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Kenyans got a 'special holiday' to plant trees that could significantly fight climate change

The government hopes that 100 million trees will be planted on the holiday.

via KindikiKithure/X

Kenyans plant trees on its new "special holiday."

Kenya celebrated its first “special holiday” dedicated to planting trees on Monday, November 13. The day was declared on November 6 by Kithure Kindiki, Kenya’s cabinet secretary for the Interior, who wrote, “The public across the Country shall be expected to plant trees as a patriotic contribution to the national efforts to save our Country from the devastating effects of Climate Change.”

To support the country’s efforts, the Kenyan government made 150 million seedlings available to its citizens via public nurseries and hopes that each of them will plant two trees to help reverse the effects of climate change.

The government hopes that 100 million trees will be planted on the holiday.

The holiday is part of Kenya’s Landscape and Ecosystem Restoration Programme, which aims to grow and nurture 15 billion trees by 2032. From 1990 to 2010, Kenya’s forest cover was reduced from 12% to 6%, according to UN estimates. However, conservation efforts over the past 12 years have increased to 9%.

— (@)

The UK’s King Charles, who has been a lifelong environmental advocate, praised the country's efforts at reforestation. “Having been planting trees for most of my life, I thought I was doing rather well, but your ambition for planting 15 billion trees makes me admire your efforts,” King Charles said at a state banquet.

Planting trees is one of our best tools for fighting climate change because they can absorb carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere. They also provide shade, reducing the need for air conditioning while releasing oxygen, which supports biodiversity.

A typical hardwood tree can absorb 48 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, which adds up to approximately a ton by the time it reaches 40. Unfortunately, humans dump about 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air yearly.

The holiday was celebrated by many in the rural parts of Kenya. Dozens of people came together to plant trees near the source of Kenya's second-longest river, Athi. "I have come to plant trees here because our water levels have been diminishing. Even here at the river source, the levels are very low, trees have been cleared," local resident Stephen Chelule told the BBC.

Planted.... pic.twitter.com/XV22aHgHe2
— Ahmednasir Abdullahi SC (@ahmednasirlaw) November 13, 2023

Watu wakanairo washaanza kupanda miti as early as Now taking advantage of the morning rain..... Wee kaa hapo waiting uletewe Land kwa bed Yako. pic.twitter.com/TYzVTApuvk
— Mike Sonko (@MikeSonko) November 13, 2023

Raila Odinga plants a tree in Homa Bay in honour of National Tree Growing Day pic.twitter.com/0oThpy20Kq
— Kenyans.co.ke (@Kenyans) November 13, 2023

The Kenyan tree-planting holiday reminds people of the tremendous power they can have when they come together for a common cause. What if people in countries across the world made the same commitment?

The United States has 11 federal holidays, which are all dedicated to significant historical events and people. We also have Arbor Day, where people are encouraged to plant trees, and in 2022, the National Arbor Day Foundation says it helped plant more than 630,000 trees worldwide. Consider this: If we made Arbor Day a Federal Holiday where everyone gets the day off, and asked to plant two trees each, that would be over 660 million trees a year!

In the United States, we have Arbor Day, where people are encouraged to plant trees, and in 2022, the National Arbor Day Foundation says it helped plant more than 630,000 trees worldwide. However, what if we made Arbor Day a Federal Holiday where everyone gets the day off, and is expected to plant two trees each? That’d be over 660 million trees a year!

The United States has 11 federal holidays, which are all dedicated to significant historical events and people. But given the incredible climate crisis we face, it would be beneficial to add one more where Americans come together to do something extraordinary for the planet that has given us so much.

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climate change

Heroes

700 meters below Iceland, a company may have found a solution to the world's climate woes.

Back in May, Swiss start-up Climeworks unveiled a massive machine that sucks carbon dioxide out of the sky.

Photo by Julia Dunlop/Climeworks.

The idea? To not just slow climate change, but reverse it.

The devise traps carbon dioxide, CO2, on a plastic sheet covered with amines — chemicals that absorb the gas.

Once stripped from the atmosphere, however, the lassoed carbon doesn't just go away. The company was faced with a challenge: where to store the planet-warming emissions so they don't escape and continue to slowly cook us all.

Months later, thousands of miles away, in a town in the southwestern corner of Iceland, Climeworks may have found its solution — one nearly as old as the Earth itself.

