1 Billion trees to fight Global warming

The 2004 Nobel Peace prize winner Wangari Matthei at work -bless her!Its a good effort but I also agree with some of what Dan Stafford has to say about it:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15622435/

NAIROBI, Kenya - A Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner called on people around the world to plant 1 billion trees in the next year, saying Wednesday the effort is a way ordinary citizens can fight global warming.

Wangari Maathai, who in 2004 became the first black African woman to win a Nobel in any category, urged participants to ensure the trees thrive long after they are planted.

“It’s one thing to plant a tree, it’s another to make it survive,” said Maathai, who founded Kenya’s Green Party in 1987 and focused on planting trees to address the wood fuel crisis here.





One Billion Trees to Fight Global Warming?
Posted by Dan Stafford at 03:07 PM

It was announced today that the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Wangari Mathai is launching an effort to plant one billion trees annually in an effort to combat global warming.

I can't say I'm against this plan, but it does seem like a long way to go to make a small dent in the global warming problem, when the root of the issue is American's lifestyles, not a lack of trees. Why are we not using buses or walking? Why do our cars not get the mileage they should? Why don't we use energy efficient lightbulbs?

Sadly, the American media is always on the lookout for what appear to be quick-fix band aid solutions to the problem, rather than pushing for actual change. Don't get me wrong - I'm not against the planting of trees - but if American energy consumption patterns don't change, this effort won't amount to a hill of trees.

The American lifestyle is a huge problem.

Gimme trees!

:toast:

You can see the trees in this photo. They are planted in deep peat bog that the
trees destroy by being too acidic (needles from sitka spruce and pine). The peat
bog is already 5x the carbon sinking of trees. The tree plantings in the distance
in this photo are actually carbon-sink destroyers, and should be cut down, *are*,
very slowly as land management practices catch up to current understanding.



More on peat bogs as carbon sinks
http://www.coolkidsforacoolclimate.com/Causes&Effects/peat.htm

I don't think we have peat bogs in FL.

This is something I would like to get my kids at school together on.

And now might be a good time to open a tree nursery! (or invest in one?)

To plant them that the full grown ones will look natural is difficult.

Getting all of the bareroot trees in the ground before winter warms above
freezing is an interesting winter outdoor challenge.

Scotland's reforestation has been a serious environmental victory of recent
years, just the older forestry did not understand the value of the bog. A
few trees in natural growths are fine with the bog, just the intensive forestry
that views an acre of land as "timber feet per year". Its sickening the monoculture
views that 'forestry' is about. The art of wilderscape forestry is so much
more challenging... to outwit a future visitor in to thinking the trees were natural.

Willow, rowan, buckthorn, ash, aspen, alders. Its a real kick
to plant these living things, with a lifespan that will last thousands of
years if the tree takes.

I would love to here more about your artform of wilderscape forestry. It sounds delightfully subversive!
As to the detractors of this plan, I would just say, do whatever you can. Make a pledge to the earth that you will do everything in your power to reverse planetcide every day. Whether it is planting trees, driving a very fuel efficient car, biking when you can, avoiding packaging that cannot be recycles or composted, turning the heat down to 50 and doing without air conditioners, both which I started doing after Katrina; there are so many things we can all do!

Where stands that have not been allowed to go through natural fire cycles have grown so thick that you cannot leave the road. This condition is quite common in Lassen and Mendocino National forests.

Here in Chico if you aren't cutting trees regularly most plots within city limits will be quickly overgrown. That surely is also the case East of the Missisipi as I once saw a fenced lot in New York City that looked like a tropical forest. It's what you do with the trees you have that counts.

We could thin stands like these, improve the long term viability of the groves and fire resistance, harvest a portion of the biomass for hydrocarbons and bury the majority of the carbon as a carbon sequestration and soil improvement project.

Lassen Area thinning projects

Save The Rewoods thinning paper

Carbon Sequestration as a Soil Improvement know as "Terra Preta"

Coppicing allows for production of fuel, food and lumber on a lot more or less forever. http://www.agroforestry.net/overstory/overstory47.html

When planting an acre from scratch, 1000-1200 trees, cutting out half the trees at 9 years
and again at 18 years. But too often, the hard secondary thinning cuts are not made for
all the hard work done without heavy machinery (roads).

