What happened to all the tree-planting plans?

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In January, the World Economic Forum, backed by US president Donald Trump, announced the One Trillion  Trees to plant or protect a trillion trees by 2030, bolstering the estimated 3 trillion that already exist. The scheme joins existing reforestation efforts such as the “Trillion Trees” project launched by conservation groups in 2017.

“One Trillion Trees” (sic) didn’t respond to requests for comment on progress, but a US version of its website says that 855 million trees have been pledged by US-based authorities and other bodies. It is unclear how many of those have been planted.

Separately, the National Forest Foundation, a US non-profit organisation, said it had planted 5 million of 7.8 million seedlings it hoped to put in the ground this year, hampered slightly by the pandemic.

In the UK, Guy Shrubsole at Friends of the Earth says there has been little sign that mass tree-planting pledged during the 2019 general election campaign has turned into action. Figures show that between March 2019 and March 2020, 134.6 square kilometres of new woodland were planted, down 1 per cent on the previous year. Most was in Scotland, with only 23.3 sq km in England, implying a government target for England of 300 sq km by 2025 will be missed without a major ramp-up.

(Adam Vaughan, New Scientist    Dec 18, 2020)

My comment:  You cannot expect a conservative government to prioritise something like tree-planting.  Many right-wing politicians don’t even believe in global climate change and think it a scam.  More immediately, they are used to thinking it terms of profits and return on capital.  What financial benefit has tree planting wealth when it will take a generation before the trees are big enough to cut down and  sell?

Am I being unfair?  Well……yes…………to some enlightened and thoughtful people.

Why don’t birds freeze at high altitudes?

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Birds fly at tens of thousands of metres high. Ice forms on the wings of planes at this altitude, so why don’t the birds freeze?

Birds can sometimes reach astonishingly high altitudes. The record is a massive 11,278 metres by a Rüppell’s vulture that collided with an aircraft. The resulting “snarge” – that is to say, the bird’s remains – left on the plane provided robust evidence.

Birds almost certainly don’t experience icing while flying at altitude for three reasons.

First, birds normally maintain their body temperature at about 40 to 41°C, higher than that of mammals. Flying is such hard work that it probably uses about twice as much oxygen per unit of time as running does, so birds are plenty warm as they fly about, even at very high altitudes.

Second, birds’ feathers are a fascinating evolutionary adaptation to not only flight, but also life outdoors. As well as being beautiful and providing lift and trim in flight, feathers keep birds warm and waterproof. They do this via complex microstructures that trap air and repel water. Birds also spend a lot of time preening their feathers to coat them in a layer of “preen oil”.

The content of preen oil varies between bird species, but mainly contains monoester waxes and triglycerides, which are oily and repel water. Next time you spot a bird in the rain, marvel at how raindrops sit on top of its feathers as beads, rather than making the bird wet. That is preen oil at work. Indeed, one of the solutions used to prevent accidents in aircraft flying through icing conditions is to use hydrophobic surfaces.  ( Lucy Hawkes, University of Exeter, Devon, UK)

My comment: just thought you might be interested.  In fact, there are all sorts of obscure questions you have probably never thought of asking.  I will try to make it my business to find occasional obscure and useless facts from time to time and bring them to your notice.  It’s a way of momentarily focusing on anything except  the dismal news.

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The Ten Commitments

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The following is my personal list of qualities needed for anyone, woman or man to be judged a good and civilized human being.  (There is no significance to the order in which they are listed):

Consideration for others

Empathy for the sick and old

Generosity with time and money, according to means

Critical thinking

Ethical behavior at all times

Belief in and support for social justice

Politeness to everyone

Altruism

Humility

Being a good listener

Care for the environment

 

 

Birth control

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“Have you noticed that all the people in favor of birth control are already born?” – Benny Hill 

Very clever, but my serious point of views is as follows: we should only bring into the world human beings that are wanted, cherished, loved ….and in due course educated.

A woman should always be allowed to choose whether to have a baby or not.  There is quite enough misery on this planet without forcing any mother to have a child.  You only have to look around you in the United States at the hard and exhausting lives of mothers with young children – the need for an income, the struggle with money for food, the sleepless nights.  You have to really want a child and be prepared for an exhausting period in your life.  If you are not committed to motherhood you may not be doing a favor to yourself or the baby.  We don’t know the extent to which  exhaustion, impatience, resentment and mood conveys silently to a young baby.

About the current crisis: a parallel story

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Isn’t it amazing that one man can so easily rile up millions of people, who seem to sincerely believe the national election was stolen from him, no proof needed.

I am reminded of my youth at a boarding school. By “tradition”, young boys lacking confidence and struggling with being away from home, were stuffed into a cramped wooden tea box, legs and feet hanging out over the edge of the box.  Wooden rulers were then used to attack the boys feet and legs , which were covered in glue.  The box was then pushed around, tipped over and pushed under a table.  By this time the child ( usually 12 or thirteen), was hysterical and terrified.

This style of bullying was immortalized in a recent a movie about Alan Turing, the mathematical genius, who was at that same school (The reality was worse than devised by the film- makers).   In any event, the one of the bullied boys subsequently threw himself in front of a train; the other was made mentally ill and was permanently hospitalized.  I am proud that, when I had the opportunity I had this gross, un-Epicurean behavior towards young boys stopped.  Period.

Make no mistake –  what  has happened over recent months in the US is the same thing, on a massive scale, writ large – the bully-in- chief cow-towed to by his followers, and those standing for law and order treated to physical or verbal violence.  These spineless yes-men know the “ leader” is morally wrong, but they do what they are told as self- preservation, glad to have someone to “lead” them, while abrogating any idea of protecting the weak and distraught or the reputation of the nation ( school).  The bully is  only stopped  if confronted by superior force.

In my day, as a senior boy soon to be off to the army,  I asked the headmaster, for the sake of the school,  to back instant expulsion for perpetrators.  These weak people understand a serious threat.  The bullying apparently stopped – dead.

Do not enable self-reverential  bullies!