Planting Our Future
by Michael Stusser
Planting trees and preserving forests can balance many of the negative effects of human activity on our ecosystem before the threat from rising global temperature becomes irreversible.
Focus on Forests First
Of the many environmental factors that are currently at risk, the issue of forests is a critical leverage point for recovering balance quickly. Restoring global forest cover is one of the fastest and most effective natural solutions to the rising global temperature and the myriad related potentially catastrophic effects of climate change.
Planting enough trees of the right kinds in the right places fast enough will reduce the amount of C02 in the atmosphere and reverse climate change.
Here are the facts:
- Forests represent one of the largest, most cost-effective climate solutions available today. Halting the loss and degradation of natural systems and promoting their restoration have the potential to contribute over one-third of the total climate change mitigation scientists say is required by 2030. Restoring 350 million hectares of degraded land could sequester up to 1.7 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. ~IUCN, Forests and Climate Change Issues Brief
- IPCC [International Panel on Climate Change] numbers suggest that if deforestation ended today and degraded forests were allowed to recover, tropical forests alone could reduce current annual global emissions by 24 to 30 percent. ~ Center for Global Development, Why Forests, Why Now?
- Old growth trees, dense mature vegetation and rich soils in primary forests including intact forest landscapes are unmatched in terms of carbon sequestration and storage (30-70% more than logged or degraded forests). Forests are thought to remove 25% of all human generated emissions of CO2, and primary forests play a substantial role in this extraordinary carbon sink. ~ IUCN, Raising the profile of primary forests
- NASA study estimates that tropical forests absorb 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide out of a total global absorption of 2.5 billion. – NASA Finds good news on forests and carbon dioxide ~Data courtesy of verdantworld.org
What We Are Doing:
Freestone and the surrounding hills were logged out following the 1906 earthquake to rebuild San Francisco. We feel a responsibility to restore our own forests here at a local level. By planting a redwood forest at Osmosis it is our hope that this action that can also help to build more awareness of the fact that protecting and restoring forests around the world can reverse climate change.
