ablorg:

Get to know the Top 10!

Recycling is one of the most important things we can do to preserve our planet. On a daily basis, more than 100 million Americans participate in recycling used and old materials in their household and offices.

Are you one of them? Or are you trying to sort which items you can recycle and which ones belong in the compost or the garbage?

To help you out, the National Recycling Coalition has put together a list the top ten most important items to recycle.

#1: Aluminum. This is because aluminum cans are 100 percent recyclable and can also be recycled over and over again. Even better, turning recycled cans into new cans takes 95 percent less energy than making brand-new ones. So how about starting with all those soda and juice cans?

#2: PET Plastic Bottles. Americans will buy about 25 billion single-serving bottles of water this year, according to the Container Recycling Institute. Worse yet, nearly 80 percent of those bottles will end up in a landfill. Let’s put a stop to that. Making plastic out of recycled resources uses about two-thirds less energy than making new plastic. And because plastic bottles, more than any other type of plastic, are the most commonly used type, they are usually the easiest to recycle.

#3: Newspaper. This is a pretty obvious one, right? It seems like a no-brainer to set up a recycling bin next to your garbage can for newspaper and any other scrap paper. So why should we recycle paper? According to the Environmental Protection Agency, paper makes up about one-third of the all the municipal waste stream in the U.S. That’s a whole lot of paper, and since we know that recycling all that paper conserves resources, saves energy, and doesn’t clog up the landfills, there’s no reason not to do it.

Once you have those in place, let’s move on to the rest of our list.

#4: Corrugated Cardboard. Old corrugated cardboard (OCC) represents a significant percentage of the commercial solid waste stream. In 1996, the U.S. generated 29 million tons of OCC, or 13.8% of our municipal waste stream. Approximately 90% of that comes from the commercial or non-residential sector, the places where we work. So next time UPS delivers a big box to your office, be sure to break it down and recycle it. (After you’ve emptied it, of course.)

#5: Steel cans. Just like aluminum, steel products can be recycled over again without compromising the quality of the steel. We’re talking about steel cans, but maybe you have some steel auto parts or appliances ready for recycling too? More than 80 million tons of steel are recycled each year in North America, and recycling steel saves the equivalent energy to power 18 million households a year. You can learn more about steel recycling by visiting the Steel Recycling Institute website.

#6: HDPE plastic bottles (HDPE stands for high-density polyethylene, a common and more dense plastic, which is used for detergents, bleach, shampoo, milk jugs.) HDPE plastics are identified by the logo on the bottom of the container. (Three arrows in the shape of a triangle.) Check the number inside that logo: numbers 1 and 2 are recyclable almost everywhere, but 3 through 7 are only recyclable in limited areas. And don’t forget to rinse and clean all of your HDPE containers in the sink. Any remaining dirt or food particles can contaminate the recycling process.

#7: Glass containers. Recycled glass saves 50 percent energy versus virgin glass, and recycling just one glass container saves enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours. Recycled glass generates 20 percent less air pollution and 50 percent less water pollution, and one ton of glass made from 50 percent recycled materials saves 250 pounds of mining waste. Wow!

#8: Magazines and #9: Mixed paper. There are so many reasons to recycle all kinds of paper that it makes no sense not to. First, recycled paper saves 60 percent of energy versus virgin paper, and also generates 95 percent less air pollution. Recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees and 7,000 gallons of water. Sadly, though, every year Americans throw away enough paper to make a 12-foot wall from New York to California. Let’s work on changing that!

#10: Computers. Computers can be recycled in a couple of ways, depending on the state of the machine. Giving old, working computers to friends and family members or donating them to nonprofit organizations not only keeps the computer entirely out of the waste stream, but it presents computer access to someone who might not otherwise be able to afford it. Non-working computers can be sent to recycling centers where they are dismantled and valuable components are recovered.

Of course, there’s also reducing and reusing, and if you choose those, you will have even less to recycle!

ablorg:

So, Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL) wants Congress to pass a No More Solyndras Act, ostensibly to protect taxpayers from government cleantech loans going bad—even though, as Climate Progress points out, Solyndra aside, the government’s loan program for cutting edge technology has been a success, with 32 projects going in 20 states, creating 22,000 jobs, using $2.5 billion to mobilize over $20 billion in private investment.

