Replanting Forests to Counter Climate Change

By Georgia Agrapidis

At the Climate Change Conference hosted online by Ramapo College this semester, there was a lot of information to digest. It began with a Native American chief reciting a prayer in his native language, which then was followed by multiple speakers. One clarification that stood out to me was the four metaphors that tell climate change most clearly: regular versus rampant carbon dioxide; carbon dioxide as a heat trapping blanket around the Earth; the ocean as the planet’s circulatory heart; osteoporosis of the sea.

When the speaker mentioned regular versus rampant carbon, he was referring to the regular carbon cycle being naturally cycled by plants and animals. Understanding that afforestation, the mass planting of trees, naturally absorbs carbon dioxide within the atmosphere, I often wondered what would happen if many countries got together and decided to plant a large amount of trees in dry areas and then water them by building an irrigation system. This could ultimately lead to creating an entire ecosystem which would change the weather in that area, resulting in a more regular rainfall.

Using afforestation as a land mitigation strategy has the ability to severely reduce carbon emissions by acting as natural carbon dioxide filters. Therefore, when the speaker was talking about cycling carbon naturally by plants and animals, I felt an urge to know more about it. I decided to research a little more about the effects of afforestation, and I learned about a researcher from Switzerland, Jean-Francois Bastin. He created a model of all the global forest coverage in order to estimate the potential for restoring the Earth’s forests. It was estimated that the global ecosystem could support an additional 2.2 billion acres of forests than what we currently have.

Using this model, Bastin calculated the effects of planting a half trillion trees. He concluded that with this type of plantation, 205 GigaTons of carbon could be captured which would decrease the amount of carbon in the atmosphere by 25 percent. Based on Bastin’s calculations, it was determined that this would be enough to reverse twenty years of carbon emissions currently produced by humans, or an estimate of half of all the global carbon produced since 1960.

Another speaker showed us how to utilize a specific tool found on the internet. It demonstrated how changing the percentages of the different contributing factors to global warming could affect the global climate target of two degrees Celsius. After researching afforestation further and realizing that it is used to naturally mitigate carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, I noticed that this land mitigation strategy could be a significant contributor to help achieve the climate target of two degrees Celsius. As trees continue to grow, they take in and store the carbon dioxide that is in the air surrounding them. Due to the fact that global warming is driven by the excess amount of carbon dioxide emissions, if we were to increase the rate of afforestation, it would absolutely make a significant impact on reducing the human-produced carbon footprint. Although I understand that there are many mitigation tactics, I feel that afforestation would be the best way to reach the climate target.

I thoroughly enjoyed this conference, learning many different ways to contribute in making our environment a healthier place. For the same reason that I have taught my kindergarteners about climate change, I now understand how vital it is to continue on with climate change education; even if environmental science is not my primary major. Continuing to stay educated on this matter not only helps the individual, but it helps the family better understand the importance of climate change; this type of education is an indirect path to educating the families and communities of the students in the classroom.