How big is your footprint
Around our property we have quite a lot of land, including about a hectare of woodland and another hectare of field that we are turning back to woodland – partly for the environment and partly because we like trees. One thing that we also briefly considered was planting a tree for each family that stay in our rental properties, in a small effort to overcome the environmental impact of people getting here.
Mrs B told me that if we planted trees in the summer they would be dead by autumn through lack of water, so my plan to have trees with little labels saying which family they represented got cancelled before it started, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Unfortunately I had to agree that people returning each year to visit their very own row of dead trees might not be very impressed by our efforts.
The principle sounds sensible – but is it really? I was interested to see a new ‘gadget’ that calculates how much CO2 gets churned out when we fly – and to compare flying with driving.
Using the London to Bergerac journey as an example, flying produces about 0.07 tonnes of CO2 per person. So a family of four making the return journey by plane produces 0.56 tonnes. A car doing the same journey (1012 kilometres at 130 gm CO2 / km) produces 0.14 tonnes – so if there are two people in the car it has almost exactly the same polluting effect as flying, 0.07 tonnes per person.
I thought I’d work out how many trees we would need to plant to compensate.
Apparently a single mature tree can remove 0.02 tonnes of CO2 per year. So to compensate for a family of four making a return journey it would need about 28 mature trees to compensate.
The problem is clear. Assume that 15 families stay here each year, we need to plant more than 400 mature trees to compensate. That’s a lot of planting and a lot of expense, and pretty much impossible to achieve. The idea of planting a single small tree as compensation is woefully inadequate.
So work out your own carbon impact of travelling before you decide that a long haul trip is really cheaper than visiting France this summer. If we need to plant 30 trees for your family visit to France, someone else needs to plant about 400 if you decide to sit on a beach in Goa!
What about encouraging your guests to travel by train?
That’s not a bad idea but few of them would go for it – I just checked and the London to Bordeaux train journey is about 9 hours and costs £180 return. Allow another couple of hours (and more expense) to get to Bergerac and it looks like the train will cost significantly more than most flights, and take as long as driving.
Most people that drive want to avoid having to hire a car, or have too much luggage or children, while people that fly are looking for quick transport. I’m not quite sure which of those groups could be persuaded to take the train instead.
To be honest I’m not convinced that most holidaymakers are concerned enough about the environment that they would undergo the extra hassle and expense, especially since when they get here there is no chance of relying on public transport – there is none at all within at least 25km.
Having said all that – I’ll add it as an option on the ‘getting here’ part of our site just in case.
Thank you! You inspire me to plant a tree myself!
I think the idea sounds great. The tree planting should be seen as a long term benefit that would be good for the environment and provide a woodland you and your guests can enjoy. You don’t have to plant 400 in one go, just do what you can when you can.
Don’t forget there are also other ways to lower the carbon footprint. Encouraging guests to shop locally and use local facilities helps the environment and also puts you in the good books of your neighbours.
Its a bit concerning that you dont know when to plant trees. It tells me that you should check all the asumptions you have made aboute climate change and all that, it is not what you think. Ask some of your french farming locals they know far more about it than the so called experts.
Hi Johnny, thanks for stopping by.
In truth I do know when trees should be planted, but it would have less of an impression on people staying here if I promised to plant a tree six months later rather than if I did it during their visit!
Regarding climate change, I do tend to the view that it’s better to act now rather than wait and see who’s right. Even the locals talk about the change in weather patterns over the last 10 years or so but I’m not sure their opinion on its causes would carry more weight than the large number of experts who attribute it to global warming, or would persuade me that the problem will just go away on its own, even if other experts disagree with them. I’m always open to hearing other possibilities, but mostly concerned it’s not a problem we can ignore until it’s too late.
Cheers
Trees should be planted bare rooted in October/November. They need to be watered once a week in dry wether in the summer with about 2 gallons/ 10 Ltrs per tree. more often if it is very dry. this should be done in the first summer and possibly longer. Look at the leaves regulary in summer if they show ANY signs of droop water well.Here in Norfolk there are no visable effects of so called global warming so the old farming families tell me. They all understand about cool and dry periods and its called weather. we need to look over a far longer period than the experts are doing before we make long term expensive actions. Do you remember about the hole in the atmosphere that everyone was forecasting doom about that you do not hear about now. well the hole filled in and they do no know why. You cannt look at 10 years cycles, 100 years is not realy long enough but that could be the starting point. So dont worry till about 2090.
Rgds JN.