10 minute read
SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
“The Search Engine That Plants Trees”
JULIETA LOZANO-RAMSAY Contributor
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Is it free?
Yes. No need to make an account either.
So how do they make money?
Through clicks on the ads that appear when you search something up. As with most other search engines, when you look something up, you receive links to the most relevant results. Above said results, there are often a couple sponsored links (labeled Ads). If they happen to be of interest to you, you’ll check them out and thus Ecosia (or whatever search engine you may be using) will get ad revenue from Microsoft Advertising.
What do they use that money for?
Planting trees! They are responsible planters that focus on biodiversity (no monocultures), working with local communities so they may reap the benefits and making sure the roots ~actually~ get into the ground.
How many searches translate to one tree?
Approximately 45! A little search counter sits in the top-left corner of your browser.
Is this organization legit?
Ecosia is both a non-profit and for-profit business (you can read about it in their FAQ, see below). It’s a certified B Corporation. 80% of ad revenue goes directly to planting & conserving trees. Their blog includes monthly financial reports and updates about their different projects.
This seems too good to be true, what’s the catch?
I have been using Ecosia for years and it has improved a lot, especially in terms of little delays in searching. I have never felt unusually inconvenienced, but there are two things I have flagged that I want to share: 1. The searches are powered by… Bing…PLEASE DON’T LEAVE, LET ME EXPLAIN. Yes, with Ecosia you are searching via
Photo VIA ECOSIA
Bing, accompanied by Ecosia’s algorithms. However, I do a lot of research, and I haven’t found there to be a huge difference. Especially because I can simply put google.ca into Ecosia if I ever want to look something up there. Don’t knock it until you try it! 2. Though your searches will not be altered to show ‘more sustainable’ results, Ecosia does have features that are on theme. For example, a little green leaf will appear next to some websites to indicate that they have been certified sustainable. These things do not change your searching experience, but they are there, so take that as you will.
Alright, alright…What about privacy?
Ecosia certainly claims to protect your privacy, even claiming they aren’t collecting as much data on you as Google (for details: https://info. ecosia.org/privacy). I’m no privacy expert, but from what I’ve read they are not as staunchly protective of your privacy as, say, DuckDuckGo. They do, however, have a solid privacy policy. Using Ecosia is generally considered safe for the everyday person. If your priority is privacy, I suggest looking into it further.
Is Ecosia carbon-neutral?
Not only is Ecosia carbon neutral, Ecosia is-- and hold onto your green pins-- CARBON NEGATIVE!!!! It is an organization actively decreasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Bing is carbon neutral. All Ecosia searches run 100% on renewable energy. They aren’t just achieving this through offsetting: It is integral to how they run their business. Guys, this is so exciting!
ECOSIA QR CODE
If revenue comes from ads, what happens if you have an ad blocker?
Ad blockers obviously keep your searches from going to trees, but you can make an exception for Ecosia! Ad blockers including AdBlock Plus, uBlock, and Ghostery can be disabled just for Ecosia, while remaining on for other sites.
How do I install it?
Ecosia can be easily added as a browser extension (ecosia.org will show you how). There is also an app! If you make an account, you can sync your devices (though I can’t personally speak to this).
More questions? https://ecosia.zendesk.com/
hc/en-us. If there is anything else that concerns you, I really encourage you to check out their FAQ page. Their blog (https://blog.ecosia.org/) is a great place to learn about their project and how else you can support them. Plus, look it up for yourself! There are plenty of reviews and examinations on how well Ecosia works.
To sum it up…
Ecosia allows you to make an impact by planting trees which provide and secure legitimate employment, food, medicine, water, biodiversity, and oxygen. All you gotta do is use the internet like you would anyway!
The Evergreen Dilemma of Christmas
ROBIN STEEDMAN-BRAUN Science and Environment Editor
While Christmas time is, deservedly so, one of the most anticipated and celebrated moments of the year, the holiday season is nonetheless a display of consumerism at its finest. From plastic toys to glutinous amounts of food, overconsumption has driven this holiday for many decades. According to Politico, environmentalists tend to call Christmas the “world’s greatest annual environmental disaster”. Indeed, Christmas corresponds to as high as 4% of an individual’s annual carbon and ecological footprint. When you take into consideration the nearly eight billion people on Earth, the holidays are an important environmental risk. The main factor environmentalists focus on when it comes to the holidays is the abundant number of trees cut down every year. While plastic trees seem like a more ecological option, they are not actually. According to The Carbon Trust, an artificial Christmas tree is only greener than a natural tree after twelve years. Indeed, “fake” Christmas trees are generally built from plastic and metal and have a carbon footprint of 40 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2), whereas an average-sized two-meter Christmas tree, if sent to the landfill after the holidays, has a carbon footprint of 16 kg of CO2. If a tree is repurposed after Christmas, for example for wood chips or a bonfire, its carbon footprint is only 3.5 kg of CO2. The most ecological option would be to buy a second-hand plastic tree, but buying a real Christmas tree is a close second. A typical 6-foot-tall Christmas tree requires approximately five to ten years to grow to its full height. As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide gas (CO2) from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, helping offset atmospheric greenhouse gases and global warming. Ultimately, the carbon released by disposing of a Christmas tree is offset by the photosynthesis done by the tree during its growth.
