PLANTING trees does not lock up carbon permanently.

When fossil fuels are burned, they release carbon (dioxide) into the atmosphere that has been buried for hundreds of millions of years. Extra trees may initially absorb this carbon but, at the end of the tree's life of maybe a hundred years or so, it will decompose and release this net amount of carbon into our atmosphere.

Whilst planting of trees is usually a positive thing, at best they simply buffer slightly the net release of carbon into the ecosystem. The only way to reduce the potential consequences of global warming is to stop releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

Robin Rawson, Dodsworth Avenue, Heworth, York.