How Hurricane Katrina worsened global warming

We are all familiar with the images of death and destruction that were brought to all of our television screens in the late summer of 2005. We all have a vivid idea of the unspeakable pain that the victims of that disaster lived through and the after effects that they continue to struggle with as they attempt to repair their lives. As far as hurricanes go Katrina was an unprecedented disaster as far as scope and size. The winds from the hurricane were well over 150 mph which is more than enough to blow the roof off a house. The strength of Katrina was enough to breach the levees of New Orleans and add an additional layer of death and destruction with the massive flooding that occured. The poulation of the city before katrina stood at over 400,000. Today estimates are that the population there is at about a little over 200,000. It will likely take a generation for the city to recover.
One of the lesser known effects of katrina was in the negative way it impacted global warming. In addition to the thousands of people who were either killed, injured and or left homeless it is estimated that the hurricane was responsible for destroying somewhere around 320 million trees in and around New Orleans and the surrounding areas. The way this badly effects global warming has to do with the way trees work. Trees of course are living things and living things need to breathe. When human beings breathe they take in oxygen and then expell a by product into the atmosphere called carbon dioxide. When trees breathe the opposite is true. They take in carbon dioxide and expell oxygen. Now if you get enough trees doing this it can actually have a very positive effect on the atmosphere in terms of reducing the amount of carbon in the air and thereby reducing the effects of global warming. Trees replace carbon dioxide with oxygen which is good for both the planet and the humans who live on it. The trees that were lost are going to over time be repalced as new ones are planted. It will however take time for the new trees to grow to the same size as the ones that were lost. The negative effects of katrina will linger on for years in more ways than most people initially suspected.