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How do trees affect the weather? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, which makes this Stuff you
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Should Know podcast. I don't think I should love us
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: see finished please, um, because of that horrible house fire.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: It's good, but it's not quite poetry. What was it?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I don't think I shall ever see something so beautiful
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: as a tree? Is that right? A poem is beautiful
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: as a tree? Is it a poem? Okay? Yeah, which
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: is really something because what was that Longfellow or Whitman?
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  Speaker 1: Now I want to say, like Joyce Carol Oates, No, no, no, no,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: we should look this up. Okay, well, while you're looking
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: it up, that's really saying something because insert poet's name here.
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  Speaker 1: Um really was taking his own craft to task and
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: appreciated his or her own task. And it was still
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  Speaker 1: saying that a tree is lovelier than any poem, which
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  Speaker 1: is a real oded nature. So I said, Joyce Carol Oates,
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  Speaker 1: but I was in fact wrong. It was in fact
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  Speaker 1: Joyce Kilmer, who was a dude. I thought for sure
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  Speaker 1: it was like Longfellower. Huh boy, he is a it's
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  Speaker 1: a mama's boy if I've ever seen one right there,
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  Speaker 1: right poems about trees? What he expect? Well, that's a
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  Speaker 1: great line. Yeah. Uh so we botched that one all
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  Speaker 1: over the place. Yeah we did, but we're not going
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to start over. It's okay. This isn't a poetry slam.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: This is stuff you should know that. We would never
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  Speaker 1: slam poetry. Um. Instead, we would spend our time, as
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: is our want, promoting trees, talking about trees and how
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: great they are. And u uh Val Kilmer his great grandfather,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Joyce Joyce Kilmer. Uh, he kind of had it dead on,
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  Speaker 1: because trees are not only beautiful, there are um functional
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  Speaker 1: and as uh, either Longfellow or Whitman said, nothing can
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: ever truly be beautiful unless it's also functional. Oh yeah,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: they didn't really say that. Somebody said it. Uh. And
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: you know, we live in Atlanta, Georgia for those of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: you don't know, and we basically live in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of a forest. If you ever go up on the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: building here or any building in Atlanta and you think
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: you're in like downtown or midtown, you just take a
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: look out there and you realize, man, there are trees everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of trees, and people that are from
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: like the West or other places where they or not
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  Speaker 1: as foresty come to the Deep South. Sometimes they're like, wow,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: you know, so in the middle of the forest. It's
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a city in the forest. Yeah, and it's pretty nice.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: It's nice. Nice living up and down the East coast's
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  Speaker 1: kind of like that, right, um, And we actually live
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  Speaker 1: in a temperate, deciduous hardwood forest area. Nice, look at
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  Speaker 1: you from what I understand. Although there's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: pine trees too, there's those Georgia pines. Yeah, that's true.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I may be incorrect, coniferous. Well, here's the deal with forest. Um.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: The author of this I take slight issue of our
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: planet is is forest land? And she says it's mostly
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  Speaker 1: concentrated in ten countries the US, Canada, Russia, Sorry, Russian Federation, Brazil, China, Australia,
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  Speaker 1: Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Peru, and India. Great, but
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: no mention of like Europe, Uh, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway,
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  Speaker 1: like serious forest going on? There is there enough? I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I know there's the black forest in Germany. Yeah, like
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the boreal forest basically ten degrees above or below the equator,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have rainforest, and then between roughly like fifty
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and seventy ish degrees. Uh, you're gonna have boreal forest,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: which is like Europe and Canada and Russia, and you know,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: it's like a serious stents forest. And she didn't mention
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Europe at all. Those are the northern climes forests. Yeah,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: we're talking coniferous pine, spruce, birch, beautiful, beautiful trees. And Canada,
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  Speaker 1: of course America is at is lousy with trees. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of trees there. It's like Atlanta. One
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  Speaker 1: point five million square miles of forest land in Canada, right,
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  Speaker 1: so they got it going on up there. It's and
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  Speaker 1: that that sounds like a lot, and it is, but
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  Speaker 1: it's still it's alarming to consider that we lose about um,
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  Speaker 1: thirteen million hectears heck tear is I think one point
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  Speaker 1: five acres? Is it? I believe? Uh, well, I do
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  Speaker 1: know that only I'm sorry, I'm not getting one more
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  Speaker 1: thing wrong in this episode. You go ahead, and I
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  Speaker 1: do know that only one I'm sorry. Only roughly of
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  Speaker 1: the Earth's original forest land is still intact today. So
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  Speaker 1: over the years has been lost due too, things man
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  Speaker 1: made and things natural. And apparently we lose an amount
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  Speaker 1: of forests that's about the size of grease every year.
