Tree Planting in Mactaquac Provincial Park, New Brunswick (2024)

This past Fall (2024), Replant.ca Environmental finished the third phase of our long-term tree planting project at Mactaquac Provincial Park.  The work that we did in 2024 was made possible by support from Forests Canada (formerly known as Forests Ontario), and their ongoing Forest Recovery Canada program.

Mactaquac Provincial Park is only a 30 minute drive from Fredericton, over to the west through either Keswick or French Village.  The park is situated on the St. John River, across from the Mactaquac Dam and power generating station.  This station generates one eighth of the electricity for the entire province of New Brunswick.

 

Here's a graphic (courtesy of Google Earth) showing the location of the park:

Mactaquac has a golf course, campground, two beaches, hiking trails, and [in the winter] it also has cross-country skiing trails.  The camping options are excellent, with around four hundred camping sites and several rustic cabins.  The washrooms and showers were extremely clean, and the entire project was a wonderful experience.  Here's a link for anyone who wants to make reservations:

www.parcsnbparks.info/en/parks/10/mactaquac-provincial-park

In 2014, the first named hurricane of the season was Hurricane Arthur.  It was a very early hurricane, hitting North America in early July.  It swept up the east coast and over the Maritime provinces.  The winds did a tremendous amount of damage to trees and infrastructure, especially in the Fredericton area.  Mactaquac was hit quite hard, and lost a lot of trees.  Our goal was to start the slow process of replanting some of the areas that had blown down during that storm several years earlier, and also to begin creating new wooded areas in other sections of the park.

We had already done work in this park in both 2021 and 2022. The green areas that can be seen in the image below are from those earlier phases.  This year, we were able to complete five more sections in May (outlined in red) and one more section in the September (outlined in blue), as can be seen here:

 

Most of the planting for this site involves planting tree seedlings in fairly open areas, where the Parks team is turning some of the under-utilized fields and openings into future mature stands of trees.  This latter goal is important for carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation, and provides additional habitat for birds and wildlife.  It also allows the Park to better manage their budget for grounds maintenance (controlling the costs related to mowing the grass). There is also some underplanting at lower densities in some of the thinner sections of woods that are still recovering from the damage created by Hurricane Arthur.

Here are a few photos of the team in action at Mactaquac:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see more photos of our tree planting work at this site by visiting our Planting Photos folder on Dropbox, then going into the "2024 Planting Photos" folder, then into the "Mactaquac Provincial Park" sub-folder.  Start here:

    www.replant-environmental.ca/photos

 

We'd like to thank Kevin (the Park Manager) and Rob and their staff for their hospitality and support while we were on site.  We definitely look forward to returning in 2023 to continue the work that Forests Canada is making possible.

Jonathan "Scooter" Clark

www.replant-environmental.ca

Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian company that plants trees for carbon capture and builds community forests.  We also plant trees in national, provincial, and municipal public parks to mitigate damage from wildfires, storms, insects, and forest diseases.  We operate thanks to numerous small contributions from the general public, in addition to larger project sponsorships from businesses and corporations around the world.  If you'd like to learn how to show your support, visit our donations page.  Even if you aren't able to make a contribution, we very much appreciate when people are able to share our posts or our website link on social media, to help spread the word about the work that we're doing!

To learn more about the various species that we plant, visit the conifers page or the deciduous (hardwoods) page on our website.  Thanks so much for your interest! 

Incidentally, our organization is often seeking additional land for our carbon capture projects.  Please visit this link if you might know of a recently-harvested property that we could rebuild into a permanent legacy forest. 

 

 

The Norway Pine tree (Pinus resinosa)

I'd like to share some information about the Norway Pine tree.  The Latin name for this tree is Pinus resinosa, and it is also very commonly known throughout northeastern North America as the Red pine.  Red pine is probably a better name for common use.  The inner bark of the red pine is very reddish in colour, so it's an appropriate name.  In the field, I usually refer to this tree as the red pine rather than Norway pine.  Most people do.

