Sunlight to Oxygen

Day after day, year after year trees turn sunlight into oxygen.

"Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky."
― Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam

Growth and Storage

Growing trees sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. Carbohydrates are formed from the carbon dioxide that a tree stores as wood fiber.

It is wood fiber that provides the structure that enables a tree to grow outward and upward toward the sunlight. The carbon in the carbohydrates is converted into water and oxygen.

One tree can store over 70kg of carbon over its lifetime.

Oxygen Factory

Trees release water and oxygen back into the atmosphere as a by-product of photosynthesis. A tree is a carbon dioxide scrubbing oxygen factory. Over the course of its life a tree continuously:

1. Consumes atmospheric carbon dioxide as input;
2. Makes use of the sequestered carbon for the fiber it needs for structural growth; and
3. Produces clean water and fresh oxygen.

"One acre of trees annually consumes the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to that produced by driving an average car for 26,000 miles. That same acre of trees also produces enough oxygen for 18 people to breathe for a year."
― New York Times

The Red Tree by Piet Mondrian (1872–1944)

"I keep drawing the trees, the rocks, the river, I'm still learning how to see them; I'm still discovering how to render their forms. I will spend a lifetime doing that. Maybe someday I'll get it right."
― Alan Lee, Book Illustrator


REFERENCES

• Carbon Sequestration, Wikipedia.
• How Much Oxygen Does One Tree Produce? About Education.
• Photosynthesis, Wikipedia.

The Biosphere - A Finite Life Raft

Biosphere was coined and defined by 19th century geologist Eduard Suess as:

"The place on Earth's surface where life dwells."

The biosphere interacts with the elements of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere.

Trees, plants, and grasses are rooted in the pedosphere which is the topmost layer of the lithosphere comprised of soil, water, air, and living organisms.

The silhouette of a tree against the sky is a fitting metaphor for the biosphere as an interdependent and inter-connected system. Our biosphere is a delicate balance of inter-connected dependencies.

Bare Oak Tree

"Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness."
― Kahlil Gibran

The biosphere is a finite life raft.

An anthropocentric view is that conservation and ecological concerns are meant to serve human needs. A holistic, deep ecology view recognizes the inherent value of all living organisms regardless of their human utility.

REFERENCES

• Deep Ecology, Wikipedia.

Sea Foam

Sea foam, Asbury Park, NJ

Sea foam occurs when seawater containing high concentrations of dissolved organic matter is agitated by wind and wave action.

Offshore decomposition of phytoplankton blooms dissolves large amounts of organic matter in seawater. Dissolved organic matter acts as a foaming agent or surfactant.

Breaking waves in the near-shore surf zone trap air. The presence of foaming agents generates persistent bubbles that stick to each other by surface tension.

Sea foam can be blown inland by strong on-shore winds.

I am forever walking upon these shores,
Betwixt the sand and the foam,
The high tide will erase my foot prints,
And the wind will blow away the foam,
But the sea and the shore will remain forever.
— Kahlil Gibran (Sand and Foam)