Restoring forests may be one of our most powerful weapons in fighting climate change: Vox

Preserve Forests

One of the technologies for tackling climate change I’m most excited about is direct air capture: using huge electric-powered scrubbing machines to filter carbon dioxide directly out of the air and either stashing it deep underground, or using it for industrial purposes.

 

Adding 2.2 billion acres of tree cover would capture two-thirds of man-made carbon emissions, a new study found.

Allowing the earth’s forests to recover could soak up a significant amount of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research. 

The worldwide assessment of current and potential forestation using satellite imagery appeared Thursday in the journal Science. It estimates that letting saplings regrow on land where forests have been cleared would increase global forested area by one-third and remove 205 billion metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere. That’s two-thirds of the roughly 300 billion metric tons of carbon humans have put up there since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. 

“The point is that [reforestation is] so much more vastly powerful than anyone ever expected,” said Thomas Crowther, a professor of environmental systems science at ETH Zurich and a co-author of the paper. “By far, it’s the top climate change solution in terms of carbon storage potential.”

Some climate scientists who were not involved with the study disagree with its calculations and are warning against its “silver bullet” message. Still, supporting natural systems that can soak up carbon is widely accepted as a major component of any climate change mitigation strategy — in addition to deploying clean energy, switching to electric vehicles, and curbing consumption overall.

Read the complete Vox article

See also:

Three Surprising Solutions To Climate Change: Forbes