“Planting trees may help appease travellers’ guilt about pumping carbon into the atmosphere. But new research suggests it will do little to cool the planet… especially when trees are planted in Canada and other northern countries, says climatologist Alvaro Montenegro, at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. ‘There is no magic bullet’ for global warming, says Montenegro, ‘and trees are certainly not going to be providing it’.” Read more in the Vancouver Sun.
BTW, this may be “new research” to the Vancouver Sun, but JunkScience.com first reported about the albedo effect in 2007.
Not to worry. The planet is cooling all by itself.
I never have understood how planting trees can do much to counter the CO2 from burning fosile fules. The oil/gas/coal came from trees hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago. How can a tree that will live at most to several hundred years make up for the fosile fuels? The only carbon that is sequestered is the small portions of the leaves and wood that do not decay but accumulate in the sediments of lakes, marshes, and oceans.
Oh, darn. You mean I can’t count all those long leaf pines I planted as a kid when I try to out-green the enviros? Heck, they won’t read this or know I didn’t do my part to save the planet.
I also planted a bunch of those loblolly pines. You know, the ones that naturally grow in straight rows evenly spaced apart. The trees you want to save by recycling paper.
Lot’s of green creds, I have and no Canadian paper is going to tell me otherwise.