There are a lot

On a recent train trip between Ottawa and Halifax it dawned on me as I watched the countryside go by.  There are a lot of trees in this country.  My train trip covered probably less a third of the way across the country.  So, you can imagine how many there are in total.  Our biggest forest is the northern boreal forest that stretches across Quebec, Ontario and the northern prairie provinces and into the arctic.  This forest also stretches across northern Russia so the tree count for this forest must be in the billions.

In addition, there are trees in almost every country in the world.  Despite clear cutting, the Amazon jungle is still of formidable size.  There are still significant forests in Europe, Asia and Africa.

But is it enough?

Scientists tell us that trees are one of the most important resources for ameliorating climate change. A tree’s ability to take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen is truly one of the most amazing things about nature.  But we are still seeing climate change get worse despite all of the trees we have.  Why?

The obvious answer is that we are putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the trees can handle.  That being the case, we have two choices.  We can plant billions of more trees, or we can significantly decrease the amount of carbon dioxide we put out.  Better still, we can do both and find the balance that will stem or even decrease the change of climate.  But we must act now so that the twin actions will have a chance to take effect.

The current arguments against the fact that climate change is being caused by human activity are, in my research and opinion, false.  Despite the argument that the climate has changed in the past, those changes took place over millennia, not within the lifetime of a single person. The Canadian argument that we don’t need to do anything because we only contribute about 2 percent of the global total ignores the fact that on a per capita basis, we are one of the largest contributors in the world.  And some government decisions have just made things worse, such as Premier Doug Ford’s decision to cancel a provincial tree planting program that would have planted fifty million trees.  That fifty million would help, but a goal of fifty billion may be closer to what’s needed.  In the prairie provinces, their desire to drown the world in their oil could be seen as a crime against humanity.

But the real answer is to seriously curb our use of carbon products.  We will never eliminate the need completely, but its limited use must be carefully and very efficiently done.  If we continue as we are, no matter how many trees we plant and grow, the carbon dioxide will still overwhelm that attempt.  

We should all be concerned about climate change.  And trees, those wonderful, beautiful gifts of nature, can only do so much.  Plant and protect trees and cut down our use of fossil fuels so that maybe we can actually reach or exceed the climate goals that have been established.  Maybe then the trees and us can all survive.