Trees are great aren’t they? They prevent drought in dry areas and floods in wet areas. They suck up the Carbon Dioxide emitted by Coldplay CDs and world tours by the Rolling Stones. And lets not forget that squirrels love them.
But it turns out that those wily woods have been fooling us all along. A report from the UK Department for International Development revealed that billions of pounds are being spent on tree-planting schemes around the world. Most, if not all, of that money is being wasted. The latest research shows that trees can cause drought, they don’t prevent it. In fact they often waste more water than agricultural crops. They also do nothing to stop the kind of disastrous flash flooding we see in Bangladesh, Haiti and Guatemala.