Our Fall Tree Order, Plans for the Fall

After a little research and much discussion, we have decided which species of tree we are going to order for our fall planting; The Blue Spruce.
We had narrowed the choices down to the Blue and Norway Spruce, and the White Pine, and the Blue won out because it is the most drought tolerant tree and it most in demand. Also, it is just a beautiful tree, whether planted singly or in groups. The order quantity is still up in the air though, it all depends on the amount of donations we receive.

The plan is to start talks with the city of Columbus and the surrounding suburb cities to come up with a plan that will allow us to plant the trees along streets and highways, where the trees will not interfere with anything as they get bigger. Wish us luck on that one, it's going to be difficult.

We will also ask the cities for permission to go door to door asking for donations. If the homeowner wants to make one we will give them the trees right there on the spot, for them to plant, along with information about what GreenifyNow is trying to accomplish.

If you would like to make a donation online, please click the donate link at the top left of the page. Thank you.

Global Warming, What it Means for the United States, Fire, Water, Earth

A foretelling of what will happen to the United States if global warming continues in a three parts: Fire, Water and Earth.

Fire - As global warming continues, it will dry out the United States and the rest of the world. The drying effect snowballs on itself. As the land dries out there is less moisture to evaporate to create the clouds that produce rain. When there is less rain, there will be less moisture to produce that rain. The Southwest US has seen this effect over the past few years, and because of the dryness they have been struck by major firestorms. It is a given that when forests dry up and die, they turn into a gigantic tinderbox just waiting for a spark.

Global warming is caused mostly due to the excess amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This excess amount of CO2 speeds up the growing rate and life cycle of plants causing them to grow bigger faster, but sadly, they also die faster, leaving behind a greater overall mass of deadness waiting for that tiny spark. Once the fire starts, it is back to the beginning of the cycle. Fire chemically changes the wood and brush back into CO2, to grow more plants, bigger, faster.

A quote from a USA Today article from Nov 11, 2003, "Fires may be hotter, move faster, and be more difficult to contain under future climate conditions," Robert Wilkinson of the University of California, Santa Barbara, School of Environmental Science and Management, said in a federal report on the impact of climate change on California. "Extreme temperatures compound the fire risk when other conditions, such as dry fuel and wind, are present."

The problem will not remain in the Southwest. While global warming progresses, more and more of the nation will dry out. The fire problems will start to spread north and east into areas that have never seen forest fires. It is progressing now.

“This summer's wildfires across the country have already burned more than those last year, the worst fire season since 1919. And, the firefighters say, if dry conditions persist, as forecast, this year's fires could approach those of the record year 1910, in which over five million acres burned... So far this year, 66,895 forest and brush fires have burned 3.4 million acres of land, well above the 46,722 fires that had scorched 1.2 million acres at this time last year.” (New York Times. Aug 14, 2008.)

Fires in the mountainous regions of the Western US will also become more prevalent as global warming progresses. Global warming will cause warmer temperatures to creep to the tops of the mountains earlier in the season melting the snowcaps faster in the summer than in the past. This will release the water to runoff quicker and cause the mountain tops to dry out earlier in the year, leaving more time for the spark to happen. Take a law of physics into account, that heat rises, fire rises, and it becomes a huge problem for the mountainous regions of the US.


Water - The most discussed topic within global warming has to do with water. As the earth warms the polar ice caps melt, and it snowballs from there. Common knowledge says that white reflects light, and dark absorbs it. Ice is white, water is not. As more of the white ice melts, more dark colored water and land are exposed to absorb the heat of the sun. Most of the discussion is on what will happen when the sea levels rise; while that is the most immediate effect, there are others just as detrimental to life as we know it.

Sea levels will rise. The main focus on ice melting is focused on Greenland because it contains the ice most likely to disappear very quickly. If Greenland’s entire ice sheet melted the worldwide sea level would rise between 20-30 feet. It does not seem like much, but that is a huge number.
Red shows areas along the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the United States that would be flooded by a 10-meter (about 30 feet) rise in sea level. Population figures for 1996 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, unpublished data, 1998) indicate that a 10-meter rise in sea level would flood approximately 25 percent of the Nation's population.

Another major problem that is caused by the ice melting is the disruption of the oceans currents. Some scientists worry that melting Arctic sea ice will dump enough freshwater into the North Atlantic to interfere with sea currents. Some freshwater would come from the ice-melt itself, but the main contributor would be increased rain and snow in the region. Retreating ice cover exposes more of the ocean surface, allowing more moisture to evaporate into the atmosphere and leading to more precipitation.