Photo VIA UNSPLASH
Food waste is another consequence of Christmastime. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in 2019 that wasted food products account for as much as a tenth of our greenhouse gas emissions. As a nation, we eat 80% more food during the winter holidays, but this excess often ends up in the trash. Indeed, we end up throwing out more than 230 000 tons of food in this two-week period alone. The biggest environmental impact of Christmas comes from the meat consumed at holiday dinners, as well as our tendency to overestimate the amount of food we will consume.
The holiday season means reuniting with family members and travelling, sometimes even overseas multiple times in the short period between mid-December and mid-January. Over 53% of Canadians travel during the holidays, whether it be by car, train, or plane. This travelling contributes to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
We can’t forget about the paper use at Christmas. It is estimated that Canadians use more than 540 000 tonnes of wrapping paper a year, a large majority of it during the holiday season. If we placed the amount of holiday cards we send each year alongside each other, they would cover the world’s circumference 500 times. While these paper wastes can be recycled, countless pounds of paper end up in landfills. Re-using wrapping or using newspaper laying around the house to wrap presents.
With all this mind, it is important to enjoy Christmas nonetheless, making a conscious effort to reduce your carbon footprint!
In Fairy Creek, Pacheedaht and Protestors Clash on the Future of Old Growth
NOE YASKO Staff Writer
South of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, a lush forest alive with ancient western hemlocks, Douglas firs, and yellow cedars flourishes. This old-growth woodland, named Fairy Creek, has been the site of massive protests since August 2020. In April of this year, however, some members of the Pacheedaht nation- who own the land being blockaded upon- asked protestors to leave their grounds. This raises an important question: how can we balance environmental protection with the respect of indigenous land rights? In scenic Fairy Creek, thousand-year-old trees tower in masses. Beneath them, shorter and newer growth burgeons. Dead and fallen logs weave themselves on the forest floor, providing optimal habitats for fungi; In return, these organisms decompose the decaying wood they live on. This enriches the soil with nutrients and promotes a new, successive growth cycle. Perched high in their nests, endangered marbled murrelets - small, penguin-like birds- lay their eggs in the safety of the rigid structure of old-growth trees. With increased logging threats on the horizon, their future rests unsure. According to the government of British Columbia, an old growth tree in a wet, coastal region is one that has lived for 250 years or more. With relatively no human disturbance, old-growth trees thrive and reach phenomenal heights; Fairy Creek’s douglas firs, for instance, are around 45 to 60 meters tall with diameters 1.5 meters wide. In oldgrowth forests, trees are in constant competition for sunlight as the forest canopy thickens, shading growth below it. This results in slower growing trees, as the lack of light decelerates their development. According to Jim Pojak, senior ecologist for the Ecological Society of America, oldgrowth forests are categorized by deep, multi-layered canopies, wider tree spacings, a significant amount of downed logs, and many trees of oldage that vary widely in size, height, and species type. So what exactly has protestors so concerned? Well, cutting down a tree of a thousand years of age brings more adverse consequences than the logging of new growth. Think about it: can a tree that takes a thousand years to grow back still be deemed a renewable resource? Old-growth trees are central components in Fairy Creek’s ecological community, and cutting them down means altering an entire ecosystem and its dynamics. Additionally, since these massive trees have been in century-long processes of carbon sequestration, clear cutting them allows for a sudden release of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming.
Old-growth is highly sought after for its sturdiness and for the absence of knots on the wood’s surface. This billion dollar industry’s workforce is large in number and includes, though in vast minority, Indigenous people. According to the BC Council of Forest Industries, “5,300 Indigenous people are directly employed in the industry, more than any other resource sector in B.C. Indigenous communities are also vital industry partners as owners, and through business and stewardship partnerships.” The Pacheedaht nation has been practicing sustainable forestry for de-
cades for cultural and economic purposes. While the nation as a whole shares the protestors’ concern for the future of Fairy Creek, ideas on how preservation should be achieved differ amongst individuals. Many believe that protestors have no right to interfere with their forestry management strategies. “We do not welcome or support unsolicited involvement or interference by others in our territory”, wrote Frank Queetso Jones, hereditary Chief of the Pacheedaht nation, in an official statement. Jones also pointed out that their community benefits from logging, allowing them to buy back land that is rightfully theirs. “We are finding ourselves buying our own land back”, he told journalists. Some protestors, who aim to respect Indigenous land rights while also continuing their fight for environmental preservation, have responded to Jones’s statement. Extinction Rebellion, a global organization that fights for the environment, made a statement of their own in April 2021. “We recognize we have no place to comment on the internal governance of the Nation, however XR [Extinction Rebellion] Vancouver believes that protecting these ancient ecosystems remains crucial. We support the call to action at the blockade in Fairy Creek”, it reads. Ultimately, it seems as though protestors have not let Jones’ statement affect their plans. Currently, around 3.6 million hectares of old growth available for harvest in British Columbia remain. Another 10 million hectares are, thankfully, safe under protection due to being deemed either uneconomical or unsustainable to log. As the situation develops, the future of logging in Fairy Creek remains to be seen.
