Pledge “treeplanting”
"I will have 10 trees planted to offset my total carbon dioxide emissions for 2005 but only if 99 other people will do the same."
— Simon Holledge (contact)
Deadline to sign up by: la 31-a de Decembro 2005
110 people signed up (11 over target)
More details
My wife and I estimate our total CO2 emissions at 6.5 tonnes, which could be cancelled out by 10 trees. Various organizations can help with this. For example, the Woodland Trust charge GBP 50 for planting 10 trees in a British wood of your choice, see http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/plantat... . (I would be happy to provide more information about CO2 emission calculations and tree planting.)
- run at least 20 miles each week until April 5th,
- donate $10 to Rep. Jenn Coffey and volunteer at least 5 hours of time to her 2010 re-election
- volunteer my time and energy to support keeping the branch libraries open for Evanston residents.
- contribute to the effort, "Give-a-Book: Help a Child Learn,"
See more pledges, and all about how PledgeBank works.
Things to do with this pledge
Comments on this pledge
Because there are so many comments, only the most recent 50 are shown on this page.
Current signatories (
= they've done it)
Simon Holledge, the Pledge Creator, joined by:
- Sam Hayes
- Tom Mead
- Creag Reece
- Steve Huxton
- Liz Jackson
- Sophie Pert
- Brad Macpherson
- Walter de Rooij
- John Bal
- Simon Ellis
- Aisling O'Brien
- Charles Boisvert
- James Cronin
- Ellen
- Sam Smith
- Eben Upton
- Chris Baldwin
- Richard Pope
- Arthur Moulding
- Daniel Moore
- Erica Packington
- John Wallace
- Catherine Wanless
- Mike Green
- R Higham
- Lee Marson
- Robin Grant
- Jeremy Melanson
- Owen Blacker
- William Cameron
- Keith Blakemore-Noble
- Jason Reich
- Edward Harris
- Rebekah Phillips
- Kate Phillips
- Alex Elspass-Collins
- Peter Munro
- Al Spendlove
- Christine Williams
- Nigel Metheringham
- Rosie Head
- Jane Lattimore
- Paul Snookes
- Sally Gurney
- Georgina Allen
- Phil Wilson
- Vicus Scurra
- Gary Owen
- Jane Orchard
- Kendrick Curtis
- Rachel Hayes
- Chris Green
- Simon Handley
- The Merkin
- Claire Oliver
- Edd Dawson
- kevin brooks
- Caleb Matthews
- Chris Cole
- Jacob Kennedy
- Tim
- Jon Grant
- Richie Hindle
- Ed Kiernan
- Jay
- Malcolm Wotton
- Lyndsey McGovern
- Johnny Doyle
- Vanessa C
- Paul Hemstock
- Kitt Hodsden
- Alice Field
- KENZO MAESAKA
- RL Nelson
- Gabor Retteghy
- Laura Nieurzyla
- Sarah Balfour
- Nahoko
- Vikki Roberts
- paul van der veen
- Ben Smith
- Jez
- Matt Overall
- Adam Edwards
- Anthony
- bill hollis
- Toby Radcliffe
- Timothy Mark Pollington
- Duane Phillips
- Paul Gibbs
- Kevin Hughes
- Craig House
- Trystan Negus
- Holly Mieville-Hawkins
- Marguerite Hegley
- Fiona Lindsay
- Adrienne Kurnot
- Tim Colbourne
- cary outis
- 11 people who did not want to give their names
But more importantly:
"When a tree dies, it releases its stored carbon back into the air. The death and rotting of one 70-year-old tree would return over 3 tons of carbon to the atmosphere."
http://www.bugwood.org/intensive/trees_a...
The really big O2 producer on our planet is not the tree but the tons and tons of algae in our oceans.
http://www.skakagrall.com/archives/00048...
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Anyhow, I am attempting to defuse this argument, rather than prolong it. I encourage everyone to critically assess the various viewpoints and form their own conclusions, as I did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warm... is a good starting point.
Thank you for the links which I have added to the FAQ at:
http://www.skakagrall.com/archives/00048...
Comments can be added below the FAQ. There is limited space for them here. (I would be pleased to set up a discussion site if there was a demand.)
I'd appreciate having ideas about how to follow up on this pledge campaign (i.e. after we get the 99 signatories). Please write to me!
Currently planting around 20 trees per year just to keep the trees alive, and to keep pace with the public servants that seem to think that they know anything about CO2.
Grrrrrrrrrrr.
