Which is more important? Forests or Food Crops.Forests are lovely. Food crops are more nourishing. United States and China are the world’s top greenhouse-gas emitters. What may be surprising is the country that is third: Indonesia. Indonesia is a major culprit not because of its traffic or power plants, but because of its massive deforestation. Deforestation accounts for almost 20 percent of global emissions — more than the world’s entire transportation sector. But saving the trees — as beneficial as it would be to the changing climate — comes at a significant cost as a growing, wealthier population competes for food, says a new MIT study.
With a larger and wealthier population, both energy and food demand will grow.The resulting environmental change can reduce crop yields, and require even more land for crops. So this could become a vicious circle.
The study, recently published in Environmental Science & Technology, compares the effects of slashing emissions from energy sources alone to a strategy that also incorporates emissions associated with land use.
The report finds that, with a growing global population, fast-developing nations, and increasing agricultural productivity and energy use, the world is on the path to seeing average temperatures rise by as much as 6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Even with an aggressive global tax on energy emissions, the planet will not be able to limit this warming to — the target world leaders have agreed is needed to avoid dangerous climate change.
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The transportation sector is a greater contributor to greenhouse gases than deforestation. Remember transportation includes automobiles, trucks, recreational vehicles, ships, boats, airplanes, etc. In total the sector creates 33% of global carbon emissions.
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