7 ms·

The Canadian government's plan to plant two billion trees

122 points by voisin 3y ago

transcriptase 3y ago
“The problem with the program is not that the goal is not laudable. It is that the program has not really been designed to achieve its goals,” he said. A pattern with the current government. Even with their main fulfilled promise of legalization of Cannabis, the stated goal throughout the legislative process was to undercut and eventually choke off the black market. Instead they cherry picked the most onerous regulations from the alcohol and pharma industries and taxed it like tobacco… while basically ending any sort of enforcement against black market operators. 5 years in the black market is larger and more public facing than ever, while licensed producers all circle the financial drain because they can’t possibly compete with illegal growers and retailers who pay no tax and follow no regulations (eg. release testing for pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, mold).
- gottorf 3y ago
  > Instead they cherry picked the most onerous regulations from the alcohol and pharma industries and taxed it like tobacco… while basically ending any sort of enforcement against black market operators. The worst of both worlds!
- passwordoops 3y ago
  Just listened to a podcast today with a focus on the Ontario budget, but they do discuss how this pattern is the norm for most, if not not all, provincial governments too. (1) It's like governing is the end goal and not a means for the political class, so we end up with crummy policy across the board. (1) https://thehub.ca/2024-03-29/this-government-is-oblivious-the-roundtable-on-doug-fords-free-spending-ontario-budget-and-canadas-rapid-population-growth/ https://thehub.ca/2024-03-29/this-government-is-oblivious-th...
  - beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago
    The general sense I get from every Canadian politician, regardless of whether they're at the municipal, provincial, or federal, level, and regardless of party, is that they are much better at getting elected or re-elected than they are at actually passing legislation or making their stated platforms a reality. The federal level would be helped with an actual 3rd contender, but the NDP have been floundering since Layton passed. Instead the 2 major parties are just ideological vacuums with no point or goal but to cycle in and out of power.
    - multiplegeorges 3y ago
      The NDP have forced the current Liberals to pass two of the most impactful programs in a LONG time: universal dental coverage and now pharmacare. They may be floundering in the polls, sadly, but their impact has been immense.
      - 14 3y ago
        Sadly the NDP have lost their way and will not be winning an election for a long time. Jagmeet needs to be replaced. Move away from liberal policies and create their own political agenda that defines them.
      - transcriptase 3y ago
        Neither of those are true. The dental care is a $500 a year reimbursement for some children and seniors, and the pharmacare covers contraception and diabetes medication. There’s not even an expansion plan developed for either.
        verall 3y ago
        I guess since I'm in the states the bar is below the floor but $500/yr dental reimbursement for kids and pharamacare covering contraception and diabetes medication sounds incredibly helpful for low income people.
    - avtar 3y ago
      The following article sheds some light on the corporate lobbying that's been taking place within the NDP (provincial and federal) since Layton's era: https://breachmedia.ca/ndp-lobbyists/ https://breachmedia.ca/ndp-lobbyists/ Seems like it's just neoliberalism all the way down, regardless of the party.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  The cannabis black market is steadily shrinking in Canada. https://mjbizdaily.com/canadas-legal-cannabis-market-winning-over-illicit-consumers-survey-suggests/ https://mjbizdaily.com/canadas-legal-cannabis-market-winning...
  - __s 3y ago
    That also matches my experience I know people who cynically assumed legal weed would be overpriced & low quality. Figured they'd stick with their dealer. Now they just buy legal Say what you want about cost of regulation. Running illegal operations has its costs & inefficiencies too
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- 14 3y ago
  There are definitely struggles on both sides of the matter. Regulated sellers have the worst expensive low potency weed. Black market producers can no longer sell at a high premium. The government made these rules knowing it would perpetuate the black market. People want to see the weed they are buying yet sanctioned stores have to have all their products in packaging you can not see through. Edibles have to be of such low potency it is laughable. They stores are selling weed that is 9+ months old. So many issues. Black market guy just selling high quality weed he smokes himself so no he doesn’t put any crazy pesticides or things like that into it. Has to make one wonder why the government made these rules when they serve no purpose other than making a black market viable. But again the struggle is on both sides gone are the days of $2500 a pound. It’s way down.
  - lotsoweiners 3y ago
    > Edibles have to be of such low potency it is laughable. I must be a lightweight because just about every edible I take knocks me on my ass. They certainly seem more potent than the flower I get at the dispensaries in my area.
