by Ronica Stromberg
Andrew Mwape’s idea for lessening climate change problems resonates in the Arbor Day state. He and volunteers have been planting trees in Lincoln, Nebraska, and paying for trees to be planted in Uganda and Zambia, his home country.
A doctoral student in the School of Natural Resources, Mwape specializes in climate impacts and assessment and has been studying drought in his work with the National Drought Mitigation Center. He said climate change increases the frequency and severity of drought in the sense that when temperatures rise, evapotranspiration increases and the natural timing of the ecosystem to provide water is disturbed. Planting trees can help lower temperatures and risks, he said.
“The beauty with trees and the relevance with trees in the picture is that they act as carbon sinks,” he said. “They capture carbon emissions from the atmosphere, thereby reducing global warming and reducing the threats of severe droughts and severe consequences from climate change.”
Read the complete story and see more images at https://ianrnews.unl.edu/mwape-addressing-climate-change-problems-tree-planting