Year 2, Month 8, Day 2: O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum

More on the Forests study, this time from the Christian Science Monitor for July 17:

Want to save the planet? Plant a tree.

Or maybe a lot of them. Or maybe don’t cut down so many.

These are the implications of a new study, which found that the world’s forests play an unexpectedly large role in climate change, vacuuming up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) and storing the carbon in wood, according to research published online Thursday by the journal Science.

That, in turn, helps regulate CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere – and keeps the planet from overheating.

Kind of a clunky letter, but I’m having kind of a clunky day, so it fits. Sent Sunday, July 17, as the expected heat wave starts moving into position.

Extreme weather events are coming faster and faster, harder and harder, all over the planet. It looks like our carbon dioxide chickens are coming home to roost, as emissions from the last century’s fossil fuel consumption accumulate in the atmosphere. A runaway greenhouse effect may not yet be totally inevitable, but it’s definitely on the horizon unless all of the world’s nations take serious and concerted action against climate chaos. Our history of slash-and-burn deforestation has devastated millions of acres of carbon sink — in the name of disposable paper products. Humanity’s survival cannot be assumed in an economic system that assigns value to destroying the ecosystems of which we are a part. The discovery that our planet’s forests absorb more CO2 than was previously suspected is good news, but it comes with an important caveat: we must ensure that forest lands are preserved and expanded over the coming years.

Warren Senders