Article Title: ‘Plant a tree, save the climate’ isn’t good enough

Article Summary

This article is a commentary piece on why some current environmental protection measures require a revamp, and a suggestion on what the better alternatives could be. One of the major problems with current climate control policies is that they are focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions to the exclusion of cleaning up the carbon dioxide already released and polluting Earth’s air. The best way to do the latter is to expand natural forest cover, and not artificial forestry measures like increasing plantations and agroforestry units. While several countries are adopting the artificial measures, only natural forest cover can substantially rid the atmosphere of already circulating harmful gases, or trap such gases as a whole for both ridding and emission control. If the countries do not start natural reforestation soon, environmental goals that were supposed to be achievable shall only have been achieved in fractions. Forests improve biodiversity, water quality and employment levels too, providing more reasons to increase them naturally – however, humankind has very less time to ponder these, and must just act now.