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Plant:

This one might seem obvious, but it's still true. If you've got a yard, consider planting a new tree this year.

Here's why:

• Trees remove carbon dioxide from the air, replenishing it with oxygen.
• According to the EPA, trees reduce heat islands.
• Thanks to their root systems, trees help prevent erosion.
• With proper landscaping, trees significantly boost the value of your home.
• According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture: “The net cooling effect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.”
• Trees create homes for songbirds.
• Trees reduce unwanted noise.
• According to the EPA, trees reduce flooding.
• If privacy is your thing, trees keep prying eyes at bay. Why kill trees to build an artificial fence when you could build a tree-fence?
• Trees can be a source of fresh, organic food for your family.
• Trees can shade your windows and house reducing the cost of air-conditioning.
• According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of Energy, “the strategic placement of just three trees can save an average household between $100 and $250 annually in energy costs.–

To know more about how trees can help you save on power, click this sentence to be taken to the American Public Power Association's “Tree Benefits Estimator.–

Plus, we've got two ways to help you plant a tree:

1. You can check out the Arbor Day website. By becoming a member, you get 10 free trees mailed to you with the postage already paid. And how much does it cost to become a member? 10 bucks. 10 bucks for 10 trees.
2. If you're not feeling up to planting your own trees, you can make a donation to Plant It 2020. For every dollar you donate, one tree gets planted. Here's the bonus: you can choose the state or country where the trees find a home. Or you can donate to Trees for the Future: forty smackers plants 400 (you read that right, 400) trees.

But in case you have been living in Iceland (where trees are in short supply), here's what they do. Trees absorb carbon dioxide (CO₂), the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming, and through a process called photosynthesis, turn that carbon dioxide into back into oxygen. This is why there is less CO₂ in the atmosphere during the summer when the leaves are out in the northern hemisphere, than during the winter when the trees are bare and other plants are dormant. As Al Gore says in An Inconvenient Truth, “It’s as if the entire Earth, once each year, breathes in and out.–

But three quarters of the planet is covered by water. What if we could increase the plant life in the “Big Blue,– to plant trees in the ocean, if you will. According to the New York Times:

In an effort to ameliorate the effects of global warming, several groups are working on ventures to grow vast floating fields of plankton intended to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and carry it to the depths of the ocean.

Phytoplankton, like trees, use photosynthesis to produce energy. It is found at the surface due to the higher levels of CO2, but is also limited to the availability of iron in the ocean. There are, however, large parts of the ocean's surface that are inexplicably devoid of iron. That's where the research vessel, WeatherBird II, takes over.

The ship plans to dissolve tons of iron, an essential plankton nutrient, over a 10,000-square-kilometer patch. When the trace iron prompts growth and reproduction of the tiny organism, scientists plan to measure how much carbon dioxide the plankton ingests.

There is still a lot of skepticism as to whether or not this will have a positive long-term effect on CO₂ levels in the atmosphere, as well as any unforeseeable negative side effects. But the discussion has started and the wheels are turning. And the idea of turning to one of the world's smallest organisms to solve its biggest problem, well, it’s a rather serendipitous cinher for our cause. Isn't that what we're all about?

For the first time this year the temperature broke 70 degrees and, as reported by WGRZ.com, hundreds of volunteers showed up at Delaware Park in Buffalo and planted more than 400 new trees. It's a small step. But that's what we're all about here at Progressive Wednesday. You have to plant the first tree before you can plant the 10,000^th.

But the fundraising efforts aren’t over. Please consider making a small contribution to Re-tree WNY if you haven’t already. And if you have, thank you on behalf of all the residents of planet Earth.

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WGRZ.com is also offering a free oak or sycamore tree valued at $100 to 20 groups or individuals. So if you have had a tree damaged during the storm, write them an email telling your story. They'll be giving out one tree every day from April 26th through May 23rd, making it easier for you to make “treeish– progress. Bravo, WGRZ. Bravo

Well, since we wrote that, carbon offsets have become “all the rage– (Okay maybe it's not all because of us, but we like to think we've played our part). The most recent to jump on board the environmentally progressive bandwagon is Delta Airlines. According to Delta's website:

Delta’s Force for Global Good has partnered with The Conservation Fund’s Go ZeroSM program to begin the process of planting trees to help offset, or “zero out”, the carbon footprint of air travel. On Earth Day 2007, we pledge to zero out the air travel carbon footprint of every worldwide Delta customer who flies. To celebrate our commitment to our hardworking men and women, we'll also plant a tree for every worldwide Delta employee.