Frank
I have been trying to get more detailed information from the Woodland Trust since this pledge began. You will appreciate that 'planting' or 'dedicating' is not the issue so much as where the GBP50+ actually goes. The good thing about the Woodland Trust is that they concentrate on indigenous species and maintain their woods well. I am however looking at other options and will include alternatives that anyone suggests on the FAQ.
Thank you for the Trees for Cities link which I have added to the FAQ at:
http://www.skakagrall.com/archives/00048...
For GBP 5 per tree, Trees for Life will arrange for volunteers to plant seedlings, aged between one to two years, of Scots pine, silver birch, downy birch, aspen, alder, willow, holly, juniper, rowan and oak in Glen Moriston and Glen Affric as part of a project to restore the ancient Caledonian Forest and its wildlife, on the west side of Loch Ness. All the seedlings will be of indigenous trees propagated from cones, seeds or berries collected locally, and grown by either Trees for Life or the Forestry Commission.
The trees will be planted on land owned by the Forestry Commission Scotland, the National Trust for Scotland, the RSPB and private landowners on the basis of long-term agreements to maintain and manage the forest, in some cases under joint responsibility.
As before, the conversion factor used will be one tree to offset 0.65 tonnes of CO2.
The Trees for Life website is at:
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/
They have undertaken to put up a special payments page for this pledge campaign. I will publish the address for this when it is available.
N. B. As indicated in 'More details' under the pledge, I originally intended to recommend the Woodland Trust, however I now understand that they only arrange carbon offset for companies not individuals. (In any case, my attempts to discuss the pledge directly with them have so far been unsuccessful.)
Please send me the Oxfam URL. Their scheme sounds very worthwhile, but without knowing the size, species and life expectancy of the trees it is difficult to know if it is relevant to carbon offset.
The oxfam website is:
www.oxfamunwrapped.com The item is on the front page.
I really don't know if this meets the requirements.The only reason I mentioned it is I started a successful pledge to do something else via that site and noticed that and thought it would be a good thing to do anyway. Both schemes seem very worthwhile, but it's always better if you can kill two birds with one stone (not that I'm advocating killing birds!)
Trees for Life http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/ are still my first recommendation for this pledge. Britain has lost most of its tree cover over the past few hundred years and we now have the possibility of putting some of it back.
The Oxfam project may be worthwhile, but the priority in developing countries should be to save the remaining primary rain forests, which take much longer to regenerate than temperate woodlands in somewhere like Britain. It's a different issue. I have trekked through Indonesian forests, seen illegal logging etc. . . .
Have planted 30-40 trees in the last 3 years to combat the local councils ignoring TPOs and destroying important woodland.
Have just joined woodland trust (as a result of this pledge), and will continue to plant/transplant trees.
Recent plantings include a sequoia and a giant redwood! Have been (trans)planting sycamores to replace those removed by the local council. Not great trees, but the wildlife love them.
I've got another 20+ saplings potted up and ready to plant - I guess I've acheived my 10 trees pledge :-)
F.
There is also the political dimension to all this. At the moment Britain is burning more coal and emitting increased amounts of CO2. The 'lifestyles must change' environmentalists should address this issue instead producing woolly talk about the natural world being complex.
I've done it - in my front garden - sorry for the delay in fulfilling the pledge. 2 Eucalyptus, 2 Oven's Wattle, 2 golden cypressa, 2 Willow Podocarp, 1 brush wattle and a weeping willow. I've also planted a few "non-trees" such as bamboo, laurel, euonymus, and mahonias. What a great idea - over 1050 trees planted because of you - well done.
We recommend donating money for tree planting to Trees for Life, a charity in Scotland, or to similar non-profit organizations.
Some points:
(1) trees regenerate, the larger the area planted, the more carbon can be absorbed,
(2) when trees die much of the carbon is absorbed into the soil, quite apart from the carbon uptake of the young trees that take the place of the old ones,
(3) many natural processes are involved in the carbon cycle, trees are only one part of the picture, however tree planting is an area where we can get involved (legally and peacefully) as individuals.
(4) getting your local coal-fired power station taken out of operation would be a far, far greater contribution to limiting CO2 emissions than planting trees. Good luck to you if you want to take this on!
for more details. The authors concluded that their work shows that trees are up to 4% less efficient as a carbon sink than previously thought. Insignificant.
As for co2balance.com, this is not a profit-making body. It was set up and funded by 4 friends and is run in our spare time. No-one has taken a penny in remuneration, something that not many charities can boast.
