service volunteer

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</div><div>=</div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/a-surprisingly-cheap-and-simple-plan-could-put-a-huge-dent-in-climate-change/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/a-surprisingly-cheap-and-simple-plan-could-put-a-huge-dent-in-climate-change/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx many</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A surprisingly cheap and simple plan could put a huge dent in climate change</b></font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">written by Jessica Corbett / Common Dreams<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>July 5, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amid record-setting temperatures worldwide and predictions by experts that this year will be among the hottest humanity has ever seen, researchers behind a new study say a rapid global effort to plant billions of trees and the restoration of forests would be the “most effective” strategy for battling the planetary climate emergency.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Based on a model of the potential for restoring trees worldwide to capture atmospheric carbon that is heating the planet, a Europe-based research team found that currently “there is room for an extra 0.9 billion hectares (2.22 billion acres) of canopy cover, which could store 205 gigatonnes of carbon in areas that would naturally support woodlands and forests.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lead researcher Tom Crowther, a professor at the Swiss university ETH Zürich, explained to Metrothat “if we act now, this could cut carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by up to 25 percent to levels last seen almost a century ago.” A worldwide planting program, researchers estimate, could remove two-thirds of the carbon that human activity has put into the atmosphere.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In terms of cost, Crowther said that “the most effective projects” do restoration at about ¢30 per tree, meaning that restoring a trillion trees would be about $300 billion—which, he added, makes tree restoration “by far the cheapest solution that has ever been proposed.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Putting that figure into context, the U.S.-based youth-led Sunrise Movement tweeted, “For a fraction of the cost of the Trump tax cuts, we could pay for a trillion new trees and offset 2/3rd of all emissions to date.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sunrise Movement ??</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@sunrisemvmt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> For a fraction of the cost of the Trump tax cuts, we could pay for a trillion new trees and offset 2/3rd of all emissions to date.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(^rough cost estimate but still crazy cheap)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We have solutions ready to go; we’re just missing the political will to act.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting-billions-trees-best-tackle-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2,690</font></div><div>
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tree planting 'has mind-blowing potential' to tackle climate crisis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Research shows a trillion trees could be planted to capture huge amount of carbon dioxide</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">theguardian.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1,161 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The report, published Friday in the journal Science, describes tree restoration on a global scale as “our most effective climate change solution to date” while also warning that “climate change will alter this potential tree coverage.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">We estimate that if we cannot deviate from the current trajectory, the global potential canopy cover may shrink by ~223 million hectares (₅₅₁ million acres) by 2050, with the vast majority of losses occurring in the tropics. Our results highlight the opportunity of climate change mitigation through global tree restoration but also the urgent need for action.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In its reporting on the new research, Vox noted that “there is distinction here between restoration, also known as reforestation, and afforestation. The latter refers to planting new trees where there were none before. The former refers to bringing trees back to areas that were previously forested, whether that’s through planting trees or allowing the woodlands to regrow on their own.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This research team focused on the former—planting trees where they once were. While the potential is great, accomplishing it is no easy task, Vox reported, because “deforestation is still rampant and is accelerating in some parts of the world. Rather than building up forests as a resource to offset greenhouse gas emissions, we’re currently losing them, and emitting more carbon in the process.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Crowther, however, appeared optimistic—given the potential impact and wide range of people and institutions that can actually take action.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“What blows my mind is the scale,” Crowther told The Guardian. “I thought restoration would be in the top 10, but it is overwhelmingly more powerful than all of the other climate change solutions proposed.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the newspaper:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Crowther emphasized that it remains vital to reverse the current trends of rising greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and forest destruction, and bring them down to zero. He said this is needed to stop the climate crisis becoming even worse and because the forest restoration envisaged would take 50-100 years to have its full effect of removing 200bn tonnes of carbon.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some activists and experts—including Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg and Glen Peters, a research director at Norway’s Center for International Climate Research—responded to the new study by emphasizing the importance of also changing human behaviors that produce planet-heating emissions, considering how long it could take to plant enough trees to remove carbon from the atmosphere.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greta Thunberg</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@GretaThunberg</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Yes, of course we need to plant as many trees as possible.