Tree Steps Ahead

The climate and ecosystems are moving polewards. Will trees be able to keep pace?

There is a bleak future outlined for our planet. Climate change and the dilemma it brings. We’ve all heard of it.

Global warming — rising global temperatures — is one of the biggest problems we face currently, and it’s setting off a chain of more events, like melting glaciers and rising sea levels, which mean that a lot of lands will eventually get submerged underwater.

It is mainly caused by a concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So an effective way to slow it down is to get rid of all that carbon. But how?

Well, imagine a machine that could suck out all the carbon from the air, and convert it into something beneficial, like, say, oxygen. Luckily for us, these machines do exist.

I’m talking about trees of course!

Trees are often mentioned as a solution to counter climate change because they naturally capture carbon in a process called photosynthesis.

They use water, light, and carbon dioxide to build chains of carbon. These chains can be short and sweet like fructose and saccharose; or they can be long and create reserves of energy for the plant, for example, the starch in grains and potatoes. The plant reserves…