Earth Day Is April 22nd

Chris Fedderson — MacroFine Musings
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What’s so great about trees, anyway?
 
Trees' leaves fall off and we have to rake them up every year.  Trees fall over and block roads or crash into our homes.  Tree roots buckle our driveways and sidewalks and strangle our drains and sewer lines.  And trees release their waste product into the air we breath.

What?!  Wait!  Isn't that... oxygen?!  Don’t we need that stuff to, you know, like, Survive?!

Even the "Non-Business" parts
of trees can be very delightful

The trees and other vegetation on land produce about half the oxygen in our atmosphere, with the other half coming from marine plankton, and they remove a proportionate amount of carbon dioxide from our air so we don’t suffocate.  Not to mention the habitat they provide — both when standing and when fallen — for countless varieties of animal and plant life.  Habitat that is absolutely essential to a balanced ecosystem.  I’m not going to even touch on what they contribute to our food chain, lumber industry, by-product supplies, recreational and leisure uses, urban aesthetics, and on and on…

According to WorldWildlife.org : “Some 46-58 thousand square miles of forest are lost each year—equivalent to 48 football fields every minute.”  This equates to an area about the size of Alabama. Gone. Every year.  And so, every year, every day, every minute, we decrease our world’s oxygen production capacity.  How long can you hold your breath?
 
EarthDay.org is announcing “Trees for the Earth (#Trees4Earth), a plan to plant 7.8 billion trees by Earth Day’s 50th in 2020.  That is one tree for every person on the planet!”
 
So, waddaya say?  How about we each plant just one tree?  Do you live in an apartment or some other arrangement that makes this prohibitive?  Find an organization that is participating in planting trees and sponsor a tree… or maybe two!  After all, if we end up planting more than 7.8 billion trees it won’t be the end of life as we know it.  But if we don’t plant any, it might just will be…
 
Thank You for visiting,
 
— Chris
 
P.s.      We live in a townhouse and aren’t allowed to plant any trees in the common areas, so we just now donated to Arbor Day Foundation’s general donation fund.  Quick.  Easy.  Fulfilling!
 
I’ve listed a few links below to get you started finding organizations you can partner with.  Or Google it up for your own area or preferences…  [I am merely suggesting these, not endorsing any particular one]
Our City Forest
Arbor Day Foundation
Earth Day Events Worldwide
Trees For The Future

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