On planting trees, lots of trees.....

So there has been a bit of discussion recently in the press about how planting trees might not be the best way to assuage one's carbon guilt and as someone who's planted a few thousand trees over his years on the planet I felt I should offer my humble thoughts.

The gist of the argument was that the albedo effect of forestry caused some warming (because trees don't reflect heat as well as what they replaced) ergo supporting planting schemes wasn't helping. The always excellent Grist has a few more issues to raise.

Actually things are, as always, more complicated. One of the main contributors to global warming is the burning of rainforests in the southern hemisphere. So if your contribution went to buying land down there (and effectively preventing its deforestation) that would help.

Almost as significantly though thinking of things purely in terms of global warming neglects the always wide impact of trees. Reforestation projects can increase bidoiversity if the right native species are used. Better plant and location selection can empower poor local populations by providing food, firewood or even income.

Trees like the huge mango above are massively effective factories for social and environmental change. By planting them cleverly great results can be achieved. This needn't be in the developing world either. For many years the birds were deprived of our crabapples so that our local special needs school could make and sell crabapple jelly; edutainment for the kids and delicious condiments for the grown-ups.

Anyway really this was just an excuse to post a picture of one of the island's many ripening mangos but I guess what I'm driving at is that you shouldn't not plant; just plant wisely. The trees will do the rest.

Coming later this week the return of the Tuesday Nudi and then, I kid you not, a shark orgy.