Crunch time for forests and plastic pollution (including crisp packets) | Letters

Noam Schimmel on the urgent need to reduce deforestation, Antonis Mavropoulos on escaping the multidimensional plastic matrix and Steven Bennett on food packagingScientists are right to stress that halting rampant deforestation is vital to mitigating climate change (Scientists say halting deforestation 'just as urgent' as reducing emissions, 4 October). But forests do much more than serve as carbon sinks; their value is far greater and multidimensional. They enable clean air and water, preserve the integrity of complex ecosystems, prevent soil erosion, and contain an extraordinary variety of plants, many of which are critical components of life-saving medicines. People struggle with taking climate change seriously because it feels temporally distant, abstract, and can be hard to visualise and appreciate palpably. Deforestation, on the other hand, is much easier to visualise and understand. Continue reading...