Scientists push back against "Trillion Trees" initiatives
Perhaps the biggest risk is that the appeal of natural-sounding solutions can delude us into thinking we’re taking more meaningful action than we really are. It “invites people to view tree planting as a substitute” for the sweeping changes required to prevent greenhouse-gas emissions from reaching the atmosphere in the first place, says Jane Flegal, a member of the adjunct faculty at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society.
James Temple, writing in the MIT Technology Review outlines the argument against viewing tree-planting as a climate crisis silver bullet. While planting trees might seem like a quick and easy way of helping to abate the climate crisis, Temple explains, increasingly, researchers are finding that estimates touting the potential tree-planting efforts might have for absorbing and sequestering carbon are likely overstated. "We can’t rely on trees as a stand-in for the separate monumental task of cutting emissions from our energy, transportation, and agricultural systems," Temple argues.
As the uptick in forest fires worldwide—from California to the Amazon to Australia— show, trees can quickly go up in smoke. Arizona State University adjunct faculty Jane Flegal tells the MIT Technology Review that “just shifting the stock of CO2 from the atmosphere to the land biosphere is not a permanent sequestration of emissions. Carbon sinks can become carbon sources very quickly.”
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