Planting Trees Will Not Save Us – Here's Why From Harvard & Stockholm Universities

The universities of Harvard and Stockholm are not saying it, but I am. 

Jeff McMahonwrites, "We Have Five Years To Save Ourselves From Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says" (15 January 2018, forbes.com, link shared by Romy Quiñones today, 03 May 2019). That means we have already lost 1 year of the 5 years to save ourselves!

Echoing James Anderson, Harvard Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, Mr McMahon says:

Recovery is all but impossible… without a World War II-style transformation of industry – an acceleration of the effort to halt carbon pollution and remove it from the atmosphere…

That is to say: Stop using all carbon-polluting devices and start removing all carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now!

I believe I know exactly how we can accelerate world efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But the world thinks differently:

Plant trees!
Millions of trees.
Billions of trees.
Trillions of trees.

Ha! If what Harvard scientist Mr Anderson is correct that we have only 5 years left – from January 2018 – then, we don't have time to wait for trees to grow!

Like I'm always saying in my blogging, you cannot plant a tree; you can plant only a seed, seedling, or sapling. What you plant cannot become a tree overnight. Now, given Mr Anderson's timeframe of 5 years, 4 years remaining, how can you rely on "planting trees" to save the Earth when it takes 30 to 40 years before the trees mature & matter?

So now I repeat here what I have been espousing since early this year, what I call The Greening Revolution(see my essay, "The Greening Revolution! This Is How To Defeat Climate Change!" 24 February 2019, Journalism for Development, blogspot.com). In that essay, I say there it's not the trees but the leaves that capture the carbon dioxide, CO2, from the air. And all kinds of plants have green leaves, all carbon sinks. So, I said, we all must "Think Green!"

What Mr Anderson is saying is my final argument against planting trees to combat climate change – we don't have the years to wait for seeds or seedlings or saplings to grow into trees to fight climate change!

Here comes Bonar Laureto sharing the link where a team of scientists led by Will Steffen of the Stockholm University are saying, "Planet At Risk Of Heading Towards 'Hothouse Earth' State" (ANN, 06 August 2018, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, stockholmresilience.org). They are saying that to avoid Hothouse Earth "requires a redirection of human actions from exploitation to stewardship of the Earth system."

As one, the Stockholm team is saying that to avoid Hothouse Earth, we need not only reduction of greenhouse gas emissions but "also enhancement and/or creation of new biological carbon stores… and technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground."

Perfect! The simplest way for all of us to do all that is to plant a garden in all bare spots in the cities and cover all bare farms with green. Not plant trees: Plant green!517