Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by michaelaiello 2540 days ago
You can plant trees at $USD0.10 per tree at trees.org
1 comments

That's really interesting.

According to this [1], a 10 years old `Calliandra calothyrsus` such as the ones they (trees.org) plant captures about 170 kg / 380 lbs of CO2.

According to the World Bank [2], the average European citizen produces 6 tons of CO2 while the average American produces about 16 tons.

That would mean that they can offset the yearly CO2 emissions of an European or American person by planting 35 ($3.5) or 95 ($9.5) trees, respectively. Quite impressive if true.

--

[1] http://www.unm.edu/~jbrink/365/Documents/Calculating_tree_ca...

[2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...

That's true but only half the picture: every time one of these trees dies it is cut down it needs to be buried or otherwise prevented from releasing the CO2 back into the atmosphere. The tree you mentioned is described on Wikipedia as follows: "...This tree grows to about 6 m and has pinnate compound leaves and flowers with a boss of prominent reddish-purple stamens. It is not very drought-tolerant and the above-ground parts are short-lived but the roots regularly resprout..." So that's a significant amount of stuff to bury/dispose of. (The project at trees.org seems very interesting regardless, though.)
Trees don't completely return to atmospheric co2; leaf litter, fallen branches and trunks are an important part of lifecycles for many fungi, bacteria and insects. I goodly amount of said material becomes new topsoil, rather than simply being respirated back out into the air.
We could get back to timber-frame buildings I suppose. If nothing else, woodworking is great fun.