This forest lifecycle is extremely important right now, as our nation looks to plant more trees to act against climate change and protect us from its worst impacts. 

The humble tree is a magic solution to a set of colliding crises: Forests pull carbon dioxide from the air to slow climate change, provide habitat that supports biodiversity, and shelter our communities from heat waves and other extreme weather. Reforesting the full extent of suitable land in the U.S. would increase natural carbon capture in forests by more than 40% each year. 

However, were not ready to meet this reforestation potential. To put it simply, there are not enough seeds, people to collect them, and nurseries to grow them. 

Thanks to cutting-edge research from The Nature Conservancy, we know there are 133 million acres of ecologically suitable land for reforestation across America. These opportunities extend from urban areas and agroforestry-friendly farms to burned mountainsides and coastal forests devastated by windstorms. 

However, American nurseries currently produce roughly 1.3 billion seedlings annually, which is only enough to plant approximately 2.5 million acres per year. Even to reforest only the highest priority lands (roughly 64 million acres) by 2040, we would need to double annual nursery production.

And with wildfires on the increase across the country, this seed supply crisis has potentially catastrophic consequences.Take California, for example. At the current pace of cone collection, it would take the state seed bank almost 200 years to collect the seeds needed to reforest just a quarter of private forest lands affected by recent wildfires. Public lands face similar scarcity and collection challenges.

If we fail to reforest these burn scars, were not just missing out on an opportunity to sequester carbon were also putting communities at risk. Without reforestation, severely burned areas transition to other vegetation types, such as grass and shrub systems that decrease the natural water supply. 

While forests are among our best natural solutions to climate change, the ability to protect our nation through reforestation will only decrease unless we intervene in this seed shortage. Here are four steps we can take together to tackle this quiet crisis:

Use the power of innovation

We need to develop a reforestation supply chain that leverages technology. We need to grow seed and seedling supply faster, develop new infrastructure for seed collection and safe storage, enhance forestry techniques used in tree nurseries, and update how we recruit and train a dramatically expanded workforce. 

Deploy ready funding

We need an unprecedented wave of investment, from government grants and loan guarantees to private-sector impact investing.

We can start by quickly deploying the dollars for seeds secured by the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which includes $200 million specifically for nursery capacity and strategy, and a REPLANT provision that increases U.S. Forest Service reforestation funding tenfold, which the agency can use to close a 4-million-acre reforestation backlog. The newly signed Inflation Reduction Act has additional funds, including $1.5 billion to expand tree canopy in our cities.

Build a climate-smart seed collection

To regrow forests to last, we must make sure the additional seeds we collect and seedlings we grow are biologically aligned with climate-resilient reforestation plans, like the one developed by the Bureau of Land Management for the Camp Fire Burn Scar in California. 

Grow partnerships to grow trees

We need to develop state and regional partnerships that integrate these capacities (science, innovation, and funding) by facilitating collaboration. The right kind of partnership can integrate all needed public and private actors, from government agencies and NGOs to nursery owners and young ecopreneurs, to work together toward specific targets in seed and seedling capacity at the state and regional levels.

Through inclusive collaboration, data and knowledge sharing, integrated finance, and strategic workforce and infrastructure investments, we can quickly multiply seed and seedling capacity where its most needed.

It is perhaps no surprise that this level of investment in seeds and seedlings has not happened before. After all, a tiny seed is just the hint of the tree that is to comea tree that will be a natural climate solution, a water filter, an air purifier, a wildlife habitat, and so much more. 

Our planet and our communities desperately need all of that. We must broaden our perspective and invest in every inch of the reforestation supply chain. First, lets think seed small so we can go big on forest solutions. 