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  Speaker 1: So we need Canada. We need Canada's trees. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: you know there are things like forest fires, disease insects,
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  Speaker 1: competition between species, acid rain, things like that happen. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: that one is actually man made. And then there's things
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  Speaker 1: like logging and slash and burn practices, just when you
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: cut down trees and burn them to create a field.
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  Speaker 1: Uh so those are things that man is doing to
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  Speaker 1: make trees go by by man and nature are conspiring
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  Speaker 1: to rid us of trees, which we need. And the
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  Speaker 1: hectare by the way over two acres. Yeah, we'll look
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  Speaker 1: at that in choke corrections for the first time. All right, So, Chuck,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: everybody loves trees, not the least of whom would be
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  Speaker 1: Joyce Kilmer. But we like them too, We like having
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: them around, and they actually serve a little bit more
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: of a function than you would think. Yeah, apparently it's
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: not just oh they give us oxygen, which is what
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: everyone thinks, which is great. They actually can affect the climate,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and the climate is defined as a period of weather
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  Speaker 1: patterns in a localized area over about a thirty year
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: at least stretch. I think not many people realize that
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: everything else is just weather, yeah, you know, anything under that,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: although I imagine when you start getting into yeah, they'll
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: be like, okay, alright, that's climate. Fine, that is true,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: and our planet is warming. We're not going to get
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: into the whole rigamarole of global warming and all that entails,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: although we should do that in earnest one day. But
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  Speaker 1: the climate is warming here on the planet, and it
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: is heating up by about one to one and a
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: half degrees per years, or at least over the past century. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And I mean that's an important qualifier too, because it
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't supposedly until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, starting
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: around eighteen thirty that um after that we started to
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  Speaker 1: see temperatures rise thanks to global warming. So the fact
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: that it rose by one to one and a half
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  Speaker 1: degrees in a century, that's significant, even though it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: seem like much, not to us. You can breathe into
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: your hands and raise the the weather around your face,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: um by more than just one degree. Also be foggy, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and a little smelly, depending on you know,
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  Speaker 1: So how can trees affect our climate? Really three main ways? Right, yes? So, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: the first is to um lower temperatures, which is something
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: they do themselves. Uh. Next, they reduce energy usage, which
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  Speaker 1: is a new phenomenon for trees because we've only had
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: like air conditioning for fifties sixty seventy years. But it's
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a new gift that trees give us. And then, um,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: they actually remove air pollutants, which is pretty awesome. All right,
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  Speaker 1: So let's start with the first one. They lower temperatures.
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  Speaker 1: They act as a natural air conditioner for the world
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  Speaker 1: in a way through a process called evapo transporation, no
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: huge shock. That is a mix of uh, not a mix,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: but both things going on at the same time. Evaporation
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  Speaker 1: and transporation, both of which released moisture into the air
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  Speaker 1: one by way of drawing water from lakes. And we
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: talked about in our clouds episode. U's how we eventually
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: get clouds. And then transporation is when trees pull up
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  Speaker 1: water through the roots, work its way up through the tree,
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  Speaker 1: and then eventually leave from the leaves. Right, And we
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  Speaker 1: don't actually see like after like a heavy rain in
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the summer, you can see the evaporation going on. Yeah. Um,
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  Speaker 1: and probably what you're seeing off of the trees is
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: actually evaporation off of the leaves transparations of invisible but
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: over like the course of a year. Um, a large
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  Speaker 1: oak tree supposedly can transpire about forty gallons of water.