I have several counter proposals for Rep. Stearns, bills that would better protect taxpayers’ money, health, livelihoods, children, as well as the long-term vitality of the nation and planet.

This list could go on an on, so I’ll just confine myself to energy bill proposals:

1. No More Oil Spills Act
2. No More Fracking Act
3. No More Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Act
4. No More Tar Sands Mining Act
5. No New Oil Drilling Act
6. No New Coal Power Plants Act (and its companion bill, the Coal Power Plant Decommissioning/Transition Act)
7. No New Nuclear Power Plants Act (and its companion bill, the Nuclear Power Plant Decommissioning Act)

   And some phrased in the positive:

8. The Solar Power For All Act
9. The Energy Efficiency Improvement Assistance Act
10. The Electric Vehicle Charging Station Expansion Act
11. The Transportation Choice Act (aka the American Expand Public Transit Act)

Let’s leave the details for another time, but any one of the following would get more to the heart of the matter than Stearns’ myopic, misplaced focus on the failure of one government loan.

So, TreeHugger readers, lets give Stearns so more suggestions. Leave them in the comments below.

If you want to contact Rep. Stearns, here’s his info:

U.S. House Of Representatives

2306 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20515

Phone (202) 225-5744

Fax (202) 225-3973

And his press contact’s email: paul.flusche@mail.house.gov

(Source: treehugger.com, via mandolinaes)

ablorg:

Imagine being a politician who cares about the environment and the safety of your constituents. Imagine having the honor to cast the deciding vote on a controversial issue. Now imagine discovering that you accidentally voted the wrong way, thus implementing the very policy you were trying to prevent.

That’s precisely what happened to North Carolina Representative Becky Carney last week, reports News & Observer. As the House voted on the issue of fracking, Carney made the relatively simple error of pressing the “AYE” button rather than the “NO” button she intended to select. Everyone makes mistakes, but not all mistakes have such drastic consequences on a statewide level.

The decision to permit fracking in the state of North Carolina has been an ongoing saga. After state legislatures approved the controversial practice, Governor Bev Perdue vetoed the bill. Republicans then bargained with Democrats to obtain the necessary votes to override the veto and allow natural gas drilling in the state.

Carney was not one of those votes. Or, well, she didn’t intend to be. Having voted against the initial bill three weeks prior, Carney held firm to her position on the matter, but her finger decided otherwise. Carney chalks up the error to being tired, as the vote took place after 11 pm.

She certainly woke up quickly, however. Immediately recognizing her mistake, Carney begged the House Speaker, Thom Tillis, to allow her to change her vote. Instead, Tillis ignored her plea and proceeded with the voting to make the result official. Tillis later explained, “There’s a green button and a red button, they should know which one to push.”

North Carolina regulations permit state legislatures to alter accidental votes in most cases – except when it would change the outcome. In other words, if the vote is actually of consequence, that is when it is ironclad.

There is precedence for this situation. In 2011, fellow Democrat, Rep. Jean Farmer-Butterfield, cast an errant vote in favor of term limits in North Carolina. Framer-Butterfield’s was the deciding vote in the matter, although there was no significant consequence as the State Senate declined to vote on the issue, thus effectively killing the bill.

“I feel rotten,” said Carney after fracking became legal in her state. Perhaps the only people who should feel more rotten are those who voted for the measure on purpose. A host of evidence suggests that fracking harms drinking water supplies and could be responsible for an increase in earthquakes. We’ll have to see just how many incorrect votes are cast when the ground starts trembling more frequently.

(via mandolinaes)

ablorg:

Whether you’ll be whittling away vacation time lounging seaside by the waves or dipping in a lake by the trees, it’s practically a prerequisite to pack a book for the time off. Any of these eco-themed books — some recent, some classic — would make a fine companion for languid summer days.

1. How the Dead Dream: A Novel by Lydia Millet (Counterpoint, 2008)

The first book of three in a series, How the Dead Dream introduces T., a rich and lonely real estate developer in Southern California. His fancy life is thrown into disarray when his nutty mother moves in with him. As she becomes increasingly unbalanced and his life becomes increasingly devastating, T. begins to find solace in endangered speciesand starts breaking into zoos at night to be with the world’s vanishing animals.

