 Do you care about your health? What about food? Electricity? Then guess what? You also care about tropical forests. Tropical forests provide all of these things and more. Let me show you how. Forests are a natural air conditioner and sprinkler system. They turn rainfall into cool, wet air that helps farmers downwind grow more food. Forests are a natural water treatment plant. They clean rivers that people downstream use for drinking and cooking. So people live longer, healthier lives. And cleaner water means cleaner reservoirs behind hydroelectric dams. So the dams last longer and produce more electricity. Forests keep the lights on. But deforestation changes everything, putting lives and health at risk. Burning down forests pollutes the air with heavy metals and carcinogens, causing respiratory ailments responsible for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths every year. Without forests to hold hillsides in place, heavy rains trigger landslides that bury houses and roads below. And when coastlines are stripped of their protective mangrove forests, coastal towns are left exposed to the full force of swarms and tsunamis, with devastating consequences for lives and property. Worst of all, deforestation is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Burning down one square mile of tropical rainforest releases as much carbon pollution as driving a typical American car to the sun and back twice. We have to make forests worth more alive than dead by paying people for the services their forests provide. The best way to do this is to put a price on carbon pollution and embrace results-based payments for reducing deforestation, monitored by satellite. Tropical countries that reduce deforestation would receive payments, those that don't, don't. Tropical forests would get new finance for green development by keeping their forests standing. Industrialized countries could fight climate change more cheaply and quickly. And thanks to tropical forests, we'll all live longer, brighter, healthier lives.