Veronika Wild

Believe me, my desk is never as neat as this! Photo by MockupEditor.com from Pexels Did you know that many companies plant trees on your behalf when you use their goods and services? Just by way of example, my new electricity provider has just informed me that they have planted 35 trees on my behalf and that so far I have saved 0.65 t of CO2 going into the atmosphere and .26 of a ton of coal being used. This is because I now have solar panels and my excess power is going to the state grid. Although most of our own power is from hydro -electricity, its excess is exported to the mainland, thereby reducing its need for coal sourced energy, as well as earning a bit of revenue for both of us. They are also planning more wind farms so I hope they aren't clearing too many trees for that. Trees at the Click of a mouse A Dutch company called TreeClicks will plant trees on your behalf if you buy online through the 50,000 companies currently on their books. I am not suggesting t...

  -    Photo by Mick Haupt from Pexels   Sad to say, the answer to both questions is No. Trees cannot stop climate change alone. Even one trillion trees will hardly make a dent in our emissions, much less reduce those already in the atmosphere. Even worse, our emissions are actually increasing – more people seeking a better lifestyle, more data consumption which uses a surprising amount of energy -more video streaming, more zooming, more online shopping – I won’t even mention Bitcoin , and someone has to make all those EVs, solar panels and wind generators. According to Climatologist Dr Simon Clark 20 million trees removing an estimated one million tons of carbon from the atmosphere over a century, would only remove one thousandth of the billion tons of carbon that we release every single year. We would need to plant a 40 million trees a day, just to cover the daily carbon output of the USA. He also fears that planting trees may delude us into thinking th...

-Photo by Akil Mazumder The 2021 World Environment Day theme just happens to be "Ecosystem Restoration" and since it also marks the start of the  UN Decade of Restoration , I hope you won't mind if I still keep talking about trees. There are however, a number of other projects underway from urban gardening in New York to rewilding in Argentina or reinvigorating seagreass beds in the UK and Europe, so check them out here . It's about restoring and recreating our relationship with nature. There is also a message for young people about being #GenerationRestoration , though I do think it's rather unfair that young people are being left to take on this urgent task, while adults continue to clear forests, pollute and burn fossil fuels. Perhaps our young people will show them the way and that a cleaner, healthier and kinder world is possible. That's my hope anyway. Speaking of hope, I just want to make mention of veteran Tasmanian environmentalist, Christine Milne...

  -Image Team Trees, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons #TeamTrees.   In October 2019, popular YouTubers -engineer, inventor, science advocate Mark Rober and entrepreneur/philanthropist MrBeast launched a global YouTube community project called #teamtrees which set out to raise $20 million for the Arbor Day Foundation to plant 20 million trees by Arbor Day 2020. With   Elon Musk and Shopify founder Tobias Lütke donating over one million dollars each t he project was off to great start and the financial goal was reached ahead of schedule on December 19, 2019.    MrBeast at work   Where the trees are going With donors from 200 countries represented, the Arbor Day Foundation which has been entrusted to plant the trees will do so in every continent except Antarctica. They include Australia, Canada, France, China, Haiti, Indonesia, Ireland, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nepal and the UK. So far they have planted 8 million trees. In Kenya the Arbor Day F...

   New York with its magnificent Central Park designed by Frederick Olmsted and Calvert Vaux -NYC City Hall, New York Image by iphylglad from Pixabay   How it all began We all know that trees are the lungs of a city. They also keep their populations both happier and healthier. Recognising this the National Association of State Foresters and the USA Forest Service began the Tree Cities Program in 1976. Now operated by the Arbor Day Foundation which we spoke about previously, there are 3,400 Tree Cities in the USA . Becoming a US Tree City requires local authorities to meet four criteria: 1.        They must have a dedicated tree board or department 2.        They must have a community tree ordinance 3.        Must commit to spending at least $US 2 per person on trees         ( The per capita amount means that small cities are not ...