- fbdab103 3y ago
  There was a Planet Money story[0] about how legal growers are struggling because there is too much competition from not enough buyers. Maybe black market competition is to blame, but I would love to see some hard numbers on where the majority of purchases are made. My knee jerk reaction is to believe that most people are lazy and will pay for the convenience of a brightly lit store front instead of locating their local dealer. Choice quote from the article: There are just over four million people in Oregon, and so far this year, farmers have grown 8.8 million pounds of weed. Which means there's nearly a pound of dried, smokable weed for every single person in the state of Oregon. As a result, the sales price for legal marijuana in the last couple of years has plummeted. [0] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/29/1197955821/marijuana-state-federal-laws-trade https://www.npr.org/2023/11/29/1197955821/marijuana-state-fe...
  - o11c 3y ago
    Maybe it's also that, now that there's no longer a taboo, more people are realizing how outright obnoxious smoking weed is? It seems worse than tobacco ever was, but that's probably a result of poor memory.
    - hackernewds 3y ago
      seems very unlikely. ease of access proliferates use especially of addictive behaviors and vices, not the prohibitive-ness
  - Arch485 3y ago
    The cannabis black market in Canada is actually _more_ convenient than the legalized stores. Not far from where I live, there are _tons_ of illegal/unregulated dispensaries. In many cases, the only tipoff you get that these aren't regulated is the low prices. They outperform legal dispensaries in every way: no purchase limits, lower prices, you can buy your cigs + vape pens + cannabis all in one place, they basically never ID people, etc. People who use cannabis are strongly incentivised to buy the illegal stuff, because the regulated market is too draconian and expensive.
spurgu 3y ago
Seems to be going better in India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adTsC7RPlUs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adTsC7RPlUs
- WillAdams 3y ago
  Also in Africa: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-green-wall/ https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-gree...
  - xanthor 3y ago
    And in China: https://www.wordforest.org/2024/03/08/chinas-reforestation-journey/ https://www.wordforest.org/2024/03/08/chinas-reforestation-j...
- cpursley 3y ago
  This entire channel is great; the water conservation stuff is really incredible and a problem overlooked by people with the means of building rockets and atomic space clocks.
kgbcia 3y ago
Wish they could plant some random crops like potatoes and corn to the mix. And a healthy barrier to prevent wildfire from destroying all their work.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
osigurdson 3y ago
Long ago, I tree planted for a few weeks one summer as a teenager where everyone was was paid by the tree. I worked very hard to planting trees properly using correct techniques to help maximize the probability of their survival. There were a couple of "ultra high performing" teams that we eventually learned were simply burying trees. I thought eventually they would be caught and fired but in the end the management company was also in on the scam - ultimately declaring bankruptcy and no one got paid. It was an interesting lesson for me both in terms of doing truly hard work / living in nature as well as corruption in government contracts. Given Justin Trudeau's abysmal corruption and competency records, I expect that money will be buried in Katimavik Bitcoin wallets - no need to bury actual trees.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- aurizon 3y ago
  Start 'Bitwood' - it might become a thing...
ProllyInfamous 3y ago
I just purchased a very small part of a forest, an inholding within 8000 acres of protected land trust and 40,000+ of national forest surrounding. Having no clue of the actual number, I suspect I now own thousands of trees. Last week, I owned zero trees. Thankfully this US state offers multiple forms of conservation easement, which will allow me to keep trees on 99% of the land (building two tiny homes on dozens of acres). Perhaps I might even generate some authentic carbon offsets?
- losvedir 3y ago
  That's pretty interesting. Do you have any more info about how you did that or how you found it or how much something like that costs? Was it just a sustainability donation kind of thing, or do you intend to (or can you) live there or visit? We donate to a Shirley Heinz Land Trust which buys up decrepit lots around where we live in Gary, IN and around there, and restores them into preserves. But it's nothing on the scale of what you bought, it sounds like.
  - MrVandemar 3y ago
    > Decrepit lots ... restores them into preserves I despair. The only thing left for “nature” is the land we've run into the ground, poisoned and shit on. Turning them into preserves is laudable, except they'll never, ever be as good as whatever was there before the land was cleared. The biodiversity will be gone. The complex interactions of thousands of species will be gone. Restoring the land also inevitably requires fossil-fuel inputs.
    - voisin 3y ago
      > except they'll never, ever be as good as whatever was there before the land was cleared 100 years? 500 years, 1000?
      - MrVandemar 3y ago
