One way that you can help mitigate the effects of climate ch

One way that you can help mitigate the effects of climate change is to plant a tree. Explain why this has an impact on global warning. Be sure to cite the specific metabolic pathways involved.

Solution

To understand climate change, we need to first understand the basics of the greenhouse effect. Simply put, industrialization and man-made activities are responsible for the generation of huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Now, these carbon dioxide molecules have the ability to trap incident radiation ( especially in the Infra-Red range). Under normal conditions, some of the inciden radiation is reflected back into space. However, with the presence of carbon dioxide, the reflected rays of energy remain trapped in the atmosphere. Due to this, the relative temperature of the earth keeps increasing. Since this phenomenon is similar to that of a greenhouse, the effect is aptly named the greenhouse effect. An increase in temperature has profound implications on climate, including rainfall, tides and winds.

Now, plants have the unique ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They can fix the carbon dixode into sugar ( in the form of glucose) with the help of sunlight. The process is called as photosynthesis. The chloroplast molecules in the leaves are responsible for photosynthesis. The incident photons are captured by the quantasomes. The energy is then used to fix carbon dioxide. In this process, water molecules are split up for the generation of electrons. The oxygen from the split water molecule is released back to the atmosphere. The production of glucose takes place in specialised compartments of the chloroplast called as the grana and stroma.