Opinion The solution for the melting polar ice caps may be hiding in the rainforest Dr Paul Salaman
There was already dramatic evidence that our planet is undeniably warming before 30 December 2015, when the world heard that the ice at the North Pole was melting. (The temperature on 30 December 2015 was, by some reports, 33ºF [0.7ºC], 50ºF above average).
And yet one immediate, effective way to fight climate change and save polar ice caps is half a world away, in the tropics. Tropical forest conservation and restoration could constitute half of the global warming solution, according to a recent peer reviewed commentary in Nature Climate Change.
Reducing carbon emissions, as the nations of the world promised to do in Paris last month, is essential, but simultaneously pulling carbon out of the atmosphere (which is what rainforests do) would immediately and significantly reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) at a surprisingly low cost, providing a crucial bridge to a post-fossil fuel era.
The potential of rainforest conservation to address global warming should be enough to galvanize massive worldwide rainforest conservation efforts. The natural regrowth and subsequent protection of hundreds of millions of acres of degraded rainforest would result in massive absorption of carbon as the trees grow. While it is crucial that we transition away from the use of fossil fuels, the reality is that rainforest protection can happen much more quickly.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/11/climate-change-solutions-rainforest-melting-polar-ice-caps
= new reply since forum marked as read
No, as others have noted up-thread, the hysteresis (and sheer scale) precludes
even rapid re-planting from being a "silver bullet" but there are still three good
reasons to push for this:
1) Clearance is primarily for meat production. Conservation & re-planting will
assist/encourage the (globally beneficial) move to reducing meat consumption.
2) Conservation & regrowth will preserve (and expand) the habitat of those
rain-forest species that we haven't yet pushed into extinction.
3) It is a visible & tangible cause that provides an entry for people's consciousness
to be awakened, a "first case" that gets the attention of folks who are neither
malicious nor embedded in the problematic industries first-hand but who need a
"something" to give them that nudge to move to the path of environmental
awareness. Some people mock the "photogenic causes" but they overlook the
fact that many people start off by helping to save whales, the cute dolphins,
the panda (one animal that is quite capable of ambling into extinction without
a single human being involved!) but that leads them to become aware of the
network of life, the connections, the importance of creatures to the biosphere,
krill, tuna, mosquito, bat, shark, turtle, elephant, everything enormous or tiny,
beautiful or plain, all of it. It takes that first step to move onto the path.
JMO. 