        Sure, leave it alone long enough and you'll get something. But I doubt even after 1,000 years you'll get anything close to the complexity or richness of whatever original ecosystem was there in the first place.
probably_satan 3y ago
[dead]
sunir 3y ago
Generally speaking with Ottawa these days, the default expectation to every time a promise is made that sounds good for the media is that nothing will be done after the announcement. I feel that is a cynical take and I defend against cynicism; however I think the government is more cynical that announcements are the only thing that matters. So it’s a question of whose cynicism should I defend against?
- SECProto 3y ago
  There are resources to track progress on promises. They have similar for the provinces. Pretty decent slow n steady progress on various promises. https://www.polimeter.org/en/trudeau https://www.polimeter.org/en/trudeau
MrVandemar 3y ago
“Planting trees” is one of those things that sound great on paper, or in a sound-bite, but the reality is problematic. 1. “Planting trees” actually means “planting seedlings”. There is no guarantee that the majority of seedlings will grow to be full sized trees. Once a “tree is planted” then the box is ticked. On our farm we've planted a variety of about 500 native seedlings this year, and let me tell you, it takes hard work to keep them alive through the first Summer, even when mulched and given protectors. A planted seedling is not a tree. 2. People tend to plant monocultures I can't count the number of times someone has pointed to neat, ordered ranks of nothing but pine-trees or blue-gums and labelled it a “forest”. Nope. A forest is an ecosystem, a great variety of plants — trees, shrubs, bushes, mosses, fungi, ferns, lichens — and animals. A monoculture is not “habitat” to anything much. City people especially see these things and feel good that they're there, but it's like comparing a properly cooked and seasoned steak with the cheapest cheeseburger you can find. Sorry, not a forest. 3. These monocultures, pines and bluegums and what have you, are not designed to be there forever (unlike a real forest). They're a crop. They're designed to be harvested. Bluegums for paper pulp; pine for furniture and framing timber. They're a product. They're planted, harvested and processed with more fossil-fuel inputs than they “save” by “carbon sequestration”. Planting trees is good, but it's very much about appeasing someone's conscience, or looking “green”. The most important thing is not to cut them down in the first place. But growth economics demand that we do exactly that: clear land, cut down trees.
- mft_ 3y ago
  > 2. People tend to plant monocultures I can't count the number of times someone has pointed to neat, ordered ranks of nothing but pine-trees or blue-gums and labelled it a “forest”. Nope. A forest is an ecosystem, a great variety of plants — trees, shrubs, bushes, mosses, fungi, ferns, lichens — and animals. A monoculture is not “habitat” to anything much. I'm not disagreeing with you on the bigger picture (at all) but I'm interested: 1. If a monoculture not-quite-a-forest is planted and not harvested, won't it gradually become a more varied ecosystem over time? As in, won't shrubs, bushes, mosses, fungi, ferns, lichens, and animals (not to mention other varieties of trees) gradually 'move in'? 2. Are we in danger of letting perfect be the enemy of good here? Would we rather have no new trees at all in a space, or a monoculture not-quite-a-forest (assuming it's not for harvest)?
486sx33 3y ago
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the pledge during the 2019 election campaign, and the goal was repeated during the government’s 2020 throne speech setting out policy objectives. 5 years and not much, 2-3 % of the goal Heck if they had just asked every new immigrant/refugee to plant just 1 tree immediately they’d be much further into this goal. I actually like the idea of such a program that I just dreamed up. Newcomers to Canada should be excited to fulfill their patriotic duty to plant 1 tree to “grow new roots” in their home country
- john-radio 3y ago
  I like it too!
- smnrchrds 3y ago
  2-3% x 2 billion = 40-60 million Canada's immigration rate is high, but not as high as 40-60 million newcomers in 5 years.
- throwhh 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - gloryjulio 3y ago
    Immigration is not a problem. The number is. 1m+ per year is way too much. The devil is in the details.
    - throwhh 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - mrybczyn 3y ago
    the natives just immigrated 20,000 years earlier is all...
    - throwhh 3y ago
      [flagged]
Tiktaalik 3y ago
When I first heard of this scheme the big question I had was "where are you going to find the room to plant them?" and it seems like that's still a big problem they're struggling with. > But many 2BT projects are planting on private land — and in places like Southern Ontario, there’s not enough of that land to go around, experts told The House. I heard them discussing this issue on the radio and they went on to describe in more depth how they were giving farmers tax breaks to plant forests. Canada is a big country, but the reality is that all the space is already being used. Either it's used by agriculture to export food all around the world, for cities (we have a housing crisis), or it's already forest. And logging companies that chop down trees were already obligated to replant the forest, well before this 2B trees promise. So we're left with replacing farming and pasture land with forest. There's not a lot of good opportunities for that.