GFAwesome - Cleaning the Air: How do Different Trees Recycle Carbon Dioxide?

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	Did you know that every day there are about 72 million newspapers sold in Canada and the United States? It takes about 100,000 trees to supply these daily newspapers. Let's hope most of those papers are recycled so that we don't have to waste trees and fill up our landfill sites with more garbage.

Cleaning the Air: How do Different Trees Recycle Carbon Dioxide?

Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide
Human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline in cars or coal in power stations, have led to an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Trees play an essential role in using up carbon dioxide. However, the extent to which both young and old trees recycle this gas has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Professor Robert Teskey at the Warnell School of Forest Resources, University of Georgia, USA, believes that as trees grow larger, their ability to recycle carbon increases. Professor Teskey's laboratory is measuring the amounts of carbon dioxide recycled by trees of different sizes by using small electrodes to directly measure the level of CO2 (carbon dioxide) found in tree sap. Preliminary results from this research are providing cutting-edge information on the global importance of trees and their role in recycling carbon dioxide. back to the list of projects