Speaking of the bark of the tree, here's a photo.  It's quite scaly.  The bark often has more of a grey appearance in weathered trees, but if you peel away the surface bark you'll quickly see the reddish tint underneath.  The reddish bark is also easier to discern in juvenile trees.  Here's a photo showing the bark and trunk of a red pine up close:

The Norway pine is a very majestic tree at maturity.  It can often grow to be more than 30 meters (100 feet) in height and more than a meter in diameter.  Even more impressive, this is a fairly long-lived species, sometimes living for up to five hundred years.

Norway pine has a range which is limited to northeastern North America.  It is commonly found in southern Ontario, Quebec, and through the Maritime provinces.  It is also found in pockets in Newfoundland, and as far west within Canada as southern Manitoba.  It is also common around the Great Lakes and in northeastern parts of the US.  Here's a range map, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Let's go back to the proper name of this tree.  Nobody really seems to be sure why the pine was named after Norway.  It doesn't seem to have any relation to that country.  There's a small town in Maine called Norway, and that town has a lot of red pine around it.  But Norway (Maine) didn't get its name until it was incorporated in 1797, and the original intention was to call it Norage, which was a Native American name for waterfalls.  There doesn't seem to be any information online to hint at when Norway pine started to be called as such, but if it pre-dates the founding of the town of Norway, then it certainly can't be named after the town.  Incidentally, Norway (Maine) was once very famous as the alleged "snowshoe capital of the world."  Red pine was used in the manufacture of snowshoes.  That still doesn't explain the name properly.  I like to pretend that there was once a famous giant lumberjack from Norway with a bushy red beard, and the tree was named after this lumberjack.  But that's unlikely.  It would be a good story though, if it was true.

The Norway pine is a conifer.  Conifers are cone-bearing trees.  The cones of the Norway pine are ovoid in shape, which means that they're egg-shaped.  They're also fairly close in size to regular [chicken] eggs that you'd find at a grocery store, ie. about 5-6cm long when they're still closed.

The needles of the Norway pine are a dark yellow-green, and always come in pairs.  Needles on pine trees always come in pairs, triplets, or groups of five, but the number depends upon the species.  These needles can be fairly long, usually about 15cm or so, and like many other long-needled pines, the needles can be fairly brittle.  Here's a close-up photo of the needles and some opened cones on a Norway pine:

This species is not shade-tolerant.  It wants open ground and a lot of sunlight to grow successfully.  Despite wanting sunshine, it also likes cool summers and cold winters, which is why it thrives in Canada but not in the southern States.  If climate change causes temperatures to rise in the future, we may see that Norway pine becomes almost entirely a Canadian tree.  Like most other pines, this species prefers well-drained sandy or loamy soils, rather than clay.

Unfortunately, the Norway pine is susceptible to a fairly large range of insect pests, including pine beetles, pine gall weevil, pine needle miner, tussock moth, and sawflies.  However, these problems are much worse in warm climates, and don't have as significant an impact on the population in Canada.

Here are three fun facts about the Norway pine:
1.  This species was planted in large quantities during very early tree planting programs in the United States.  During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corp planted millions of these trees.
2.  The Norway pine is the State Tree of Minnesota.  In fact, Minnesota is probably the only area where people usually refer to this species as Norway pine instead of red pine.
3.  This species was historically a favoured tree for the construction of log cabins, due to its very straight and clean trunks.

At Replant.ca Environmental, Norway pine is just one of a large number of species that we use on some of our projects!

Thanks for reading ...

- Jonathan Clark
www.replant-environmental.ca



Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian company that plants trees for carbon capture and builds community forests.  We also plant trees in national, provincial, and municipal public parks to mitigate damage from wildfires, storms, insects, and forest diseases.  We operate thanks to numerous small contributions from the general public, in addition to larger project sponsorships from businesses and corporations around the world.  If you'd like to learn how to show your support, visit our donations page.  Even if you aren't able to make a contribution, we very much appreciate when people are able to share our posts or our website link on social media, to help spread the word about the work that we're doing!