Bingo. Photo by Sandra O. Snaebjornsdottir.

Rocks.

Climeworks has begun burying the carbon it traps 700 meters underground, where it naturally combines with the island nation's indigenous volcanic rock.

"Our plan is to offer carbon removal to individuals, corporates and organizations as a means to reverse their non-avoidable carbon emissions," Christoph Gebald, founder and CEO of Climeworks, said in a news release.

The carbon-burying, rock-injecting technology was developed by CarbFix, a research project led by Reykjavik Energy to develop novel, sustainable storage methods for the gas.

The project is backed by the EU and is currently in testing to evaluate how weather impacts the process.

Photo by Climeworks.

The module is attached to a local geothermal power plant to capture ambient CO2 produced by the energy generating facility.

The United States of America, meanwhile, is kicking a somewhat ... different plan into gear.

The plan involves yanking as many rocks as possible out of the ground to put their carbon back into the sky.

On Oct. 9, EPA chief Scott Pruitt announced the Trump administration's decision to repeal the Clean Power Plan, which requires energy generating plants to cut emissions back to 2005 levels in the next 13 years. A recent Energy Department proposal aims to subsidize coal-fired plants at the expense of cleaner alternatives.

It remains to be seen whether Climeworks' technology can be scaled up to a difference-making degree.

Sucking carbon dioxide out of the sky turns out to be pretty expensive. The initial pilot program sold its trapped carbon to a local greenhouse, a model which may or may not be reproducible globally.

But trying to find a solution is better than trying to create more problems.

Photo by Climeworks/Zev Starr-Tambor.

The next step, according to Gebald, is to bring the technology to "numerous other regions which have similar rock formations."

Perhaps these 21st century carbon bounty hunters may be interested in checking out some of our sweet basalt action?

Asking for a friend.

Heroes

India just planted 50 million trees to take on climate change.

Quick! Trivia question: How many trees is a lot of trees?

Photo by Abrget47j/Wikimedia Commons.

50 trees? Yep. You could argue that's a lot.

Photo by Nickrds09/Wikimedia Commons.

500 trees? That's definitely a solid amount of trees.

Photo by U.S. Department of Agriculture/Wikimedia Commons.

5,000 trees? Ah yeah, that's nice. Nice, healthy chunk of trees.

Photo by Hansueli Kraupf/Wikimedia Commons.

What about 50,000,000, though?

What. About. 50,000,000?

That's how many trees were planted by volunteers in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in the span of 24 hours.

Photo by Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP.

"The world has realized that serious efforts are needed to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate the effects of global climate change. Uttar Pradesh has made a beginning in this regard," Akhilesh Yadav, chief minister of the state, told participants in the effort to set a new Guinness World Record, according to an Associated Press report.

The group was attempting to shatter the previous record of 847,275 trees planted in 24 hours, which was set three years ago in Pakistan.

Peach trees in Pakistan. Photo by Junaid Ali/Wikimedia Commons.

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in the tree-planting drive, which began on July 11. Roughly 49.3 million were reportedly planted.

"I've read in a book that this tree releases maximum oxygen," eighth-grader Shashwat Rai told the AP. "There is so much pollution in the city, we need trees that produce oxygen."

Hundreds of thousands of people going out in the world to actually do something about climate change is an example we all can learn from.

Simply put, the Earth is warming because the carbon dioxide and other gases we put in the atmosphere are trapping more heat near the surface.

Trees breathe carbon dioxide.

Perhaps the easiest way to help put a pin in global warming is simply to have more trees.

And 800,000 people got off their couches to make that happen. That's pretty great.

Not to mention, trying to break each others' tree-planting records is probably the most productive manifestation of India and Pakistan's geopolitical rivalry ever.

For almost 70 years, the relationship between the two nations has been characterized by competing territorial claims, nuclear brinkmanship, and occasional armed conflict.

So if India wants to challenge Pakistan to a tree-off, I'm all for that. I'd even watch the inspirational movie about it 20 years from now. Like a chlorophyll-soaked Miracle on Ice.

Ficus! Ficus! Ficus! Photo by Steve Powell/Getty Images.

Here in the United States, we've still got to move past square one when it comes to solving climate change.

The Uttar Pradesh effort wouldn't have been possible without coordination between citizens, volunteer groups, and, critically, local government.

Meanwhile, a lot of American policymakers refuse to acknowledge that climate change is manmade and, thus, don't really want to do much about it.