Publishers Weekly starred review of the book notes that the “jungle quest that results, while redolent of Heart of Darkness and Don Quixote, takes readers to a place entirely Millet’s own, leavened by very funny asides. At once an involving character study and a stunning meditation on loss—planetary and otherwise—Millet’s latest unfolds like a beautiful, disturbing dream.” Available at Amazon.

2. Hoot by Carl Hiaasen (Yearling, 2006)

You can expect Hiaasen’s typically quirky characters and comedic romps in Hoot, albiet without the characteristic violence and profanity as this book is designated for the young adult set.

That said, you need not be a young adult to adore this zany read which revolves around endangered miniature owls, the Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House scheduled for construction over their burrows, and the tweens determined to beat the “screwed-up adult system.” Available at Powell’s Books.

3. Jokerman 8 by Richard Melo (Soft Skull Press, 2004)

This fast ride was described by Powell’s Books as “rollicking yet meditative, whirlwind yet lax, lush yet stark, ghostly yet grounded, complex yet accessible — the novel bears comparison to Edward Abbey’s 1975 cult eco-classic The Monkey Wrench Gang” and is often best summed up by its final sentence (spoiler alert?): “Live happy.”

The titular Jokerman 8 is a band of eco-saboteurs based out of San Francisco State University that sink whaling ships, stage tree-ins and generally wreak happy havoc. The irreverent text moves at a breakneck pace, “stopping just long enough to question how the world got the way it is and how it might be fixed.” Available at Powell’s Books.

4. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (Grove Press, 2007)

OK, this isn’t your typical bodice-ripping, page-turning summer beach read, but if you haven’t read it, barbecue season is as good a time as any. A mix of philosophy, literature, science, memoir, and some journalistic reporting, Eating Animalsexamines the stories we use to “justify our eating habits—folklore and pop culture, family traditions and national myth, apparent facts and inherent fictions—and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting.”

It is at turns humorous, moral, challenging and delightful…and may have you rethinking that hot dog.

5. The Dangerous World of Butterflies by Peter Laufer (Lyons Press, 2009)

Subtitled, “The Startling Subculture of Criminals, Collectors, and Conservationists,” this non-fiction tome about butterflies is surprisingly roddled with intrigue!

After focusing on the Iraq War, author and journalist Laufer turned to the seemingly innocent culture of butterflies…and found violence, corruption and mystery. Along with everything you ever wanted to know about butterflies and a great exploration of the science behind the fluttering beauties, Laufer also finds controversy in commercial breeding and discovers “worldwide criminal operations” in butterfly poaching and smuggling. Utterly fascinating! Available at Amazon.

6. Zodiac: An Eco-Thriller by Neal Stephenson (Spectra, 1995)

The Boston-based, nitrus-oxide huffing protagonist of Zodiac, S. T., is a self-proclaimed Toxic Spiderman, who with covert esprit and crazy antics chases down the eco-criminal corporate hooligans — all with the help of GEE, the Group of Environmental Extremists.

The hilarious romp includes zany encounters with the fans of heavy metal band, Poyzen Boyzen, a deranged geneticist, a complicated girlfriend, a bizarre landlord, and the heart of the matter, a mysterious PCB contamination. Available at Powell’s Books.

7. A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron (Forge Books, 2011)

If you’re looking for a mushy, sentimental, New York Times best seller, written-in-a-dog’s-voice kind of book — this one’s for you. Garnering critical praise from Temple Grandin(the queen of cattle behavior) and Marty Becker, the resident veterinarian from Good Morning America, this story follows the lives of one dog through its various reincarnations.

Notes Powell’s Books, “More than just another charming dog story, A Dog’s Purpose touches on the universal quest for an answer to life’s most basic question: Why are we here?” Good fodder for the dog days of summer. Available at Powell’s Books.

8. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press, 2010)

The trio of young adult novels that many an adult are sneaking in on the sly, the trilogy (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay) don’t necessarily have a strong eco theme throughout, but the premise of the whole story is based on a North America vanquished by disasters, droughts, storms, fires, and rising sea levels. So, there’s that.

The trilogy follows Katniss Everdeen as she rises to the challenges presented by the dystopian future. The novels are centered around an event known as “The Hunger Games,” an annual televised spectacle whereby a group of teenagers are sent into a contrived wilderness to fight to the death. There’s an assertive female protagonist, strong commentary on modern Western culture (war, reality television, inane fashion, etc), suspense, action, and star-crossed love all packaged in intriguing and imaginative writing — what more could you want for a summer read? Available at Amazon.

ablorg:

NEW DELHI (AP) — What is a sip of clean water worth? Is there economic value in the shade of a tree? And how much would you pay for a breath of fresh air?

