Look out the window, go ahead just do it. What do you see? A road, a building, more windows. Maybe there isn’t a window in the room you’re in at the moment; in that case imagine a window. What do you see? What do you want to see? Now how many of you reading this can honestly say, “I see ten trees.” Maybe some of you can, but most people can’t. We are at a time when you don’t see very many trees anymore; now I’m sure at least one of you is thinking, “What are you talking about? I see trees all the time!” But that’s what I’m here to talk to you about: we don’t have very many trees anymore. According to Skeptics, we only have 50% of the trees we had about 100 years ago.

Now I don’t know about you, but I live by a wooded area in small town Iowa. When I wake up in the morning I like to look out all my windows--and there’s a lot of them--and be able to see all the wood surrounding my house. I just can’t even imagine looking outside one day and there’s nothing there. Well I’m sure there will be a house instead of green leaves in the spring and summer; brown, orange and red leaves during fall; and mountains of white fluff covering each and every tree throughout winter. Yes I realize what you are probably thinking, “Why do I care about what the trees look like by your house?” or, “Why do I care about the trees surrounding your house?” This is why, clearing out all those trees is called deforestation. According to Vocabulary online, “Deforestation is the clearing of trees, transforming a forest into cleared land.” I’m going to ask you a question. What do trees do for our everyday life? Got your answer? Good. The answers are they do so much for our everyday life; it’s what paper’s made of, most houses, tables, chairs, etc. but most common, and some of you might not have even thought of this one, is air. Yes air, and what do we need to breath? Air. Here’s another question, “Is our air dirty?” And the answer is, drumroll please *crash*, Yes! It’s true. Our air is extremely dirty. Actually we are basically killing the earth because of how bad our air quality is. How Does Deforestation Affect the Air says, “Oxygen comprises only about 21 percent of air’s chemical component. Yet, it is extremely important to life on earth.” So basically this is saying that all living organisms ranging from single celled organisms to human beings need this to survive, and if we get rid of our trees--which we technically need to breath--then we will potentially die off, scary right? All plants produce oxygen, and because trees are larger plants they produce an amazing amount of oxygen, actually an estimated 40 percent of earth’s oxygen is produced by tropical rainforests. Now I know what you are thinking, “Wow 40 percent, that’s a lot!” and our tropical rainforests only cover about 6 percent of the earth’s land, and, “Rainforests in the Amazon have declined by 17 percent in the last 50 years as a result of deforestation.” Now you’re thinking, “What how is this possible?” I know, I can read your mind. It’s a gift. But I’m going to let you think about that for now.

This one is for all you animal lovers out there who might be a little bit skeptic. Well, I hope everyone out there loves at least one kind of animal, so if you just like one animal and are skeptical about this then you better listen. Okay you’re listening right? Oh well I’ll just tell you if you are or not because you need to hear this. All animals need trees to live; they use them for food shelter and nesting sites. If we tear out all trees--which we are--then they won’t have a home to protect them or food to feed them. You know what, I just thought of something, these animals range from insects to humans, I mean just think about it. We need shelter too, and I don’t just mean our houses, I mean like if we are outside biking or running or whatever you do outside, what if it starts raining? What are you going to do then? Naturally you look for a tree, but imagine this. It’s 50 years in the future, we’ve cut down all the trees and you are going for a run because it’s autumn and you’re on the cross country team. At first you think, “Okay it’s just a bit of rain I can handle this, it’ll be fun.” Then it starts raining harder and now you’re thinking, “Okay now this is getting a little ridiculous I need to find a place to hide under.” You look around and there’s nothing there--because you’re running on a dirt road and that was already bad enough then it started raining on you and all you could think is, “Great”--. You’ve heard of these tree things in school and you thought, “Well this would be amazingly helpful right about now,” but there’s nothing there. No protection from the rain for you, and there’s animals everywhere because they don’t have any homes to protect them from the rain either. I realize you could be thinking, “Well why don’t we just plant more trees then?” We could and we should. For now on everyone who has read this should take the pledge and plant at least one tree every year. I’m doing it because I want to save the world. But are you going to be the one who doesn’t care and just kills the earth that you live on? Think about it.

Citations

"Deforestation - Dictionary Definition." Vocabulary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2016.
"Did Humans Kill 50% of the World Trees in the Last 100 Years?" Untagged. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2016.
"How Does Deforestation Affect the Air? | The Classroom | Synonym." How Does Deforestation Affect the Air? | The Classroom | Synonym. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2016.
"The Disadvantages of Deforestation | The Classroom | Synonym." The Disadvantages of Deforestation | The Classroom | Synonym. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2016.