Children are agonising over climate change – here’s how planting a tree could secure their future

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Launching this month, #PlanTree is aiming to plant 12 million trees – one sapling for every child in the UK (Getty/iStock)

Planting trees is a quick and cost-effective way of tackling the climate crisis. In July research published by scientists at ETH Zürich revealed 1.7 billion hectares of treeless land across the globe on which more than one trillion tree saplings could grow.

If planted, those trees could offset two-thirds of all carbon emissions from human activities.

This year has seen young people get fired up about the climate crisis like never before. In September children in 150 countries took part in a Global Climate Strike. Led by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, four million protesters joined together to call for urgent action to stop runaway climate change, while an estimated 100,000 people attended a rally in Central London alone.

Our children will never forgive us if we fail to curb our reliance on fossil fuels. A survey of 1,000 eight- to 16-year-olds revealed earlier this year almost eight in 10 children worry about climate change at least once a month. Some 68 per cent of children recognise the extreme impact climate change will have in the long term.

That’s why the #PlanTree campaign is so vital. Launching this month, #PlanTree is aiming to plant 12 million trees – one sapling for every child in the UK.

Children around the world are crying out for change. In 2020 we must honour them by making tree-planting an urgent priority.

Ben Fogle, UN Patron of the Wilderness 
Mike and Alison Battle, founders, LaplandUK 
Dominic Cooper, actor 
Siân Sutherland, co-founder, A Plastic Planet 
Frederikke Magnussen, co-founder, A Plastic Planet 
Dr Ian Mudway, Kings College London  
Henricus Peters, activist and writer 
Dr William Scott, professor, University of Bath 
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb 
Alex Sobel, Labour Co-operative parliamentary candidate 
Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate 
Rachael Maskell, Labour Co-operative parliamentary candidate 
Martyn Day, Scottish National Party parliamentary candidate 
Preet Kaur Gill, Labour parliamentary candidate 
Clive Lewis, Labour parliamentary candidate 
David Drew, Labour Co-operative parliamentary candidate 
Vernon Coaker, Labour parliamentary candidate

Dig for Britain

So Guy Brown (Letters, 30 November) runs the numbers and thinks the Labour policy to plant two billion trees is unrealistic. Well, here’s my calculation. If we assume there are 40 million Britons who could stand on two feet and drive a spade into the ground, each of them would each need to plant 50 trees. I don’t know about Mr Brown, but despite being in my 60s I still think I could do that in an afternoon. Dig for Britain!

John Bailey
Preston

Out of touch

Boris Johnson seems desperate to avoid tough direct questioning on his policies. He declined to take part in the debates for the Tory leadership, the Channel 4 leadership debate, and is now stalling on an interview with Andrew Neil.

Television coverage of what should be the Tories’ main asset is strictly confined to controlled sound bites.

Even in such controlled sound bites, Johnson looks very uncomfortable around ordinary people. In my view, the posh Old Etonian does not relate to the everyday voter, mere plebs. His so-called charm only seems to emerge when he is with his own mostly public school chums and cronies.

The criticism of his fellow Old Etonian and Bullingdon Club member David Cameron that he was totally out of touch with ordinary people, not even knowing the price of a loaf of bread, applies even more strongly to Johnson.

Johnson focuses on Brexit because he flounders completely on other issues, making up conflicting answers “on the hoof”. Yet even a prominent Brexit Party MEP has said he would rather stay in the EU than have Johnson’s deal.

Even Johnson’s own cronies and handlers see him as a potential liability to the Tory campaign. This is a man who former Daily Telegraph editor Max Hastings described as “utterly unfit to be prime minister” and his “allies” in the Brexit Party describe as “someone nobody has ever trusted in his entire career”.

Pete Milory
Address supplied

Labour’s revolution

Labour’s proposal to increase trade union powers is extremely worrying.

Trade union strikes already cause havoc to the general public, airline and rail strikes which prevent people from travelling cause the loss of thousands of pounds, not only to those innocent people who are simply trying to go about their daily lives, but to the whole economy, while many of the strikers would rather not be involved but have no option but to join in for fear of losing their jobs.

The Labour manifesto says that “only by shifting the balance of power back towards workers will we achieve decent wages, security and dignity at work”, and that the party will “strengthen and enforce trade unions’ right of entry to workplaces”. For anyone who has studied the history of the French Revolution, there are alarming similarities. Although based on the principles of equality, liberty and fraternity for all, it rapidly descended into the Committee of Public Safety’s Reign of Terror, where distrust and paranoia overtook the general public to the point where no one could be trusted. It in turn caused widespread fear, unrest and poverty.

While continued improvements of general working standards are welcome, it will not be achieved by companies being forced to comply with Trade Union rules and regulations which have no understanding of each individual business’s requirements.

Elaine S Washington
Address supplied

The problem with politics

Margaret Thatcher once famously said that “the problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people’s money”. Although socialism is with a small “s” in this case, she was probably having a dig at Labour, among others.

As we get into the latter stages of the election, I feel there is a duty to be fair to all the major parties by suggesting something similar. So: “The problem with Conservatism is that although they make plenty of money, the tax system still works in their favour.” “The problem with Liberal Democracy is that the management of money needs adult supervision.”

And last, and by every means least: “The problem with Green politics is that eventually, you run out of lentil soup.”

Matt Minshall​
Norfolk