Can Trees Prevent a Climate Apocalypse?

    Are we nearing a climate change driven apocalypse or what? More than 60 humans dead and over 600 still missing in the latest California wildfire? Katrina and Sandy, or Harvey and Maria weren't enough to wake us up? Good God! How much longer will it be before we are all migrating from one geographical location to another to avoid weather disasters?  Dr. Cameron Wake, scientist and climate change institute director at University of UNH reviewed the astounding projections for our not so distant future at a presentation at the Parker River Wildlife Refuge's auditorium. Here in New England, we are unlikely to see much more than summer droughts, but we can expect to see a lot more water in big storm events and many more days of excessive heat.

   Can we even do anything? Well, yes. Dr. Cameron suggested that we are beyond the tipping point with the faster than originally projected glacier melts in Antarctica. Less ice means more blue ocean to absorb the sun and heat the waters giving momentum to more storms, not just sea level rise. Had we done more in the last couple of decades, maybe we could have reversed it, but now we can only slow it down by redoubling efforts to discontinue use of fossil fuels and steamroll ahead with wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower. We can help promote these technologies by converting stocks and mutual funds in our retirement portfolios to ETF funds specifically designed for such. (Vanguard just opened two new ETF funds, ESGF (domestic stock) and VSGX(international stock)  Not only would our money then be invested in preserving the environment for our families' futures, but we stand to gain financially as these funds are starting to produce much bigger dividends. Just last year, job growth in the renewable energy industry grew as much as 24%, primarily in the solar and wind sectors, with almost the same percentage of job loss happening in the coal industry ( Click here )Dr. Wake’s team at the Sustainability Institute even convinced University of New Hampshire's Board of Trustees to divest 20% of its portfolio from fossil fuel investments and reinvest into funds targeting only renewables. 

From Dr. Cameron Wake's slide presentation at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on November 13

  Most of us don't have enough money in our retirement portfolios to feel like we would be making a difference and would be worried about taking such a risk, especially with the uncertainty of a stock market correction. It might feel like the equivalent of saving one of those terrified trembling bunnies up against a wall in that horrible video of the California Camp Fire someone captured and shared on Facebook. Can we do anything else? At the very least, we can stop buying more shares of funds invested in fossil fuels. But there is something fairly easy and relatively inexpensive that we can all be doing. In fact, it is the single most effective AND economical action that stands to possibly reverse the effects of climate change. Plant trees! Photosynthesis has the amazing power of absorbing carbon dioxide and converting it to oxygen.

   We have so much open space in the industrial park for example that could be filled with trees.  While absorbing carbon emissions in the air, more trees would also be mitigating flood damage. The Newburyport Tree Commission will be doing their best to address this with the industrial park. Meanwhile, In 2018 they planted over one hundred street trees.

     But what about the rest of us?  Do we have any room in our yards for more trees? My husband and I have a larger yard than most Newburyport lots so we been able to add to our canopy. On less than one half acre, we already have thirty-two trees taller than our house, five that we planted ourselves since we moved in.  We later planted six more that are already approaching our second floor. To memorialize our fifteen year old dog this fall, we added a sugar maple in hopes to eventually provide shade to the east side of our house. A wedding gift from my dad and stepmother, a red maple now shades our entire front yard, thriving off the flood waters from our bordering wetlands. Our tree plantings have not been purely altruistic, truth be told.  Our south facing house has lots of large windows and heats up like a greenhouse in the summer. We planted three honey locust trees as close to the front of the house as we could to provide shade and reduce our air conditioning costs. The leaves are the first to go in the fall which opens the house back up to the sun's rays for passive solar heat. The bird watching year round from our windows is phenomenal! A blue spruce that my mother gifted us for a house warming in 1996, bought at a yard sale in a 10 inch plastic pot is now a couple feet short of our roofline.

    If you don't have a yard, or do and just can't fit any more trees, consider donating to Friends of Newburyport Trees who will surely find a spot in town for your tree. Donations of $650 or more are now recognized on the Clipper City Rail Trail Recognition Tree, near the High Street bridge. That amount purchases a street tree that you can designate to honor or memorialize someone and have their name, or yours, be scrolled into a ten inch metal leaf and added to the rail trail tree. 

    I hate to sound like a sales person but the time really is now. Please plant a tree, one way or another. Friends of Newburyport Trees can be reached on Facebook or at the website https://www.fontrees.org  Donations of any amount can be made through PayPal on the website or sent to PO Box 1155, Newburyport, MA 01950. 

The Tree Commission and City Council approved the placement of the recognition tree on the Clipper City Rail trail earlier this year. As donations come in, leaves with names of donors or designated honorees are bolted onto a branch.