Teachers are welcome to use content from this post for their classes.  If you know a teacher who might like to use this information, please share it with them!  The more that people learn about trees, the better our world will be.

To learn more about the various species that we plant, visit the conifers page or the deciduous (hardwoods) page on our website.  Thanks so much for your interest!

Incidentally, our organization is often seeking additional land for our carbon capture projects.  Please visit this link if you might know of a recently-harvested property that we could rebuild into a permanent legacy forest.

The Red Spruce tree (Picea rubens)

For this week's look at various trees that we plant at Replant.ca Environmental, I'm going to focus on the red spruce.  As is common with many different tree species, this one is known by many names.  The other names that I'm most accustomed to hearing are eastern spruce, Maritime spruce, and yellow spruce.  The Latin name is Picea rubens.

Red spruce is an extremely common and valuable tree in eastern Canadian forestry.  Due to its versatility and economic value, it is the most commonly planted tree in the Maritime provinces.  Although it isn't the fastest-growing conifer, it is considered to be a late succession tree.  This means that it "catches up and wins," like the tortoise in the fable of "the tortoise and the hare."  The red spruce can often live to be 250-400 years old.

When the red spruce is young, it prefers to grow in moist soils.  It helps if the groundwater moisture is aerated.  Well-drained soils, or soils that are moistened by flowing water, are ideal.  However, red spruce is quite versatile, and will still thrive in many other types of ground conditions.  Red spruce is quite biologically similar to black spruce (a species which does really well in swampy areas with more stagnant water).  Red spruce is also extremely shade-tolerant when it is young.  This is important, because spruce trees generally grow more slowly than other conifers (such as pine) for the first decade or two.  Due to this slower start, spruce usually fail to get above competing grass and vegetation for several years.  However, they don't usually get choked out by plant competition due to their shade tolerance.

When a red spruce matures, it can be twenty to twenty-five meters in height (seventy to eighty feet).  A mature tree will often achieve a DBH (diameter at breast height) of 50cm to 60cm (up to two feet).  Red spruce often grows straighter than conifers such as red pine and white pine.  Although the red spruce doesn't grow as large as an eastern white pine, it's a beautiful and long-lived species in its own right.  Perhaps this is why the red spruce is the provincial tree of Nova Scotia.

Red spruce is mostly an eastern Canadian and northeast US seaboard species.  Here's a range map, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Spruce needles and balsam fir needles often look very similar to someone who doesn't spend a lot of time in the woods.  However, there's a neat trick that you can do to distinguish between them.  Spruce needles are four-sided.  When you put a needle between two fingers and try to "roll" it, it rolls easily.  Balsam fir needles are three-sided but their shape is like a very flattened triangle.  Due to this shape, balsam fir needles don't roll easily between your fingers.  This trick can still be a bit confusing.  If you use a lot of pressure, it's still possible to "roll" the needles of a balsam fir.  And if the spruce needles are sticky or if your fingers are rough, they don't necessarily roll perfectly.  However, if you are out in the woods and see two trees that look slightly different, and you think one is a spruce and one is a fir, try the needle-roll test.  Also, try grabbing a branch and squeezing.  Be careful though!  Spruce needles are much more pointy at the ends, so they'll feel a lot more prickly than fir needles.

If you're looking at the trunk of a juvenile tree, the appearance of spruce and fir are quite different.  Spruce trees will look scaly, and usually have a yellowish-brown or reddish-brown colour.  They will also have more needles on the trunk.  Conversely, a juvenile balsam fir tree will usually have grey bark, and it's usually quite smooth with almost no needles, except maybe some spare needles on the top foot or so of the tree.  The bark of each of these trees becomes much more rough as the trees passes the juvenile stage.  Both types of trees will develop vertical furrows on the bark, although the furrows will be more pronounced on spruce trees.

Take a close look at the underside of this red spruce branch.  What obvious colour patterns do you see?

