Earth Has Lost Half of Its Trees Since the Dawn of Civilizat

Earth Has Lost Half of Its Trees Since the Dawn of Civilizat

Postby Oscar » Wed Sep 09, 2015 8:15 am

Earth Has Lost Half of Its Trees Since the Dawn of Civilization

[ http://www.alternet.org/environment/ear ... 42126&t=22 ]

Humans are destroying 15 billion trees a year.

By Tim Radford / Climate News Network September 4, 2015

An international collaboration of scientists has just completed the ultimate green census – by calculating that the planet is home to 3.04 trillion trees.

The latest estimate is far higher and almost certainly more accurate than any previous attempt. But the bad news is that humans are removing trees at the rate of 15 billion a year – and there are now about half as many as there were at the dawn of civilisation.

For every person on Earth, there are 422 trees – in total, more than 3,000 billion deciduous or evergreen growths with woody trunks greater than 10 centimetres at breast height.

The researchers based their study on close analysis of satellite imagery, and of data from 429,775 plots of trees as measured on the ground in 50 countries on every continent except Antarctica.

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[ http://www.alternet.org/environment/ear ... 42126&t=22 ]
Oscar
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