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  Speaker 1: That is crazy, that's a lot. Yeah. So they come,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: they bring up all the nutrients through the water, they
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  Speaker 1: take what they can pee it out their leaves into
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  Speaker 1: the atmosphere as vapor, not as urine right now. But
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  Speaker 1: since that's going on, especially when it's going on at
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the same time as evaporation, it produces water vapor and
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  Speaker 1: it can actually decrease the temperature. That's right. Uh. And
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: like you said it, you know, a big thing now
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  Speaker 1: and it's not now. Actually, that's the funny thing. A
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: lot of things that people do now to be green
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  Speaker 1: are things people did many years ago as just a
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: way of life. Homesteaders. Yeah, Like Emily's grandmother and actually
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  Speaker 1: my grandmother too, they were like, you know, they composted
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  Speaker 1: and did all that stuff because it was a way
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of life and they didn't have trash pick up homesteaders. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and now we're like, oh, yeah, I composts like, big deal,
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  Speaker 1: that's nothing new. I mean, it is a big deal.
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  Speaker 1: You should do stuff like that. But you know what
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, people like nowadays think they invented the green
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  Speaker 1: movement when it was our forefathers really and mothers. Yeah,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I guess just as long as you're not like burning trash,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: yeah you're doing good. So what led me on that
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: mini rant against our people of this age is that
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: passive heating and cooling is a big thing now, but
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  Speaker 1: it was a big thing way back when because before
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: they had air conditioners and things, they would, you know,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: plant trees where it made the most sense. Are not
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: plant trees, but plant houses between trees where it just
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: to grow where it made the most sense. So like
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: they say, I think a tree to the north of
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: your house, in the south of the house can cut
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: down on your energy expenses by how much. Well, a
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: heating costs two day percent and cooling costs by And
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: you want to plant one at least one tree to
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  Speaker 1: the west and one treat to the south. Deciduous trees, yes,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: that's the key. If you plant a big old magnolia tree,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be like want, want, want, because while it'll
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: cool your house in the summer by keeping some sunlight
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: off of conjecting shade. In the winter time, it will
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: still keep sunlight off of it. With a deciduous tree,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: they lose their leaves so the sun shines through the
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: branches to in the wintertime, So it cools your house
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: in the summer by producing shade, warms your house in
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the winter by lightning the sunlight through. Yeah. And I
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: love magnolia trees, but boy, you ever had one on
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: your property, it's a pain. Waxy leaves that don't disintegrate
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: ever or by degrade, they just are there. And then
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: those grenades, which were great as a kid when you
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: played war, but they're not so great when they're all
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: over your yard. Uh. And then pine trees, which I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: love to look at as well here in Georgia, they're
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: also a big pain. Yeah, they can be. Yeah, but
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: they well, yeah, they don't lose their leaves on an
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: annual cycle. They just lose them all the time. But
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: they're always they always have the needles, that's true. But
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: with the magnolia, though, you also get the lovely scented
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: flower and you can snip those off and put in
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: a little water bowl in your kitchen. It's like a
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: natural air freshener. So my neighbor has stead well, my
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: neighbor has a magnolia and one branch hangs over into
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: my yard, and so I will clip flowers, uh and
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: not really have to deal with much of the waxy leaves,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: which is kind of the best of both worlds living
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the life man so so passive heating and cooling if
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: a transporation. That is a great thing that trees do.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: And they can also help cut down on what's called
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the heat island effect, which is bad in cities. Yeah,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: we have that bad here. Um. So there's this thing
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: called the albedo effect right where if you are dark
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: colored wearing a dark shirt. You're wearing a black shirt
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: right now, that's right, you would be hotter in that
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: shirt than you would if you were wearing a white shirt. Why.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. White shirts reflect sunlight. Black shirts
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: absorb sunlight and trap heat. Same thing with asphalt, same
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: thing with dark roof tops. And when you put all
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: this stuff together, it actually absorbs all this heat traps it.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And so when you're in a city, it's frequently much
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: harder by several several degrees than it is out in
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: the suburbs where you have more trees and lawns and
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: stuff like that that aren't going to absorb the heat
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: quite as much. Yeah. And I lived in Yuma, Arizona,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: as you know, a lot of white cars in Uma, Yeah,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: not a lot of black cars. And they actually have
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I might have mentioned this before, they have like almost
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: carpet that they put on their dashboards and it's like
