36
votes
Accepted
What are the major concerns about planting trees to create carbon offsets?
That the scheme actually has a net positive effect, both in the short and long-term
How effective a tree planting scheme is in capturing and storing carbon dioxide, is for a large part determined by ...
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31
votes
Accepted
Why does the cost of planting trees vary so much across different websites?
There are different levels of service.
In itself planting a tree is very easy and cheap, of the 3 billion trees in the UK, most drop thousands of seeds each year and some germinate all by themselves ...
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26
votes
What are the major concerns about planting trees to create carbon offsets?
Questions about tree planting have come up on StackExchange quite often, and in the news various countries have great drives to plant vast numbers of trees in a single day.
A common issue seems to be ...
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11
votes
Do Christmas trees have a positive or a negative impact on carbon emissions?
To qualify my answer I have ended up here following research into the new agreement made today in Paris regarding climate change (COP21).
There appears to be a consensus that one of the most important ...
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8
votes
Will planting trees around my house save me from pollution?
Pollution
Trees (and plants for that matter) can reduce air pollution by trapping small particles (fine dust) on their leaves and by absorbing gases such as nitrogen dioxide, ozone and sulfur dioxide.
...
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7
votes
Why does the cost of planting trees vary so much across different websites?
Any time you want to give money to a charity, you should do some basic research on how the charity spends donated money. Some charities spend over 90% of donated funds on charitable works, with ...
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5
votes
Accepted
Is it okay from a sustainability viewpoint to buy a christmas tree?
Perhaps the best answer to the question, as posed, is...
Research the source of the tree. Was it farmed under the guidelines or certification of the American Tree Farm System or in Britain the ...
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4
votes
Accepted
How to compensate past CO₂ emissions
Each offset program is problematic in its own way. We can't (feasibly) put carbon back; we can only try to store away what's already out there, or give more people more options to develop without ...
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3
votes
What are the major concerns about planting trees to create carbon offsets?
One concern is that it takes too long. Because a sustainable forest needs decades to grow it is a midterm solution only.
Another concern that comes to mind which I have not yet heard is that the ...
3
votes
How to compensate past CO₂ emissions
If you restore the ecology of barren earth so that it continues to sustain and increase total biomass, then you've made a big step in that direction. As soil improves, the total carbon contained or ...
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2
votes
Is it okay from a sustainability viewpoint to buy a christmas tree?
If you don't buy a Christmas tree your impact on the environment is 0.
If you do buy a tree, there will be some impact because most likely water, fertilizer and pesticides were used to grow the tree, ...
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2
votes
Do Christmas trees have a positive or a negative impact on carbon emissions?
Mσᶎ is correct; you cannot include the embedded carbon of the tree itself because of it's short time in captured state. unless you take the tree's back from customers and then dispose of them in a ...
- 496
1
vote
Do carbon-offsetting apps work? Are there better ways for me to invest in reducing climate change?
Let's consider the climate investments.
tree planting schemes
Do they pay an external landowner to plant trees, or do they purchase the land, plant trees and ensure the trees will stay there?
If ...
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1
vote
Hyper carbon accumulator(s) for backyards
This article (and the "Part two" it links to) gives a lot of technical detail and some practical advice: Why Not Start Today: Backyard Carbon Sequestration Is Something Nearly Everyone Can Do.
In ...
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1
vote
What are some leguminous food trees suited for a Mediterranean climate?
I can't think of any leguminous trees which produce edible fruit. Olives are the obvious trees for a dry Mediterranean climate. Then the citrines and Almonds Wallnuts and sweet chestnuts. But if you ...
- 155
1
vote
Is it okay from a sustainability viewpoint to buy a christmas tree?
My simple answer is yes, especially if you have two planted in it's place. That's assuming you mean to buy a Christmas tree that's been cut down.
(Unless you plan on removing the tree from the earth's ...
- 11
1
vote
Quantity of new trees needed to compensate all human CO₂ pollution
Trees follow the logistics curve for growth. More complicated, the number of trees descreases as they get larger. E.g. after a forest fire, lodgepole pine sprout at about 10 per square foot. In 10 ...
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