To fight global warming we will soon have to try to remove carbon dioxide from the skies or find ways to reflect the Sun’s heat. Such radical paths must be examined, but risky experiments avoided.
Travis Drake, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich; Johan Six, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and Matti Barthel, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
The Ruki River supplies dissolved carbon from forest vegetation and soils to the Congo River.
An old-growth forest of noble fir trees at Marys Peak in Oregon’s Coast Range.
Beverly Law
Current greenhouse gas inventories in Canada only consider “managed” lands. This must change before we can truly understand the scale of Canada’s carbon emissions.
Planting trees on deforested lands in Panama.
Jorge Aleman/Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
It might seem counterintuitive to suggest timber harvesting when the goal is to restore forests, but that gives landholders the economic incentive to protect and manage forests over time.
Carbon capture and sequestration can play a role in limiting warming but the nuances of its application are far more complicated than just planting trees. Getting it wrong could make warming worse.
A typical New England stone wall in Hebron, Conn.
Robert M. Thorson
We argue for an orderly transition from ‘timber mining’ to managed forestry in the tropics. Here’s a five-step plan to improve forest fates, with benefits for the climate, biodiversity and people.
Rural women are the primary producers of shea in northern Ghana.
Shea Network Ghana
Shea is a key economic crop for poor women in the northern parts of Ghana.
Forest fires were mostly started by lightning. Their spread was then exacerbated by a lack of precipitation and abnormally high temperatures.
(Victor Danneyrolles)
Dorian M. Gaboriau, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT); Jonathan Lesven, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT); Victor Danneyrolles, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC), and Yves Bergeron, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)
The forest fires of the summer of 2023 in Québec were devastating. It was the worst year in 50 years. But with climate change, the worst may be yet to come.
Satellite data shows wildfires are destroying large areas of timber-producing forests around the world. These fires are becoming more destructive with each passing year.
A brown bear in a Siberian boreal forest.
Logan Berner
How will Earth’s vast boreal forests look in a warmer world? Combining satellite-based research with fieldwork shows that the planet’s largest wilderness may be changing in unexpected ways.
As the climate warms, devastating fires are increasingly likely. The 2020 fires pushed the Southern Rockies beyond the historical average. Is there hope for the Northern Rockies?