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: a thing. It's like fit to the car and it's
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: velcrowd on and it saves your dashboard. And they have
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: carpet on your dashboard. Yah, pretty much. And you go
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: to the video store at the time, this is you know,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: they had video stores back then in the you know,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: mid nineties, and they would have you know, melted video
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: cassettes on display because or like the ticketmaster tickets, like
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: don't leave them in your glove box or this will happen.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: They catch fire. It looks like they caught fire, but
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: they it was just heat exposure. Is that the average
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: ticketmaster employee Okay, yeah, yeah, don't just pay a million
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: dollars for fees. Uh. So that's the heat all in
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: effect in Atlanta, um five to eight degrees hotter and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Phoenix in nineteen fifty it was six degrees warmer than
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: the nearby cass Grande Monument. I don't know why that's
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that is, Oh, because in two thousand seven it was
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: fourteen degrees. Okay, I get it. Yeah, so it's getting
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: hotter in cities as urban sprawl and the black tops
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: of asphalt take over the world. Yeah, exactly. Phoenix isn't
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: exactly like a work, live, play, walkable community. It's pretty
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: dry v e right, or at least golf CARDI yeah, yeah,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Well the same with Atlanta. So you've got sprawl which
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: is going to increase the urban heat island effect. Phoenix
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: is big, big time sprawl. Yes, but trees help counteract us.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: They cut it down. They say, no more of this.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: We're going to provide you passive energy savings and if
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: appo transpiration. And while we're at it, you know all
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: this horrible air that you're breathing, we're gonna filter it
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: for you. We're gonna throw that in as a bonus
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: included in the low price. Uh. They will filter dust, ozone,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: carbon monoxide, other kinds of plutants, um and through photosynthesis
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: they actually remove CEO two, which is a greenhouse gas,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: as we all know, they remove it and release oxygen instead,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and they can actually even store it. Yeah, they they
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: sequester it in the forest soil. And apparently that soil
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: depending on where you are thinking a deciduous temperate forest. Uh,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: that's that carbon dioxide will be stored for anywhere from
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: ten thousand to a hundred thousand years. Yeah. I think
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: we talked about that. We talked about carbon sequestration before
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: or um, what was it desertification? Desertification maybe or earthworms. Yeah,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: we play in the dirt a lot. Yeah, the earthworm one,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: that was a good one. That was a good one. Um.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: So the trees are filtering out the air, but they
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: actually and this is a little known Ronald Reagan actually
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: once said trees pollute more than cars do any day
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: of the week, and he was not entirely wrong. Yeah.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I don't quite get this. The photochemical smog okay, so um,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: when it gets hot, trees have this volatile organic volatile
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: organic compounds, two of which are turpenes and isoprenes, okay,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and they give them off off of their leaves. It's
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: just like it's too hot, I gotta get rid of
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: my VOCs and is supremes in particular act as a catalyst.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: They speed up um the breakdown by sunlight of of
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: nitrous oxides into ozone, and ozone is a big contributor
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: to small. So basically, when when the trees are like
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: giving off these volatile organic compounds, they're accelerating the production
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: of small indirectly, you know. So when you mix sunlight
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: photo with these chemicals photochemical smog, it's from the breakdown
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of like um car exhaust into ozone, which scratches our
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: eyes and makes us a cheating it hard to breathe.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: So we should cut down all the treats pretty much.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: That's Ronald Reagan talk. No, of course not. And that
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: is that's like the one negative effect that we can find, right,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, other than that trees, well, that and falling
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: on somebody or your house or something. Other than that.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Trees are great, right. That happens a lot Inlanta with
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: the heavy rains. Well, it does because we went through
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a drought cycle where the roots all started to come
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: towards the surface, and then when you get a heavy rain,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the trees no longer planted like it was, and it
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: just tips over. Just the other day, another guy sitting
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: in his car. Man, they love talking about that on
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the news, it'll be like crime, crime crime. Oh, tree
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: fell over, let's go cover that instead. That's that's the
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Atlanta News because the boy there's a lot. I don't
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: you watch the local news? Uh? Sometimes? Really? Yeah, I'll
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: see I'll see it, you know, out of the corner
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: of my I haven't watched the local news since I
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: was probably in high school. It's good on like the treadmill,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: like when you can't hear anything. It's good for that.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: When they're in front of the varsity interviewing somebody about
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: something important, a tree following over, what do you think
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: about this? Yeah, okay, so we're talking about global warming? Um,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: can we actually plant trees and get more forest land?