Putting a price on a natural bounty long taken for granted as free may sound impossible, even ridiculous. But after three decades on the fringes of serious policymaking, the idea is gaining traction, from the vividly clear waters of the Maldives to the sober, suited reaches of the World Bank.

As traditional measures of economic progress like GDP are criticized for ignoring downsides including pollution or diminishment of resources such as fresh water or fossil fuels, there has been an increased urgency to arguments for a more balanced and accurate reckoning of costs. That is particularly so as fast-developing nations such as India and China jostle with rich nations for access to those resources and insist on their own right to pollute on a path toward growth.

Proponents of so-called “green accounting” — gathered in Rio de Janeiro this week for the Rio Earth Summit — hope that putting dollar values on resources will slam the brakes on unfettered development. A mentality of growth at any cost is already blamed for disasters like the chronic floods that hit deforested Haiti or the raging sand storms that have swept regions of China, worsening desertification.

Environmental economists argue that redefining nature in stark monetary terms would offer better information for making economic and development decisions. That, they say, would make governments and corporations less likely to jeopardize future stocks of natural assets or environmental systems that mostly unseen make the planet habitable, from forests filtering water to the frogs keeping swarming insects in check.

If the value of an asset like a machine is reduced as it wears out, proponents say, the same accounting principle should apply to a dwindling natural resource.

“Environmental arguments come from the heart. But in today’s world based on economics it’s hard for arguments of the heart to win,” said Pavan Sukhdev, a former banker now leading an ongoing project that was proposed by the Group of Eight industrialized nations to study monetary values for the environment.

That study, started in 2007, has estimated the world economy suffers roughly $2.5 trillion to $4 trillion in losses every year due to environmental degradation. That’s up to 7 percent of global GDP.

“We need to understand what we’re losing in order to save it,” Sukhdev said. “You cannot manage what you do not measure.”

Using the same accounting principles, some countries are already changing policy.

The Maldives recently banned fishing gray reef sharks after working out that each was worth $3,300 a year in tourism revenue, versus $32 paid per catch. Ugandans spared a Kampala wetland from agricultural development after calculating it would cost $2 million a year to run a sewage treatment facility — the same job the swamp does for free.

But environmental accounting still faces many detractors and obstacles. Among them is resistance from governments who might lack the resources and expertise to publish a “greened” set of national accounts alongside those measuring economic growth. Particularly in the developing world, many still struggle to produce even traditional statistics that are timely and credible.

And even practitioners are riven by debates on how to put a price on a vast range of natural resources and systems that encapsulate everything from pollination by bees to the erosion prevented by mangroves in an estuary. The single largest difficulty is that markets, which are the easiest way to value goods and services, don’t exist for ecosystems.

“Since many things don’t formally have a market price, how do you value them? Almost all the debate and discussion really hinges around valuation issues, and that is where it can get flakey,” said India’s former chief statistician Pronab Sen.

At one extreme, said Sen, are people who say natural resources should get a zero value since we don’t know how to value them. Others argue that the values for such resources should be infinite, meaning they can’t be touched since no one has an infinite amount of money.

Opposition is also expected from parts of the corporate world, since green accounting could make doing business or buying products more expensive.

A forest once valued by what its trees fetch on the timber exchange might instead be valued according to the carbon dioxide it absorbs, the animals it supports, the water it filters and the firewood it provides. Or it could be revalued with future generations in mind. That might lead to higher felling fees, pricey replanting requirements or more expensive wood. Some might rethink the economic benefit of cutting it down. Science would become a more important factor in economic decision-making.

Some businesses, however, are embracing the idea to appeal to consumers demanding more accountability. Supermarkets like Britain’s Tesco now offer carbon footprints on packaging alongside calorie counts.

At a national level, green accounting is already being embraced by some governments, even if still in piecemeal fashion.

India in April announced plans for green national accounts by 2015 though it’s unclear if the country’s chaotic bureaucracy can reach that target. Australia will soon begin taxing carbon dioxide emissions, which Costa Rica has been doing for a decade to fund forest preservation.