So if you fly Delta this Sunday they'll foot the bill for trees to be planted in the Gulf Coast region, where they claim 20 million acres of forest have been lost since we started driving horseless carriages. After June 1st, they'll make it easier for us to do that ourselves. When you make your reservations on delta.com, just add a few bucks to the total to offset our carbon footprint. It's just one more click and a few bucks; it won't give you carpel tunnel syndrome or break the bank. It's a small thing to do, but it'll have a big impact.  And that's what we're all about here at Progressive Wednesday.

“[People have] made at least a start on discovering the meaning

of human life when [they] plants shade trees

under which [they know] full well [they] will never sit.–

— D. Elton Trueblood

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Problem:

I made the mistake of watching mindless television the other day, and I caught a show called Flip This House. The premise of the show is this: a hot-shot buys a dump of a house, renovates the hell out of it, and tries to sell it for a sizeable profit pronto. On this particular episode, the temporary far-too-capitalistic owner decided to cut down an 80-year-old maple to, and I quote: “Make the property look, I don't know, you know, more modern.– And I literally thought: Poor tree. It was like watching someone chainsaw and wood-chipper my grandma. Well, okay, it wasn't quite like that, but it still sucked like a Dirt Devil. I had to change the channel, and instead I watched a woman get a tattoo of a fire-breathing butterfly on her chest. (I wish I could make up stuff like that.)

We've written about trees a lot already (see here, here, here and here). But we're here again today, getting a jump on April 27: Arbor Day. And besides, there's much more — more than we can even cover this Wednesday — to type about the topic. Why? Two reasons:

1. We're kind of addicted to tree products: toilet paper, sheds, pink tissues, paintings, houses, paper towels, Christmas napkins, fences, Coaco Puffs cereal boxes, chairs, tables, barns, books, Happy Birthday banners, park benches, condos, Marlboro Ultra Lights, wallpaper, ceiling fans, hell, even letters to our aforementioned grandmothers. We're not trying to suggest we don't need this stuff (especially the Coaco Puffs). Most of it we do. But we (and by “we– I mean almost every single one of us including your friendly-neighborhood editors at Progressive Wednesday) forget about how this stuff came to be.

2. Trees are beautiful. We treat them like they're not.

And, if we needed more reasons to reconsider our treatment of trees, then there are these six brand-spanking-new troubling and weird facts about trees:

• The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed at twice the rate once suspected.
• Billboard owners in Georgia will soon be able to clear-cut up to thousands of trees covering several acres to make it easy to read their drivel on a single sign.
• The second largest rainforest in the world is located in the Congo. And despite a moratorium on logging there, “over 37 million acres of rainforest have already been granted to the logging industry, [in spite of] the fact that the area is vital for its biodiversity.–
• Tasmania is using banned chemicals to (wait for it) blow up trees.
• Global warming — which is partially fueled by Amazon deforestation — is actually causing spruce trees to grow in the Artic tundra, endangering animals that thrive on this land normally covered by permafrost.
• According to a recent article in Time, “900 million [trees] every year become pulp and paper.–

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Make Progress:

When I sat down and thought about it this week (and I don't mean on the couch in my shrink's office), I realized that I have fond memories of trees. I spent much of my youth in very, very rural America. The current population of my town? 1,488. I'm shocked we even have a zip code. The number of traffic lights? One. It serves no other purpose than decoration. While my area was short on, you know, humans, I did grow up surrounded by beautiful trees.

Swamp elms, silver maples, crabapples, pines, a redbud, a king crimson maple, ornamental pear trees, a little leaf linden, arborvitae, ash, and a river birch thrived in our yard. My parents planted a dwarf red delicious tree, an early Macintosh, a peach tree. We picked fresh fruits and gobbled them up, often able to eat an apple a day. Come early autumn, my mother peeled, pulverized and presser-cooked the fruits into jars of homemade applesauce.

My sister and I called the undeveloped land next to our house “the woods,– and we climbed trees, played with our pals, built forts, swung on vines, and sought out rabbits and groundhogs and squirrels. When a tree died in our yard, my old man pulled out an ax, and we stacked firewood to warm us during the frigid winters. Summers, our trees filled with robins, sparrows, and doves, and I woke, not to an alarm clock, but to the songs of birds.

As stewards of the environment, we have a duty to help trees, those towering plants, flourish. For the sake of the air, the animals, and, lest we forget, ourselves, let us celebrate Arbor Day the right way.

• Plant
• Click
• Write
• Recycle
• Join

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