Jad Daley is president and CEO of American Forests, the nations oldest forest conservation non-profit. Yishan Wong is founder and CEO of Terraformation, a global forest accelerator. Terraformation and American Forests recently launched the Seed to Forest Alliance to scale seed supply solutions.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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The European Union has so far maintained its steadfast policy of opposition to Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine with a series of biting sanctions on Russia. But the Kremlin has fought back using its most valuable export: energy. Prior to the war, the 27 EU nations relied on Russia for 40% of their natural gas and 29% of their crude oil, supplies which have largely dried up in the past few months, especially natural gas.

The energy crunch has sparked a crisis on the continent, with electricity prices rising to 10 times their decade-long average. But at the moment, even that doesnt look like it will be enough for European officials to abandon support for Ukraine. The stakes are just too high.

This is an existential battle for us, Stavros Lambrinidis, the EUs ambassador to the U.S., said in an interview with Bloomberg this week. If [Putin] succeeds, we will have a tremendous amount of difficulty as Americans and Europeans to project our power around the world for decades to come.

Support in the face of a crisis

The energy crisis has pushed European governments to fill their natural gas reserves to record levels in preparation for winter, when energy demand tends to peak, but it is also forcing officials to plan far ahead.

High energy prices, mild temperatures so far, and nearly full natural gas reserves have helped European nations avoid strict energy rationing measures. A severe energy crisis this winter may yet be avoided, but scarce global supply of natural gas and oil is likely to bleed into next year too, which experts say might be even more difficult for Europe.

Lambrinidis said that Europe has enough gas stocked up to make it through the winter, even if the last Russian gas flows were cut off today. But electricity bills are still high, he added, forcing European officials to plan for more natural gas deals with providers including the U.S. and Norway up to 2024.

The energy crisis, Lambrinidis said, has largely been of Europes own making after becoming over-reliant on Russian energy, echoing a similar statement made last month by the EUs foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who said that the EU had allowed Russiaalong with Chinato become the basis of our prosperity for far too long.

But Lambrinidis also said that the war has jolted Europe to its senses over the dangers of becoming too entangled with a leader of Putins ilk, and that supporting Ukraine has become a duty as part of the effort to contain the Russian leader.

The support and commitment we are showing to Ukraine is not in spite of the pain that this war is causing in Europe. It is largely because of it, Lambrinidis said.

We understand because of this war that we cannot be reliant in the future on people like Putin or anyone else like that, he added.

No safe distance

Lambrinidis is not the first leader to characterize the war in Ukraine as a larger conflict surrounding the future of Europe and Western democracy.

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson argued at last summers G7 meeting that the financial cost of supporting Ukraine was a price worth paying for democracy and freedom. In her annual state of the union address in September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the war as being about autocracy against democracy. And in a speech in March, shortly after the onset of the war, U.S. President Joe Biden portrayed the conflict as a great battle for freedom against autocrat Vladimir Putin.

But the war may represent much more than a simple fight to uphold democratic values, as it could also determine the geopolitical order of the future, according to Lambrinidis.

[Putin] is not just simply trying to wipe Ukraine off the map, he said. He is the junior partner of China, and if he succeeds we will have to deal with much higher costsAmericans and Europeansof a victorious Russia and an emboldened China.

China has largely remained neutral since the conflict broke out, maintaining its own strategic and ideological relationship with Russia while also avoiding making an enemy out of the West.

EU leaders recently affirmed their support for Ukraine, with plans being drawn up for a further 1.5 million a month in financial aid starting from next year, but discussions have been complicated by disagreements on a continent-wide energy cap and public unrest over high electricity prices.

But despite the rising costs of the energy crisis, Lambrinidis emphasized that democracy is on the line in Ukraine, and urged leaders in both Europe and the U.S. not to soften their support for the country.

Theres no safe distance when an autocrat sitting on nuclear weapons is just pushing to make sure he can bend the will of democracies to his own, he said.

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So it was a cause for some concern when in May this year, amid rising inflation, high interest rates, and plummeting asset prices, the firm issued a new stark prognosis.  Cheap capital is not coming to the rescue, it cautioned. Wishful thinking is a waste of time.