Late last century, a team of U.S., Dutch and Argentine researchers put a $33 trillion value a year on natural resources such as water, wood and fossil fuels and “services” such as a forest’s absorption of carbon dioxide. The estimate is more than double the value of the U.S. economy, the world’s largest. While admitting difficulties and uncertainties in their methods and calculations, the team’s report said the $33 trillion figure was conservative.

Carbon credits, perhaps the best known example of giving a value to an environmental good, also illustrate the difficulties. Experts thought the pricing of carbon credits might have been straightforward, since emissions are easily measured and every CO2 unit is the same. But the carbon market wobbled wildly for years over estimates ranging from $5 to $500 per unit.

Other resources open worlds of debate. Water — frozen, liquid or gas, it’s found just about everywhere from vast oceans or tropical mist to mountain glaciers and underground aquifers. It’s used for drinking, bathing, growing plants, processing sewage, powering hydroelectric plants, driving weather systems and more. So not all water is created equal.

But should one lake be worth more than another? Does it matter if people depend on it, or if it supports schools of tasty fish? Should it even matter what it’s used for now? Or is it more important to consider if it can be replenished?

Some argue such questions make it clear that subjecting the natural world to free market ideology is immoral and counterproductive.

“The result would be the further privatization of essential elements of our planet to which we all share rights and have responsibilities,” writes Hannah Griffiths from the World Development Movement, a UK-based anti-poverty campaigning organization, in a recent essay for the Guardian.

Still some experts in the field say the world is on track to having comprehensive green accounts within 10 to 15 years.

A crucial advance has been the United Nations’ quiet adoption in April of a framework of agreed concepts and definitions for green accounting that can be applied in any country. It took two decades to develop but stops short of valuing complex ecosystems.

“The accounting is not pie in the sky anymore,” said economist Peter Bartelmus, who led the original U.N. effort.

The World Bank, meanwhile, is backing projects in Botswana, Colombia, Costa Rica, Madagascar and the Philippines that are looking for ways for national accounts to include the value of natural resources.

“Doing something is better than doing nothing. We shouldn’t even aim for perfection, either,” said Sen, the former statistician.

“It is much more important to come up with a methodology that people find intuitively acceptable rather than looking for hard commercial truths. If at a gut level people find it fair, then I think we can run with the idea.”

(Source: care2.com)

ablorg:

June 5 is World Environment Day, begun by the United Nations 40 years ago to celebrate positive environmental action. This year’s host country for World Environment Day is Brazil, which is the site later this month for the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Nearly 9,000 activities have been registered on the WED site, ranging from a neighborhood soccer match in Chicago to a Corporate Greening Gala fundraiser in Namibia to a tree planting in Pune, India. (You can even send a Care2 World Environment Day e-card.)

World Environment Day is just a small part of the United Nations Environment Program and other agencies’ work for environmental protection and environmental justice. Since its founding in 1972, the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) has been active in the negotiations of numerous international agreements centered on environmental protection. This video briefly describes some of the milestones accomplished in the past 40 years; milestones in the control of trade in toxic chemicals, fostering biodiversity, establishing protected areas and linking environmental justice and  human rights.

 
It is all too easy to dismiss the grainy footage of earnest people in suits, the intricate bureaucracy and endless rounds of talks that entail action by the U.N.  But for problems as globally encompassing and complex as environmental protection and climate change, international cooperation is essential

Underlying these international agreements is the understanding that human activities and commerce cannot continue with business as usual, without regard to the destruction of the natural world.  This need to take a longer-term view of the consequences of human activity is encapsulated in the definition of sustainable development agreed to  by the 1987 with the publication of the Brundtland Commission’s report, entitled Our Common Future:

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. It contains two key concepts:

• the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
• the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.”

More recently, UNEP’s activities have focused on the need to decouple growth from the concept of economic prosperity, a necessary idea in a world of limited resources and a population of 9 billion people and growing, and one that will not easily find acceptance among world leaders and financiers.

Clearly the UN still has much work to do. Absent any better way to come to global consensus, or near consensus, on complex global problems, it seems appropriate for the organization and its constituents to pause to remember and appreciate its achievements this World Environment Day, and then settle back to work for the approaching Rio+20 Conference.

ablorg:

Stop a hunting proposal from passing the Senate in order to protect polar bears and other wildlife from hunting and toxic ammunition exposure.

