It’s brutally hot in Taizhou this summer. Weeks of extreme temperatures make doing anything beyond keeping the trees irrigated impossible. But our trees are native to eastern China and are adapted to this heat, they continue to grow well.
Our trees evolved to thrive in the hot subtropical heat of China’s mixed conifer-broadleaved evergreen, and deciduous forests. In those forests, growth is exuberant, and competition is fierce. But those forests are also very effective at carbon capture, with photosynthesis moving vast amount of carbon into the wood of the trees and the soil under the forests.
Their ability to do this work for all of us is limited if the forest isn’t healthy. And as the climate continues to grow hotter, the trees become less likely to persist in a healthy state. Planting more forest to offset global atmospheric carbon emissions is necessary.