Encouraging the natural regeneration of trees is indeed worthwhile, however the focus of this pledge was to ask people to contribute money to non-profit organizations like Trees for Life (or the Woodland Trust) which would not only plant trees but also importantly maintain the land in the long term.
Unfortunately, only one third of those who made this pledge have apparently kept it, so I have decided not to run this kind of campaign again, at least not here.
One of the problems with the Pledge Bank is that it keeps the identity of signatories secret and allows anonymity. This makes it difficult to organize the implementation of the pledge.
If anyone knows a good alternative to the Pledge Bank for running environmental campaigns, I would be delighted if you could let me know.
Thanks to all of you who took part and _did_ honour their commitment!
Best wishes,
Simon
We are also compiling a large amount of information, data and code which we will distribute for free to anyone who wants it for non-commercial use. The first tentative steps towards this are here
http://www.global-cool.com/en/act/diy/
If you want to make a similar pledge, please consider using the version of Pledgebank we have up there as it's all focussed on this kind of issue (and all built by the same great team at Pledgebank)!
Please also check out the EROs section as being more efficient needs to be your first step and offsetting should only used for your unavoidable emissions.
If you are looking for information and/or want to help or have ideas of other initiatives, please do let me know using the email address on that site.
Warm regards, Gavin
One of the main criticisms of planting trees to withdraw carbon from the atmosphere is the 'temporary' nature of the store. At Treeflights.com we have tried to address this in our long term management plan for the forest we plant. We've come up with the following:
Grow trees to maturity, process the timber into large rectilinear blocks, preserve and then bury in the sea or in the peat bog on which they are growing. Under these anaerobic conditions the decomposition of the wood and the resulting flowback of CO2 to the atmosphere will be very much reduced. Think of how well preserved the timbers of those viking long boats are. Then we plan to start the whole process over again. Grow another forest on the same site....etc, etc. We call this a "Sequestration Farm".
Keep planting.
I think what you are doing is a great idea, and I'm sure you can do without the criticism of some 'environmentally aware' citizens!
Anyway, regardless of the whole anthropogenic climate change debate and the offsetting thing- I am interested in setting up a similar initiative. I am a teacher in a British school in Thailand, and we are planning on planting a tree to represent each pillar of the 'Round Sqaure' program. IDEALS (Internationalism, Democracy, Environmentalism, Adventure, Leadership and Service). I was just wondering if you know of any charities offhand that could help plant the trees for us over here, as all the ones you have mentioned have been UK or US charities. We plan on raising the money by recycling our used paper (a mountain of which gets wasted everyday in any school) and making cards out of the recycled paper and selling them to the student body. Do you know which species would be the best to plant in this tropical climate? We were thinking about a different species per pillar but their growth rates would be completely different! Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks very much and keep up the good work, we need more people like you in this world
To actually plant new trees to offset CO2 I would expect http://www.carbonfootprint.com/ or http://www.grownupgreen.org.uk/ might be better places to visit.
I have discussed carbon-offset planting with the Woodland Trust in the past, and while i believe they do plant new trees after receiving donations, they are a very conservative, government-oriented organization. They have been somewhat disinterested in this project, preferring celebrity-led mass media events etc. focussing on saving ancient woods etc.
I have recommended Trees for Life http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/ as the best partners for this pledge. They are a small, more dynamic, more ecologically-minded charity.
Thanks
The Carbonfreelife site provides no contact details other than an email. As ever I recommend donating to reputable chariries and not to dodgy commercial sites (see my previous comment above).
Different trees of course absorb CO2 at different rates over different periods of time. I have not seen any figures comparing tree species although these may exist.
My understanding is that seasonality is not really a factor as the processes involved are medium rather than short-term.
Regards,
Mike Rigby
But then I would because I run one of those 'dodgy and dubious' commercial sites! What is important is whether the offset is valid not whether the people providing it are working for a charity or a company. Climate Care are are a multinational 'charity', The Carbon Neutral Co. are not. What's the difference Simon?
The Carbonfreelife site to which I referred (above) provides no answers to any of the (pertinent) questions you say should be asked.
I am sure that some commercial activity is well intentioned and well managed, but there have also been scams - unsuitable plantations on cheap land bought in third world countries etc.
One more general point: it's not enough just to plant - long-term maintenance and protection of the land is vital. Charities like Trees for Life can provide the necessary guarantees. Companies may be ephemeral and are unlikely to be able to provide assurance that the land will not be sold and deforested at a later date.