As a rough guide, 15 trees planted in native UK woodland
will absorb 1 tonne of carbon over their lifetime, or,
using the accepted forestry science, over 100 years.
Any thoughts on this? Is planting trees really an effective way
to help combat the impact of air emissions?
i read in the newspapers that planting trees is not such a good options because they can suck the water out of the soil and this will dry out other plants. also they say that all the nutrients from the soil were depleated and it left a salty soil which not very suitable for planting.
OMG if tree planting doesn’t work what can we do?
Tree planting will allow some degree of carbon dioxide management, but it isn’t the solution to all our prayers. It won’t stop global warming and it won’t undo all the harm humans have done to the environment over the last couple of hundred years especially.
They do drain nutrients and water out of the soil which can affect other plantlife in the area which is why it isn’t practical to plant trees in every available space.
Well if you think of it in terms of “just planting a tree anywhere” then no just planting trees randomly will not really help too much with global warming.
But we need to think smarter and think how can I use a tree to stop global warming?
In terms of architecture and green building, trees are a great resourse to increase the efficiency of a home or building. If you plant some deciduous trees on the south and west side of your home or building, (in norther hemisphere) you can drastically increase your homes efficiency.
Because of their high crowns (spreading branches and leaves) they will block the hot sunlight during the summer therefore reducing the amount of electricity to cool your home or business.
Then during the winter as the trees loose their leaves they will allow the lower winder sunlight to warm the home or business therefore saving energy by reducing the amount it takes to heat it.
There are many other things you can do with landscaping to increase efficiency, but i will stop here for now.
Great reply Adam, the advice on using landscaping techniques to increase the efficiency of your home or business is excellent.
Incidentally, I recently saw a couple of TV building their home partly underground in a hillside with the view to reducing the amount of energy requried to heat/cool their home. It’s a little extreme for most, but I suppose if you’re looking at building your own home there are options.
Wow that was a very interesting post Adam. Of course that if you plant trees irresponsibly you will get nowhere or you will make even more damage so you can’t just start planting trees wherever you see an empty spot. This tree planting thing may look easy but it needs a bit of research.
i don’t know what to say Adam i don’t know much about this but this is what i read. the only tree planting i do is in my garden but i don’t see any damaged soil or other plants. a few years ago they started a campaign in a little town here in italy and they planted trees everywhere and now they are all dead. they never thought about the fact that in that region it rarely rains so they planted a lot of trees and when the water was consumed they all died. everybody was so happy at first and they used a lot of money for the project but they did more damage than good. this is not something that anyone can do, yes you can plant trees in your garden but don’t start planting trees on 50 miles without asking a specialist about the long term effects
Thats unfortunate that they all died, they probably shoudl have brought in a professional to test the soil and figure out the watershed of the region to make sure they would all get enough water and nutrients.
I’m no botanist, so I dont know all of the nutients that soils need in order to preserve plantlife, but I do know that when you plant a tree, its best to make that tree acomplish a wey different objectives.
One tree can produce food, create a natural wildlife habitat, shade a home and create a aesthetically pleasing landscape and micro-environment. The if you combine rainwater harvesting with the planting of herbs, trees and shrubs, you have a self sustaining system that really works on many different levels.
If you cant tell I love sustainable design and the idea of Permaculture as a viable solution to most of earths problems.
you aren’t a botanist but you sure know a lot of things.
in my country we don’t even have the minimum amount of green places.
we need a minimum of 8 square meters for every inhabitant and we have 3 square meters. they started a project now, they want to plant trees and everything but i am a little sceptic.
for example in my city the mayor wants to destroy the national park to build hotels, shopping places and pubs. we will probably vote but i am sure that most of the people especially the young ones will be delighted to have more shopping places so they will probably vote for this.
[quote author=“freexray”]you aren’t a botanist but you sure know a lot of things.
in my country we don’t even have the minimum amount of green places.
we need a minimum of 8 square meters for every inhabitant and we have 3 square meters. they started a project now, they want to plant trees and everything but i am a little sceptic.
for example in my city the mayor wants to destroy the national park to build hotels, shopping places and pubs. we will probably vote but i am sure that most of the people especially the young ones will be delighted to have more shopping places so they will probably vote for this.
OMG, that is terrible. Yes, probably the young ones will vote for it. I am young too, I have 20 years old but I always see the people from my college. They don’t care about the environment at all, probably that is their last concern so they would probably vote for shopping places too. That is very sad, people want to build places to bring more money instead of green places.
Adam I must say I am curious. When using trees in this manner, how do you stop the roots from reaching and damaging the foundations of your house? I would personally consider this to be a huge risk.
When we think of plants cleaning the air we must also consider how the plants help to hold the soil in place. Soil errosion is very serious, with every layer of soil we lose we lose important nutrients. There are alot of factors to be taken into consideration when planting any plant. People use to plant ivy because it grew fast now we know it is a very pretty plant but you must keep it under control.
britjojo, it depends how close you are to the tree. If you are within its dripline, meaning that you are under the canopy of the branches, then that means that the roots are going to have to be dealt with. In special cases, a concrete wall can be poured below the surface to stop the roots, but in most cases the concrete foundation will not be harmed unless you are really close to the tree.
I look down my street and about 60% of the trees have been cut down and not even replaced “some sort of local council job” they either put up a telephone post or a a street light.
There are many parks in my area but thats no excuse to remove street side greenery.
