Currently in Toronto — July 27th, 2022
The weather, currently.
A ridge of high pressure that provided a pleasant Tuesday will slowly depart to the east allowing a new system to move in tomorrow. We will start the mid week with lots of sunshine in the morning and a wake-up temperature near 18°C. Clouds will start to increase by late morning, with mainly cloudy skies for the drive home on Wednesday. The high is 27 °C, but it'll feel a little warmer with the humidex. The wind will be light from the south 10-20 km/h and the UV Index will be 9 or very high.
Wednesday night: cloudy with a few scattered showers, and a risk of a passing thunderstorm.
What you need to know, currently.
🚨 Today, @SecVilsack announced a strategy for how the Biden-Harris Administration, through USDA, will address a reforestation backlog of 4 million acres on national forests and plant more than 1 billion trees over the next decade ➡️ https://t.co/uEIvZJLz4K pic.twitter.com/PKSPvbKtBu
— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) July 25, 2022
The U.S. will plant 1 billion trees across the millions of acres of burnt and dead forests in the American West, the Biden administration announced on Monday.
This announcement is the latest in forest regeneration efforts by the federal government. In April, the President signed an executive order to protect old-growth forests. In August, the nation signed on to an effort to plant 1 trillion trees worldwide.
Unfortunately, not much action-based change has taken place, as the Biden administration continues to toy with the notion of declaring a climate emergency, which could potentially lead to more national efforts to tackle climate change.
In the meantime, as climate change continues to scorch woodlands, the Department of Agriculture has led reforestation efforts by using funds from the bipartisan Repairing Existing Public Land by Adding Necessary Trees Act as well as the bipartisan infrastructure law.
So far, wildfires have decimated 5.6 million acres in the U.S. this year. Some forests naturally regenerate after fires, but, because of human-induced climate change, the wildfires have become more frequent and severe, leaving forests barren for decades before they can start to sprout back up. This replanting plan could change things, as it will nurture forests’ natural regeneration, mitigating the effects of climate change and making them more resilient to threats of wildfires and drought.
The Forest Service expanded their reforestation funds up to about $100 million. The agency also plans to plant about 400,000 acres of forest annually, particularly in the West, where wildfires continually rage.
—Aarohi Sheth
