There's so much CO2 in the atmosphere that planting trees can no longer save us
Most scientists agree emissions must be reduced
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Your support makes all the difference.Humans emit roughly 30 to 40 billion tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. If we keep it up, the Earth will continue to heat up and ultimately our way of life will be devastated.
So what can we do about it?
Most scientists agree that we need a way to capture some of that CO2 to take it out of the atmosphere. One idea is to plant lots of trees. Trees use CO2 in order to grow and they also release oxygen, so it's a win-win.
But recent reports indicate that we simply can't grow enough trees to capture the necessary amount of CO2 to help us meet the goals set by the Paris Agreement.
We would have to cover the entire US with trees just to capture 10% of the CO2 we emit annually.
There's just not enough room on the planet to have the farmland it takes to feed the world plus the space to plant the necessary number of trees.
In other words, many of us would starve if we tried using trees to solve our emissions problem.
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Read the original article on Business Insider UK. © 2017. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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