Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Earth
[Below is the original script. Some changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast.]
Earth Day gets more press but the real environmental holiday this week is National Arbor Day, today! April 24th.
Trees do a lot for us: provide wood, improve health, even clean up the air.
And maybe get us out of a little problem we've created called climate change.
That's because carbon dioxide—the main greenhouse gas driving climate change—is plant food. The leaves of trees suck in sunlight and then chemically convert CO2 to carbohydrates. This process called photosynthesis sustains almost all life on Earth.
So the answer to climate change is simple, right? Just plant more trees.
Well…it’s not that easy. Trees have a habit of dying and decomposing, which puts a lot of that CO2 back into the atmosphere. And since our goal is to pull CO2 from the atmosphere permanently, trees are not the best solution.
But we have a lot to do with that too. Humans cut down a lot of trees, making deforestation the second biggest source of the 30 billion metric tons of CO2 put into the atmosphere yearly by us. Planting trees might not solve global warming, but cutting back on cutting down trees would be a big help.
—David Biello
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13 Comments
Add CommentIf the woods would be too much, Nature will destroy them without asking humans! Let the Nature decide what's the best for her!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the woods would be too many, Nature will destroy them without asking humans. Let the Nature decide what's the best for her and would be the at least the life for us!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe can plant trees to the extent of our hearts' desire. I planted many trees as a volunteer helper to a Job Corps effort near Anaconda, Montana, in 1964. I revisited this area recently and the trees are quite tall. This area had been harvested in 1870, 1920 or so, and again in 1960, so there were a great many stumps from three rounds of tree-felling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not sure if the trees I planted will ever be used, or will die of the pine beetle or forest fire.
Please plant lots more trees and in all areas deserts,arid areas ,on poor agricultural land ,grazing ,land,in housing estates ,industrial sites , in fact any where ,but just get on with it on a massive scale ,as probably worldwide only 1 in 10 will survive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt not only lock s CO2 it also cools the planet by transpiration ,and also cleans the air from toxins which are pumped into it.
See www.eprida.com for a simple solution to this problem...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe live in NC where the trees are being killed by bark beetles, so we will be timbering out the dying pines and replacing each one cut or dead with giant sequoias and a variety of native hardwoods that produce food for us and wild life. Giant Sequoias absorb enormous amounts of co2 and live for up to 3500 years, are fire, disease and insect resistant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen a tree is converted to biochar 50% of the carbon in the tree can now be buried in the ground for at least 2,500 years. The biochar is also a soil improver. All we need is a near-zero CO2 plan and then take all man-made CO2 out of the atmosphere with massive biochar production and we have the problem solved. Trees are the answer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's an odd circular argument: since decomposing trees put CO2 in the atmosphere, planting them doesn't help much. Weird.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is it that the ultimate fix suggested by the global warmists always comes down to imposing unrealistic and crushing controls on human productivity? It says a lot about what motivates their passionate position. Luckily others have more imagination.
Nice to see some good comments by tree-lovers here. Let's plant more trees. They're beautiful and good for us. By the way, they're also renewable. When humans cut them down...guess what? They plant more.
We always hear about deforestation but not about reforestation. There's an awful lot of it going on. For example, forest cover is actually increasing in the U.S. How about an article on that?
This is a classic example of people not thinking outside the box. The vast majority of the CO2 is captured in the woody part of the tree - the part we use to build homes, furniture, etc and that lasts considerably longer these days. So, by cutting the trees and converting them to wood products we capture the carbon almost permanently. Ant then guess what? We plant more trees which in turn eventually capture a lot more carbon then the old growth would - and the cycle starts all over again! Take the blinders off and think realistically!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrees absorb CO2 from atomosphere so palnting more trees will mitigate global warming. agreed. Trees decompose and liberate CO2 that adds to global warming.agreed. so a possible solution. plant more trees and cut them but do not let them decompose. How? make furniture, home etc. Net effect: less CO2 in atmosphere. Please comment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOdd commentary. Biello's saying that it won't do much good to plant trees because they would eventually release the CO2, but that it would be better not to cut the trees that we do have so as not make the problem worse. Well, duh, except that, using his logic, the trees that ARE living are going to die any and do the same thing that our planted trees would do - but he fails to mention that!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne good solution IS to plant more trees (no Dave, we don't expect miracles just by planting 20 trees...) because of the several other benefits that come from them, not just metabolizing the CO2 for energy and growth, i.e. lowered temps, less erosion, increased water retention, foods for many birds and other animals... the list long.
Trees block otherwise gorgeous views when hiking. Therefore trees suck.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink realistically? Who does that anymore? America is hostile towards thinking in general let alone thinking outside of the box. People would rather entertain delusions of social Darwinism than accept the obvious because delusions feel good and thinking is painstaking hard work.
Trees cannot save us from climate change anymore than a screwdriver can stop an avalanche. The bulk of attention given to global warming smacks of arrogance and power hungry control-freaks. We actually think we caused global warming and we actually have the gall to think we can fix it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...Never mind the overwhelming evidence that the rest of the solar system has been experiencing more balmy temperatures lately too.
Never mind the countless professionally trained scientist skeptics who have to live with statements like "the debate is over" and cute little labels like "climate denier"
I wish Einstein were here so I could enjoy him laughing at all this nonsense.