Ellie Chivers Outlines A Potential, Ambitious, Solution To The Climate Crisis.
“We are in terrible, terrible trouble and the longer we wait to do something about it the worse it is going to get.”
These are the words of Sir David Attenborough, spoken this month at the Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, warning those in attendance of the catastrophic effects climate change is guaranteed to have. We all should be worried. And we all should be doing things to limit the devastation.
One man thinks he has found the solution. Not veganism. Not non-renewable energy sources. Trees.
Ecologist Dr Thomas Crowther, alongside his team at the Crowther Lab, has found that planting 1.2 trillion trees could neutralise the CO2 emissions on Earth. This is on top of the three million trees our planet is already home to, yet Crowther insists there is still room for plenty more. And while reducing our meat intake and amount of non-renewable energy sources we use is still hugely important in limiting the effects of climate change, planting 1.2 trillion trees could cancel out almost ten years of anthropogenic emissions.
The trees Crowther is proposing should be planted in “degraded or abandoned lands”, as reported in The Independent. But no doubt it will take time – according to Green Matters:
“Unless all 7.53 billion people on earth planted 159 trees each, the process would likely take decades.”
That being said, there is no denying that planting more trees is not only a hugely significant way of tackling climate change, it is also – as Crowther himself points out, reported in The Independent – a scenic one:
“Trees literally just make people happier in urban environments, they improve air quality, water quality, food quality, ecosystem service, it’s such an easy, tangible thing.”
Also in his speech, Attenborough warns: “We are supporting and subsidising the very things that are damaging our planet. The natural world is so delicate. It needs all the protection it can get.” The message is clear; do whatever you can, because something as simple as planting a tree can help our planet to thrive again when we all work together. | Tru. 🌱
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