Wisdom from the root of how things work -- trees and forests restore the climate balance on earth. And, if the deforestation does not stop and serious reforestation does not occur, there is very little that we can do.
Today's NY Times has a pretty good article about the problem: With Deaths of Forests, a Loss of Key Climate Protectors
Scientists say the future habitability of the Earth might well depend on the [role of forests]. For, while a majority of the world’s people now live in cities, they depend more than ever on forests, in a way that few of them understand.
Scientists have figured out — with the precise numbers deduced only recently — that forests have been absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that people are putting into the air by burning fossil fuels and other activities. It is an amount so large that trees are effectively absorbing the emissions from all the world’s cars and trucks.
Without that disposal service, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be rising faster. The gas traps heat from the sun, and human emissions are causing the planet to warm.
Yet the forests have only been able to restrain the increase, not halt it. And some scientists are increasingly worried that as the warming accelerates, trees themselves could become climate-change victims on a massive scale. (read more)
And here (again and again and again) is Antonio Nobre explaining how planting forests can help restore a rainfall system that is favorable to humans and many other species that comprise the web of life as we know it.
[note: to see the translation subtitles, start the video and watch for the red CC button at the lower right of the player frame. Clicking on it gives a choice of English, Portuguese or Spanish subtitles.]
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