US States Losing Millions of Trees

US states are losing 36 million trees due to major deforestation efforts from developers. The United States is facing a major tree loss problem every year. 36 million trees are lost annually because of urban and rural community developments.

It may not seem like a big problem when one community development is being put up and 500 trees are taken down. When it is on a bigger scale and looked at across the whole country and 60,000 developments are being built each year this has a major impact on the U.S. tree loss. Many citizens and community developers don’t realize how much they are impacting the tree loss problem across the country because a few trees here and there seems like nothing to one person according to A senior US Forest Service Scientist.

Little do these developers and citizens know that they’re causing many more problems to the environment. Trees help fight against bad air pollution, They use their bark to collect pollutants into the tree itself and then make clean air. If too many trees are taken down in certain areas, temperatures could rise to more than 10 degrees because trees provide shade and cooler ground temperatures and the loss of trees will also cause more pollutants to be in the air and will increase global warming. Professionals say if we continue on this path “cities will become warmer, more polluted and generally more unhealthy for inhabitants,” said David Nowak, a senior US Forest Service scientist in a CNN interview.

Not only does this deforestation problem affect humans, but animals too. Every time one tree is cut down that could dislocate up to six animals from their home. This causes stress to the animals and also decreases the population. Wildlife loss can greatly impact the ecosystem and causes even more problems for us humans and the planet, experts from CNN state.

If developers keep taking down this many trees we will be facing a major deforestation problem in the future. We already lose many trees each year due to wildfires. More has to be done to control the amount of trees taken each year from officials.