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > how they were giving farmers tax breaks to plant forests. An interesting choice. It's pretty clear that Ontario's housing problem is directly related to its farmland problem. Southern Ontario farmland values have risen 900% since the United States changed its farm subsidy policies in the 2000s, which allowed farming in Canada to be much more viable. Farmland being 900% more expensive means that urban areas can't sprawl cheaply like they once were able to, placing much more pressure on existing urban boundaries, thereby seeing the cost of urban housing rise. If this successfully takes even more farmland out of the equitation, farmers will just pay even more[1] for the remaining farmland, and then urban areas will have to pay even more to sprawl, putting even more pressure on existing urban boundaries, making urban housing even more expensive. [1] Supply managed diary and poultry producers are effectively given a blank cheque from the government. There is no end to how much they can spend.
  - voisin 3y ago
    > Supply managed diary and poultry producers are effectively given a blank cheque from the government. There is no end to how much they can spend. Can you elaborate on this? It seems the dairy farmers I grew up with in Southwestern Ontario were living just above poverty.
Brajeshwar 3y ago
There is a large area on the border between Myanmar and India. It is neglected, and the locals need the incentive to do something. I stumbled on it via a friend of a friend and a chance upon a teacher there who turned out to be a school friend from the 90s. About two years ago, I invested some money to map the area, satellite images, drone and on-ground footage (videos, photos), etc. Greenhouse with lots of tree sapling and convinced a local relative to give me a large area of farmland for me to experiment. I was building a project to attract investment and make it an investible asset, and I can monitor that region. This will help plant a lot of varieties of trees, employ the locals, and hopefully earn money. Unfortunately, communal un-rest broke out last year (2023) and was shelved. This year, I'm trying to start slowly, again. In my last calculations, there is a potential of over ~128,000 Carbon Credits that can be generated at its final avatar. Anyone interested to see if you want to work with me, feel free to connect. I'm hoping I can do something interesting and useful with the idea.
- onethought 3y ago
  Myanmar is still in a civil war - correct?
  - Brajeshwar 3y ago
    Yes, correct. That is why we are extra cautious even if we focus only on the Indian side. Enough water bodies flows from the Himalayas through that region. For reference, the Chindwin river runs very close by.
- merek 3y ago
  This sounds very interesting. Any chance that you would consider a blog or social media account with more information or progress updates?
  - Brajeshwar 3y ago
    Are you offering to help with that or want more information in those medium? I'm occupied with quite a few things happening and have no energy to focus on a blog/social-media for this. If you need more info, email me with some context and I will send you the details - brajeshwar@oinam.com
Brajeshwar 3y ago
If you plant trees, it needs to be nurtured, monitored, until they can survive and thrive on their own. Many talk about the planting (fun) part and forgot about the upkeep. Pakistan planted a billion trees[1] but it was neglected. If I remember correctly, the project is termed a failure due to neglect. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Tree_Tsunami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Tree_Tsunami
aiauthoritydev2 3y ago
Why ?
tmellon2 3y ago
If planting two billion trees has so many challenges in a sparsely populated country (considering Canada's land area) - how is the One Trillion trees project supported by the likes of Marc Benioff (Salesforce) even possible ? For the record : I'm all for more greenery and forests.
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
Read a related story about using vertical farming to 'mass produce' seeds and saplings: https://ahealthierearth.com/news/blenheim-estate-announces-partnership-with-uk-climate-tech-firm-a-healthier-earth-on-new-forestfactory-concept/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://ahealthierearth.com/news/blenheim-estate-announces-p...
sdrothrock 3y ago
I hope they do research and plant a variety of trees in sustainable ways that do not affect people negatively. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay_fever_in_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay_fever_in_Japan
tristramb 3y ago
'Planting' trees is totally unnecessary. Leave a patch of land untouched for a few decades and trees will grow up all by themselves. The real cost is not the seedlings nor the planting, it is the land.
he0001 3y ago
Slightly off topic. When I was young, I remember our school bought rain forest, which then would be protected. I wonder if it still is protected or it was some elaborate scam. And who owns it today?
zzz999 3y ago
Imagine if it was 1 million million trees... AKA 1 trillion...
rekabis 3y ago
Without extensive appropriateness research prior to planting, and follow-up care, most to nearly all free planting programs end up being nothing more than greenwashing.

