I just read the article CGCookie published on fundraising for planting trees and I think it's an amazing initiative! But if you can't donate right now/live in other countries where the dollar is expensive like myself (1 USD is costing almost 4 BRL right now, Brazil please get your economy together), please consider the app Forest.
The App works with a timer, where you can use techniques such as the Pomodoro (Practicing something with the highest focus possible during 25 minute intervals), and every time you're able to complete that time you set up it plants a virtual tree and gives you an amount of inapp coin that's proportional to the time you've stayed focused, when you gather a certain amount, you can plant an actual tree!
The awesome thing is that you can whitelist/blacklist apps(If you leave the app and open the app you blacklisted, your growing tree dies), so that you absolutely keep studying. I've been using it for some months now and am really loving it. I am in no way affiliated with the company that developed the app, I just think it's pretty cool and am currently mad at how the president of my country (Brazil) is handling the rainforest issue.
Hopefully this comment doesn't get deleted; I'll try to be more calm and respectful this time.
I always thought environmentalism was quite silly. Weren't people saying that we had only a year to save the earth ten years ago? I believe that we should collect resources from the earth to serve mankind instead of treating humanity like a disease. We were created for a reason, and if we really would destroy the earth, God never would have created us - but he did. See Genesis 8: 22 for a proof that the earth will not get destroyed until Judgement Day.
(If that comment gets deleted, then I give up. You people are impossible to have a rational conversation with. If not, then thank you for understanding me.)
I like this idea, at least it won't hurt to support it in addition to slowing or stopping ocean acidification, as well. Individual support is great, but we need to get whole societies behind this, as well. We as individuals can only do so much against unregulated industries. Why not treat the cause and not the symptoms? But anywho, good alternative!
"We were created for a reason..."
williamatics An argument could be made that Adam's one an only job after being created was to take care of a Garden.
Religion aside, promoting environmental awareness and care is not the same as claiming the earth will be destroyed. The former is mild and reasonable where the later is extreme. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but extreme stances are always going to turn people off and hinder effective communication. Religious absolutes and comments like "I always thought environmentalism was quite silly" fall into the extreme category. Best to keep those cards in the deck for when the time and place is right.
williamatics Hey, I'm all up for a rational discussion about environment if you want! But as Kent said bringing extreme stances and shutting yourself off to other information even before knowing what I'd say might not be the best way to do that. Thank you for reading my post though!
silentheart00 Thanks for reading my post! I agree, there are actually tons of studies where you can see the correlation between the environment damage and climate change, but as you said, we as individuals can only do so much to help. I absolutely loved the trashtag campaign on instagram, even if there were people doing it for likes or views, that actually cleaned a lot of places (a good deed is a good deed no matter what).
I don't think the rainforest issue is nearly as bad as people say it is. I'm not even talking about extreme tree-hugging pantheists, either; I'm talking about the average "use sustainable energy" people. It seems as though the predictions for how long they last change every year. You'd think that they'd be less confident that we need to take action now, since they're not sure how bad it is. But instead, they act so sure that the rainforests will be gone in ____ years. And when that time comes and the rainforests are not gone, they use the excuse "science isn't perfect" and come up with another date. Admittedly, those people aren't exactly average, but they tend to be politicians with lots of influence who care about votes more than the environment, or business owners who care about profits more than the environment. They say this because they know that if the people believe them, they will get more votes/sales. That is why I previously said that it was a scam. I do believe in global warming/cooling, of course - it's existence is obvious - however, It follows a natural cycle, and today's climate is not particularly extreme compared to other times, such as the little ice age. Also, there is little to no evidence that suggests that it is man-made, meaning that we really can't do anything about it. All this "we need to do something about the climate" nonsense has caused much pain - literally. CFCs are wonder chemicals that can be used as anesthetics for surgery, as refrigerants, and a lot of other incredibly useful things. However, they are banned because they supposedly cause the ozone hole - which is completely natural, with variations much greater than anything CFCs could do, and besides, they only occur around the poles. So banning them has saved maybe 1 or 2 people from getting skin cancer due to lack of ozone, if that, while not banning them would allow them to be used to save thousands of lives. That is why I believe environmentalism (is that term accurate?) is so destructive.
eduo Heck yeah! Trashtag is a great initiative and hopefully keeps going for quite some time. There was also something else I was thinking about, and that's the Three R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Everybody is recycling, and that's okay, but shouldn't we be focusing more on the Reduce and Reuse instead? We can recycle all we want, but if we keep buying into the disposable culture, aren't we shooting ourselves in the foot? Just a thought.
williamatics Well, no matter what you believe, and I don't believe all of the stories about global warming and how the sea level would rise absurdly by melting polar ice(?????), but planting trees is definitely not a bad thing! This has nothing to do with how good CFC's are or how damaging they are, trees are good, period.
williamatics Yes, It is, the amount of illegal deforestation that happens is absurd, you can actually see the timelapse with the Google Earth engine, unfortunately we don't have enough regulations to make it harder for people to deforest or hold governments accountable
eduo It looked bad at first - until I zoomed out and saw that at this rate, it would take hundreds of years for it to be all cut down.
Also, what regulations do you think would work? Regulations are bad. Capitalism is good.
Oh William!
Regulations are bad. Capitalism is good.
Capitalism is greed, selfishness, lacking in respect for others less fortunate.
Mother Nature is the most powerful force on this planet.
Why do we humans insist on fighting Mother Nature,
Instead we would be far happy and more content with our lives if we worked with Mother Nature.
I'm no environmentalist, but common sense tells me we could do better.
If we are destroying the planet, or not,
The greed of big oil companies is bad for humans, even if not for the planet.
Usually its those getting rich at others expense (wealth and health), that deny the problem and avoid the need for a solution.