as well as natural sources such as forest fires, etc.  Nitrates and sulphates actually adhere to soot and increase its ability to add to the so-called global warming model.

Trees, by reducing the CO2 levels in the lower portions of the atmosphere, help prevent ground-created CO2 from rising to the next upper levels.  Any reduction of CO2 to the slowly saturating middle and lower middle levels of CO2 helps lower the effects of the greenhouse effect.  But with massive burning, hugely increased coal usage by nations such as China, plus the addition of gigatonnes of formerly unavailable hydrocarbons, it would not take very long for the lower and middle sections of the atmosphere to have greatly increased levels of CO2, a dangerous pattern if it were to continue.

Thus we seem to be having a double whammy effect here, reduction of forests coupled with introducing gigtons of former unavalable hydrocarbons being introduced into the atmoshere.  Add to this the creation of water from the burning of hydrocarbons and trees, and the effect worsens.

 I have discovered that there are some people who distrust science, distrust research, and probably there is some basis for skepticism.  After all, so-called scientists (people with an advanced degree of some sort or another) are always selling themselves out to huge corporations to push this product or that agenda.   I understand.  I am a skeptic at heart, and that is why I do not fully embrace the ideas put out by the popular media without doing further research.  I have to be convinced, not just told, that something is a truth.

That said, I have educated myself in various areas of science, mostly by reading, but also by seeking out people who work in these areas and tapping their brains for information.  At times I can see through the propaganda some scientists spout, but for the most part I have seen very sincere, quiet scientific work done outside of the media spotlights, discovering and researching data, coming to conclusions, and then testing the conclusions to see if they make sense, are reproducible, and hold up against the counter evidence.

Science is no great mystery, even if it does explore the great mysteries, and I am amazed at how many people just have a knee-jerk reaction against proper scientific studies.  Perhaps it is the wide-spread news about bogus findings and people trying to scam us that sets people off, but that is all the more reason for the general populace to become more and more aware of what falsely passes for science and the real scientific work being done to create new understandings of the world around us.  If we remain ignorant about how science is supposed to work, then do not be surprised when some people use scientific sounding news (pseudo-science) to pull the wool over our eyes.

It's up to us to be better educated and to undertand the world as it presents iteself to us, and not to rely on others to do our thinking for us.