Thursday, October 9, 2014

To save the planet, don’t lose the forest for the trees?

Atmospheric chemist Nadine Unger, writing in the September 19, 2014 New York Times Op-Ed page advises us:  "To save the planet, don't plant trees."  She wirtes there that “the science says that ... climate change mitigation [through] forestry is high risk” and “a bad bet.”  

With today's lecture on land-use change as a driver of climate change, this issue is well-timed for our class to consider.  What do you think?   Let us know in the comments section below, or as your own post to the blog.

Any comment or post will bring extra credit in the from of an extra point on the just completed mid-term (the best posted comment will gain 2 points!).
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3 comments:

  1. UnknownOctober 9, 2014 at 4:15 PM

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  2. UnknownOctober 9, 2014 at 4:20 PM

    What makes me want to comment is not Unger's questionable statements on atmospheric chemistry, but her policy recommendations. It appears I am not the only one...
    Dr. Unger's Four Scientific Fouls:
    http://www.climateadvisers.com/ungerfouls/
    Or these thirty scientists' rebuttal:
    http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0922-scientists-respond-to-dont-plant-trees-oped.html

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  3. AnonymousOctober 10, 2014 at 11:53 PM

    First, thank you, Scott for the interesting article, and also thank Vincent for the response articles' link.
    The title of Dr. Unger's writing was actually 'tempting' and it may seem having reasonable scientific proofs at the very first glance. And actually, it was pretty interesting article to me in the aspect that it claims opposite opinion of the common knowledge. Although I was somewhat convinced by her (e.g. warming effect of trees, VOC emission from trees), however, during and after reading the article, some points make me bit confused so I kept asking those to myself and now the response articles give some clues on those questions. What I'm feeling after the all three articles now is that the Unger's might give quite extreme sense on forestry and climate change to people who doesn't have any scientific background or couldn't read the scientific responses later. Moreover, encouraging planting trees in tropics doesn't seem that the world has relied or will rely on forestry regarding climate change mitigation, rather it seems one part of solutions regarding carbon emission issue... so the plans for planting in tropics might not be that negative as much as being mentioned like "spending precious dollars for climate change mitigation on forestry is high-risk" in the article.

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