Plant Trees for the Climate Crisis: Guardian

The most cost-efficient way to tackle climate crisis – temperature spikes, rising seas, flooding and droughts – is planting more trees. A research team suggests that 1.2 trillion more trees could be added to about 10 percent of Earth’s land without disrupting agriculture. “New research estimates that a worldwide planting programme could remove two-thirds of all the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human activities, a figure the scientists describe as ‘mind-blowing,’” reports Damian Carrington for the Guardian. Tom Crowther of ETH Zurich in Switzerland led the research published by the journal Science, and he maintains restoration of tree canopies, neither high-tech nor costly, is the leading solution for easing climate change. Critics point out that growing effective tree canopies requires at least 50 years, every person in the world would have to plant more than 100 trees and carbon-storage estimates may be low. Crowther urges citizens who care about climate change to plant trees, protect the 3 trillion trees now standing and donate to forest restoration organizations. – YaleGlobal