Because saltwater is denser and heavier than freshwater, this "freshening" of the North Atlantic would make the surface layers more buoyant. That's a problem because the surface water needs to sink to drive a primary ocean circulation pattern known as the "Great Ocean Conveyor." Sunken water flows south along the ocean floor toward the equator, while warm surface waters from tropical latitudes flow north to replace the water that sank, thus keeping the Conveyor slowly chugging along. An increase in freshwater could prevent this sinking of North Atlantic surface waters, slowing or stopping this circulation. (http://www.nasa.gov/)

It is not really known what will happen if the “Great Ocean Conveyor” is shifted or stopped. It could kill massive amounts of sea life, like the diatom, algae, which is a major producer of the world’s oxygen. It is also the very bottom of the food chain in the ocean. Many creatures depend on it for food. Disrupting the life at the bottom of the ocean food chain will have major consequences.

Another problem that will plague the world will be the shortage of freshwater for consumption. As the world warms, it will also dry up, as it dries up there will be less rainfall to replenish our freshwater sources. For example, Las Vegas, an oasis in the desert only exists because of the water that is supplied to it from the Colorado River, and they need an alternative source now, as a year old news story quotes, “The news coming from the Southern Nevada Water Authority Thursday about the valley's future water supply is worrisome. Unless we act quickly, there will be no water for hundreds of thousands of Las Vegas Valley residents in just three years.’ (Las Vegas Eyewitness News, Aug 17, 2007.)

Also, there has already been much controversy between the Great Lakes States and the Non-Great Lakes States about plans to tap into the Great Lakes to supply needed drinking water to the Southern and Western portions of the US. It will probably happen, but not without a heated battle.


Earth – The United States has many different climate zones, ranging from tropical to mediterranean to artic. If global warming continues there will be a major shift to the north in these climate zones. A good way of looking at the climate zones is to use the hardiness zone map which separates the country by the average minimum temperatures of the past year. This is the 2006 map. All plants are considered hardy for certain zones. For example, a Colorado Blue Spruce is hardy in zones 2-8, which is a wide range, meaning that it can grow just about anywhere in the USA except for parts of Florida, California, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana. On the other hand a Pineapple is only hardy in zone 10, and the only places in the US that can grow pineapple is Hawaii and the southern tip of Florida.

Now imagine if every zone shifted one zone north, or about 200-250 miles, what that would do to your surrounding environment. In the southwest, more and more of the area would turn into dry, arid scrubland and desert. Florida and part of Texas would become tropical climates. There would be Palm trees growing in Tennessee and Kentucky, and Northern Minnesota would have highs of 90 degrees in the summer. Not to bad, right?

Wrong. Most of the western half of the nation would dry out dramatically, with part of the Great Plains turning to desert. The Midwest and the Northeast would be pounded by massive amount of rain and flooding, and the pan part of Florida would be halfway underwater. Think it will not happen?

Did you notice how the summers have been getting hotter and the winters bring more rain than snow. It has already happened. It is documented that from 1990-2006 that most of the hardiness zones in the United States have shifted one zone north. See for yourself. A northern shift of one zone every sixteen years will be detrimental to the United States and the world. Think about all of the food crops that are grown in the Midwest, the zones that changed the most. If they keep up the pace of shifting north what is the US going to do, lease farmland from Canada? Something needs to be done to prevent major changes like this from continuing.


“Global Warming...” was written to grab your attention, whether or not it scared you, is up to you. Our problems will increase with our water, our earth and our fires, and there will be many more of our problems, caused by global warming. Whether we have taken part in creating these problems, it is our duty to solve them for our own well-being.

The worst part about global warming is the snowball effect, the further along the ball rolls, the faster it goes, and the bigger it gets, until it dramatically crashes into the lodge at the bottom of the hill. Everyone in or near that lodge will pay the price. That lodge is the earth. We are intelligent enough to know that we need prevent that snowball from getting any bigger than it already has, and we know how to do it, we just need more action and less talk, immediately.

What is a Carbon Sink/Sequestration?

I have come across the term Carbon Sink alot lately in my research. I had an idea of what the term meant but just wanted to make sure. For people who don't know, I will make this really easy to understand.

The picture to the right is what I had pictured in my mind, and I was right about what a Carbon Sink is. Please bear with the pic, I drew a sink and did my best to superimpose a tree on top. (I haven't drawn in a while. Look closely you can see the sink hidden in the green. Click on it to blow it up.)

CO2 goes into the leaves (the sink), down the trunk, if not turned into oxygen (drain), through the roots (drainpipe), and into the sewer (deep underground) where the CO2 is "Locked Up" for thousands of years.

