There aren’t enough trees in the world to offset society’s carbon emissions – and there never will be

One morning in 2009, I sat on a creaky bus winding its way up a mountainside in central Costa Rica, light-headed from diesel fumes as I clutched my many suitcases. They contained thousands of test tubes and sample vials, a toothbrush, a waterproof notebook and two changes of clothes.

I was on my way to La Selva Biological Station, where I was to spend several months studying the wet, lowland rainforest’s response to increasingly common droughts. On either side of the narrow highway, trees…

© La Conversation - vendredi 23 avril 2021