122 points by voisin 3y ago

“The problem with the program is not that the goal is not laudable. It is that the program has not really been designed to achieve its goals,” he said. A pattern with the current government. Even with their main fulfilled promise of legalization of Cannabis, the stated goal throughout the legislative process was to undercut and eventually choke off the black market. Instead they cherry picked the most onerous regulations from the alcohol and pharma industries and taxed it like tobacco… while basically ending any sort of enforcement against black market operators. 5 years in the black market is larger and more public facing than ever, while licensed producers all circle the financial drain because they can’t possibly compete with illegal growers and retailers who pay no tax and follow no regulations (eg. release testing for pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, mold).

gottorf 3y ago
> Instead they cherry picked the most onerous regulations from the alcohol and pharma industries and taxed it like tobacco… while basically ending any sort of enforcement against black market operators. The worst of both worlds!
passwordoops 3y ago
Just listened to a podcast today with a focus on the Ontario budget, but they do discuss how this pattern is the norm for most, if not not all, provincial governments too. (1) It's like governing is the end goal and not a means for the political class, so we end up with crummy policy across the board. (1) https://thehub.ca/2024-03-29/this-government-is-oblivious-the-roundtable-on-doug-fords-free-spending-ontario-budget-and-canadas-rapid-population-growth/ https://thehub.ca/2024-03-29/this-government-is-oblivious-th...
- beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago
  The general sense I get from every Canadian politician, regardless of whether they're at the municipal, provincial, or federal, level, and regardless of party, is that they are much better at getting elected or re-elected than they are at actually passing legislation or making their stated platforms a reality. The federal level would be helped with an actual 3rd contender, but the NDP have been floundering since Layton passed. Instead the 2 major parties are just ideological vacuums with no point or goal but to cycle in and out of power.
  - multiplegeorges 3y ago
    The NDP have forced the current Liberals to pass two of the most impactful programs in a LONG time: universal dental coverage and now pharmacare. They may be floundering in the polls, sadly, but their impact has been immense.
    - 14 3y ago
      Sadly the NDP have lost their way and will not be winning an election for a long time. Jagmeet needs to be replaced. Move away from liberal policies and create their own political agenda that defines them.
    - transcriptase 3y ago
      Neither of those are true. The dental care is a $500 a year reimbursement for some children and seniors, and the pharmacare covers contraception and diabetes medication. There’s not even an expansion plan developed for either.
      - verall 3y ago
        I guess since I'm in the states the bar is below the floor but $500/yr dental reimbursement for kids and pharamacare covering contraception and diabetes medication sounds incredibly helpful for low income people.
  - avtar 3y ago
    The following article sheds some light on the corporate lobbying that's been taking place within the NDP (provincial and federal) since Layton's era: https://breachmedia.ca/ndp-lobbyists/ https://breachmedia.ca/ndp-lobbyists/ Seems like it's just neoliberalism all the way down, regardless of the party.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
The cannabis black market is steadily shrinking in Canada. https://mjbizdaily.com/canadas-legal-cannabis-market-winning-over-illicit-consumers-survey-suggests/ https://mjbizdaily.com/canadas-legal-cannabis-market-winning...
- __s 3y ago
  That also matches my experience I know people who cynically assumed legal weed would be overpriced & low quality. Figured they'd stick with their dealer. Now they just buy legal Say what you want about cost of regulation. Running illegal operations has its costs & inefficiencies too
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
14 3y ago
There are definitely struggles on both sides of the matter. Regulated sellers have the worst expensive low potency weed. Black market producers can no longer sell at a high premium. The government made these rules knowing it would perpetuate the black market. People want to see the weed they are buying yet sanctioned stores have to have all their products in packaging you can not see through. Edibles have to be of such low potency it is laughable. They stores are selling weed that is 9+ months old. So many issues. Black market guy just selling high quality weed he smokes himself so no he doesn’t put any crazy pesticides or things like that into it. Has to make one wonder why the government made these rules when they serve no purpose other than making a black market viable. But again the struggle is on both sides gone are the days of $2500 a pound. It’s way down.
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  > Edibles have to be of such low potency it is laughable. I must be a lightweight because just about every edible I take knocks me on my ass. They certainly seem more potent than the flower I get at the dispensaries in my area.
fbdab103 3y ago
There was a Planet Money story[0] about how legal growers are struggling because there is too much competition from not enough buyers. Maybe black market competition is to blame, but I would love to see some hard numbers on where the majority of purchases are made. My knee jerk reaction is to believe that most people are lazy and will pay for the convenience of a brightly lit store front instead of locating their local dealer. Choice quote from the article: There are just over four million people in Oregon, and so far this year, farmers have grown 8.8 million pounds of weed. Which means there's nearly a pound of dried, smokable weed for every single person in the state of Oregon. As a result, the sales price for legal marijuana in the last couple of years has plummeted. [0] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/29/1197955821/marijuana-state-federal-laws-trade https://www.npr.org/2023/11/29/1197955821/marijuana-state-fe...
- o11c 3y ago
  Maybe it's also that, now that there's no longer a taboo, more people are realizing how outright obnoxious smoking weed is? It seems worse than tobacco ever was, but that's probably a result of poor memory.
  - hackernewds 3y ago
    seems very unlikely. ease of access proliferates use especially of addictive behaviors and vices, not the prohibitive-ness
- Arch485 3y ago
  The cannabis black market in Canada is actually _more_ convenient than the legalized stores. Not far from where I live, there are _tons_ of illegal/unregulated dispensaries. In many cases, the only tipoff you get that these aren't regulated is the low prices. They outperform legal dispensaries in every way: no purchase limits, lower prices, you can buy your cigs + vape pens + cannabis all in one place, they basically never ID people, etc. People who use cannabis are strongly incentivised to buy the illegal stuff, because the regulated market is too draconian and expensive.

