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  • Category: Miscellaneous
    Points:5

    Can trees make a difference to Chennai's temperature?

    I am now in Chennai, a city with a one crore plus population. A buzzing IT center.

    And now trees. There are quite a few locations like Velachery, Avadi and so on, where one can feel the difference. The trees were planted some twenty years ago. Today, they offer good shade to all. And when I travel in my car, it is quite pleasant. City temperatures do not cross 39 degree centigrade. A few of my friends have commented that the trees do make a difference.

    Is it for real? What will happen if we have at least fifty lakhs more trees? Someone has to bell the cat. Some voluntary agencies and good Samaritans have transformed a few localities in the bust Chromepet area, where the tree cover is so good, that the sun hardly falls on the ground.

    Members, who knows the scientific explanation behind having thousands of trees in such a large metro, please comment. The State Government has recently expanded the city to a 5000 odd square kilometers and it is expected to grow further.

    With so much of action on the ground, how can trees make a difference?


    {Edited}
  • #779156

    Points:5
    Trees require carbon dioxide for their survival. They take carbon dioxide and release oxygen. We the humans require oxygen and we release carbon dioxide. So to get sufficient oxygen and to scrub the carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere we require trees. Imagine a situation where there are no trees and we all have to purchase oxygen cylinders to live on, how many of us can afford and survive?
    Another point is that green trees absorb sunlight to get chlorophyll ready for their survival and that will make the atmosphere cool. So planting trees is definitely helpful in bringing down the temperature. If there are no trees all these lands will become deserts oneday.
    In addition to the plantation, we have to take many other steps to bring down the temperatures. Minimising the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and not using halons for freezing and cooling, not smoking etc are some steps that can protect the environment. Using public transportation in place of private vehicles and using electric vehicle etc may help in this matter.
    drrao
    always confident

  • #779160

    Points:5
    Planting trees can help in regulating the temperature to some extent but not much appreciable. The reason is that the climate of a place depends on many factors and tree density is one of them. So improving only one factor will bring how much relief it is anybody's guess.
    The solution lies in large scale plantation across the globe in all the big cities as well as open spaces around. This requires a greater awareness and just having a good number of trees in one place is not going to make relief because the heat from surrounding areas will quickly move to these places and make them hot.
    Only thing is that people will be comfortable under the shades of tree as that protects from the direct Sunlight. It would apprently look better but will not be instrumental in lowering the climate temperature of that place drastically. So, at the most we can expect a drop of say 0.5-1.5 degree which is sufficient for a better feeling.
    What I have mentioned above is only based on my little scientific knowledge in the subject.
    A B Sivakumar, if you have time, you can go through some good content in the matter and share your learnings if you find something better about this topic.
    Knowledge is power.

  • #779166

    Points:4
    Sir, I shall do so when I find some time. I do have friends who are environmental specialists and this time of the year, everyone is abroad to escape the heat. Once they are back, perhaps they might be sharing some good information. As such, am a bit surprised that many localities now have good tree cover. It is a huge metropolis and it is not so easy to go by car from one end of the city to another. Of course, the monthly passes of Rs1000 permit one to travel by any non-AC bus but one cannot travel by the AC buses. So, the car is the only means of transport. Anyway, at 2PM, wherever there are trees, it is quite okay.

  • #779197

    Points:4
    This is an interesting topic. Trees are the gift of nature to us and help immensely in regulating the climate. In many countries there is a thrust on plantation and in many parts of the world good achievements have been obtained in that account. In our country also plantation is given priority by Govt and jungle cutting is prohibited. Green belts are being maintained at various places.
    It is difficult to say in numerical terms as how much temperature the plantation at a particular place will be able to provide but the fact is that it would certainly make the place habitable because of the shade and protection from Sun that it provides during summer.
    Thoughts exchanged is knowledge gained.

  • #779204

      

    Points:6
    ABSivakumar,

    I think the answer is there in two threads that you posted recently. They are:

    1. What about return to nature for a good sleep of course without wasting 20 buckets of water.
    2. What will happen when more industrialization happens There you mentioned the increase of pollution and global warming by destroying nature. I hope you referred to cutting down trees when you described spoiling of environment.
    Sankalan

    "Life is easier when you enjoy what you do"

  • #779235

    Points:3
    Am afraid the thrust of the other two threads were somewhat different, though, as such these also include aspects of environmental protection, directly or indirectly

    I will again the industrialization aspect. As is now well recorded in many YouTube videos with direct reference to the atrocities made by the Adani clan in destroying rich forests for their industries, in the State of Jharkhand, the problem is not cutting of trees alone. It is destruction of mother nature, howsoever major or minor that may be.

