The Climate Forest Connection
Sierra Club joins 70 other groups in the Climate Forest coalition
calling on the Biden administration to take executive action
to protect mature trees and forests on federal lands—
critical in the fight against climate change.
Let Trees Grow to Protect the Climate: a simple, powerful, cost-effective strategy to address Earth’s overheated atmosphere, the most compelling natural solution available. Unfortunately, a climate forest policy is missing in U.S. climate efforts. Tell the Biden administration: it’s time to Let Forests Grow as a cornerstone of our climate policy.
Simply cutting emissions is not enough to tackle the climate crisis—we must sequester vast amounts of legacy emissions from the atmosphere. Pacific Northwest forests store more carbon than tropical rainforests. Let Trees Grow!
Trees inhabited a 350-million-years-younger Earth before humans walked the planet. Nature’s ancient biodynamic of carbon dioxide intake and oxygen efflux layered ring after ring of carbon onto tree girths throughout proliferating forests. Trees, one of Earth’s early keystone species, bequeathed a congenial planet providing food, shelter, water, clean cool air, and biodiverse habitat.
Within every tree cell is nature’s ancient wisdom of carbon-based life. Forest soil, with its eco-galactic, below-ground mycorrhizal ecosystem, traffic-cops expansive networks of carbon to nourish above-ground plants and fattening trees. But Earth’s triumphant balance of nature has been tipped, and we are in Big Hot Climate Trouble. We must intensify forest advocacy.
Facts:
- 17.2 billion metric tons of carbon are stored in U.S. federal forests. No technology matches forests for carbon removal at this scale. Protecting federal forests is essential to safeguard communities from climate crisis shockwaves. Let Trees Grow!
- More than 95% of forest carbon is stored in natural forestland ecosystems vs. in harvested wood products like lumber. Carbon is released when trees are logged—protect these carbon reservoirs. Let Trees Grow!
- With their thick bark, old-growth and mature forests burn cooler than younger forests which generally experience higher-severity fires. Let Trees Grow!
Take action:
Write or Call the Biden Administration. Write or call Tom Vilsak, Sec. of Agriculture (governs the U.S. Forest Service).
Say: Let mature and old-growth trees grow to protect the climate. We can’t squander our amazing climate friends, Big Trees!