29 min listen
Have we planted too much faith in trees?
ratings:
Length:
28 minutes
Released:
Feb 22, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
It seems we all love trees. Politicians, celebrities and big businesses love trees too. They’re seen as a natural climate fix because they eat carbon dioxide, one of the main gases that cause global warming.
The number of trees pledged in the coming years runs into the billions. Pakistan wants to plant more than three billion trees in the next couple of years. Ethiopia claims to have planted 350 million in one day! Neal Razzell and Graihagh Jackson try to see the wood from the trees amongst all these claims, and discover that a ‘forest’ planting campaign doesn't always end up creating the natural woodland we imagine it to be.
And to add to the urgency of the climate crisis, there's a new problem - a warming world may mean plants can’t suck up our carbon dioxide as effectively. Have we planted too much faith in trees?
Experts:
Dr Kate Hardwick, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew
Prof Pedro Brancalion, professor of forest sciences at the University of São Paulo
Dr Ben Ben Poulter, NASA Goddard Space Centre
Rafael Bitante, SoS Mata Atlantica Project
Producer: Jordan Dunbar (London), Jessica Cruz (Sao Paulo)
Researcher: Soila Apparicio
Editor: Penny Murphy
The number of trees pledged in the coming years runs into the billions. Pakistan wants to plant more than three billion trees in the next couple of years. Ethiopia claims to have planted 350 million in one day! Neal Razzell and Graihagh Jackson try to see the wood from the trees amongst all these claims, and discover that a ‘forest’ planting campaign doesn't always end up creating the natural woodland we imagine it to be.
And to add to the urgency of the climate crisis, there's a new problem - a warming world may mean plants can’t suck up our carbon dioxide as effectively. Have we planted too much faith in trees?
Experts:
Dr Kate Hardwick, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew
Prof Pedro Brancalion, professor of forest sciences at the University of São Paulo
Dr Ben Ben Poulter, NASA Goddard Space Centre
Rafael Bitante, SoS Mata Atlantica Project
Producer: Jordan Dunbar (London), Jessica Cruz (Sao Paulo)
Researcher: Soila Apparicio
Editor: Penny Murphy
Released:
Feb 22, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Is carbon the new calorie?: Carbon labels could be coming to a package near you soon, but what do they mean? by The Climate Question