The New Yorkerさんのインスタグラム写真 - (The New YorkerInstagram)「Even if you haven’t been to the woods lately, you probably know that the forest is disappearing. In the past 10,000 years, the Earth has lost about a third of its forest, which wouldn’t be so worrying if it weren’t for the fact that almost all that loss has happened in the past 300 years or so. And, unlike earlier losses of forests—owing to ice and fire, volcanoes, comets, and earthquakes—nearly all the destruction in the past three centuries has been done deliberately, by people, cutting down trees to harvest wood, plant crops, and graze animals. In response, tree-planting campaigns cropped up across the country. In 1996, the G.O.P. encouraged Republican congressional candidates to have themselves photographed planting a tree. “10 Reasons to Plant Trees with American Forests,” printed in 2001, suggests that “planting 30 trees each year offsets the average American’s ‘carbon debt.’ ” But national tree-planting schemes have, historically, come up short. Critics have argued that there is little evidence that these programs do much more than greenwash bad actors. And, in terms of biodiversity, killing forests and planting tree farms isn’t much help; a forest is an ecosystem, and a tree farm is a monoculture. “It’s good to plant trees. No one’s arguing any different,” Jill Lepore writes. “But it’s not clear that planting a trillion trees is a solution.” At the link in our bio, read Lepore’s full essay on the history of trees, the toll of deforestation, and what the future holds for our arboreal landscapes. Photograph © Robert Adams / Fraenkel Gallery.」5月26日 10時00分