

Ask HN: How does deforestation affect climate change? - rblion

I know the impact must be frightening because trees are such a vital part of healthy ecosystems and most people have never planted a tree in their lives.<p>I Googled it. This is what I found...<p>"One day of deforestation = carbon footprint of 8 million people flying to New York."<p>How accurate is that? Does anyone know?
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pzxc
The impact on short-term climate change is negligible. If the timeframe you're
looking at is the next 50 years, it makes almost no difference to climate
change because climate change is affected so greatly by natural cyclic factors
such as solar flare activity.

However, it will most likely have a devastating effect on long-term climate
change, because any damage to the ecology is cumulative and symbiotic. We do
depend on plants to turn the carbon dioxide we exhale into the oxygen we need
to respirate, after all.

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eru
The Economist ran a special report on Forrest recently. That might be a good
starting point.