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: He actually helped us out. That's how Pearl Jam used
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to do to offset the carbon usage or emissions for
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: their tours. Did you know that they planted trees? Yeah.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: They calculate like how much like their jets emitted, um,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: like increcent greenhouse gas the CEO two I think specifically,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: how much like the their fans cars emitted, like on
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the way to the venue, like through for a whole tour,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and then they calculated and then like they would buy
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: an equal amount of trees or however much you know,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: carbon a number of trees kid sequestion. That's how much
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: they got the offset their tour. And then al Gore
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: started doing it one I don't It was really close
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: to about the same time. Um, and everybody thought, this
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: is great, this is a great idea. Uh. But there's
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: a couple of problems with it. One, once you cut
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: down that tree, like that carbon is released in the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: atmosphere prematurely. And then secondly they there was a two
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: thousand study seven study that said it depends on where
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: you put the tree. If you put in the tropics,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: then it actually will cut down on global warming. Um,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: because in the tropics, trees not only cool the place
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the place by Evappo transporation, it's actually warm enough that
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: they produce clouds, which cool the rest of the earth.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: It's like a cloud factory down there on the equator. Yeah.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: We hit that in the rainforest podcast, right Okay. Um,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: in the middle climates where we live, it's pretty much
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: a wash. If you plan a tree there for a
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: carbon offset, it's not going to really have a net effect.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: If you go up to the borealis forests, which is
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: a term you taught me recently. Um, it actually can
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: contribute to the heating boreale for us, well, the Aurora boreal,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: which is what I understand now. Um, it can contribute
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to the heating of the planet because remember the albedo effect. Well,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: up there, it's cold enough so that that green canopy
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that's trapping sunlight and hence warmth, is actually going to
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: raise the temperature. So this cold climate, cold part of
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the Earth that you used to balance out the overall
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: global temperature, if you plant trees up there, it'll warm it.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Where was Pearl Jam planting trees? Do you know? I
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: don't know. Hey, we mentioned Ticketmaster too. They stuck it
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: to those guys. Yeah they did. Remember Eddie Vetter war
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: like that German World War two helmet and court really
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah he was not happy. Yeah. I saw a lot
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: of Pearl Jam shirts at that Sound Garden show last night. Yeah,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: it was people. Uh, you know, it was great. And
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: my buddy ended up getting hooked up with V I. P.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Seats because he knows the guy at the Tabernacle. So
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: we were literally like front row of the balcony. You're
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: right in the center. Um, but the setless man, they
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: gotta work on that. Oh really, Yeah, it's one of
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: those deals where I know, I don't I don't want
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: to complete nostalgia tour, But when you're coming back after
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: that long, no one wants to hear seven songs from
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: your new album. Oh yeah, you know what I'm saying. Well,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're trying to kick start your career again. Yeah, yeah,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I mean there was a decided energy change in the
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: room when they were doing like a bad motor Finger
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and screaming Life and Louder than Love, and then they
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: were doing whatever that new album is called, which I
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: don't care for, here Comes the Sunshine. Like everyone was
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: just kind of like, okay, another one of these, except
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: for like, you know, the drunk eighteen year old near me. Yeah,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: this is the only song I've heard finally one I recognize.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: But yeah, good, he sounded great, man, he's amazing. Well,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I'm just glad that Pearl Jam fans and Sound Garden
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: fans are apparently getting along now. Sure it was rough
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: there for a while. Yeah, and then you factoring Alison Chains,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: it got really ugly. Go look it up kids music
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: of the nineties. You got anything else about stupid trees? No? Oh,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: I do. I have another thing? So you remember the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: two thousand seven study. I was just talking about where
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I misused borealice a two thousand thirteen study this year. Yeah,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I said, you know what nuts to that nuts to
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. We have a computer model that says
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: that if we doubled the amount of forests, including boreal forests, um,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and especially I think boreal forest as soon as possible,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: we would lower the global temperature by a full one
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: degree fahrenheight. So we would all set that twentieth century increase.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Possibly yeah for the last hundred years. That's crazy. Yeah,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: and um, we would increase summer rains by ten to
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: fifteen percent all by wow. Yeah, well at the earliest.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: But still so is there a plan in place or
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: was that just like we should do this? Somebody's like,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: what can I do with a computer model today? Yeah?
