Hot take alert, because the Cult of Climastrology always has to have some sort of new doomy prognostication of doom
Climate change may make trees live fast and die young
Everyone from governments to oil companies is looking at tree-planting as a way to counter global warming, but this strategy could be less effective than we thought.
In a warming world with growing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, researchers have hypothesised that trees will grow faster. But this isn’t necessarily a good thing. Faster-growing trees may live shorter lives, reducing the amount of time they lock carbon away for.
Now data is beginning to suggest that this is the case. Ulf Büntgen of the University of Cambridge and his colleagues have looked at tree ring records going back 2,000 years, and found that the longest-lived trees were those with the slowest growth rates.
“We find that if a tree grows fast in its initial stage, there is a high probability that it will die younger,†he says.
The team studied 1800 trees, all of which were mountain pines from the Spanish Pyrenees or Siberian larch from the Russian Altai region, which can live up to about 800 years. In a warmer world with more carbon dioxide, however, these trees might live just 150 years after growing rapidly.
So, um, what kinds of fossil fueled vehicles were they driving back 2,000 years ago? Oh, right, right, that was then, this is now, and why are you asking so many questions? You must hate life on Earth.
I’m sure we can fix this all with a tax, right?
Read: Your Burger Habit Could Make Trees Live Fast And Die Young Or Something »
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