spurgu 3y ago

Seems to be going better in India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adTsC7RPlUs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adTsC7RPlUs

WillAdams 3y ago
Also in Africa: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-green-wall/ https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-gree...
- xanthor 3y ago
  And in China: https://www.wordforest.org/2024/03/08/chinas-reforestation-journey/ https://www.wordforest.org/2024/03/08/chinas-reforestation-j...
cpursley 3y ago
This entire channel is great; the water conservation stuff is really incredible and a problem overlooked by people with the means of building rockets and atomic space clocks.

kgbcia 3y ago

Wish they could plant some random crops like potatoes and corn to the mix. And a healthy barrier to prevent wildfire from destroying all their work.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

osigurdson 3y ago

Long ago, I tree planted for a few weeks one summer as a teenager where everyone was was paid by the tree. I worked very hard to planting trees properly using correct techniques to help maximize the probability of their survival. There were a couple of "ultra high performing" teams that we eventually learned were simply burying trees. I thought eventually they would be caught and fired but in the end the management company was also in on the scam - ultimately declaring bankruptcy and no one got paid. It was an interesting lesson for me both in terms of doing truly hard work / living in nature as well as corruption in government contracts. Given Justin Trudeau's abysmal corruption and competency records, I expect that money will be buried in Katimavik Bitcoin wallets - no need to bury actual trees.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
aurizon 3y ago
Start 'Bitwood' - it might become a thing...

ProllyInfamous 3y ago

I just purchased a very small part of a forest, an inholding within 8000 acres of protected land trust and 40,000+ of national forest surrounding. Having no clue of the actual number, I suspect I now own thousands of trees. Last week, I owned zero trees. Thankfully this US state offers multiple forms of conservation easement, which will allow me to keep trees on 99% of the land (building two tiny homes on dozens of acres). Perhaps I might even generate some authentic carbon offsets?

losvedir 3y ago
That's pretty interesting. Do you have any more info about how you did that or how you found it or how much something like that costs? Was it just a sustainability donation kind of thing, or do you intend to (or can you) live there or visit? We donate to a Shirley Heinz Land Trust which buys up decrepit lots around where we live in Gary, IN and around there, and restores them into preserves. But it's nothing on the scale of what you bought, it sounds like.
- MrVandemar 3y ago
  > Decrepit lots ... restores them into preserves I despair. The only thing left for “nature” is the land we've run into the ground, poisoned and shit on. Turning them into preserves is laudable, except they'll never, ever be as good as whatever was there before the land was cleared. The biodiversity will be gone. The complex interactions of thousands of species will be gone. Restoring the land also inevitably requires fossil-fuel inputs.
  - voisin 3y ago
    > except they'll never, ever be as good as whatever was there before the land was cleared 100 years? 500 years, 1000?
    - MrVandemar 3y ago
      Sure, leave it alone long enough and you'll get something. But I doubt even after 1,000 years you'll get anything close to the complexity or richness of whatever original ecosystem was there in the first place.

probably_satan 3y ago

[dead]

sunir 3y ago

Generally speaking with Ottawa these days, the default expectation to every time a promise is made that sounds good for the media is that nothing will be done after the announcement. I feel that is a cynical take and I defend against cynicism; however I think the government is more cynical that announcements are the only thing that matters. So it’s a question of whose cynicism should I defend against?