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: All right, we'll good for them. Yeah, plan a tree.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there is a program in your community. We
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: can go out and uh sponsor a treat to be planted. Yeah,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: but God help you if you plant one in the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: northern clients because you're you're part of the problem. All right,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: you got anything else? No, If you want to learn
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: more about trees and weather, type those two words into
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the search part how stuff works dot com And I said,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the search parts means it's time for a message break,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: all right, listen to mail time. Great. I'm gonna call
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: this one hatty totty from the land of Cotton and
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: falk now because that was the subject line. And I
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: was like, you know what, No, I'm still good. I'm
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: gonna ease it. Uh. And I just kind of like
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the cut of this guy's jib. That's why I'm reading it. Um, guys,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the name is David Holbrook and I'm from a little
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: town of Waynesboro, Mississippi. I'm currently a senior in my
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: final semester at the University of Mississippi for my BEA
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and political science. Go ReBs. Should we say that sec team? Um.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I also work part time in the parts department of
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the local GMC dealership here in Oxford, and I'm a
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: bouncer on the weekends at one of the bars on
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the famous Oxford Square. Boy, have you ever been there? Oxford?
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: A lot of fun? Yeah, great, college down. I'm a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: huge fan and just found never found the gut to
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: write you guys until today. Um. I really enjoyed after
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: my third minute little yeah, I've put Panda paper. Um.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed throwing around the knowledge I learned from
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: y'all in the workplace, although I sometimes think my co
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: workers get a little jealous and my girlfriend as well. Yeah,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: I have to say one of my favorite things about
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the show, I will admit this is really random, is
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: when Chuck whispers things at the end of sentences, which
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: he does a lot. I have no idea that was
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: a pretty poor example, but yeah, I agree. Um. I
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: always laughed so hard because sometimes it seems as though
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Chuck does really not mean for us to hear those bits,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: but he forgets he's in front of a mic. That
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: might be true. Um. I also really relate to you
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: all in the way this guy's a fraud. What did
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: he say? You all? Now I did? It's y'all, okay,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: all right? He checks out. Really relate to y'all in
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the way that it seems we have held many jobs
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: in our past that makes us well rounded people. Well,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm rambling on with this nonsense will
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: continue with the fan mails and maybe with some filled
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: with more interesting and beneficial substance. Thank you from the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: land of Cotton and William Faulton to David Holbrook Jr.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Random fact about me ps. I grew up on a
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: chicken farm. We have eight chicken houses with anyway of
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: from two d fifty to three hundred and fifty tho
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: chickens at one time in eight houses. That's what he said.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Those are big chicken. Yellow chicken outs are huge. Well
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: that's great. What's you think, David Holbrook Jr. Thank you.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Sure one day we will get a David Holbrook the third. Yeah,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: we keep doing this long enough. Yeah, David Holbrook Jr.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much for writing in check. Did you
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: practice reagionail? No? And I kind of went back and
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: forth with the accent like Kevin Costker and Robin Hood right,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: or Dances with Wolves or water World. Uh, but I'm
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: impressed and I think like you hit all the emphasis
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: just perfectly. I'm from the South ballcorn like horn is
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: in my blood. Yeah, I'm more like that little chicken
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: with the glasses. I'm a chicken hawk and you're a chicken. No. No,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the little one who never talked, who just read all
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the little jerk. Yea uh.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: If you are I don't know, stereotypically regional, we want
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: to hear from you. Agreed. Um. You can send us
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: a tweet to s y s K podcast. You can
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: You can email us we understand. You can send it
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: to stuff podcasts that discovery dot com and check out
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: our website. Guys, it's stuff you should Know dot com. Yeah.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: how staff works dot com. This podcast is brought to
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: you by b a s f V chemical company.