Climate Change

Sgfinco said:
I'm 26, I will see the effects of our current emissions and I think we have an opportunity as a "green" industry to put our heads together and find ways we can contribute to fighting climate change. I tried to work off of a bicycle, the gear is too heavy to transport alone and do enough work to grow a business. The work area is too small, clients don't want to deal with byproduct, there aren't enough hours in the day. I think battery saws are a huge step forward, biomass power is great but few of us are lucky enough to live and work near a plant.

How can we as arborists and ambassadors for our urban canopy push our communities to be more sustainable? I'd love to hear any and all ideas, I'm thinking of instituting a no live tree removal without hazards or property damage policy as a start.

Climate change deniers need not reply.
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I am with you on most of this, but battery saws are as bad of an idea as battery cars. There's major environmental issues with lithium and cobalt mining. There's the fact that we still burn fuel to make electricity so much of the time. There's so many simple fundamental issues that are soooo deep. The biggest issue is just that life needs to slow down for a second while we actually start doing what we need to do to resolve the bigger systemic issues.

It is clear that those profiting from the current situation will stop at nothing to maintain business as usual, and that has us on a pretty shitty trajectory globally. Our individual actions, and even the actions of modestly sized bands of people will have only a slight effect on the overall outcome if the power players don't back some big plays in the right direction.

I hate to sound pessimistic, and if you have read some of my other posts on the subject, you know I am in fact, driven by optimism. It seems the most realistic, immediate contribution that you can make right now to better the world is to ensure that you and some friends and family will be able to endure the changes that are happening as best as possible, hopefully holding out long enough to get to a brighter future. You MUST be able to take care of yourself fully to be capable of providing sustainable care for others. It may seem selfish, but at your age, you need to be building your little world around you, and insulating yourself from the ravages of the unexpected and the unknowable.

Buy land. You can probably find some good reasons that suit you. There are myriad.

As an arborist, try to encourage people as much as possible to preserve their trees, and cut off as little as you can. To that end, learn about soil. The soil will be our salvation. Regenerative agriculture has the capacity to mitigate the CO2 that we've released in one human lifetime. Spread the word, but don't waste your time and energy preaching to people who don't want to hear it and/or don't care. Focus on reaching those who have started to wonder if they may just have their head in the sand.

I love where your heart is at. Focus that energy in the right places, and it will feel easier.
 
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Daniel said:
People ask me if I believe in climate change.. well of course I do. the cimate is always changing... Sea levels have risen 400' in the last 19,000 years... There's natural cimate variability in all areas. Good possibilitiy that many earlier civilizations failed due to extended draughts and for sure major human die-offs related to volcanic winters, asteroid impacts, floods, etc. 39,000 years ago, 12,800 years ago. 536 AD.. A little ice age in the 1700s, etc

And now they're blaming carbon and get this.... their solution is ...... taxing air....
Oh what a dream come true for the cabal....
they know you're not stupid enough to pay for breathing in
so they figured out a way to tax you for breathing out.

Excess carbon actually contributes significantly to agriculture, increasing yields by double digit.
And one needs to understand that localized climate variations, as in "we've had the three warmest winters in memory", that is not evidence that supports global climate change.

another one of my heroes, Judith Curry is a true expert. She's makes excellent points here :
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Even if we take climate change of the table we still have massive environmental problems. We are spewing million of pounds of toxins into our environment which is poisoning our air, our water, our soil, animals, plant, insects, micro organisms, etc. No wonder so many species have been sent to the ass heaps of extinction or near extinction during our short but sweet reign of terror. So much for not shitting where you lay?
 
Every time I go out on a photo shoot I seem to spend as much time picking up garbage left by other people as I do taking photos. I pack out more garbage than photo gear I pack in. People are slobs when they are not in their own space. They wouldn't think of throwing a plastic bottle out their car window on the street they live on, but they will probably never come back to this beautiful waterfall, so they have no problems tossing their empty soda bottle there.
Every time I pick up their trash, I hate humanity a little bit more.
Our waterways are so damn polluted from farm run off chemicals that you can't go for a swim in most of them.
Want to have a first hand look? Visit the Salton Sea and get a grasp what farm run off does. But when a river ends up in the ocean we don't care. Yet.
We are wreckers of our own world.
 
