The Impact of Tropical Deforestation on Climate Change

Climate change has been a growing issue in the past few decades, and tropical deforestation rates has increased as well. It is well-established that tropical deforestation is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. This paper aims to investigate the relation between tropical deforestation and climate change, how tropical deforestation affects the surrounding environment, what have world leaders done to counteract it, and how informed people are on it. To check if people are educated on this topic, 38 young participants of different backgrounds and cultures volunteered to fill out a survey that tests their knowledge on climate change and deforestation. Responses were analyzed in Google Spreadsheets. The results show that a majority of them believe that climate change is a serious issue; however, less than half of them believed that tropical deforestation contributed to climate change. These results suggest that people are generally informed about climate change and its severity but are not aware that tropical deforestation is one of the major contributors.