The megafunds latest warning has proved just as prescient. Since May, economic chaos in the U.S. and beyond has heralded a new era of careful conservatism in the Valley. Deals are down, money is tight, and risk aversion is the order of the day.

Its a lot harder to fundraise right now, says San Francisco-based real estate startup founder Shri Ganeshram, whose company plans to subsist on the $11.3 million it raised last winter. In this economy, we would be happy to move forward with a flat round, he adds.

Indeed, one effect of all this is that venture capital funds have actually entrenched their power over the startups that have to live off these highly-risk funding rounds. In this period of venture capital austerity, startups that must raise cash are forced to accept money with many more strings attached: greater board power for investors, lower valuations, and term sheets that let venture capitalists cash out earlier and with more money. 

The art of the deal

Before the crash, the venture capital market was just insane, recalls Waltter Kulvik, a partner at U.K. law firm Eversheds Sutherland, who has advised on these perilous investments since 2006. Investors fought tooth and nail to get onto deals that bought them little control. Look, were not happy with this, they would grumble, but we love the company and we want to be in there.

The frenzy was great for founders: Immad Akhund managed to raise $120 million in a Series B for his unicorn startup, Mercury, in only three weeks last July. Founders could just show up, he says. You didnt even need to have a very good modelyou just needed to have a very convincing story. 

Kulvik says venture capitalists burned out as early as this April. After spending a few months culling laggards from their portfolios, they snapped company valuations back to reality, no longer riding on the pretense that a company that took in a million dollars last year is somehow also worth half a billion dollars. These days, with venture capital hatches battened, Akhund predicts that his $120 million deal would take months to signand far more preparation.

Their risk models updated and the economy stuffed full of wool, venture capitalists could finally sign deals on their own termsand theyre tougher on founders this time around, says Kulvik. In the boom times, he continues, venture capitalists could just about scrape back their investment when companies went bust or were sold for less than expected. Since August, however, he says funds have signed deals that allow them to claw back at least 1.5 times their investments and call dibs on payouts from sales and bankruptciesa way of managing risk and guaranteeing at least some return on their investment. Some funds are even pushing to double their investments when the company is sold at a lower valuation.

Venture capitalists are also lowering the thresholds at which companies must ask the board for permission, says Kulvik. Where companies could once spend, say, $3 million without board approval, new deals only allow them to spend $2 million. And while deals last year granted majority approval to investorsmeaning that founders would get at least some sayventure capitalists are now claiming sole veto rights.

When investors are putting money to work, they want to know where its going, says Qnovia CEO Brian Quigley, who quit big tobacco to run the smoking cessation startup, which last month raised $17 million. 

While plenty of deals are still being done, compromises are hidden within the structure of the term sheets. Don Butler, a managing director of Thomvest, Peter Thomsons $500 million venture capital fund, says companies these days are more concerned with optics, choosing to hide their less favorable investment terms to protect their valuations. Nobody wants to go back to the employees and say, We did a big down round, and the [stock] options that we gave you all are now way too expensive.

To sustain momentum and avoid lower valuations than last year, Butler says lots of startups are issuing debt, like convertible loan notes, to tide them over until the next public fundraising round. Elsewhere, they are pursuing insider rounds, wherein old investors privately renegotiate better terms in exchange for flat or increased valuations. Founders, too, can withdraw less money from their companies, having once again to build their startups into empires before receiving their payout.

[A deal could] nominally look like the same price, but its going to have all these terms that come with it that, in effect, give it a lower price, says Butler.

And whereas last year Thomvest was one of many venture capital funds participating in a round worth a hundred million dollars, Butler has noticed the fund is now among just one or two venture capital firms taking part in a funding round. So, instead of sharing a single board position with an entire investment syndicate, Butlers firm holds more direct positions on the board.