Here is a definition:

A Carbon Dioxide (CO2) sink is a carbon dioxide reservoir that is increasing in size, and is the opposite of a carbon dioxide "source".

The main natural sinks are: the oceans' biological pump and plants and other organisms that use photosynthesis to remove carbon from the atmosphere by incorporating it into biomass and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere.

Now we know.

Now They Worry About IT!

BEIJING (Reuters) - Olympic host city Beijing was bathed in blue skies on Sunday as official pollution levels stayed low while late-summer heat climbed five days before the Games open.
A week after the city was cloaked in a humid haze trapping fumes and dust, rains and breezes have cleared the air, easing worries for now about Olympic Games athletes suffering in smog.
The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau (www.bjepb.gov.cn) said air quality was "good" in the 24 hours up to midday Saturday, with the main pollution worry -- tiny particulate matter -- at what China considers acceptable levels... About half of Beijing's 3.3 million cars are off the road, $18 billion has been spent on clean-up measures, and manufacturers around the city have closed down. But fetid haze could return, and many of the more than 10,000 athletes are still delaying their arrival for the August 8-24 Games until the last minute to avoid bad air. The glaring sunlight may also increase ozone levels, a pollutant not measured by the city's official air quality index. At high levels, ozone can affect breathing.

The Problem is everywhere! I saw on the news two days ago that they were cloud seeding to make it rain, to knock the pollution and dust out of the sky! That is such a great way to fix the Problem. NOT. You know what we think, PLANT SOME TREES!

Trees:
-Help to settle out, trap and hold particle pollutants (dust, ash, pollen and smoke) that can damage human lungs.
-Absorb CO2 and other dangerous gasses and, in turn, replenish the atmosphere with oxygen.
-Produce enough oxygen on each acre for 18 people every day.

Global Warming- Partial Solution

Global Warming has become a huge issue these days. What most people do not realize is that global warming and cooling is a cycle that the earth has gone through for millions of years. Right now, the earth is in its warming phase and us humans are accelerating that phase to a pace that the earth may not be able to cope with. In fact the earth is warming faster than it ever has in the past, due to human emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

What can we do? There are all kinds of things; creating new technology that reduces the output of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere seems to be all the hype. Using wind energy, solar panels, hybrid cars, water power, but there is a simpler, easier, low cost solution that is often overlooked, Planting Trees.

Imagine how many trees humans have removed from the Earth, or just in the US alone, over the past 2000 years, to build our cities, homes, and farms.

Check out the map, that is what is left of the US forests and grasslands (Courtesy of the US Forest Service). 500 years ago that map would have been all green and orange.

Now is the time to do something about it and every tree counts, here are some interesting facts and figures:

¨ Trees provide shade and shelter, reducing yearly heating and cooling costs by 2 billion dollars.
¨ In one year, a single tree can absorb as much carbon as is produced by a car driving 26,000 miles.
¨ In 50 years one tree recycles more than $37,000 worth of water, provides $31,000 worth of erosion control, $62,000 worth of air pollution control, and produces $37,000 worth of oxygen.
¨ By cooling the air and ground around them, the shade from trees helps cool the Earth's temperature.
¨ One person causes about 10 tons of carbon dioxide to be emitted a year. One tree removes about 1 ton of CO2 per year. So, planting 10 trees per person will remove each that person's carbon debt for the year.

Now is the time to do your part to help curb global warming! For every $2 you donate, http://www.greenifynow.org/ will plant one tree in the US where it is needed most Our short term goal is to plant ONE MILLION trees in the US.. Imagine if all 300 million people in the US just planted one tree. The impact on the global environment would be HUGE!

¨ ONE MILLION trees would remove ONE MILLION tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere per year.
¨ Multiply that number by 300…
¨ Each tree planted for $2 is worth $167,000 in 50 years. Look at that ROI for the environment!

Why Plant So Many Trees?

-The shade and wind buffering provided by trees reduces annual heating and cooling costs by 2.1 billion dollars.

-Each average-sized tree provides an estimated $7 savings in annual environmental benefits, including energy conservation and reduced pollution.

-A single tree produces approximately 260 pounds of oxygen per year. That means two mature trees can supply enough oxygen annually to support a family of four!

-Water originating in our national forests provide drinking water for over 3400 communities, and approximately 60 million individuals.

-One tree can absorb as much carbon in a year as a car produces while driving 26,000 miles.
Over the course its life, a single tree can absorb one ton of carbon dioxide.