Our home is falling apart. Earth is slowly dying.
Amazonia, the lungs of the planet, the place that we’ve always known as this tropical, humid and rainy is drying up and burning at a record rate. Central Africa and Congo are drowning in flames.
The temperatures are significantly higher than they were 3 years ago. June 2019 was hottest on record for the globe. Glaciers are melting. The water level is rising. Polar bears are dying of starvation. The Arctic is no longer the massive, icy kingdom it once was.
More and more whales are found dead with tons and tons of plastic inside their intestines. Animals go extinct. Birds mistake plastic for food. Bumblebees are officially on the list of endangered animals…
Meanwhile, we keep leading the same lives that got us in this place from the start.
WAKE UP! It is time to open your eyes and act NOW.
Praying won’t help us preserve what we have left. Praying won’t help us save this piece of Earth and continue the human race. And praying most certainly won’t help us restore the forests to their natural state.
If you are interested in making a real change instead of posting about it online, I suggest you continue reading and take notes!
The cheapest and most efficient way to tackle this terrifying, climate crisis is by planting more trees. Simple as that. A recent scientific report showed that planting billions of trees might actually be the solution to our biggest climate crisis ever. Researchers have finally finalized their calculations of how many trees need to be planted (and how much carbon they will absorb) and they published the results of the study in the journal Science.
According to Tom Crowther, lead researcher, and professor at the Swiss university ETH Zürich, forest restoration is not one of humanity’s climate change solution. It is undoubtedly the top one.
“What blows my mind is the scale. I thought restoration would be in the top 10, but it is overwhelmingly more powerful than all of the other climate change solutions proposed” said Crowther.
Carbon dioxide, one of the most dangerous greenhouse gases which is driving global warming is restored in trees as they grow. Try to imagine what would happen if people decided to execute this worldwide, tree program. That could potentially help us destroy two-thirds of the emissions that are a part of our atmosphere due to human activities. In a nutshell, it would provide us with clean air and water.
René Castro, assistant-director general at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, said:
“We now have definitive evidence of the potential land area for re-growing forests, where they could exist and how much carbon they could store.”
The researchers used over 80,000 high-resolution satellite images from Google Earth to calculate the tree cover all around the world. Then, a computer combined all the date with 10 key soil, climate factors, and topography in order to create a global map of ever place where trees could grow.
However, they emphasized that this solution should certainly not be considered as a replacement for the most important step that humanity needs to take – Eliminating the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning that needs to be brought down to zero so the warming could be kept under 1.5 degrees. According to their research, it will take 50-100 years before the trees start effectively removing 200 billion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere.
That is why we need to act now!
“Tree planting is a climate change solution that doesn’t require President Trump to immediately start believing in climate change, or scientists to come up with technological solutions to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. It is available now, it is the cheapest one possible and every one of us can get involved. Individuals could make a tangible impact by growing trees themselves, donating to forest restoration organizations and avoiding irresponsible companies.” said Crowther.
The only thing that is missing from the research paper is addressing how a global tree restoration program would be paid for and executed. However, the researchers did indeed calculated how much it would cost to plant 1 trillion trees. The sum required for this program is shockingly lower than any other carbon capture solution.
“The most effective projects are doing restoration for 30 US cents a tree. That means we could restore the 1tn trees for $300bn [£240bn], though obviously that means immense efficiency and effectiveness. But it is by far the cheapest solution that has ever been proposed. Financial incentives to landowners for tree planting are the only way I see it happening, but I think $300bn would be within reach of a coalition of billionaire philanthropists and the public.
The potential is literally everywhere – the entire globe. In terms of carbon capture, you get by far your biggest bang for your buck in the tropics [where canopy cover is 100%] but every one of us can get involved. The world’s six biggest nations, Russia, Canada, China, the US, Brazil and Australia, contain half the potential restoration sites,” said Crowther.
If you are interested in learning more about this project, you can visit the Crowther Lab Website and find more about the particular places which would be suitable for restoration and learn more about the kind of trees that are native there.
