Global Warming | Veganism
Can We Solve The Climate Crisis If We Plant More Trees?
The answer is both yes and no
We all now know what causes the climate crisis. Our disproportionate and unbalanced consumption habits. We cause the release of nearly 10 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, and this amount is constantly increasing. There are different suggestions for a solution to this problem, and the cheapest and simplest of these suggestions is, of course, planting trees. According to research, if we plant 1 trillion new trees, the climate crisis will be largely solved. To be more precise, it can clean up 2/3 of the amount of carbon dioxide we have released into our world since the Industrial Revolution. International campaigns and projects such as trilliontrees.org have already started to plant this many trees.
I would like to answer some questions under a few headings.
So Can We Solve The Climate Crisis Just by Planting Trees?
The answer is no.
- Greenhouse gases are not just carbon dioxide
- Not every country has enough space to plant this many trees
Unless energy sources, means of transportation, consumption habits, and our diet change, planting trees will only delay this inevitable end.
Then why are there afforestation projects?
The fossil fuel industry and other industries plant trees not to green the environment but to protect their public relations, because it costs much more to replace polluting raw materials and production processes.
In short, they give us the message, “Look, we pollute, but we also clean.” This is called carbon offsetting. The problem here is that we cannot do carbon offsetting unlimitedly.
Self-licensing Problem
Another issue in discussions about ecology is “self-licensing.” We can give the best example of this from energy-saving products. For example, most of those who use energy-saving lamps consume more energy than before because they use the lamp more, thinking that the lamps already save energy. For the same reason, it seems that participants in projects such as trilliontrees.org have started to compromise less on their lifestyles because they planted trees.
Vegan and Vegetarian Diets
According to this study, the daily CO2 footprint of a person who consumes an average amount of meat with 2000 calories per day is 5.63 kilograms, which means 2 tons of CO2 per year. Vegetarians consuming the same calories cause 3.81 kilograms of CO2 emissions per day, while vegans cause only 2.89 kilograms of CO2 emissions per year. That is, vegetarians cause 1.4 tons of CO2 emissions per year, while vegans cause 1 tons of CO2 emissions per year.
Doing simple math, if you only eat a vegetarian diet, you will not release the amount of CO2 that 20 trees will clean in 100 years in 10 years. If you follow a vegan diet, this period is reduced to 6 years.
Wrong Forestation Works
Every forestation work carried out should be specific to that region. We cannot create a sustainable forest by planting only one type of tree. Many types of trees specific to that region need to be planted because sustainable ecosystems are formed with biodiversity.
Unfortunately, in many places, non-native trees are planted under the name of reforestation. These non-native trees disrupt the existing ecosystem with various diseases. For example, India has been carrying out afforestation work for a long time, but it has been learned that this work has almost no effect in terms of afforestation and protecting the ecosystem (you can read the related study here).
Are Afforestation Works Unnecessary?
No, it is not unnecessary, but there is something more important than afforestation work. To protect our existing forests.
When humans first started cutting down trees, it was thought that there were 6 trillion trees in the world. Today, the number of trees in the world is close to 3 trillion.
1/3 of the CO2 emissions since 1850 have been caused by deforestation. Because trees keep the carbon they absorb inside them, and when they are cut, this amount is released. If deforestation were a country, it would be the 3rd country with the most carbon emissions today. The amount of carbon held by all the trees in the world is greater than the amount of carbon in the fossil reserves still underground.
Conclusion
If we fail to solve the climate crisis in the next 50 years, we will reach a point of no return.
That’s why we should plant trees to combat the climate crisis, but we shouldn’t cause more harm to the world because we plant trees. We must protect existing trees, but knowing that just doing this is not enough. We can make the world more livable by buying second-hand clothes, using public transportation, or changing our eating habits even a little.
