Planting trees and preventing deforestation can store carbon in nature, but the effect may only be temporary. If we also eliminate emissions from fossil fuels, even this temporary effect is important.
This network of vegetation reserves and corridors along Australian roads must be properly valued and better protected. But they’re vulnerable to vandals, lopping and car collisions.
A farm in South Africa’s Eastern Cape struggles with woody encroachment.
Collin Bennet
Rising temperatures mean longer, earlier pollen seasons, but the bigger problem is what carbon dioxide will do to the amount of pollen being released. A 200% increase is possible this century.
Some trees explode into bits when lightning strikes. Some seem fine and die later. But others are unaffected.
A satellite captured large and small deforestation patches in Amazonas State in 2015. The forest loss has escalated since then.
USGS/NASA Landsat data/Orbital Horizon/Gallo Images/Getty Images
Inoculating trees with an edible fungi can produce more protein per hectare than pasture-raised beef, while reforesting, storing carbon and restoring biodiversity.
Maidenhair trees, Ginkgo biloba, can live for over 1,000 years and grow 35m tall. While they’re beautiful to look at, they’re also notorious for their vomit-smelling seeds.
Allium schoenoprasum, better known as chives.
Andreas Rockstein/Flickr
Plants need light to feed themselves, so they grow in ways that help them collect as much of it as they can. Sometimes that’s straight up, but not always.
Tree sunburn tends to occur during hot spring days or in early summer, when trees are full of moisture. So why does it happen? And which trees are most vulnerable?
A 32-year-old forest on former pastureland in northeastern Costa Rica.
Robin Chazdon
As governments and corporations pledge to help the planet by planting trillions of trees, a new study spotlights an effective, low-cost alternative: letting tropical forests regrow naturally.
Severely burned forest following the devastating fire season of 2019 and 2020.
T Fairman
Climate change threatens the crucial storage of carbon in Aussie forests. Victoria’s national parks alone store almost 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.