Image courtesy of “Lubim Natura” (Green Guerrila)
While many humans seem to find no better way to solve their problems than killing each other, some of them try to do something good by understanding how nature works and caring for it. And I am pleased to announce to you that a new paper just appeared on "Nature Water" recognizes the importance of the work of a group of dedicated scientists who have been pushing the idea that trees are not "just carbon sticks." That is, trees are not to be accounted for their climate effects just in terms of the amount of carbon they can store in the form of wood.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-023-00143-z
Trees -- or, better said, forests -- are a fundamental element driving Earth's climate system. Forests control the winds, they create rain by means of the "biotic pump," they manage soil erosion, and the health of whole ecosystems. And not just that: forests actually cool the Earth and are an important element in our current attempt to avoid a disastrous runaway global warming. But we must understand these mechanisms: otherwise we remain in the brutal kind of evaluation that led, for instance, Bill Gates to state recently that trees are useless to manage climate. It is much more complicated than that. Here is an excerpt from the article that reports the words of Anastassia Makarieva, the leading scientist engaged in these studies.
“Planting one trillion trees is wrong,” said Makarieva. Setting a numerical or area-based target “is lying to people”. Instead, the goal should be to restore ecosystem functionality. Just as mature trees with intact soil store far more carbon than young tree plantations, so, too, mature native forests are far more effective at regulating water and climate, she said. Makarieva’s work and that of many others is showing that local communities’ efforts to buffer themselves from floods and droughts by returning land to wetlands and floodplains, restoring native plants starting on wetter edges and mimicking natural succession has the potential — through carbon storage, heat regulation and the water cycle — to also lessen climate change and water extremes."
So, we are seeing a major change of paradigm in the way we understand the role of forests and the whole ecosystem. And we may hope that other paradigms will change as well. Just as we can change the way we see trees from carbon sticks to parts of a living forest, can we change the way we see humans from monkeys with guns to members of a living society? Right now, it looks impossible, but who knows?
Thanks for this Ugo!
Along these lines can I also recommend this great three-part essay about Millan Millan who also made the important connection between land use and climate:
https://open.substack.com/pub/theclimateaccordingtolife/p/millan-millan-and-the-mystery-of?r=fhgru&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Another great Substack about water and water cycles and all this goodness is by Alpha Lo, a water physicist:
https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=substack_profile
This is succinct and to the point. Life and weather are symbiotic and interwoven.
Weather is the circulatory system for forest ecosystems.