A radical hunting proposal that opens hunting on federal grounds and caters to polar bear poachers has passed through the House of Representatives and will now be voted on by the Senate. The proposal, dubbed “The Sportsman’s Heritage Act of 2012,” is a serious threat to the dwindling polar bear population.  It is also a threat to all the wildlife that lives on federal property.

According to the Humane Society, the bill would cater to wealthy trophy hunters seeking to import polar bear trophies from Canada despite current laws that make such an act illegal.

The bill also mandates that federal agencies open nearly all federal public lands to hunting with no regard for the impact that hunting will have on habitat and wildlife. And the bill strips away the power and ability that the Environmental Protection Agency has to protect people, animals, and habitat from lead poisoning through toxic ammunition exposure.

Hunting on public lands such as National Parks is dangerous for people as well as animals.

By signing the petition below you can urge your senator to oppose “The Sportsman’s Heritage Act of 2012” bill that would undo the necessary protection of polar bears, mandate hunting on public land and strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its right to protect the environment from a devastating poison.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN PETITION

(via mandolinaes)

ablorg:

The maple, pine or oak tree that you regularly take for granted deserves another look.  Trees are the Earth’s lungs and air purifiers.  They supply housing for countless creatures, provide shade, increase real estate value and are correlated with significant health and emotional benefits.  And, as we humans continue to spew out more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, a tree’s job has never been more important.

Trees absorb CO2 and give off O2, a process that’s been taking place for millions of years. Sequestration rates range, on a per tree basis, an “estimated average of approximately one ton of carbon dioxide over [a tree’s] lifetime.” Logically then, one would think we should be planting trees at an astronomical rate to act as carbon sinks in an effort to mitigate climate change.  So why are we still clear-cutting in the Amazon and destroying forestland for palm oil production?  Perhaps it’s because, even though we generally recognize the value of trees, they’re still worth more cut down than standing. Wouldn’t we leave them alone if the opposite were true?

UN-REDD, a global United Nations program, addresses deforestation and establishes a financial value for forests left intact.  This effort is critical as “deforestation and forest degradation … account for nearly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire global transportation sector and second only to the energy sector.”  Countries like Bolivia, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia are participating in UN-REDD but there are still many obstacles to overcome, related mainly to corruption and cultural differences. Interestingly, UN-REDD is popular within the international forestry community, but is not well known in the United States, except in California.

Challenges facing trees aren’t limited to human-based activity, however.  In Colorado, the Mountain Pine Beetle has devastated regional forests leaving vast amounts of mountain ranges barren while exacerbating the risk of forest fire. A 2011 aerial survey showed “that 4.6 million acres in Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota have been affected since the first signs of the [beetle] outbreak in 1996.” That number is up from 4.3 million acres in 2010 and there is concern the western mountain landscape will look drastically different in just a few more years.

Unfortunately, tree plight and disease is predicted to increase given climate change and shifting ecosystems.  The Mountain Pine Beetle, for example, historically died off each year during winter months, yet milder winters provide the beetle ample time to not only survive, but reproduce at double the rate.  The forest simply cannot withstand the duration of attack.

In addition to deforestation and natural predators, trees are also in high material demand.  Trees compose everything from paper to floorboards and we’ve come to rely on tree products for so many of our everyday purchases. Old growth, in particular, is prized for being some of the strongest and most desirable wood in the world.  In fact, the famous California Redwood was all but extinct until conservation efforts stepped in to save the tree.

It’s only recently that the benefits of trees beyond the basic market value structure have begun to be quantified. Trees have long provided poetic beauty and inspiration, but research demonstrates that trees do so much more.  One interesting study showed that decomposing trees leach acids into the ocean, helping to fertilize plankton, a food chain building block.  Trees also filter water and are “capable of cleaning up the most toxic wastes, including explosives, solvents and organic wastes.”  Trees and plants in the Amazon are shown to hold medicinal value as well.

The benefits of trees are vast and it’s no wonder more and more groups are pushing for increased urban forests, tree education and national park preservation.  Ecotourism is another approach to stopping massive scale deforestation, but it’s still an uphill battle. The further away we get from trees, the further away we get from a core part of ourselves; maybe it’s time to take a closer look at what we’re missing.

(via mandolinaes)