According to Mother Jone's article, written by Jackie Flynn, every year, an estimated 15 billion trees are chopped down across the planet to make room for agricultural and urban lands and other uses. We’ve cut down so many, in fact, that what’s left is about half of the number of trees that the Earth supported before the rise of human civilization, and scientists warn that it’s not helping our climate. Planting more trees is a way to offset deforestation.
"One partial solution to the effects of deforestation is simply to plant more trees. Last year, the IPCC estimated that we’d need to plant 1 billion hectares of forest by 2050 to keep the globe from warming a full 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. And in a recent, controversial study published in the journal Science, researchers based in Switzerland, Italy, and France concluded that doing so would be “undoubtedly achievable” and restoring forests worldwide could cut atmospheric carbon by a massive 205 gigatonnes. Critics of the study described the idea of a major tree-planting effort as somewhat impractical and unrealistic, but for others, it was “setting the limits,” as one researcher told Mother Jones.
Thursday’s IPCC report didn’t exactly advance or refute the findings of the Science paper. It did, however, underscore the fact that planting trees will be part, by necessity, of any climate solution. But its authors note that “there are limits” to afforestation—planting trees in new places—and doing so potentially has some drawbacks. “Widespread use at the scale of several millions of km2 globally could increase risks for desertification, land degradation, food security and sustainable development,” the authors write. For example, tree planting could push agricultural operations onto less-suitable land, the New York Times reports."
To read the full article and to get more information, click on this link: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/08/planting-trees-is-good-eliminating-deforestation-is-better/
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