Will Planting Trees Solve All Our Problems And Bring About The Return of the Messiah?

Maybe, maybe not:

Trees just got a big boost at The World Economic Forum this month, when the forum announced a new initiative aimed at planting 1 trillion trees around the globe within the decade to combat climate change. It’s got the backing of big names: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is contributing an undisclosed amount of his own cash to the effort, while his company has committed itself to planting 100 million trees. Even Donald Trump, who has thrown a wrench into US and global efforts to tackle climate change, said the US would sign onto the campaign, called 1t.org.

But the science behind the campaign, a study that claims 1 trillion trees can significantly reduce greenhouse gases, is disputed. “People are getting caught up in the wrong solution,” says Forrest Fleischman, who teaches natural resources policy at the University of Minnesota and has spent years studying the effects of tree planting in India. “Instead of that guy from Salesforce saying, ‘I’m going to put money into planting a trillion trees,’ I’d like him to go and say, ‘I’m going to put my money into helping indigenous people in the Amazon defend their lands,’” Fleischman says. “That’s going to have a bigger impact"...

“Headlines around the world declared tree planting to be the best solution to climate change,” lead author of the critique Joseph Veldman said in a statement at the time. “We now know those headlines were wrong.” Veldman argued that planting trees where they don’t belong can harm ecosystems, make wildfires worse, and even exacerbate global warming. His critique made the case that the amount of carbon the study said 1 trillion trees could sequester was about five times too large. The study also considered planting trees on savannas and grasslands, where planting non-native trees could cause problems for local species. Planting trees on snowy terrain that once reflected the sun could even turn those places into dark patches that actually absorb heat.  

If we can't even agree on whether or not planting freakin trees is the answer, then maybe we shouldn't jettison our modern way of life and turn everything over to Grumpy Greta and the global elites just yet.