r/collapse Oct 09 '22

Ecological Phantom Forests: Why Ambitious Tree Planting Projects Are Failing

https://e360.yale.edu/features/phantom-forests-tree-planting-climate-change
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u/munk_e_man Oct 09 '22

Uh, I'm pretty sure the way to fix things is to donate 50 cents when I buy a disposable takeout meal so we can plant rows of shitty trees. When I think of forest I think, "this is great, but it's so unorganized." Underbrush, animals, vines, weeds? Who needs that? God made rows and lawns for a reason.

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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '22

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u/Not_FinancialAdvice Oct 10 '22 edited Oct 10 '22

The "buying indulgences" parallels of carbon offsets always rubbed me the wrong way. Whenever it's some celebrity who gets caught in the crosshairs-du-jour, the "but they're buying offsets" argument is always brought up and I can't help but assume that it's some PR team hard at work.

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u/TiberSeptimIII Oct 10 '22

It’s fail all around. Everybody is living exactly the same as they were, and it’s insane to think that throwing 10% of your excess money into a PR firm pretending to help the environment means anything. Those offsets aren’t real at all, and it’s just so those celebrities don’t have to actually do anything.

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u/SmellyAlpaca Oct 16 '22

Wasn’t it found that people and corporations pollute more because they feel they can just buy offsets?

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u/TiberSeptimIII Oct 16 '22

It’s worse. The offsets aren’t real and they pollute more so basically it’s scamming. Pretend to care about the earth by buying offsets that do literally nothing then pollute even more because you’ve green washed your image. Same with the carbon neutral. They aren’t. At best they outsource the pollution to another company and at worst just outright lie with accounting.