Deforestation Good Or Bad Essay

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Deforestation: Good or Bad?
By Tristan McDermott
(Final Copy) Deforestation is a controversial environmental issue, with some people believing that it is necessary to cut down trees to make room for things such as buildings and roads, while others believe that it is bad because it is destroying the environment. I believe that deforestation, while it does have a few positive effects, mainly has negative effects that massively outweigh the positive effects. According to an article written by National Geographic, (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation/) deforestation is a major contributor to global warming: “Trees also play a critical role in absorbing the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. …show more content…

According to the World Wildlife Fund, (https://www.worldwildlife.org/habitats/forest-habitat) 80% of the world’s biodiversity is found in rainforests. Not just animals and plants are affected, though; bacteria are also affected. According to Klaus Nüsslein, a scientist from UM Amherst: (quoted in this article: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112753888/amazon-deforestation-microbial-communities-122512/) “We found that after rainforest conversion to agricultural pastures, bacterial communities were significantly different from those of forest soils. Not only did the pasture soils show increased species numbers, these species were also less related to one another than in rainforest soil.” This is important because these new species of bacteria could be very harmful to the plants that they are surrounded by, and potentially cause crops to die. These effects of deforestation are obviously very bad, but there is one major positive effect of cutting down trees: it will help the economy. In developing countries, cutting down trees and selling their lumber could potentially become a major source of revenue for the government.
In addition, they will also have more space to build things such as farms, which will boost the economy by giving more people

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