For those concerned, you should just become a licensed weather modification technician. Start making a real difference by changing the climate on purpose instead of accidentally by breathing, farting, and using a gas-powered leaf blower. Of course, there are never unintended consequences from people messing with the climate...I have never heard of a licensed doctor, electrician, or plumber doing poor job/messing stuff up.

Look it up. Texas department of licensing has it right on their website, next to electrician and plumber....

Weather Modification Homepage

All individuals and organizations intending to conduct weather modification activities are required to obtain a weather modification license and permit from the TDLR.
www.tdlr.texas.gov www.tdlr.texas.gov

"Licensed Arborist and Weather Modification-ist" would look good on the side of a truck. Could sell one time weather adjusments to offset whatever the client is concerned about.
 
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For a few years I lived in a small town near St. Louis. I bought a new car when I got there. The neighbors thought I was nuts for doing that. After a year I understood. All the paint was pitted. Monsanto was just down the street a mile or so.
 
An easy way to reduce the carbon footprint of an urban tree care business is just to simply not do it. 90% or more of the tree care I have seen is not essential so all of the fuel burned Etc was just a waste.

In regards to the blanket generic reaction of planting trees I have mixed feelings about that. There are so many misguided and wasted efforts in Mass tree planting it's just become a catch-all that means nothing really. We all know how hard it is to get trees established. So many wasted resources in this vane attempt to plant 7 billion trees or whatever. The insane amount of variables makes the general sentiment meaningless. Do we really need to plant an oak tree in the Prairie of colorado? A lot of people seem to think this will make things better somehow, I disagree
 
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L3VI said:
An easy way to reduce the carbon footprint of an urban tree care business is just to simply not do it. 90% or more of the tree care I have seen is not essential so all of the fuel burned Etc was just a waste.

In regards to the blanket generic reaction of planting trees I have mixed feelings about that. There are so many misguided and wasted efforts in Mass tree planting it's just become a catch-all that means nothing really. We all know how hard it is to get trees established. So many wasted resources in this vane attempt to plant 7 billion trees or whatever. The insane amount of variables makes the general sentiment meaningless. Do we really need to plant an oak tree in the Prairie of colorado? A lot of people seem to think this will make things better somehow, I disagree
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Agreed...there are a LOT of places that would benefit from tree planting. There are a LOT of bad ways to do that and a few good ways to do that.
 
Shadowscape said:
Every time I go out on a photo shoot I seem to spend as much time picking up garbage left by other people as I do taking photos. I pack out more garbage than photo gear I pack in. People are slobs when they are not in their own space. They wouldn't think of throwing a plastic bottle out their car window on the street they live on, but they will probably never come back to this beautiful waterfall, so they have no problems tossing their empty soda bottle there.
Every time I pick up their trash, I hate humanity a little bit more.
Our waterways are so damn polluted from farm run off chemicals that you can't go for a swim in most of them.
Want to have a first hand look? Visit the Salton Sea and get a grasp what farm run off does. But when a river ends up in the ocean we don't care. Yet.
We are wreckers of our own world.
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It really is pathetic...but I think you give some of those folks too much credit about not trashing their own "habitat". Some people really just are that trashy.

As to polluted waterways, I live in an area that is 80%+ agriculture by land area. Chemical runoff is bad. But maybe worse is the amount of sediment runoff.
 
rico said:
Even if we take climate change of the table we still have massive environmental problems. We are spewing million of pounds of toxins into our environment which is poisoning our air, our water, our soil, animals, plant, insects, micro organisms, etc. No wonder so many species have been sent to the ass heaps of extinction or near extinction during our short but sweet reign of terror. So much for not shitting where you lay?
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Don't forget about all those nuclear power plants just waiting to melt down at the drop of an asteroid or the erruption of a super volcano... Now THAT IS AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT... no one survives that...Look at Fukishima.. that was just one little wave in geological scale. And the nuclear plant in Ukraine that was fed by a resevoir when the dam was bombed.. you only get so many little warnings before the shit hits the fan in your face.
 