It's important to call them and persuade them otherwise — and if they don't listen, to replace them with people who do.

In the meantime, we can and should tip our caps to a determined team of thousands for making their corner of the world 50,000,000 times shadier.

Trees line a highway in Uttarakhand, India. Photo by Paul Hamilton/Flickr.

In the best way possible.

Heroes

9 texts from Earth so real you'll laugh.

Earth just can't quit us.

You know that moment when you KNOW you should break up with that person you're dating, but you just can't seem to let go?

Imagine how Earth feels. About humans.

Needless to say, there are a bunch of red flags we humans are sending that would make any friend of Earth say, "Earth, I think they're just not that into you."

Every relationship has ups and downs. Even our relationship with our own planet. You've read articles and you've watched documentaries, but we all know the truth comes out strongest in ... text messages.

1. Earth has thing for bad boys.

2. Mixed signals.

Tomato, tomahto — pattern, anomaly — potato, potahto? Let's call the whole thing off.

3. Ghosting.

4. Fear of commitment.

It's like, "I'll look at the rainbow, but don't make me conserve too much water, OK?"

5. Low standards!

6. Burn me once, shame on you...

...burn me twice, shame on Earth?

7. Lack of communication.

Not the text bubble thingeeeee!!!!

8. Lack of boundaries.

9. The final burn.

"What's love got to do with it?" — Earth/Tina Turner

Burn!

The state of Earth-human relations is tough.

Global carbon dioxide levels are the highest they've been in 3 million years, and some climate scientists are saying that global warming has "supercharged" El Niño, making the winter of 2016 a warm and extra weird one. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Things are bad. But it's not too late to make things better.

One "text" at a time.

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America has more trees now than it's had in 100 years. But we're not out of the woods yet.

The numbers are promising. But they might not be enough.

Trees: Green, leafy, rustling in the wind. Old-fashioned, carve your name into 'em, crash your bike into 'em trees.

Trees! Photo by Chelsea Bock/Unsplash.

America has more of them now than it's had in 100 years.

Yes! Really. This is very good news. Thanks in large part to sustainable harvesting practices and the creation of national parks, forest growth has been exceeding deforestation in the U.S. for decades.

In fact, many American forestry companies are planting more trees than they harvest. Which is pretty cool if you enjoy looking at trees or, you know ... BREATHING AIR.

The United States contains 8% of the world's forests.

That's roughly 300 million hectares of forest, which is exceeded only by Russia, Brazil, and Canada (where presumably the trees get free health care).

Right before you decorate it and watch it die. Photo by Andrew Spencer/Unsplash.

The largest area of forest growth continues to be on the East Coast.

Average wood-per-acre volumes there have nearly doubled since the 1950s. Which is amazing progress, since the East Coast was the area most heavily logged by European settlers in the 1600s.

"You ever just wonder what it's all really about, man?" Photo by Ales Krevec/Unsplash.

Even New York City, a place not exactly known for its abundance of trees, is doing its part.

In April 2007, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans to plant 1 million trees in New York City by 2017. That ambitious goal was met this November with two years to spare — a once-in-a-lifetime case of government accomplishing something faster than expected.

And as if there could be more good news...

It's not just America. The world has more trees than anyone previously thought.

A lot more.

A study conducted by 38 scientists and published by the journal Nature found that there are over 3 trillion trees on the planet, several times higher than previous estimates.

There are 3 tillion trees on Earth. Pictured are some of them. Photo by Kaleb Nimz/Unsplash.

While all of these numbers are encouraging, the picture isn't entirely rosy.

The world still has fewer trees than at any point in human history. Which isn't great.

According to Thomas Crowther, a postdoctoral researcher at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the spread of human influence has reduced the number of trees on the planet by half, which is "astronomical."

Still, the trend of tree growth in the U.S. is encouraging. Trees clean pollutants from the air, absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, and produce oxygen. They're also home to innumerable species of life around the world.

Look at that tree just crushing it out there. Photo by John Mark Arnold/Unsplash.

In short, trees are awesome and we should have as many of them as possible. So go outside and tell a tree you love it.

Seriously. Go hug a tree. It's not that weird, I promise.

Correction 5/26/2017: A previous version of this story stated that there are 3 billion trees on the planet. The Nature study found 3 trillion, not billion. Even better.

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