Showing posts with label TreePeople. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TreePeople. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

We need 8 trillion trees, here's 8 billion

Jon Chambers (8billiontrees.com); CC Liu, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly



Trees may be our only hope... Let me tell you why in just 90 seconds
Jon Chambers, founder of 8 Billion Trees
Hi, I'm Jon Chambers. (That’s me in the picture on the left). That's only important because we likely share one very big thing in common: a desperation to act and save our planet from an accelerating climate crisis.

What I'm about to tell you completely changed my mind on climate change and habitat destruction FOREVER.

It caused me to use every dollar in my name, move thousands of miles, and give up everything. Half a century ago, I would never have done that. Everything has changed now.

It’s why I founded 8 Billion Trees, and it’s why we're here in this moment. It’s why I've given up everything (which I will explain in just a moment) to erase two tons of your or my neighbor's carbon footprint, absolutely free.

Yes, using money out of my own pocket and my own hands and trees I grew in a nursery, I will erase someone else's carbon footprint for FREE.

What's the “why”? Why our world now is drastically different than even the one our parent’s (and grandparents) grew up in, regardless of our age… And what the Number 1 scientifically-proven correlation to the destruction of the planet is? Trees.
  • [EDITORS' NOTE: How many trees do we need? There are 7 to 8 billion people. Each needs 400 trees to balance or sequester carbon produced on average. 8,000,000,000 x 400 = 3,200,000,000. Or how many trees were there on the planet before we destroyed jungles, forests, stands, and wildernesses? (8 trillion)? And how many are there now? In the meantime, maybe we should grow fields of hemp and put the minerals and bacteria plankton feed on back in the ocean (removed by dam building) so that coral reefs come back, as Dr. Joel Wallach discovered was the cause of coral loss.]
Who wants change? Who wants to change?
There's a deadly "3-pronged" crisis killing our planet. You may be reading because of the horrific deforestation crisis around the world, how it is rapidly accelerating, already 50% worse than it was last year.

Over half the planet's wildlife has been wiped out through habitat destruction. Our own carbon footprint is two massive tons every month.

To have ANY hope of solving any of these problems, we have to solve them all. Humans have wiped out 60% of animals since 1970 (Zoological Society of London). That’s right. That's us. Humans are just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 6 out of every 10 animals and many plants species. What happened?

Who's this beautiful little guy? (Margaret Mead)
It didn’t just spring out of nowhere… Like I promised, everything happens for a reason. Every cause has an effect. Trees. They are vanishing from the earth at an unprecedented rate.

And it’s not affecting just animals like the orangutan fighting for her life in the video. It’s permanently affecting humans.

The reason is simple. Forests are home to 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Eighty percent of every living animal, plant, and organism directly depends on trees. When the forests go, so do the animals, plants, and everything else.

In the time it takes to read this sentence, 4,612 trees have been destroyed (4 seconds). Gone.

Loggers and cattle ranchers clear-cut trees leaving topsoil exposed to rain erosion, flooding.
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But it would be wrong to say this and not provide the four hard facts, based on studies from experts in virtually every field... They show “cross-domain” significance.

This is a scientific way of explaining that these four cross-domain facts show what is happening in virtually every corner of the planet, even areas not included in the four facts.
  1. At least 50 million acres of rainforest are lost every year, totaling an area the size of England, Wales, and Scotland combined.
  2. Only 10% of Original Forests Remain in Madagascar.
  3. 98% of Ethiopia’s forest have been destroyed in the last 50 years.
  4. The United States has less than 4% of its forests left.
We love our kids like we love ourselves.
Just 50 years ago I never would have left everything behind. One single day put everything into perspective and show just how harmful our modern lives have become…

This is painfully real. It will happen in our lifetime. The real cause of the destruction is shockingly simple. What I am about to say is painful… Every single second, an entire football field of forest is erased. And because trees are directly tied to carbon sequestration, when the trees go, a massive carbon footprint takes their place.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead and friends
It can be hard to understand how FAST this really is without a visual in front of you. So here's one of a devastated area our team found in the Amazon that is exactly 1.86 acres (the size of a football field).

Because of all of this, the average person in today’s modern world—in other words, every single person we know—is directly responsible for the destruction of over 400 trees.

Okay now for the “good” news… There is something AMAZING about this otherwise horrific situation. By replacing the trees, we swap the life-giving carbon for biodiversity, green growth, rich oxygen, habitats, and more! More


“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, organized citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – American anthropologist Margaret Mead

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Physicists: Trees talk! What are they saying?

(LINK: ABClocal.go.com/KABC)

Bodhi tree (exoticindiaart.com)
Something mysterious is happening in the Mojave Desert's Joshua Tree National Park. The reason may be grim, but the effect is beautiful.
 
"It's more than interesting, it's probably unprecedented in anybody's recent memory anyway," Cameron Barrows, a research ecologist at the University of California, Riverside, told ABC News.
 
He's talking about blooms on the Joshua trees that are larger [and more widespread] than locals say they've ever seen.
 
