How do trees stop global warming??

Question

How do trees stop global warming??

Answer 1

I dont think that they do.

But they do enable us to live as humans,

They convert poinoisous Co2 into oxygen for us.

The more the merrier. :]

Answer 2

By making everybody get that "good warm fuzzy feeling" that they can actually do something about a normal weather cycle and change the world by planting one

Answer 3

trees don't stop global warming...they suck in CO2 and let out oxygen....

but some trees, when they are sleeping in the winter, let out CO2

Answer 4

No one knows if they do or not.  Trees take CO2 out of the air to make their leaves, stems, trunks, roots, etc.  So increasing the overall number of trees and forests should take more CO2 out of the atmosphere.

But trees also die, are burned in forest fires and for fuel, used to make paper, etc. so they easily release all their stored carbon back to the atmosphere as CO2.

The UN has a graphic of the carbon cycle, see:

http://www.grida.no/climate/vital/13.htm

There is a large reservoir of carbon stored in terrestrial vegetation, and a flux of carbon stored in new growth, and released by decaying/burned plants.

How trees figure into the reservoir and fluxes ... isn't known very well.

Answer 5

Trees do not stop global warming. They only make it easier for it to go. But trees are not evil

Answer 6

The whole problem with most of the answers is that they all believe that CO2 is the culprit for warming. The problem with that is they are wrong. Solar and H2O vapor and methane .. have a much greater impact then CO2.  

Trees do remove far more CO2 from the environment than they put back......Because it takes much longer for them to release it than it took for them to remove it. But trees are only a small part of the CO2 removal system. All plant life does it.  The top layers of the ocean do a great job of removing CO2.

Warming occurs before CO2 levels rise historically.

That is one of the "Nit-picky" problems with Gores film is that he completely misses what his 800000 year graph really shows..Warming PRECEDES CO2 rise.

Answer 7

they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by the process of photosynthesis. they take in CO2 and make oxygen and glucose out of it.

the problem is that what happens to this glucose after, it will most probably be "burnt" and re release the CO2 it once stored.

so individual trees don't relay stop global warming but Forrest's that are continuously regenerating can help.

Answer 8

Trees do not stop GW. Trees convert CO2 to Oxygen but leaves drop and make CO2 and methane.

Answer 9

They don't. But lots of people think (wrongly) that they do. They remove CO2 from the air and make wood out of it, which sounds good, right? Because they take CO2 out of the air. But trees only live a few hundred years. When they die the wood will decay and the CO2 will go right back into the air. Corals and shell fish do a better job. They take CO2 out of the air and make coral reefs and shells from it. When the animals die, the left over reef or shell can last practically forever, especially if the shells are covered by sediments.

Answer 10

even though the carbon locked up in trees eventually gets released back into the atmosphere, still, a small portion is converted into soil as the tree waste decomposes.  Thats how we have coal atleast..