• Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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    52 minutes ago

    It sounded cool a couple of years ago, but it was first installed in 2021 and I’m yet to hear of it really going anywhere.

  • xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 hours ago

    homeless people find sitting in the shade of trees to be comfortable, and the city whole point of urban design is to make them uncomfortable and to suffer

  • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    I think it’s probably cheaper in the long run to self host a tree instead, unless you live in an apartment with absolutely no green space. But I’d rather get a VPF and host a tree there if I had too

  • Günther Unlustig 🍄@slrpnk.net
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    7 hours ago

    Does this count too?

    I already posted this on !balconygardening@slrpnk.net. .

    I’m purposefully growing duckweed on my balcony.
    I’m doing !hydroponics@slrpnk.net, and by doing that, I have lots of waste water with still good fertilizer in it.

    Duckweed is one of the fastest growing, nutrient densest and least demanding plant out there, and you can just scoop it out with a strainer.

    It’s exponentially growing and if you don’t wanna eat it, it makes great organic fertiliser or animal feed with lots of protein and micronutients!

  • Daniel Quinn@lemmy.ca
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    13 hours ago

    I had the same reaction until I read this.

    TL;DR: it’s 10-50x more efficient at cleaning the air and actually generates both electricity and fertiliser.

    Yes, it would be better to just get rid of all the cars generating the pollution in the first place and putting in some more trees, but there are clear advantages to this.

    • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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      11 hours ago

      I appreciate Rebecca Watson’s opinion. Watched the 6min video, now convinced 👍

      Also learned a new term: kneejerk cynicism

    • FarceOfWill@infosec.pub
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      11 hours ago

      It provides fertilizer but needs “some food”.

      How much food and what is it?

      Typically for aquariums you have to feed these things fertilizer so it seems odd

  • 0ops@lemm.ee
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    7 hours ago

    It’s not an either/or thing, the tank in the picture is literally sitting under a tree

  • Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world
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    11 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.

      • eskimofry@lemm.ee
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        6 hours ago

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

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 hours ago
      • Trees take time to grow

      Sure, of course not removing literally all of them in the first place is preferable but hindsight is 20/20 I guess. And good things come to those who wait.

      • Trees need to be planted

      True, planting a tree seems a bit easier than installing a weird tank though, despite time to grow.

      • Trees make shade

      Good.

      • Animals like birds and insects like bees and mosquitos like to live next to them

      Good.

      • Trees don’t need electricity

      Good.

      • Trees take in heat radiated from the pavement

      Good.

      • Trees don’t look cool

      Bullshit.

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      11 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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        10 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

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        13 hours ago

        Just give me a 4U tank somewhere where someone else can deal with harvesting the algae and a webcam aimed at it and I can enjoy it just fine from here. For me, selfhosting is mostly about the privacy, not principally about needing to be resistant to loss of Internet connectivity or the like.

    • DUMBASS@leminal.space
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      15 hours ago

      Come on, you know there’s someone out there trying to work out how to selfhost one of these.

        • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          You should look up “Walstad planted tank”. An all plants aquarium you don’t ever have to mess with (except to trim if you want to)

          • SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net
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            14 minutes ago

            I’ve been doing these for years… they don’t work as intended for more than a year or two, and then become pretty unstable. Even the lady who created it went back to low-maintenance (as opposed to zero input) systems after a few years. Still with the dirt and all but not without water movement and stuff.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
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    13 hours ago
    1. Wrong community, maybe? Lol

    2. iirc, algae are better oxygen producers per units of mass and volume, so a tank full of algae might actually be better than a tree. One issue though is that trees can grow on open ground, while algae require a tank to be built, most likely negating the economic benefits. Also, trees are more aesthetically pleasing.

    • superkret@feddit.org
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      14 hours ago

      I love this about lemmy.
      Like someone stumbling into the wrong house and still being welcomed.
      It’s a lot more informal and relaxed than on the piss page of the Internet.

  • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    17 hours ago

    Because there’s no serious answers being given even though there are at least 2:

    • trees have roots, roots ruin any nearby human infrastructure. You’ll note this says “in urban environments” and that there are trees nearby, so this is probably the big reason
    • trees need maintenance, which costs money. this is a stupid reason imo, but it’s one nonetheless
    • algae is cool, ok?
      • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Not just more efficient, vastly more efficient. Algae is 10-50 times faster at processing CO² than trees are. Some algae can be up to 400x as efficient.

        It’s just not as “nice” to look at, we usually associate algae with growth in unsafe bodies of water like bogs, etc. versus a nice clean pool or even a maintained pond.

    • Dremor@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      On the other hand, algae do not produce shade, not sure if it filters atmospheric pollutants, and trees provide all sort of other services to the local ecosystem.

      Maybe this invention can be used on places where trees cannot lives, but I’d still take a city with trees over a city full of green tanks.

      • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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        47 minutes ago

        Every 6 months half of it gets removed, to use as fertiliser, and it is refilled with tap water and some feed.

    • ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      “let’s uproot all these trees and invade this space. and when the roots of the few remaining trees do what they are supposed to do, let’s blame them for ‘ruining’ human infrastructure!”

    • zeca@lemmy.eco.br
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      17 hours ago

      trees dont ruin ANY human infrastructure. But the usual urban infrastructure isnt well thought out enough to exist around trees. But smarter urbanism is possible and in fact does exist.

      • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        16 hours ago

        trees dont ruin ANY human infrastructure

        I think you mean all, as this reads more like “nuh uh, trees don’t ruin anything”

        But smarter urbanism is possible and in fact does exist.

        And those are not the norm, so for places that don’t plan to just destroy what’s already there and start anew, this is an option