When you look at a red spruce branch on a young tree, the new growth has a yellowish tinge, and the older growth has a brownish tinge.

Here are four interesting facts about the red spruce:

1.  This tree is monoecious.  This means that individual flowers (cones) are either male or female, but both sexes can be found on the same tree.  The cones are cross-pollinated by wind.

2.  Red spruce trees do not do well in areas with high atmospheric pollution, or "acid rain" (rain contaminated by industrial smoke and chemicals).  This is one more reason to keep our earth clean.  There's a slogan that says, "The solution to pollution is dilution."  I think a better solution is to avoid polluting in the first place.

3.  Red spruce is the most sought-after wood for making most musical instruments.

4.  Spruce twigs can be boiled with sugar, and the resulting liquid can be used to make spruce beer.  I think a lot of people would prefer spruce beer to hemlock tea.


As I mentioned, the red spruce is the most economically valuable species in the Maritime provinces, and is planted very frequently in post-logging operations.  Unfortunately, in that type of work, the logging companies generally plant it as a monoculture.  At Replant.ca Environmental, we endorse biodiversity.  Red spruce is definitely an important species within our planting mixes, but we never plant it by itself.  Here's a photo of some of our red spruce seedlings:

Thanks for reading ...

- Jonathan Clark
www.replant-environmental.ca



Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian company that plants trees for carbon capture and builds community forests.  We also plant trees in national, provincial, and municipal public parks to mitigate damage from wildfires, storms, insects, and forest diseases.  We operate thanks to numerous small contributions from the general public, in addition to larger project sponsorships from businesses and corporations around the world.  If you'd like to learn how to show your support, visit our donations page.  Even if you aren't able to make a contribution, we very much appreciate when people are able to share our posts or our website link on social media, to help spread the word about the work that we're doing!

Teachers are welcome to use content from this post for their classes.  If you know a teacher who might like to use this information, please share it with them!  The more that people learn about trees, the better our world will be.

To learn more about the various species that we plant, visit the conifers page or the deciduous (hardwoods) page on our website.  Thanks so much for your interest!



Incidentally, our organization is often seeking additional land for our carbon capture projects.  Please visit this link if you might know of a recently-harvested property that we could rebuild into a permanent legacy forest.

Understanding Greenhouse Gases (GHG's)

Many people have heard of global warming, now more commonly referred to as climate change (even though technically, they are two different things).  However, not many people understand why global warming happens.  I'm writing this post to give our readers a general overview of the situation.  This post will be moderately scientific, but I'm going to try to stick to the basics.

Greenhouse gases are called such because they trap heat that might otherwise dissipate through various processes.  Just five greenhouse gases account for probably more than 95% of climate change effects.  These five gases, from worst to least problematic, are:

     1.  Water
     2.  Carbon Dioxide
     3.  Methane
     4.  Nitrous Oxide
     5.  Ozone

For the most part, this post will talk about the top three offenders.

Water

Many people will be surprised to see "water" at the top of the list, but I'm not referring to liquid water.  I'm referring to water in its gaseous form (known as water vapour).  Most of the water vapour in our atmosphere is essentially invisible, unless there is a large quantity present.  When water vapour becomes concentrated enough to become visible, you will perceive it as "haze," or see it even more obviously as clouds or steam.  Some people assume that fog and mist are also made of water vapour.  They're not.  Fog and mist are comprised of small liquid water droplets suspended in the atmosphere, rather than water in its gaseous form.

The chemical formula for water, regardless of whether it is in liquid or vapor form, is H₂0.  Ice (water in solid form) also has the same chemical formula.  The only difference between the three states is the amount of energy that is contained in the molecules, which is represented by the temperature.

Climate change scientists disagree about many specific observations, although there is overwhelming consensus that climate change is real.  Depending on the source, you may read that water vapor is responsible for less than half of global warming, or as much as three quarters of global warming.  Regardless of which of those choices is closer to the truth, it's a large amount.

