Stop Destroying Our Only Home

Image via WikipediaBy Shawn Barker

Every minute around one hundred acres of natural rainforest are lost forever to logging. However the sad fact of the matter is that we do need this lumber to go about our everyday lives. Paper, housing, and furniture are just a few things that depend on a continuous supply of lumber. But what if there was a solution?

The days of cutting down thousands upon thousands of trees that are older than we could even phantom, fade into the past. We could then turn our focus our attention towards bamboo. Bamboo is a very fast growing grass. Some types of bamboo can grow up to eighteen inches per twenty-four hours. Some types can reach their maturity in as little as one to three years. Compared to your average tree, that's pretty amazing. It is so very versatile that it could be used on abundance of products, items including but not limited to flooring, house framing, furniture, and even clothing. There is no reason we should not already be using this amazing resource, but here are a few more reasons we should.

According to National Geographic the world's rainforests could completely disappear within the next one hundred years. So this means all of the carbon dioxide we have pumped into the air will have nowhere to go. So it will have no choice but to just sit in our atmosphere and trap unsaid amounts of heat here on earth.

The rainforests are not the only type of forests being harvested, regular forests here America is also being destroyed on average of 1% per year. There is much dispute over how much of the rainforest of the Amazon is being cut down. Some estimate as much as 372,822 square miles yearly and some claim around 173,983 square miles yearly.

These forests are not only a bunch of trees grouped together doing nothing but soaking up carbon dioxide. They are also home to millions species, most of which are not even discovered or documented yet. This does not only include animal species, this includes plant and insects to. Many people do not know of the healing powers that the forests hold. Many medicines in use today originated from the rainforests, and as many as there are we have only tested less than 1% of the plants and trees of the rainforest for medical purposes.

There is so much potential out there in the forests, and we're carelessly destroying it. One example is the periwinkle plant, it's been used to help fight cancer since the 1960s. This plant and others just like are being wiped away forever, taking with them hope for a cure to cancer, AIDS, and other devastating diseases.

A more than simple "quick fix" to all of this is to start planted mass amounts of bamboo forests and harvesting bamboo. Not only is it very versatile it also stores four times more carbon than a tree of the same height and produces thirty percent more oxygen. This mighty grass has so much potential, if it were fully put to use many problems plaguing the world could be solved, if not fully at least mostly. Structures built with bamboo are resistant to hurricanes, earthquakes, termites, and have comparable strength to mild steel and concrete.

Bamboo is an extremely fast growing grass; some types of bamboo can grow four feet a day, that's two inches an hour. Bamboo may have a long way to go before it starts getting used for housing and other live in structures, but before that time comes it can sure do a lot of good. Bamboo can replace trees in the paper making process.

Americans use 85,000,000 tons of paper a year; that's about 680 pounds per person. Just the paper we throw away each year amounts to one billion trees that could be saved. Once a forest is cut down its said they are supposed to replace the trees with little baby trees, that's fine but in order for those trees to be of any use we'll have to wait fifty to one hundred years. If we start replacing the already cut trees with bamboo forest we could cut that time down to three years. Every year bamboo reproduces on its own. There's no need for replanting, and when it is harvested correctly it does not kill the plant it will continue to grow.

Clothing is another nice feature of bamboo, it can be mixed with organic cotton and make for a very soft shirt and leave no footprint. Imagine a factory run off renewable energy producing organic cotton/ bamboo shirts; this can be a total reality if we step up to the plate. Baskets, bicycle frames, bird cages, blinds, boats, bridges, brushes, buckets, canoes, carts, charcoal, chopsticks, cooking utensils, diapers, fans, fences, firewood, fishing rods, food steamer, garden tools, handicrafts, hats, incense, musical instruments, particle board, pens, pipes, ply,roofing, scaffold, tableware, toilets, toothpicks, toys, umbrellas, walking sticks are just a few of the everyday items that have been made from bamboo.

Bringing this world into a bamboo based future is not necessarily a difficult task, but it is a lengthy one. This will take some major convincing of the big name companies in order for them to switch the production methods. The pay-off however will be well worth it, once things take off companies will have a lower bottom line.

Since bamboo farms can be started and grown in most any soil, a company can cut out its transportation cost just by planting the farm on its property. They will no longer have to bid for land to harvest because once they own the plot of land the bamboo is on it will continue to produce for them, it's kind of like one upfront cost. This will take the voice of people, we will have to stand together and demand our world not be destroyed. Little by little we're gaining ground but the fight is far from over, but we will come out on top and we will see a brighter, cleaner tomorrow.

Shawn
http://www.acleanpeace.com

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