Can Trees Save Us from Climate Change?

Humans have caused global climate change and the driving force has always been CO₂ emissions.  The solution to this may seem simple, plant more trees. CO₂ is essentially plant food.  It is an incredibly important part of photosynthesis, a process that sustains all life on earth.  However, planting trees is not the best long-term solution.   Trees die, decompose, and in turn release huge amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere.  Trees are a good short term solution but we want to pull CO₂ from the atmosphere permanently rather than have it re-introduced within a tree’s life cycle.  One way we could really decrease our yearly CO₂ emissions is by cutting down on cutting trees.  Deforestation is the second biggest source of CO₂ emissions and stopping this would be a better solution than planting. 30 billion metric tons of CO₂ enter our atmosphere every year and stopping deforestation could be a huge factor in reversing the current climate change.

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=can-trees-save-us-from-climate-chan-09-04-24