It’s impossible to ignore the almost daily news updates about Donald Trump’s latest comments, views and, of course, tweets. One of his most controversial
actions so far as President has been his pledge for the US to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
His refusal to accept climate change and global warming are well known. He has turned to Twitter to voice his opinions many times, 106 times to be exact,
with tweets like “Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee – I’m in Los Angeles and it’s freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”
As well as his decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Trump has reduced regulations on coal development, and has appointed climate change
sceptic, Scott Pruitt, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Many people are worried about the potential damage that these views and actions will do, and some are taking matters into their own hands. A New Zealand
based project, Trump Forest, is a campaign to compensate for the impact of Trump’s climate policies, and is gaining momentum.
The campaign, which began in March, aims to offset the “Trump effect” by planting trees, or paying for trees. After the first month 15,000 trees were pledged,
and now, over 120,000 trees have been pledged. Some people have simply bought and planted a tree, or trees, and sent a copy of the receipt to the project,
whilst others have paid for trees to be planted as part of forest restoration programmes in Madagascar, Ethiopia and Nepal.
Trump Forest organisers estimate that they will need to offset 650 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2025 to compensate for the President’s policies. This
translates into more than 100 billion new trees.
“We want to plant a global forest that will offset all of the emissions that the Trump administration puts in the atmosphere. It sounds a bit ridiculous
but it is completely feasible,” said Dr Dan Price, one of the project’s co-founders.
Adrien Taylor, another of the project’s co-founders, said, “We kind of want him to love the forest; this is his forest after all. We would love it if he
tweeted about it.”
To find out more about the campaign, click here: TrumpForest.com