When explaining greenhouse gases (GHG's) to someone who is interested in the science, the first major intellectual frustration usually happens when people suddenly realize that water vapour in the air is responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas effects (and therefore, and therefore, water vapour is the biggest problem when it comes to climate change).  People protest that we can't do anything about the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.  And you're right!  Mostly right.  There's not much we can do.

The amount of water vapour in the air varies significantly depending on where you are taking a sample.  In deserts, the amount of water vapour is almost negligible.  In rain forests, the atmosphere is heavily laden with water vapour.  For this reason, we must consider global averages when we talk about the contribution of water vapour to global warming.

It is natural to have water vapour in our atmosphere.  Water vapour is essential to life, for many reasons.  For now, let me just say that the Earth's global ecosystem has been in a sort of historical equilibrium for the past several centuries whereby our planet had a "good" amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, but it was in balance.  There was not so much water vapour that it caused problems with global warming.  The real problems with global warming started to happen when we started increasing the amounts of GHG's #2 through #5 on our list.

Let's move on from water for now, although I'll have a few more comments about it at the end.  For now, if you want to memorize one key talking point, focus on this:  Water vapour is controlled by the Earth's temperature, rather than water vapour controlling the Earth's temperature.

Carbon Dioxide

We often refer to carbon dioxide by its chemical formula, CO₂.  Carbon dioxide is the gas that the public most commonly associates with climate change.  That's a good thing.  Carbon dioxide is the GHG that the general public should focus on when trying to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Carbon dioxide is composed of two substances (carbon and oxygen molecules) and the ratio is one molecule of carbon for every two molecules of oxygen.  If this gas were broken apart into carbon versus "conventional" oxygen (in its diatomic homonuclear form, O₂), the oxygen doesn't pose a problem.  We could break carbon dioxide up into carbon and diatomic oxygen, and then hide the carbon away from the atmosphere (or just hide the CO₂ itself from the atmosphere) and we'd have less problems with global warming.

We Interrupt This Bulletin to talk about the Atmosphere

No, the atmosphere wasn't on our list of greenhouse gases.  Understanding the atmosphere is important, because it contains GHG's.  Our atmosphere also contains lots of other gases.  It also contains small amounts of liquids such as rain, and small amounts of solids such as smoke particles and dust.

A lot of us learned in high school that our atmosphere is composed of about 78% nitrogen gas (chemical formula N₂), 21% oxygen (O₂ form, not the single unbonded oxygen atom), a bit of argon, and trace amounts of several other gases including carbon dioxide.  Nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere are called non-greenhouse gases.  These non-greenhouse gases have special properties that mean they don't absorb infrared radiation, and therefore don't contribute to the greenhouse effect.  Carbon dioxide DOES absorb infrared radiation, which is a problem.

Water vapour is not considered to be "part" of our atmosphere when scientists list the relative amounts of each constituent gas.  Although this is confusing, we need to acknowledge that water vapour is IN the atmosphere, but it's not a defined part of it.  When scientists talk about the makeup of the atmosphere, they assume that we're talking about dry air.  If we had to give different atmospheric compositions depending on where we stood on Earth, our results would vary widely.  Even a single point on the Earth would vary from day to day, depending on whether it was cloudy and raining, or clear and sunny.

When we talk about about water in the atmosphere, we have to consider both water vapour (gaseous form) and liquid water (rain, snow, mist, fog).  Sometimes one turns into the other.  Some water droplets evaporate.  Gaseous water vapour often condenses to form water droplets.  When trying to understand that water can be in the atmosphere but not part of it, you have to realized that the distinction is subtle.  Think of baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  If you think of nitrogen and oxygen and other gases as mixing up homogeneously, they are analogous to batter in the cookies before you add the chocolate chips.  You can no longer identify individual ingredients such as sugar, flour, or eggs in the batter.  The batter (like the atmosphere) is so well mixed that individual ingredients are no longer discernable.  But water in liquid form (tiny droplets or fat raindrops) is akin to chocolate chips that you might add to the cookie batter.  Even after mixing, you can readily identify the chocolate chips as being contained within the batter mix, even though you can't tell individual parts of the batter apart.  There is a strong analogy between the chocolate chips and the water droplets.