SECProto 3y ago
There are resources to track progress on promises. They have similar for the provinces. Pretty decent slow n steady progress on various promises. https://www.polimeter.org/en/trudeau https://www.polimeter.org/en/trudeau

MrVandemar 3y ago

“Planting trees” is one of those things that sound great on paper, or in a sound-bite, but the reality is problematic. 1. “Planting trees” actually means “planting seedlings”. There is no guarantee that the majority of seedlings will grow to be full sized trees. Once a “tree is planted” then the box is ticked. On our farm we've planted a variety of about 500 native seedlings this year, and let me tell you, it takes hard work to keep them alive through the first Summer, even when mulched and given protectors. A planted seedling is not a tree. 2. People tend to plant monocultures I can't count the number of times someone has pointed to neat, ordered ranks of nothing but pine-trees or blue-gums and labelled it a “forest”. Nope. A forest is an ecosystem, a great variety of plants — trees, shrubs, bushes, mosses, fungi, ferns, lichens — and animals. A monoculture is not “habitat” to anything much. City people especially see these things and feel good that they're there, but it's like comparing a properly cooked and seasoned steak with the cheapest cheeseburger you can find. Sorry, not a forest. 3. These monocultures, pines and bluegums and what have you, are not designed to be there forever (unlike a real forest). They're a crop. They're designed to be harvested. Bluegums for paper pulp; pine for furniture and framing timber. They're a product. They're planted, harvested and processed with more fossil-fuel inputs than they “save” by “carbon sequestration”. Planting trees is good, but it's very much about appeasing someone's conscience, or looking “green”. The most important thing is not to cut them down in the first place. But growth economics demand that we do exactly that: clear land, cut down trees.

mft_ 3y ago
> 2. People tend to plant monocultures I can't count the number of times someone has pointed to neat, ordered ranks of nothing but pine-trees or blue-gums and labelled it a “forest”. Nope. A forest is an ecosystem, a great variety of plants — trees, shrubs, bushes, mosses, fungi, ferns, lichens — and animals. A monoculture is not “habitat” to anything much. I'm not disagreeing with you on the bigger picture (at all) but I'm interested: 1. If a monoculture not-quite-a-forest is planted and not harvested, won't it gradually become a more varied ecosystem over time? As in, won't shrubs, bushes, mosses, fungi, ferns, lichens, and animals (not to mention other varieties of trees) gradually 'move in'? 2. Are we in danger of letting perfect be the enemy of good here? Would we rather have no new trees at all in a space, or a monoculture not-quite-a-forest (assuming it's not for harvest)?

486sx33 3y ago

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the pledge during the 2019 election campaign, and the goal was repeated during the government’s 2020 throne speech setting out policy objectives. 5 years and not much, 2-3 % of the goal Heck if they had just asked every new immigrant/refugee to plant just 1 tree immediately they’d be much further into this goal. I actually like the idea of such a program that I just dreamed up. Newcomers to Canada should be excited to fulfill their patriotic duty to plant 1 tree to “grow new roots” in their home country

john-radio 3y ago
I like it too!
smnrchrds 3y ago
2-3% x 2 billion = 40-60 million Canada's immigration rate is high, but not as high as 40-60 million newcomers in 5 years.
throwhh 3y ago
[flagged]
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  Immigration is not a problem. The number is. 1m+ per year is way too much. The devil is in the details.
  - throwhh 3y ago
    [flagged]
- mrybczyn 3y ago
  the natives just immigrated 20,000 years earlier is all...
  - throwhh 3y ago
    [flagged]

Tiktaalik 3y ago

When I first heard of this scheme the big question I had was "where are you going to find the room to plant them?" and it seems like that's still a big problem they're struggling with. > But many 2BT projects are planting on private land — and in places like Southern Ontario, there’s not enough of that land to go around, experts told The House. I heard them discussing this issue on the radio and they went on to describe in more depth how they were giving farmers tax breaks to plant forests. Canada is a big country, but the reality is that all the space is already being used. Either it's used by agriculture to export food all around the world, for cities (we have a housing crisis), or it's already forest. And logging companies that chop down trees were already obligated to replant the forest, well before this 2B trees promise. So we're left with replacing farming and pasture land with forest. There's not a lot of good opportunities for that.

