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Planting Trees to Mitigate Global Warming

Mike O'Sullivan

   LOS ANGELES - Scientists say evidence is mounting that trees can have a
   far-reaching effect in stemming global warming by removing huge amounts
   of carbon from the atmosphere. A [1]recent study bolsters this idea,
   and tree-planting advocates say it's something they've known for
   decades.

   The recent European study published in Science magazine July 5 says
   trees could potentially absorb two-thirds of the carbon that has been
   added to the atmosphere as a result of human activity since the
   Industrial Revolution.

   The study, headed by researchers at the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich, a
   technical university, found that an extra 500 billion trees, covering
   an area roughly the size of the United States, could remove 200
   gigatons of carbon from the air when they reach maturity.

   The study's authors say that combined with reduced greenhouse gas
   emissions, adding so many extra trees could replenish the world's
   shrinking stock by 2050 and provide the most effective climate change
   solution to date.

   The scientists say that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius
   by 2050, the goal of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
   Change, will require an extra billion hectares of forest, an increase
   of nearly 20% over existing forest land.

   It is a race against time, however, since a warming planet means the
   area available for tree planting is shrinking.

References

   1. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/ezdo-tgt062719.php

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