Short! Trivia question: How many trees are there in a lot of trees?
Image by Abrget47j / Wikimedia Commons.
50 branches? Yep. You could argue a lot.
Image by Nickrds09 / Wikimedia Commons.
500 branches? That’s definitely a good deal of trees.
Image by US Department of Agriculture / Wikimedia Commons.
5,000 branches? Ah yeah, that’s nice. A piece of nice, healthy trees.
Image by Hansueli Kraupf / Wikimedia Commons.
what about 50,000,000, ged?
Photo by Rajesh Kumar Singh / AP.
“The world has realized that great efforts are needed to reduce carbon emissions to reduce the effects of climate change. Uttar Pradesh has made a start on this,” Akhilesh Yadav, the state prime minister, told partners in the effort to set a new Guinness World Record, according to an Associated Press report.
The group was trying to break the previous record of 847,275 trees planted in 24 hours, established three years ago in Pakistan.
Peach trees in Pakistan. Image by Junaid Ali / Wikimedia Commons.
Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the tree planting campaign, which began on July 11th. About 49.3 million were reported.
“I have read in a book that this tree emits the most oxygen,” eighth grader Shashwat Rai told the AP. “There is so much pollution in the city, we need oxygen-producing trees.”
Hundreds of thousands of people are going out into the world to do something about climate change as an example from which we can all learn.
Simply put, the Earth is warming because the carbon dioxide and other gases we put in the atmosphere trap more heat near the surface.
Trees breathe in carbon dioxide.
Global warming is probably the easiest way to put a pin more trees.
And 800,000 people got off their courts until that happened. That’s very good.
Needless to say, trying to break each other’s tree planting records is perhaps the most prolific manifestation of India’s and Pakistan’s geopolitical conflict.
For nearly 70 years, the relationship between the two countries has been marked by competing territorial disputes, nuclear disruption, and occasional armed conflict.
So if India wants to challenge Pakistan to a tree, I am all for that. I would even watch the inspirational film about 20 years from now. Like a Miracle soaked in chlorophyll on ice.
Ficus! Ficus! Ficus! Photo by Steve Powell / Getty Images.
Here in the United States, we still need to move past square one when it comes to solving climate change.
Uttar Pradesh’s effort would not have been possible without coordination between citizens, voluntary organizations and, crucially, local government.
At the same time, many American policymakers refuse to accept that climate change is caused by humans and, therefore, do not want to do much about it.
It’s important to phone and persuade them – and if they don’t listen, replace them.
In the meantime, we can and should send our caps to a team of thousands to make the corner of the world 50,000,000 times darker.
Trees follow a highway in Uttarakhand, India. Photo by Paul Hamilton / Flickr.
In the best way possible.