Trees clean the air better than carbon taxes ever will
God’s creation already provides a carbon filter: trees. True stewardship means planting and preserving forests for future generations.
By Julie A. Ferraro | FāVS News Columnist
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News.
Not being a scientist — I barely made it through Earth science and chemistry in high school, shunning biology because I didn’t want to dissect frogs, and finding physics absolutely useless — I am unable to explain in 50-cent words how trees take carbon from the air and transform it into oxygen.
The process has something to do with complex equations that make little sense to the majority of the population.
All I know is this: It’s a grand mystery of God’s creation, and it’s worked to keep us all alive for millennia.
In the interest of preserving a few trees, over the past 20 years, I’ve posted my fiction on a website I created, rather than publish the stories in paperback or hardback form. More recently, I published a few of my novels as ebooks, again to save trees.
Only my latest nonfiction is available as either ebook or paperback, because I think the message contained within the covers could benefit those who enjoy reading online or holding an actual book in their hands.
Carbon dioxide’s environmental damage
With the proliferation of data centers to house computers that generate and store artificial intelligence files, concerns about the carbon footprints of such complexes have hit the headlines and sparked protests in areas where plans for the buildings have been approved by elected officials.
Carbon tax is seen as a way to offset the impact of everything from motor vehicles and airline travel to these AI facilities. While I was in Ireland earlier this year, with fuel prices on the rise, protesters parked their industrial-sized tractors on the highways to block traffic, protesting the government-imposed carbon tax, which added to the expenses of operating their machinery and running their farms.
In essence, though, a carbon tax is useless. It’s impossible to throw money at a problem of this type and expect it to repair itself. Implementing such a tax makes the respective governments and businesses appear to be addressing the environmental damage, but it’s pretty much a futile effort, and costly to ordinary consumers.
God’s natural way of restoring the ecosystem
Which brings me back to trees, God’s natural filter for carbon dioxide.
In too many countries, including our own, deforestation has taken place over the course of centuries, without consideration for replanting those areas and restoring the ecosystem. Long before scientists began studying the effects of clearing entire mountainsides of trees, fish in the lakes below languished, birds migrated to more amenable habitats, and more.
Recent years have seen concerted efforts to reverse this damage, saplings being nurtured and planted by the hundreds of thousands.
Yet, municipalities continue to approve plans for housing and building developments that no one needs, while older structures sit vacant with “To Lease” or “For Sale” signs prominently displayed.
To make a rather bizarre comparison, based on my own experiences, this situation is rather like the future facing many Catholic religious communities around the globe. As current members age and pass on to their eternal reward, their numbers steadily dwindle, with few joining them to replenish their ranks.
It’s not a sustainable dynamic.
How to replenish the ecosystem
What is needed — urgently — is for the whole human family to shift their thinking from consuming our resources to preserving them. If AI is the future — heaven help us! — then we’ll need more and more trees to counter the carbon emissions generated by the plethora of data centers.
Or, if by some stroke of wisdom, AI is set aside in favor of human dignity, creativity and integrity, we will still need more trees to purify the air we — and the generations who come after us — breathe.
For every mature tree cut down, a hundred — or a thousand — should be planted to preserve the delicate balance of God’s creation. Every tree destroyed by wildfires or powerful weather systems should see millions of saplings replacing them.
We have been granted the supreme blessing of being made stewards of God’s creation and should step out boldly to protect this gift.
Which is why, as I continue to write and publish, I will be very careful about how my stories are made available, so no trees are wasted.
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