Steadier ships

Butler, whose firm this year celebrated its 25th year of investing, prefers things that way. You want to make sure the company doesnt do something that has been tried 15 years ago, and then 30 years ago, and both times they blew up, he says. He thinks the venture capitalists steady hand is far more important in this economyand could prevent some of the 20-something entrepreneurs his firm backs from repeating the same mistakes and flushing their money away. 

The calm in the market has also allowed VC firms to invest in companies at valuations that are grounded in reality. Butler remembers how ridiculous valuations during last years rampage ruined months of his companys careful number crunching in the cloud computing market. We couldnt do anything with that, he said, and Thomvest dropped out. 

Karin OConnor, a partner at the $150 million midwest venture capital fund Serra Ventures who also teaches at the Kellogg School of Management, says the companies on offer are different, too. Only the steeliest of investors would dare become an entrepreneur in this economy; wannabe investors cling on to solid careers rather than risk it all for some harebrained cash grab. The exits are slower, too. When one potential IPO candidate stalled amid the crash, OConnor says her firm decided to keep growing the firm instead of looking for a quick exit. Well just cash out in two years instead of today, she says.

Its a great time to be an investor, says OConnor. But perhaps less so for a startup founder, who may have to become comfortable ceding more power. The shift might rub some Silicon Valley types the wrong way.

Im a founder because I like being in control, says Akhund, the Mercury CEO. With a VC, you just met the person. You dont know how they make their decisions.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5% as of 12:50 p.m. Eastern. It had been up as much as 1% shortly after trading opened. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 129 points, or 0.4%, to 32,604 and the Nasdaq fell 0.8%.

Big technology stocks were the biggest weights on the market. The companies, with their big valuations, have more heft in pushing the broader market up or down. Also, rising interest rates tend to make the sector look less attractive because of its those high valuations. Apple fell 2.4%.

Small company stocks held up better than the rest of the market. The Russell 2000 rose 0.5%.

The Labor Department reported that U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in September, suggesting that the labor market is not cooling as fast as the Fed hoped for as it tries to slow economic growth.

The latest jobs data, which comes ahead of a broader employment report on Friday, is disappointing for investors who are looking for signs that inflation is easing and that the Fed might consider tempering its interest rate increases.

That really fuels the expectation that the Fed has to do more hiking, said Jason Draho, head of asset allocation for the Americas at UBS Global Wealth Management. The labor market is still too tight for the Fed.

Wall Street is concerned that the central bank is being too aggressive in slowing the economy, running the risk that it could bring on a recession.

Long-term Treasury yields turned higher after the report in job openings came out and rose back near multiyear highs. Those high rates have helped push mortgage rates above 7% this year.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.05% from 3.93% earlier in the morning.

The yield on the two-year Treasury, which tends to reflect market expectations of future moves by the Federal Reserve, rose to 4.52% from 4.40%.

The issue for investors is figuring out how long the hiking cycle will last, Draho said. (Fed Chair Jerome) Powell will want to leave all options on the table.

Several big companies made solid gains following encouraging earnings reports and forecasts.

Pfizer rose 2.9% after reporting strong results and raising its profit forecast for the year. Uber surged 12.6% after giving investors a strong forecast for future bookings. Rival Lyft rose 4.3%.

Earnings remain a big focus for investors this week. CVS reports its results on Wednesday and Starbucks reports earnings on Thursday.

Outside of earnings, Abiomed surged 50% after health care giant Johnson & Johnson said it will pay $16.6 billion for the heart pump maker. Johnson & Johnson fell 1%.

The Fed is beginning a two-day policy meeting thats expected to result in its sixth interest rate increase of the year as the central bank fights the worst inflation in four decades. The widespread expectation is for the Fed to push through another increase thats triple the usual size, or three-quarters of a percentage point.

For its final policy meeting of the year, in December, opinions are currently split among investors as to whether the Fed will make another three-quarters point move or dial back to a half-point increase.

___

AP Business writers Joe McDonald, Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

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