RogerM said:
Riparian zones disappearing.
I know a company that touts 2billion trees planted.... Wayerhauser. the irony .....
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Would it be better:
*if Weyerhaeuser didn't plant any trees?
*if instead of using trees for construction we used concrete and bricks?
*Plastic and metal packaging instead of paper? (That's not to mention the WAY overuse of all packaging materials).

I'm not going to argue that Weyerhaeuser has a strong history of environmental standards! ...but they are trying to find ways to continue sustainably produce a renewable resource.
 
ATH said:
Would it be better:
*if Weyerhaeuser didn't plant any trees?
*if instead of using trees for construction we used concrete and bricks?
*Plastic and metal packaging instead of paper? (That's not to mention the WAY overuse of all packaging materials).

I'm not going to argue that Weyerhaeuser has a strong history of environmental standards! ...but they are trying to find ways to continue sustainably produce a renewable resource.
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All of those things are fine in their right place and dose imo we just need to reduce scale. The average home size has gone from 900 sq ft to 2500 sq ft in the last 70 years, with fewer occupants.
 
Weyerhaeuser, Blandin, Potlatch, Diamond, and others manage their own lands for the most part. And they do a pretty good job of it. They need to in order to keep production going. Trees are a crop for them, and they are tree farmers.
@ATH may disagree with me on this point, as we have talked about it in the past, but it is my contention that the U.S. Forest Service is the biggest culprit of environmental damage with regard to forests. At least here in Minnesota and the Chippewa National Forest. They keep clearing what I call woods and planting rows of Red Pines. Corn rows of Red Pine. What was once a diversified forest is now farmed Red Pine trees. That or Big Toothed Aspen that they don't have to replant when clear cut because it just regens. Red Pine farming and clear cut Aspen is what most of the Chippewa National Forest has become.
Here is what was a beautiful area of mixed White Pine trees of 150'+, Cedar, Birch, Maple and Red Oak area I use to climb in. It was woods. Now it is corn rows of 25 year old Red Pines that has the appeal of a stone in your boot.
Screenshot 2023-12-28 110926.png
Most of the Chippewa National Forest looks like this now. They tell me it makes harvesting a lot easier and quicker, which it probably does. But when did the U.S. Forest Service decide that tree farming was the way to manage U.S. Forests? That is not managing forests. That is simply farming trees to sell. There is nothing ascetically pleasing about walking around in the Chippewa National Forest anymore. I know of some patches here and there I visit, but they only exist because they are too far out of the way to make them useful to the Forest Circus.
They leave a 100' strip of forest along the roadsides for the tourists to see. Makes people think they are in some wilderness. If they only knew...
I get wound up talking about this, so I now need to go make a cup of tea and calm down.
 
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I'm glad they are making an effort, I just can't help but think that unless we can grow trees to maturity faster than laps around the sun, I'm pretty sure the trees are disappearing faster than they are growing. I'm not arguing. I don't know the answer.
 
Whats new is that the climate is changing in one person's lifetime. I have personally witnessed mass extinctions on a level not seen since the dinosaurs. Its all pretty exciting really. I dont agree with that it's all caused by carbon either, I think black top and parking lots, soot, salt, internal combustion engines literally being hot.

One time on a really hot humid day in north carolina I had to drag brush next to three air conditioner units and was blasted with the heat on an already almost unbearable day. I looked around and saw an endless sea of air-conditioned and cars all pumping out heat. I nearly passed out from the thought that everyone on the inside of those freezing cold houses and cars was pumping their heat on me.

Anyway it is very clear that the world my kids will live in a very different world from what anyone has ever known.
 
Greenhouses gases are real though. That's just basic science. Daniel shares Michael shellinberg saying that he believes that manmade CO2 makes the world hotter but it's no big deal we can deal with it or not. Don't be afraid... cool. But then Daniel says that it's all a scam and it's just natural cycles. So shoukd I listen to what shellinberg says or what Daniel says?
 
L3VI said:
I'm around 900 with 2 kids 2 adults and a dog. It's nice and cozy. I'd like to live in a teepee or yurt someday. I lived in a tent in the woods one year and it was great.
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Lived in a yurt at around 10,000 ft in the mountains outside of Taos for 2 years. Loved living in the yurt but if I let the stove go out at night during the winter my water glass on the night table would sometimes be frozen solid in the morning.
 
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