Maybe that was too much of a tangent.  Let's get back to our GHG's.


Methane

The chemical formula of methane is CH₄.  Methane is bad.  Well, it's not bad in and of itself.  It's a chemical.  It's used beneficially for humans, for things such as heating and lighting and in the manufacture of useful other chemicals and products.  It's only when methane escapes into the atmosphere that it starts causing a problem.  This is where certain industries need to pay special attention.

How does methane escape?  If escaped methane is the problem, can't we just be more careful with how we handle it?  Well, no.  A lot of the methane on earth occurs naturally.  Methane is the natural by-product of decay in many swamps.  We can't just fill in all the swamps around the world.  Methane is also produced indirectly through human-made activities, in sewers, septic systems, and landfills.  Methane is produced by living creatures.  All those cows around the world release methane into the atmosphere every time they burp.  And methane is also produced in the extraction and transportation of fossil fuels.

The biggest problem with methane is that even though there is much less methane in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it is many times more potent than carbon dioxide.  Depending on whom you ask, methane is probably twenty to one hundred times more problematic than CO₂.  Perhaps we should think of methane as the "low hanging fruit" in trying to mitigate climate change, and tackle man-made sources of methane as our highest priority?

Another problem with methane is that it too exhibits a "positive feedback loop" as global temperatures rise.  When the temperature rises, most living organisms tend to increase physiological activities (including the emission of methane).  Swamps aren't the only water sources that naturally emit methane.  Our freshwater lakes and rivers and streams and puddles are also a source, because they usually contain small organisms that emit methane.  As temperatures warm up, methane emissions increase, which then cause further increases in global temperatures.  It's a catch-22 situation.  We need to get ahead of the curve, before it's too late.

The amount of atmospheric methane today (about 1.87 ppm) is approximately 2.5 times the amount that was present in the atmosphere during pre-industrial times. 

Atmospheric Behaviour

Now that we know some of the basic characteristics of water vapour, carbon dioxide, and methane, let's look at how they act (and persist) within the atmosphere.  In this respect, these three GHG's behave very differently.

As I alluded to above, we can't really control water vapour.  Water vapour is controlled by temperature, rather than temperature controlling water vapour.  The globe is essentially in a state of equilibrium when it comes to water vapour.  The only minor exception is that as global temperatures rise, the average overall amount of water vapour in the atmosphere also rises (higher overall saturation of the atmosphere), so there's a small concern due to this positive feedback loop.  But we need to look at the other GHG's to solve the problem.  If we can reduce the effects of the other GHG's, the water vapour equilibrium will take care of itself.

Here's a trivia question for you:  Can you guess how long water vapour remains in the atmosphere?  Scientists believe that it is probably not much more than a week on average.  This means that if a molecule of water "evaporates" from an ocean or lake, chances are that on average, it will return to the surface as rainfall or snowfall in just over a week.  This is why water is so good at maintaining an overall temperature-based equilibrium.  It's in a constant state of flux.

Carbon dioxide, unfortunately, does not return quickly to the Earth's surface.  If it did, we wouldn't have these climate change problems (although we'd probably have a different set of problems).  Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere predominantly by photosynthesis, and also by being mixed into the ocean (carbonated surf?).  But this process takes many years.  Estimates are that even after one hundred years, half of any carbon dioxide that has been emitted into the atmosphere is still present up there, and still contributing to global warming.  Even if we could completely stop emitting CO₂ tomorrow, in 2069 the atmosphere would still have half of the carbon dioxide that's already up there (mind you, that would be a "sustainable" level).  If reducing methane emissions is the "low hanging fruit" of climate change mitigation for certain industries, then reducing CO₂ emissions could be called the "heavy lifting" (on a global scale), and almost everyone can help tackle the carbon dioxide problem.

