Good News! 5 Positive Environmental Stories from November 2022

Our fifth annual Plant a Tree Day fell on Wednesday, September 28th, but planting took place through 104 events in 29 countries throughout the fall planting season. Now that all of the events have wrapped up, we're proud to share everything that our partners and volunteers have accomplished through Plant a Tree Day 2022! To recap: We supported 104 events in 29 countries! 6,091 volunteers were engaged.Nearly half (3,090) of these were youth volunteers. We planted a total of 39,558 trees and 6,144 shrubs. We also propagated 1,980 seeds and distributed 7,450 trees to local communities. We worked with 91 on the ground partners.

Leaders at the G20 summit committed to limiting global temperatures to 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industral levels, which will aid in potentially avoiding extremely detrimental impacts of climate change. Information about this agreement was sent to those in attendance atCOP 27. Some of the nations with the highest emissions have now recommitted to this target and hope this will push others to follow suit. Discussion of implementation strategies to keep the 1.5 degrees alive were had, with intentions of setting both short and long term goals. 

A once in a decade rainstorm known as a TEMPEST dropped 70,000 gallons of rain near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland this past June. A TEMPEST is a Terrestrial Ecosystem Manipulation to Probe the Effects of Storm Treatments, or a human made storm. In an experiment to understand the rising sea levels and prepare for the future. With a plan to learn from flooding a forest with different kinds of water to understand how the trees would handle the TEMPEST. As one experiment in a large process to understand what the future holds, marshlands are helping many scientists prepare for the effects of climate change.

We spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of trees and why you shouldn’t cut them down, but you may be wondering "Is it okay to cut down a a Christmas tree?" or "Are Christmas trees eco-friendly?". The answers to these questions may catch you by surprise and we’re here to alleviate concerns for all Christmas-loving environmentalists by answering these questions and more.

As an attempt to save the species from extinction, the last remaining California Condor birds were captured in 1987. Thanks to a multimillion dollar conservation program, there are now more than 200 condors living in the wild. The California Condor has been listed on the Green Status of Species on the IUCN to classify the birds with how they are functioning after conservation actions.