Scientists from around the world argue that the suggested afforestation of large areas of Africa to mitigate climate change will destroy valuable ecological, agricultural, and tourist areas, while doing little to reduce global CO2 levels.

Researchers describe the emerging role of ecophysiology in riparian flooding. As an adaptation to an overabundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, trees, plants and grasses constrict their stomatal pores to regulate the amount of the gas they consume, a mechanism that limits the release of water from leaves through evaporation. This saturates soils and causes more efficient run off and river flooding.