Methane, our third significant GHG, is a big problem.  Let's look at the positive side first:  A lot of methane disappears from the Earth's atmosphere in about a decade, which is much faster than carbon dioxide.  However, the negative side is that methane is MUCH worse than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat (by worse, I mean that it traps heat more effectively, which is bad for humans who don't want climate change).  If you compare methane and CO₂ side-by-side in the first twenty years after release into the atmosphere, methane is almost ONE HUNDRED times as problematic.  Even on a hundred-year comparison, methane is still the bigger problem.  Now you understand why many people say that we need to reduce the number of cows on the planet.  Or teach them to stop burping and be less flatulent.

Fun fact:  NASA says that cow burps release more methane than cow flatulence, in case you wondered which end was the bigger problem.


Ozone

Again, a tangent.  I said earlier that ozone is one of the top five GHG's, although to be fair it is far less of a problem than the top three.  So if it's a problem, that must mean that "More ozone equals more warming," right?  Yes, that's correct.

But right now, some of you are probably thinking, "Wait, if ozone is a problem, why did we ban CFC aerosol cans?  Can't we just spray a lot of CFC's into the atmosphere and wipe out all the ozone, so the ozone stops contributing to global warming?"  Well, yes, I guess that's an option.  But the reason we banned CFC's was because we need ozone to protect us too.  Even though it contributes to global warming, it protects us from deadly types of radiation.  If we eliminate the ozone, we might be cooler, but we'd also have very high rates of skin cancer, eye cataracts, and damage to our genetic and immune systems.  So please, let's not target ozone.


Summary

I think that I've covered all the basics.  In point form:

- Water vapour is the main greenhouse gas, but since we can't do anything about it, don't think that we need to eliminate it.
- Carbon dioxide is second most common GHG, and since we can change the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through processes such as carbon capture methods, then it's a great target for climate change reduction.
- Methane is often overlooked because it's less prevalent than the two GHG's listed above, BUT since its effects are so much more significant than carbon dioxide, we should also target methane emissions wherever possible.  This is especially important for certain industries such as oil & gas (ie. flare or capture associated natural gas, which is mostly methane, rather than venting it).


Thanks for reading this far.  In a future post, I think I'll talk about carbon capture technology and ways to target methane emissions.  In the meantime though, remember that trees act as a great filter for our atmosphere, because they help remove carbon dioxide.  And that's why we like to plant trees.  Please visit our website to learn more about our carbon capture and community forest projects.

- Jonathan Clark
www.replant.ca-environmental.ca

Replant.ca Environmental is a Canadian afforestation/reforestation company that plants trees to help mitigate climate change.  Click on the graphic below to learn more about our vision:

Incidentally, our organization is often seeking additional land for our carbon capture projects.  Please visit this link if you might know of a recently-harvested property that we could rebuild into a permanent legacy forest.

New Replant.ca Environmental Toques and Ball Caps

Here are some photos of the latest styles of hats that we have in stock!

We have four colours in stock right now for our ball caps:  Light sand (top left in photo), orange rust, olive green, and beige clay (bottom right in photo, and slightly darker in real life than it appears in the photo).

For the toques, we also have four colours currently in stock:  Black, forest green, grey, and red.  Unfortunately, the navy blue toques have been popular, and we're currently out of stock on those.

Unfortunately, these merchandise items are not for sale.  However, for anyone who donates $50 to Replant.ca Environmental, not only will your contribution directly sponsor the planting of FIFTY trees in one of our community forests or carbon capture projects, you'll also get a complimentary hat or toque.  We'll mail this item anywhere in the world for you.

For more information about our company and our vision, visit the Vision page on our website.


If you're interested in learning how to make a small contribution to sponsor the planting of some trees (and get a free hat), visit:

www.replant-environmental.ca/donate

 

We hope to plant more than 100,000 trees in 2020, and that will be made possible thanks to numerous small donations from readers such as yourself.  Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for your support!

  - Jonathan Clark
  www.replant-environmental.ca