• Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    Short answer: the bank won’t give your shiny new tree-planting business a loan as easily as it will to a “liquid tank tree replacement” one.

    Long answer:

    • Trees take time to grow
    • Trees need to be planted
    • Trees make shade
    • Animals like birds and insects like bees and mosquitos like to live next to them
    • Trees don’t need electricity
    • Trees take in heat radiated from the pavement
    • Trees don’t look cool

    While algae are more efficient at turning CO2 into oxygen in theory, in practice algae don’t have a good climate in such a tank (no oxygen without ventilation, i.e. constant electricity and they get cooked through the glass).

    All in all, more of a gimmick than anything.

      • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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        23 minutes ago

        Yeah this is a big problem I see often. You have underground utilities? Tree planting becomes a huge thing. And in a lot of these walkable areas, places you’d want trees, folks tend to also prefer not to have the wires overhead with telephone poles everywhere, and so they’ve been backed into a corner.

        I did just sit through a presentation by my local environmental commission where they addressed the issue. The solution seems to be trees bred for the specific environment: deciduous provides shade but doesn’t drop a lot of leaves; can grow tall but the root ball grows in a certain way so as not to interrupt sidewalks and utilities; hearty and resilient. I can’t recall the trees, but they were described as essentially not naturally occuring.

      • eskimofry@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        was about to furiously reply with the same retort… but yeah. I LOVE green spaces

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      Aren’t like half of those bullet points positives? Also in addition to what you said once you got a tree you got a tree, those tanks need constant maintenence and cycling which I doubt anyone is going to bother with for more than a year after installing them.

      • Rakonat@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        The comment you replying to was trying to not so subtly point out this is a business plot and little else. Nobody is going to pay a subscription fee to have a tree in front of their business, but they might cough up money for a third party to maintain a tank of algae out front if it was sold right