Forests

Pollution and our Forests

In terms of pollution, the biggest threat to trees comes from acid rain. Acid rain is created when toxic sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and Nitrogen (NO) released into the air, mix moisture, form clouds, and fall back to the Earth as acid. An area of 16,000 acres of forest in factories and coal-burning electrical power plants are the biggest producers of these poisons.

Only 3% of all the water on the planet, in freshwater rivers, lakes and groundwater, can be used by us, the rest is saltwater or frozen. We use this water for irrigating crops, drinking, cooking, washing, and it acts as our sanitation system. This water is being increasingly polluted by acid rain, city sewage, industrial waste and toxins, fertilizers, chemicals, radioactive substances, land sediment and oil.

Polluted water spreads illness to people and animals; it's in the fish we eat and it kills the trees that drink it.

We can decrease acid rain by driving less (right now there is one car for every man, woman and child in Japan!) and by reducing our electricity consumption.