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yes, of course we need to keep the existing trees standing and rewild and restore nature.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But there’s absolutely no way around stopping our emissions of greenhouse gases and leaving the fossil fuels in the ground. https://twitter.com/Peters_Glen/status/1147037393725329408 …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Glen Peters</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@Peters_Glen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The only way we can keep below 1.5°C or 2°C is to stop emitting fossil fuels”...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It could take hundreds of years to add enough mature forests to remove what we will emit in 20 years at the current rate of 40GtCO2/yr.@StephenLeahyhttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/07/how-to-erase-100-years-carbon-emissions-plant-trees/ …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Crowther pointed out that planting trees is a solution that doesn’t require U.S. President Donald Trump “to immediately start believing in climate change, or scientists to come up with technological solutions to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It is available now, it is the cheapest one possible, and every one of us can get involved,” he said, considering that in addition to any government-backed efforts individuals and charities can plant trees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The model reveals restoration opportunities worldwide, with the six largest countries—Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Russia, and the United States—collectively containing about half of the sites.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Crowther described Brazil—which contains the majority of the Amazon rainforest and is currently under the control of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro—as his “dream hotspot to get it right,” but he reiterated that “the potential is literally everywhere—the entire globe. In terms of carbon capture, you get by far your biggest bang for your buck in the tropics, but every one of us can get involved.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Author and anthropologist Jason Hickel praised the research as “brilliant” and noted that in addition to sucking carbon out of the atmosphere to combat the global climate crisis, tree restoration could provide job opportunities.</font></div></div></div><div></div><div><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 17px; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/pete-buttigieg-proposes-vast-expansion-of-national-service-programs/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(255, 187, 99); transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;">Buttigieg proposes vast expansion of national service programs</a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 12px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(136, 136, 136); font-size: inherit;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/joan-mccarter/" title="Posts by Joan McCarter" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; font-size: inherit;">Joan McCarter</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/daily-kos/" title="Posts by Daily Kos" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; font-size: inherit;">Daily Kos</a></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;">Democratic presidential candidate, and current South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has unveiled his plan for a vastly expanded national service program. His plan, called “A New Call to Service” would expand existing…</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;">
</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;">mocratic presidential candidate, and current South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has unveiled his plan for a vastly expanded national service program. His plan, called “A New Call to Service” would expand existing programs like the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps organizations to a network of 1 million members by 2026.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;">
</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;">“National service can help us to form connections between very different kinds of Americans, as was my experience in the military,” he said in a news release announcing the plan. “I served alongside and trusted my life to people who held totally different political views. You shouldn’t have to go to war in order to have that kind of experience, which is why I am proposing a plan to create more opportunities for national service.” It would create a new service corps, including Climate Corps, Community Health Corps and Intergenerational Service Corps overseen by a new position in the White House National Security Council and Domestic Policy Council.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;">
</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;">
</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;"> </span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;">In an interview with The New York Times Buttigieg “noted that only a fraction of applicants to AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps are accepted every year for available positions,” and thus wants to increase service opportunities in “predominantly minority communities and rural areas.” He wants the new service corps to focus on “combating climate change, treating mental health and addiction, and providing caregiving for older people.” College students going into these service positions allow them to defer student loan payments.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;">
</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;">There’s an argument that some of the other candidates’ plans, including massive new investment on combatting climate change and in the nation’s health systems might be more directly effective in solving all these problems, as would raising the minimum wage to attract more people into some of these caregiving jobs.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;">
</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font color="#313131" face="Cabin, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Vastly increasing service opportunities is not a bad idea by any means, but it doesn’t really measure up in terms of ambition, scope, or likely effectiveness to the plans we’re seeing from Democratic front-runners for solving the problems Buttigieg wants to address with it.</span></font></p></div></div><div></div>