According to a study, switching to a vegan lifestyle could reduce your food-related carbon footprint by 73%. 

According to the World Bank, about 91% of Amazon rainforest deforestation is attributed to animal agriculture; grazing livestock is causing a significant loss of forest cover and biodiversity.

Additionally, producing animal-based products requires significantly more water than growing a similar amount of plant foods. This is a concern amid the growing issue of water scarcity.

Despite producing enough grain to feed billions of people, we allocate a significant portion to feed livestock instead of people. By choosing plant-based meals, we could use our resources more efficiently and address world hunger1.

Sign up for Veganuary today to receive daily resources such as cookbooks, meal plans, and nutritional advice. 
Before going vegan, consult a registered dietitian or your health care provider.
Watch documentaries such as Cowspiracy to learn where our animal foods and products come from.
Start your plant-based eating journey by taking a trip to the supermarket. Buy basic vegan alternatives such as tofu and plant-based milks, and make your favorite dishes cruelty-free.
Share your learnings and experiences on social media to spread awareness. Post a picture of you eating plant-based dishes or share facts from credible sources. Click on our vegan quotes as a great place to start.
Aside from grocery shopping, make changes in your other shopping habits. From food wraps to hiking boots, many vegan options exist.

Newborn infant little likeable and pretty baby boy sleeping on little brown sofa in blue pijamas surrounded by plant and toy bears

Young cheerful mother playing with her newborn baby lying on bed at home.

The Central Chimpanzee, a resident of moist lowland forests and swamps, has a broad geographical range from the Ubangi River in the east to the Sanaga River in northwest Cameroon. 

This type of chimpanzee shifts its diet with population and seasons. Ripe fruit, young leaves, bark, and stems are prime choices; consumption of mammals, including other primates, is occasional. Community sizes can reach 64-71 individuals. 

Unfortunately, the Central Chimpanzee is an endangered species3, with threats of poaching and disease casting long shadows. 

They exhibit a slow life history with a generation time estimated at 25 years and, hence, are unable to sustain high mortality levels. The persistent poaching problem across Central Africa likely implies unnoticed but significant population declines.

The Eastern Chimpanzee is a significant subspecies extensively researched by Dr. Jane Goodall at Gombe Stream National Park. The natural habitat of these chimpanzees spans from the southeast Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to west Uganda and Tanzania.

They are primarily found in lowland tropical forests and forest galleries extending to savanna woodlands. Oscillating between various diets based on the season, half includes ripe fruit, but leaves, bark, and stems also present crucial sustenance. Eastern chimpanzees, being social creatures, form large communities, numbering between 20 to 150 individuals. 

Sadly, Eastern Chimpanzees are endangered2, suffering a significant population reduction over the past two to three decades, particularly in the DRC. The driving factors include rampant poaching, habitat destruction, degradation, disease outbreaks, mining, and the aggravating effects of climate change.

The Western Chimpanzee hails from West Africa - you can spot them from Senegal to Ghana. They thrive in varied habitats, be it dry and moist lowland tropical forests or forest galleries creeping into savannah woodlands.

Their diet is as diverse as their habitat. They are omnivorous, favoring fruits and sometimes leaves or bark. Mammals and insects also enter their platter, while dietary preferences vary among communities and seasons. 

Populations of these subspecies form communities of about 12 to 84 individuals. Alarmingly, Western Chimpanzees are critically endangered5, with a steep drop of 6.53% yearly from 1990 to 2014. Primary threats include habitat destruction due to human activities, bushmeat poaching, and infectious diseases.

There are different schools of thought on whether tree planting can reverse global warming. Some think it is just what we need to stop climate change once and for all, but others are not so optimistic. Before examining all the different opinions on the climate-saving power of trees, let’s see how carbon sequestration works.

The process of photosynthesis through which plants increase their biomass requires carbon dioxide, amongst other things. CO2 is responsible for 33% to 60% of plant growth. So for plants to survive, they need carbon dioxide, and there is an excess amount in the atmosphere already. So forests absorb and store carbon, and they also help our lands store it as well. In tropical forests, 50% of CO2 is stored in plant biomass, and the other half is in the soil.

Trees all over the world help to maintain the CO2 balance of the planet. Not only do forests absorb CO2, but they also release it too. When we burn trees, cut them down, or they die and decay, the carbon escapes into the atmosphere. 

Over the past four decades, forests have sequestered one-quarter of the CO2 emissions caused by humans. Scientists believe that they can do an even better job. The forests in the EU have an estimated 9.8 billion tons of carbon stored in their biomass. This means that the yearly carbon emissions of the EU are only about one-seventh of the amount already stored in the forests. Therefore, the forests in the EU are seen as a viable method of reducing global warming.

Scientific evidence shows that forests, both old-growth and managed, sequester up to 6 tons of carbon per hectare. Research theorizes that replanting trees on 2 billion hectares of degraded land can wipe out the yearly increase of atmospheric CO2. 

Using trees to reduce global warming is not as straightforward as it may sound. This is because forests could also become carbon sources. Fires, pest outbreaks, and storms cause a massive return of carbon to the atmosphere.

For instance, Canada's managed forests have done a great job as carbon sinks until recently. In the past decades, however, the forests were carbon sources at some points. This happened because of tree insect outbreaks, forest fires, and land use.

