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In search of 20,000,000 trees.

PhantomWolf

Penultimate Amazing
PhantomWolf
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Mar 6, 2007
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Those that are on YouTube might have seen this already, but if you haven't, let me tell you about #TeamTrees.

So MrBeast, a YouTube creator hit 20 million subs a short while back, and as a way to celebrate he and Mark Rober have partnered with a huge number of other creators to form TeamTrees with the goal of planting 20 million trees before the end of the year. They are doing this by working with Arbor Day Foundation who are going to plant one tree for every $1 raised.

This is pretty much blowing up, and within a few days of being announced they have hit over $8.6 million with Elon Musk dropping a million dollars in the pot, Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO, donating $150,000, and YouTube pledging to match the next $1 Million raised on its platform (it's at just over $2.1 million currently.)

There are plenty of videos about the push and some are quite interesting if you don't know a lot about trees.






If you're interested in looking into it more their site is https://www.teamtrees.org/ or you can look up #teamtress on Youtube

What do you think? Seems to be a pretty good idea, and I expect that they're going to surpass the 20 million, and while it won't stop Climate Change, this does have the potential of being able to take 10,000 tons of Carbon from the atmosphere each year, so hey, just 39,999,990,000 tons to go. :D

So yeah, I know this is a little bit of a advert for them, but I think it's also an important current topic, and one that can be talked about as well as actioned if people think it's worth helping out.
 
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I can't listen to the audio right now.

What kind of trees exactly? It would have to be old growth forest type trees to make a noticeable difference I think.
 
Venom said:
I can't listen to the audio right now.

What kind of trees exactly? It would have to be old growth forest type trees to make a noticeable difference I think.
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It depends on where they are planted. The Arbor Foundation determines what trees are native to the area they are planting, and what will do well, since they want them to survive and mature, then plant a mix of those trees to make sure that they will thrive and that there is some diversity in the trees in the area.

More about them here

While based in the US, the Foundation plant trees all over the world, so the 20 million trees won't just be planted in the US and Canada.
 
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I have plugged it before but I will plug it again: There is a Berlin-based search engine that is good enough for most searches and spends the whole revenue it generates by ads etc through its users into planting trees. They claim to have planted 72.000.000 trees since they started, and it seems like the legal form they chose under German law would bring them into trouble if that claim isn't true. I switched to it as my default search engine some months ago and it is rare that I feel to have missed something and ask another search engine. Check it out:

https://info.ecosia.org/what
 
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Before anyone throws shade on this, 20,000,000 trees planted is an achievable goal. It's a big, difficult goal, but not insane.

For comparison, the U.S. Forest Service has a nursery in Nebraska that produces about 2.5 million seedlings a year, mostly for reforestation after logging operations or forest fires.

Lots of developing nations are pushing re-forestation. Lots of good work can be done here. They might be able to get this done by just adding funding to a lot of existing reforestation efforts, no need to reinvent the wheel.
 
crescent said:
They might be able to get this done by just adding funding to a lot of existing reforestation efforts, no need to reinvent the wheel.
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Yeah I agree, and I'm pretty sure that is why they decided to partner with the Arbor Foundation instead of going it alone. The AF was founded in 1972 so have been at it a while, and are currently attempting to have 100 million trees planted worldwide by 2022 for the 150th anniversary of Arbor Day, so the two goals line up really well.
 
I suggest planting them where Climate Change is going to bring the rain for them.
 
casebro said:
I suggest planting them where Climate Change is going to bring the rain for them.
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Yeah, they are doing that

However, trees also expire a lot of water from their leaves, about 95% of what they draw from the soils, and so when you get a lot of trees together they can actually create their own climate and rain. China is using this to start slowing the encroachment and reclaiming the southern parts of the Gobi Desert. Israel has also used it to convert desert in to arable lands.

ETA: It's also a reason the felling rain forests are so bad, by cutting down the trees, it destroys these climates and ends up reducing the rains, thus drying the rest out and killing more forest, which dries it out even more.
 
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PhantomWolf said:
Yeah, they are doing that

However, trees also expire a lot of water from their leaves, about 95% of what they draw from the soils, and so when you get a lot of trees together they can actually create their own climate and rain. China is using this to start slowing the encroachment and reclaiming the southern parts of the Gobi Desert. Israel has also used it to convert desert in to arable lands.

ETA: It's also a reason the felling rain forests are so bad, by cutting down the trees, it destroys these climates and ends up reducing the rains, thus drying the rest out and killing more forest, which dries it out even more.
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That is pretty much a boiled down description of how rainforests work - they literally create a local micro-climate, and the bigger they are the less "local" and "micro" that climate becomes. This is why cutting them down is a real danger to the planet.


Actually, planting masses of trees is great idea, because its young forests that are the most effective at using carbon.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/plant-more-trees-young-forests-use-carbon-most-effectively/
 
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I just purchased 50 trees. All power to these guys.

ETA Well I tried to. It wouldn’t accept my card number. I’ll send them an email.
 
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On a completely unrelated note, the Logging Company I consult for would like to know where exactly these trees are being planted.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
On a completely unrelated note, the Logging Company I consult for would like to know where exactly these trees are being planted.
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I was just reading an article on Tobi Lutke donating $1,000,001 dollars to pip Musk's donation, and it stated that all of the trees will be being planted outside of America, but I haven't seen anything else that would confirm that. I do know that the Arbor Day Foundation has projects worldwide though. I would also note, that they won't be being planted for later logging. The Arbor Foundation is about rebuilding native Forests, not planting pines for forestry.
 
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Strange turns in my life over the past 5 years have resulted in me somewhat accidentally owning a 40 acre forest on the Olympic Peninsula, WA state. I'm able to supply saplings in vast quantity. I hope to do just that when I move back west from my banishment to the American Redoubt. Anyone who lives in Western WA (who gives the appearance of being semi normal online) is welcome to come supply up.
 
varwoche said:
Anyone who lives in Western WA (who gives the appearance of being semi normal online) is welcome to come supply up.
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Well, that's me out, then.

Due to a strange set of circumstances, I ended up being part owner of a (very small chunk of) privately-held nature preserve in the Great Lakes region.

I like the idea of lots of people buying up small bits of land for that purpose, preserving or re-creating native habitat whenever possible.
 
They plant 20 million trees that would not have been planted otherwise. The question is where is the money coming from (and everything else) to look after the trees?
 
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