India and China have made the world a greener place: NASA
There is a general consensus that the most populous countries have the highest land degradation in the world and are majorly responsible for Climate change. An issue raised by the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg in her explosive speech at the UN last month. This notion, however, has been completely shattered by a new NASA report on the global green cover. This data shows an increase of 5% in the global green leaf area since 2000 thanks to the work done by China and India. These countries that occupy 8.3% of the total landmass of the Earth have been responsible for 33% of global greening since 2000.
The article posted on NASA’s official website says,
“Taken all together, the greening of the planet over the last two decades represents an increase in leaf area on plants and trees equivalent to the area covered by all the Amazon rainforests. There are now more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year, compared to the early 2000s – a 5% increase. “
China and India also rank way higher than the global average
The researchers also point out that the gain in greenness due to India and China does not offset the damage that has been done in the tropical rainforests of Brazil and Indonesia. But, as the world looks bleaker day by day this news should give us that little bit of hope and hopefully we recover all the green land lost to deforestation and urbanisation in the next decade.
