At first, this might seem like an idiotic question: Everyone who has heard of global warming and pollution will have heard of trees and the idea drilled into our minds that trees can keep air clean. They are nature’s recyclers, turning carbon dioxide, one of the most influential players in air pollution and global warming, into beneficial oxygen. People at Dow Chemical and the Nature Conservancy have teamed up to restore and refill the empty lands in Texas with massive trees, hoping to catch harmful pollutants emitted from factories and rebuild the groves that once populated Texas. On paper, this plan sounds good, but in reality, the restoration of trees faces many hurdles. The project will cost around $10 million, and there is uncertainty about whether or not trees will actually improve air quality as predicted. There also lies a competitor, machines called scrubbers also capable of catching pollutants, yet in my opinion, trees are still the ideal solution to capturing pollution and keeping air clean.
Firstly, let’s examine the benefits of using trees. Trees indeed can capture harmful pollutants, and their ability to turn them into oxygen is even more helpful. Experts say that 1,000 acres of trees can catch up to 3.6 to 6.4 metric tons of nitrogen oxide annually. 10,000 acres will ten fold these numbers. Turning pollutants into oxygen is not possessed by scrubbers (the machines that catch pollutants). In the case of machinery, human effort has to be put in turning the chemicals captured into something new, but trees can work for themselves. And based on how big a tree’s canopy is, the amount of pollutants captured can increase. There is also the fact that some species of trees can live up to hundreds of years, meaning hundreds of years of catching and recycling pollutants for us. If the trees in question have these traits, the number of pollution caught will magnify drastically. When viewing the results from a long term perspective, trees can be very beneficial.
Now let’s take a look at the downsides and risks of using trees to keep air clean. The size of 10,000 acres is enormous, but according to Timm Kroeger, a senior environmental economist with the conservancy, one single scrubber can catch 45.4 to 63.5 metric tons of nitrogen oxide annually. Compare that with 10,000 acres of trees, and you’ll find that the whole 10,000 acres of trees equals one single scrubber. 10,000 acres also costs about as much as a scrubber, the former costing around $2,400 to $4,000 to clean 0.9 metric tons of nitrogen oxide, and the latter costing around $2,500 to $5,000 in order to do the same. Utilizing trees also has another risk: Burning down. It is very possible that the 10,000 acres worth of wood will all dissolve in flames. Then replanting will have to be prioritized, using money and time. The fire itself will also be harmful to the environment, contributing to air pollution even more. There are many risks to reforestation.
In my personal opinion, I think that trees are still the biggest influencer when concerned with solving air pollution. It is undeniable that trees’ ability to turn pollution into oxygen is extremely beneficial in the current global warming crisis, and no machine is able to copy that skill. There also includes an abundance of helpful benefits, such as ecosystem recreation and wildlife habitat reconstruction. No amount of artificial human engineering can compare with natural recyclers. Although trees can burn down, we should take it upon ourselves to protect the groves we reconstruct. 10,000 acres of trees is a huge amount of space, and we should try our best not to disturb it. Scrubbers need humans to take care of and maintain, while trees can work on themselves without being monitored constantly. Planting trees allows decades of capturing pollution, thus becoming more ideal looking at long-term solutions. Scrubbers also need various materials to fix and construct, while as aforementioned, using trees have no such qualms. By choosing trees which live long and have big canopies and leaves, the amount of pollutants captured will increase dramatically, as aforementioned. All in all, trees are still the way to go, even in the face of hurdles. It is up to us to keep them safe.
In conclusion, trees have always been an important topic when it comes to pollution, environment, and global warming. They can recycle harmful pollutants into beneficial oxygen, a helpful trait in reducing air pollution and easing global warming. Dow Chemical and the Nature Conservancy have joined to reforestate the empty lands of Texas, hoping to capture harmful pollutants emitted from factories. There are many pros and cons to trees. On the one hand, they possess the ability to recycle pollutants themselves, a skill that scrubbers, machines that also catch pollutants, cannot do. Trees can live up to hundreds of years and based on their canopy size, the pollutants captured can increase. They are mostly long-term beneficial. However, there are downsides to trees. The risk of burning is very real, which would cause more pollutants to be emitted, by the fire itself and by the machinery needed to recover from a fire. Furthermore, 10,000 acres of trees only equals one scrubber when it comes to capturing pollutants. Yet in my point of view, trees are the correct solution all the same. The ability to live for hundreds of years makes them significantly beneficial in the long run. Choosing trees with big canopies can enlarge the amount of pollutants captured, and ecosystems can be built, helping wildlife as well. In the end, nothing can truly replace nature. Scrubbers will never take the place of trees in cleaning air, no machine can overtake nature. As for the threat of burning, it is our responsibility to keep the trees in good condition. If we take care of them and make sure they are treated well, they will take care of pollutants, making the world a cleaner and more colorful place.
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