"I don't know what happened this year, but it's been an incredible display," Virginia Willis, a 15-year resident, told ABC. "It doesn't make any sense..." More
Thai Buddhist novices hang colorful flags on Bodhi tree (ChristyB30/flickr.com)
 
Trees "talk" and say more than thirst
Jacki Lyden, "All Things Considered" (NPR.org)
(Lee Berger/nationalgeographic.com)
A team of physicists at Grenoble University in France discovered that trees make different sounds when they are starved for water versus when they are simply thirsty. Dr. Alexandre Ponomarenko, the lead researcher, explains; hear a bit of the thirsty tree sounds.... Two out of three trees are dangerously parched the world over, at least that's what a study published in Nature determined late last year. Biologists looked at hundreds of tree species in 80 locations around the world and found... LISTEN

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Archangel trying to save world’s trees

TakePart (Yahoo! News); Wisdom Quarterly
Tropical spirit women once looked after forest residents (cook-szigetek.com)
 
Bodhi tree (VagabondTravels/flickr)
Last year New York Times journalist Jim Robbins talked to TakePart about his book The Man Who Planted Trees. It focused on David Milarch, a Michigan tree nurseryman who cofounded the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, an organization that is working to replant the genetics of the world’s remaining ancient forests.
On the verge of a major profile by the Today Show, as well as one for NBC’s Nightly News, we decided to catch up with Milarch, who has been traveling the world to identify the most important trees and where the oldest species are living.
“Archangel hired three of the most renowned tree minds on Earth and asked them to create a list of the top 100 species on Earth that man absolutely has to have to survive as a species,” Milarch told TakePart.
Climate change [as caused by ] is always the lead criteria for each of the species on the list [that he and his team attempt to clone], along with how close are each of those tree species to extinction, and what must we do to save them,” Milarch said.
“And of course, which trees stack carbon faster than any other trees on Earth. That answer is simple: First is the eucalyptus, second is the giant sequoia. So in the top ten, you have cottonwood, giant sequoia, coastal redwoods, eucalyptus, and some of the aspens.”
Replacement tree grove (templeofthegoddess.org)
Milarch explained that most people are focused on trees that are given to them because they’re free or they’re what he called “French poodles” -- those specimens with pretty leaves or flowers.
“We discard all of those, and we look for the work horse in the long run, and also the work horses in the short run, that will help get us out of this mess called climate change,” said Milarch. “How can we suck the most carbon and stack it, sequester it, and help turn this thing around?”
Listening to Milarch talk in a folksy manner that’s backed up by an encyclopedic understanding of his subject, it’s easy to be lulled into a sense that what they’re doing at Archangel is pretty straightforward.
In reality, Milarch said, he’s faced an ongoing challenge for 20 years now because most horticultural experts and academics have told him that what Archangel is about to attempt in their next project is impossible or near to impossible. More

Thursday, January 12, 2012

The Bold and Wise Tree (cartoon)

, Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha had many ways of teaching. One of the most treasured -- serving, according to Rhys Davids and other European scholars, as the basis of the world-famous Aesop's Fables -- are the Birth Stories or Jataka Tales.

These fables with talking animals and moral lessons present helpful, higher truths in ways we can grasp more directly than technical analyses, such as those found in the Abhidharma, or recited sutras, that tend to repeat a great deal, which is great for hearing but not great for reading.

Trees, indeed, can talk. That is, the dryads or elemental "shining ones" (earthbound devas) capable of inhabiting them can. Apart from these forest inhabitants or fairies, trees have other ways of communicating with one another, their environment, and humans.

The Deer's Disciple Jataka (More)

Monday, June 13, 2011

Human-Plant bonding: Man grows tree in lung


Ah, incredible nature. First an Indonesian man was becoming a tree. Now a Siberian tree was becoming a man.

2 inch Fir tree removed from patient’s lung
(MosNews) A 5 cm Fir tree has been found in the lung of a man who complained he had a strong pain in his chest and was coughing blood. The 28-year-old patient, Artyom Sidorkin, came to a hospital in the city of Izhevsk in Central Russia last week, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reports.

Doctors X-rayed his chest and found a "tumor" in one of his lungs. Suspecting cancer, they made a decision to perform biopsy. When they cut the tissue, they were amazed to see green needles in the cut.

“I blinked three times and thought I was seeing things. Then I called the assistant to have a look,” says Vladimir Kamashev, doctor at the Udmurtian Cancer Center. More

Saturday, March 28, 2009

GET ACTIVE

Summer Bowen (wholelifetimes.com)


SURFING for Buddha pictures? Clicking on slideshows? Googling for an ego boost? Caught red handed, fingerprints on the keyboard! Do good via the Internet. Here's a mission for a curious mouse.

SWITCH HOMEPAGES there's a reason Google employees get fabulous free lunches -- the company makes a mint off search ads. Divert some of the milk from that cash cow to charity by using GoodSearch (goodsearch.org), which donates about a penny to the organization of one's choosing every time one searches the web. Also check out Ripple (ripple.org, now in beta), which sends 100 percent of advertising proceeds to one of four different causes.

FACEBOOK fanatics can help spread the word about worthy causes by posting a widget through the Facebook Causes application (apps.facebook.com/causes). There are philanthropic passions a plenty! Create one or choose from efforts like "Stop Global Warming" and "No Mc-Donald's in Cusco."

VOLUNTEER by checking out the 62,000 non-profits seeking help at Volunteer Match (volunteermatch.org), and even use handy new features to find opportunities close to home.

TREE PEOPLE has a mission is to teach and inspire people to help care for the urban greenscape. Our sensitive climate makes it important to be smart about rainwater. Visit TreePeople (treepeople.org) and visit La Kretz Urban Watershed Demonstration Garden to see beautiful examples of natural water-friendly landscaping solutions, from rain barrels to bioswales. With alternatives this lovely and low-maintenance, we can all be waving buh-bye to labor-intensive lawns by summer (Julia Levitt).