When we moved to the house
in Knoxville, Tennessee, there was a deck at the back of the house with some
cover on top consisting of narrow inch-by-inch parallel wooden strips placed at
distance two inches apart. The deck was practically unusable because it was too
hot in all three seasons but the winter, and it was not much fun to sit in the
winter outside. I decided to plant a wisteria and let it climb on top of the
deck cover and create a shade. Not only did I enjoy a shaded deck, now the room
on the second floor next to the deck is much cooler because the sun light
instead of reflecting from the deck and heating the room (as it was before I
planted the wisteria), now is absorbed by the green wisteria.
Recently, this created a
train of thoughts in my head. We complain these days about global warming and
we blame for this the carbon dioxide emitted from the coal burning steam plants
that produce electricity. However, nobody thinks about alternative ways to
reduce the global warming. At the same solar radiation, if the earth were
covered with more green plants, it would be heated much less. On the other
hand, the green plants would be breathing in carbon dioxide and using the solar
radiation to produce more oxygen.
So, instead of imposing
sanctions on the coal burning plants for emitting carbon dioxide, and looking
for alternative ways to produce electrical energy, we should be planting more
forests and green plants, instead of continuing to cut existing forest. If we
are really smart, we should cut less forest and when we indeed need to cut, we
should demand from the cutters to plant twice or three times more forest to
compensate for what they have cut. Thus, the global warming, we complain about,
could be a result of the deforestation, and could be compensated with replanting
the forest back.