Another study advises that the tropics are the best place to plant trees2. Trees grow faster in these areas and therefore absorb CO2 faster. The study suggests that planting trees in snowy areas could become problematic. This is because the trees can create a warming effect, which is the issue we are trying to avoid in the first place.

In temperate climates like much of Europe and some parts of the US, planting trees may have no significant effect on global warming. The study concludes that planting trees to solve global warming is not the worldwide solution presented by enthusiasts.

Professor Beverly Law of Oregon state university disagrees with the idea that more trees will do damage to the icy regions of the planet. In her opinion, the polar regions are warming at a much faster rate than the rest of the earth.

It is not correct to assume that the snow cover will remain intact without trees despite the earth’s rising temperature. It is most likely that the snow will melt in the coming decades anyway. In that situation, trees will not create an albedo effect. 

Then again, Nadine Unger, a professor at the University of Exeter, UK, warns against tree planting. She states trees could form the greenhouse gas methane or ozone through a chemical reaction as the chief reason.

In her 2014 study, she calculates that deforestation from 1850 to the 2000s has created a cooling effect that slightly offsets the warming of greenhouse gas emissions. Her article “to save the planet, don't plant trees” was published in the New York Times. However, Professor Dominick Spracklen, who has studied the effects of aerosols, says such reactions are insignificant. And have a very minute impact on the climate of the earth.

Warming temperatures could also cause increased heterot

Individuals, organizations, and governments are throwing their weight behind tree planting. There are efforts to protect existing forests and plant new ones.

The Paris Agreement has a significant number of nations coming together to combat climate change. Although President Donald Trump announced intentions to pull out of the agreement, he endorsed the 1 trillion trees program at the 2020 world economic forum.

The 1 trillion trees program is a multi-stakeholder effort by the world economic forum and its partners to grow, restore, and conserve 1 trillion trees. The United States representative, Bruce Westerman, also pushed the 1 trillion trees act. Although it garnered a lot of criticism, the president supports the 1 trillion trees act.

Nations under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe have seen an increase in how much CO2 trees have taken up. This is because the policies and laws concerning forests in the area ensure that new trees are planted to replace the ones cut down. The total forest cover of this region amounts to 1.9 billion hectares.

Research led by professor Tom Crowther found that there are 1.7 billion hectares of land that could support new trees. This area is 11% of all land and equal to the size of the United States and China put together. The researchers did not include urban areas or crop fields in their analysis. They estimate that this worldwide tree-planting scheme could remove 205 gigatons of human-caused carbon emissions in 50-100 years. 

In professor Crowther's words 

“... it is overwhelmingly more powerful than all of the other climate change solutions proposed”. 

The researchers make it clear in an erratum later published that the statement in the earlier sentence does not mean to put planting trees above the reduction of fossil fuel emissions. The study gives a clear blueprint of how much more trees we can plant without disrupting agriculture4. Although these proposed new forests will cover areas worldwide, over 50% of the forest restoration land area are in the United States, Brazil, Canada, China, Russia, and Australia.

The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management tried to examine if more trees are all that we need to stop global warming. They created two simulations; in the first, two situations are considered. The first is constant deforestation, no large-scale reforestation, and the Amazon sink becoming a carbon source. This situation showed atmospheric concentration exceeding 500ppm in 2050. In the second situation, they reduce deforestation and add extensive reforestation, but atmospheric concentration also exceeded 500 ppm in 2060.

In the second simulation, they considered again the same situations but with a vast reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. In the first weak forestry situation, atmospheric concentration peaked in 2070. In the strong forest situation, however, critical atmospheric concentration was never reached. Rather it began to reduce in 2050. 

This led the ECCM to conclude that tree planting alone can not solve global warming. It needs to be combined with a reduction in fossil fuel emissions. As Greta Thunberg says 

“planting trees is very good, of course, but it is nowhere near enough”.

In addition to protecting the planet, increased forestry can be beneficial to people. Planting fruit and rubber trees can provide income for them. Also, in countries with large wood industries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon, a reforestation campaign could reduce pressure on their natural forests. An abundance of trees is equal to an abundance of wood that we could use to replace fossil fuels in some processes.

Moths are winged flying insects. They are a paraphyletic group of insects that consists of all members of the order Lepidoptera, excluding butterflies. 

Lepidoptera, which translates to “scaly-winged,” is an order of insects whereby insects undergo a larval stage popularly known as a caterpillar, a pupal stage known as chrysalis, or cocoon, and the adult stage known as butterfly or moth. Many people often confuse moths with butterflies, but they differ from each other. 

There are about 160,000 unique species of the nocturnal flying moth1, except for a few species active during the day, like the sphinx moth, day moth, and buck moth. On the other hand, moths’ close relative, the butterfly, has 17,500 species. There are nearly 11,000 species of moth in the United States and 2,500 in the United Kingdom. 

Like all insects, moths have six legs, two antennae, a head, a thorax, and an abdomen. They have a life span of six months to three years. Furthermore, moths range in size from a few millimeters to the largest moth species with a wingspan of 10 inches (25cm). 

In addition, moths are diverse in their ecology. Moths inhabit places like farmlands, gardens, woodlands, marshlands, sand dunes, and even mountains. They also tend to lay eggs within cracks, near plumbing fixtures, and other dark areas. Moths come in various types, from the familiar brown house moth to multicolored, unique ones.