    So, what is the solution? The solution is just to totally ban all "development",in forest areas and just provide the basics in terms of roads, hospitals, schools and colleges in an area of twenty kilometres radius from the forest area.

    We need balanced development. To highlight one allied point-- have we had lawyers, engineers, scientists or technocrats from among the tribals? In the case of Jharkhand, I do not know.

    But in the case of the powerful Toda tribal community, based as they are in the forests in the Ooty area, there are professionals in each of the streams mentioned above and many are employed as college teachers in Coimbatore City, which is just two hours from Ooty.

    There are so many aspects to industrialization and development. Only balanced development can lead to inclusive growth. For example, some 190 kilometers on the way to Tiruchirapalli from Chennai, is a sleepy town called Villupuram, that is very good in agriculture, but just that. But since the trainable engineers are too many, the State Government has set up a mini Tidel Park, an IT park. There are fresh employment opportunities here. Similar parks are coming up in the non-industrialized towns as well.

  • #779243

      

    Points:3
    Definitely it makes a difference. It is as simple as that - a barren land vs. a land planted with plants. The temperature differs and the beauty of the location matters. In other terms, just a home with garden and internal arrangement with plant pots would be more lively than a flat in an apartment.

    I am not under-weighing your point But you are getting confused and confusing the readers by mixing with so many points which confine to your home state.
    Regards,
    Jagdish

  • #779245

      

    Points:4
    Sivakumar at #779235, you, as the author of the thread, should have stuck to the topic you raised instead of going totally haywire and irrelevant. Aren't we discussing the impact of planting trees on the environment?

    Note- Sankalan had drawn your attention to similar threads you posted earlier because the basic theme is the same. Let us not raise two threads where in one we say that the cow gives milk and in the other, we say that the milk given by the cow is beneficial to health. The reason is that we can logically discuss both topics in the same thread. Hope you got my point.
    'Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all'.
    -Aristotle

  • #779249

    Points:5
    When we studied social studies subject (or history) in school classes we used to see that one of the welfare actions of most of the good Kings and Emperors was to plant trees along roads and dig wells and ponds. Recently I read a social media post about a Tamil Nadu youth who transformed many arid villages into cultivable land with copious water availability. The main method he adopted was to clean old and dried ponds and then plant trees around the boundary and in the nearby areas. gradually those places got back their life and rain water permeated into depths and rains improved as more trees brought greenery and coolness to the area.

    Our Puranas and India Vedic texts always highlight the value of tree planting. One of them equates one tree to ten sons. But even one tree is also said to be equivalent to one thousand wells, by grading it from well to pond to son increasing in multiples of ten.

    So it is quite obvious that Chennai also will be transformed with tree planting and managing properly.

    Every temple has ts Sthalavriksha-which is another way of protecting and keeping trees. In Kerala you can see Banyan tree in almost all temples. "Arasa pradakshinam' or circumambulating Banyan tree is a ritual for temple goers, but the science also justifies it because a Banyan tree supplies huge amounts of oxygen.

    Banyan, Peepul, Neem and Bel trees are those which release more amount of oxygen. That is why these trees are given a religious tint, planted and grown around temples; and people are incentivized to plant and protect them. They have medicinal properties too.

  • #779304

    Points:7
    I recently read an article released by the NASA Earth Observatory about global warming/climate change. I learned from this that trees alone do not make any difference in temperatures in Chennai, but it is a worldwide phenomenon. It is a kind of phytoplankton productivity, an ocean biological microorganism, that plays a crucial role in influencing the biodiversity of land and oceans causing global warming. This microorganism acts as a biological carbon pump, taking in more carbon from the atmosphere to the deep oceans every year than the trees. If a change in the phytoplankton growth even though it is the least, would affect the carbon dioxide concentration raising the surface temperature globally, in other words, global warming. Hence it is important to protect marine biodiversity and the terrestrial ecosystem as well.

  • #779338

    Points:3
    Today in one of the Telugu newspapers I read that the ratio of persons and trees in India is 1:28. That means for every person there are 28 trees. But in China, it is 1: 119 and in the USA it is 1: 716. In Canada, it is 1: 8000. The lack of trees is the main reason for high temperatures and disturbances in seasons. So I say that trees will contribute a lot to maintaining temperatures.
    drrao
    always confident

  • #779446

    Points:4
    Not only in Chennai but in any place the effect of planting trees is more. Previously in Bangalore there was many avenues and the climate was told specifically. But now in the same Bangalore many trees have been removed and the climate also like other cities by loosing its charm.
    Fortunately we have a big neem tree in front of our house in Chennai. In Evenings when we sit under the shadow with a chair, the pleasure is unexplainable. At that times we used to talk if we have similar trees in our area and city the entire city would have pleasant.


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