Well managed forest is a lot of work, not an accident, too often people seem to think it just
happens that way, but now that humankind has been across the continent for thousands years,
how can anyone be sure that a tree has not been planted or had its seed scattered by human hands.

or at least as much control as you could get by lighting the fires at certain times of year and hoping they smoldered instead of exploded. In the aggregate it worked very well.

of rain forest a day

how do we make it more profitable for a brazilian person to preserve and manage rainforest,
than cut it down? Can a contract be designed to buy the forestry rights, and that green
interests buy that contract... if the timber industry bids against greenpeace, who will
win in buying timber rights? That the contract for the timber is opaque and traded beneath
the eyes of greener interests, is the crime... time for a land grazing/mineral contract exchange.

A couple of years ago, the tiny nation of Estonian (home of my ancestors) planted 1 million trees for some reason or other. Estonia is about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined, with a population of slightly over 1 million.

If they can do it, I see no reason why other nations that can afford it shouldn't set goals and plant vast quantities of trees too.

Camped near the crown of a Douglas fir tree, a woman plays her harp while protesting logging on the Sten timber sale east of McKenzie Bridge.

I think the 1 billion trees effort is a great idea,
it is of course just one thing that needs to happen.
Another article on it...

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-11-08-one-billion-trees_x.htm

There are now compact fluorescent light bulbs that can be used
whereever 60 watt light bulbs etc. are used, e.g. in light
fixtures. The only restriction is that dimmer switches can't
be used (but there are dimmer fixtures available). There are
6 packs of 60-watt-equivalent fluorescent light bulbs available
for less than 20 dollars. They actually save you money in the long run.
See

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls

I pledge to replace the remaining incandescent light bulbs in my house,
do I hear a second?

from doing other things. It's just one of the things.

And if we can't stop Indonesia and other places from cutting down their trees - at least we can grow our own.


What has happened to me - which is frustrating - is that I have planted hundreds of trees - at a couple of different former residences - and then the new owners cut them down. :( (I was extending the woods, etc.)

So it's not just the planting - but the concept by more people of appreciating them that is needed.

I am very worried about trees, and how they will survive. They cannot become climate refugees.

We all like to talk about Brazil and Indonesia and places like that. But our own trees are under assault. The changing climate is the greatest culprit, but the bulldozer plays and important role as well.

Still I saw them up and burn them in the fireplace. I haven't bought wood in more than a decade.

We have lots of new ones growing, including an American Chestnut. It has had blight, but somehow survived.

I've put a lot in the ground and I've taken a lot out. But the VA pines we plant have a short lifespan down here in FL. They get very gnarly and ugly and die quickly if they get over 20 feet. So I didn't feel too bad taking them down. And we always planted a new one next to the stump.

The hard part was when I would find a nest I hadn't seen. I hated that.

that they raise awareness. Get millions of American kids outside and digging in the dirt, handling saplings, touching mature trees, perhaps seeing a bit of their local woods and wild areas and maybe those kids grow up with that little bit more of an understanding, more of a connection to the land they live on.

As a truck driver, I go across this great country of our and have oftened wondered why we are not planting trees along the roadways and other wide open spaces of this country. Can you imagine for a second, our interstate highways lines with trees??(yes I know that would attract more animals that would be a danger to moterists).. Suggestions??

Maathai can do nothing about that. This, on the other hand, she can do.


... After carbon emissions caused by humans, deforestation is the second principle cause of atmospheric carbn dioxide. (NASA Web Site) Deforestation is responsible for 25% of all carbon emissions entering the atmosphere, by the burning and cutting of about 34 million acres of trees each year. We are losing millions of acres of rainforests each year, the equivalent in area to the size of Italy. <22> The destroying of tropical forests alone is throwing hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. We are also losing temperate forests. The temperate forests of the world account for an absorption rate of 2 billion tons of carbon annually. <3> In the temperate forests of Siberia alone, the earth is losing 10 million acres per year ... http://www.ecobridge.org/content/g_cse.htm

make it and winter them over in my house. Then I plant them out in the world where I know they will survive. It is the greatest thing in the world to have a house full of little spruce seedlings over the winter. You should do it. Pull them gently out, plant them in a big pot with others and put them in the sun. Water once a week and take them out in the spring, say May if you live in a place like Alaska, and plant them. You can almost hear the earth sigh. :)

Read this book a few years ago...Here's some info on the village of Gaviotas, Colombia and their tree planting effort:

http://www.zeri.org/index.cfm?id=projectGaviotas