randomdata 3y ago
> how they were giving farmers tax breaks to plant forests. An interesting choice. It's pretty clear that Ontario's housing problem is directly related to its farmland problem. Southern Ontario farmland values have risen 900% since the United States changed its farm subsidy policies in the 2000s, which allowed farming in Canada to be much more viable. Farmland being 900% more expensive means that urban areas can't sprawl cheaply like they once were able to, placing much more pressure on existing urban boundaries, thereby seeing the cost of urban housing rise. If this successfully takes even more farmland out of the equitation, farmers will just pay even more[1] for the remaining farmland, and then urban areas will have to pay even more to sprawl, putting even more pressure on existing urban boundaries, making urban housing even more expensive. [1] Supply managed diary and poultry producers are effectively given a blank cheque from the government. There is no end to how much they can spend.
- voisin 3y ago
  > Supply managed diary and poultry producers are effectively given a blank cheque from the government. There is no end to how much they can spend. Can you elaborate on this? It seems the dairy farmers I grew up with in Southwestern Ontario were living just above poverty.

Brajeshwar 3y ago

There is a large area on the border between Myanmar and India. It is neglected, and the locals need the incentive to do something. I stumbled on it via a friend of a friend and a chance upon a teacher there who turned out to be a school friend from the 90s. About two years ago, I invested some money to map the area, satellite images, drone and on-ground footage (videos, photos), etc. Greenhouse with lots of tree sapling and convinced a local relative to give me a large area of farmland for me to experiment. I was building a project to attract investment and make it an investible asset, and I can monitor that region. This will help plant a lot of varieties of trees, employ the locals, and hopefully earn money. Unfortunately, communal un-rest broke out last year (2023) and was shelved. This year, I'm trying to start slowly, again. In my last calculations, there is a potential of over ~128,000 Carbon Credits that can be generated at its final avatar. Anyone interested to see if you want to work with me, feel free to connect. I'm hoping I can do something interesting and useful with the idea.

onethought 3y ago
Myanmar is still in a civil war - correct?
- Brajeshwar 3y ago
  Yes, correct. That is why we are extra cautious even if we focus only on the Indian side. Enough water bodies flows from the Himalayas through that region. For reference, the Chindwin river runs very close by.
merek 3y ago
This sounds very interesting. Any chance that you would consider a blog or social media account with more information or progress updates?
- Brajeshwar 3y ago
  Are you offering to help with that or want more information in those medium? I'm occupied with quite a few things happening and have no energy to focus on a blog/social-media for this. If you need more info, email me with some context and I will send you the details - brajeshwar@oinam.com

Brajeshwar 3y ago

If you plant trees, it needs to be nurtured, monitored, until they can survive and thrive on their own. Many talk about the planting (fun) part and forgot about the upkeep. Pakistan planted a billion trees[1] but it was neglected. If I remember correctly, the project is termed a failure due to neglect. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Tree_Tsunami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Tree_Tsunami

aiauthoritydev2 3y ago

Why ?

tmellon2 3y ago

If planting two billion trees has so many challenges in a sparsely populated country (considering Canada's land area) - how is the One Trillion trees project supported by the likes of Marc Benioff (Salesforce) even possible ? For the record : I'm all for more greenery and forests.

helsinkiandrew 3y ago

Read a related story about using vertical farming to 'mass produce' seeds and saplings: https://ahealthierearth.com/news/blenheim-estate-announces-partnership-with-uk-climate-tech-firm-a-healthier-earth-on-new-forestfactory-concept/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email https://ahealthierearth.com/news/blenheim-estate-announces-p...

sdrothrock 3y ago

I hope they do research and plant a variety of trees in sustainable ways that do not affect people negatively. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay_fever_in_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay_fever_in_Japan

tristramb 3y ago

'Planting' trees is totally unnecessary. Leave a patch of land untouched for a few decades and trees will grow up all by themselves. The real cost is not the seedlings nor the planting, it is the land.

he0001 3y ago

Slightly off topic. When I was young, I remember our school bought rain forest, which then would be protected. I wonder if it still is protected or it was some elaborate scam. And who owns it today?

zzz999 3y ago

Imagine if it was 1 million million trees... AKA 1 trillion...

rekabis 3y ago

Without extensive appropriateness research prior to planting, and follow-up care, most to nearly all free planting programs end up being nothing more than greenwashing.