NASA Says India-China Have Taken Maximum Effort To Make Earth Green Again In Past 20 Years

Part of the reason our pollution problem keeps getting worse is that we just can't seem to stop cutting down trees. There's only so much replantation efforts can counteract this too, but at least someone's trying. And it seems like India and China are making the most difference in this area.

Reuters

This observation comes from a NASA study published this Monday, based on satellite data analysed by researchers across the world. Despite the general perception that we're the biggest polluters in the world (which we might still be as far as greenhouse emissions are concerned) we're leading the global greening effort. So far, NASA says we've helped make the Earth greener than it was 20 years ago.

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"China and India account for one-third of the greening but contain only 9 percent of the planet's land area covered in vegetation," said lead author Chi Chen of Boston University. "That is a surprising finding, considering the general notion of land degradation in populous countries from over exploitation."

NASA

China alone is apparently responsible for a quarter of the world total increase in leaf cover, despite possessing only 6.6 percent of vegetated land on Earth. This comes largely from its forests (42 percent) and croplands (32 percent). In the case of India however, 82 percent of our greenery contribution is from croplands with only a 4.4 percent contribution from our forests.

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Long-since plagued by heavy air pollution, China has recently been making efforts to cut back on land degradation and minimize pollutants in the region. Together, both our countries have increased food production by more than 35 percent since 2000, largely by maximising arable land usage through crop rotation, fertilizers, and groundwater irrigation.

NASA

"In the 1990s, people realized it, and today things have improved," says Rama Nemani, a research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and a co-author of the study. "Humans are incredibly resilient. That's what we see in the satellite data."

Unfortunately, scientists say our efforts are still not enough to offset tree cover loss in other areas like Brazil and Indonesia, where corporations still relentlessly exploit the forests for resources and building expansion.