- cross-posted to:
- selfhosted@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- selfhosted@lemmy.world
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ITT: People who looked at some random headline, didn’t bother looking further and assumed they knew everything.
It’s a stupid headline. These tanks, are to directly affect air polution/quality in urban areas. Trees are terrible at that. The microalgae is 10-50x more effective in cleaning the air.
They aren’t going to rip out trees for these. It would have taken you 10 seconds to find the source of the image and the article from 3 years ago to find out, the social media post was misleading. You spent more time making incorrect and wild accusations.
The problem with trees in an urban setting is trees have roots, and these cause issues. The can damage pipes and other underground objects. And many trees that are designed to not have these issues, end up with stunted/damaged roots which severely effects the trees growth. Planting trees in urban settings take quite a lot of pre-planning, and aren’t drop in solutions, and if the areas weren’t originally designed with trees in mind, you are likely to cause more problems than solutions.
https://greenblue.com/gb/avoid-root-heave-pavement-damage-caused-urban-trees/ https://tiptoptreeandgroundcare.co.uk/2025/01/06/tree-roots-in-urban-spaces/
I discovered when I joined a volunteer litter-picking group in my town that some people really hate trees. And I must emphasise HATE. They hate the shade they cast in summer, the way the leaves block the all-important View. They hate the fallen leaves in autumn. They hate the bare branches in winter. They hate the risk of branches falling in storms. They hate the racket the birds make. I was astonished - it never occurred to me that people would feel so strongly.
Turns out I’m a bloody tree-hugging extremist.
That’s just unhinged. The trees are the view.
People really like vandalizing trees, diseases exist, and they are less efficient carbon sinks
Like how we found it’s better to feed cattle seaweed than grass but nobody wants to because it’s different
Carbon sinks? Dude, people are planting trees in cities for the shade.
There’s a quote about planting trees and not living to see their shade
I’m a bit more pessimistic of people plus with smog cover how often will they need shade?
I promise you we have better space than city sidewalks for carbon sinks.
Good thing people don’t like to vandalize glass.
Trees don’t attract VC funding the way some dumb new invention does.
I guess this could be useful in places trees don’t fit but I think there are other simpler solutions.
useful in places trees don’t fit
I have a tree sitting in a pot on my desk.
Your potted tree isn’t a tree in the sense that I’m talking about. The environmental services trees provide are all based on size and so are predominantly provided by larger trees. Cities usually avoid planting these under electrical wires and in smaller tree basins to avoid damage to infrastructure. So practically, there are many urban locations where big trees won’t fit.
Are you discriminating because lil’ tree is lil’? /s
Trees don’t create shareholder profits
useless pests they are. who cares that they provide free shade, free oxygen, free beauty for all to enjoy. Fucking commies.
I agree trees are commies. Must be why Trump is going to clear cut several hundred million acres of the last remaining old growth forests …because they’re full of commie trees
even your trees will be slop. nice.
What happens when one of these breaks and drains into the sewer system? Algae blooms cause noxious odors and would proliferate quickly in the nitrogen-rich environment of human waste water, potentially building up as clogs in the sewer lines. And if the system drains into a natural body of water, the algae can have devastating toxic effects on the natural wildlife. If it doesn’t drain and instead gets recycled, then the water treatment process becomes much more difficult and expensive.
I guess the “problem” with trees is obvious: it takes decades for them to produce the desired cooling effect in urban areas. You plant a dozen young trees today, you can begin to reap the cooldown 10 years later at best. Also, they need a lot if water, and many of them just don’t make it - urban surroundings are just much hotter and more stressful (smog, salt…) then standing with other trees in a forest. I fail to see though how these artificial “trees” provide any kind of benefit at all.
The amount of water required is trivial compared to most other water uses. Especially if correct species are selected.
The London plane tree is particularly suitable for urban areas, it’s resistant to air pollution.
True, but unfortunately, this species is way over-planted in many cities. I would not recommend them unless they happen to be uncommon in your local area. Urban forests need to be as diverse as possible to resist the constant barrage of pests and diseases being introduced by global trade.
In California we have a relatively new pest called shot-hole borers which are killing off many of the London planes, so we’re scrambling to plant other species that can resist them.
Also, resistance to air pollution isn’t as crucial as it once was due to better emissions technologies.
The roots destroy sewer systems etc too. There’s a bike path I take to work where the pavement is all distorted by the roots, making it very unsafe, but I still prefer that the trees are there.
I think the problem is putting them in those dumb tanks where a tree would be, as if to say “do this instead”. The principle would be fine if they got a bit more creative with it and played to its strengths, e.g. if you make a train platform out of it, or the railings of an overpass, or the external wall panels of buildings etc.
Ofc OOP didn’t actually provide a source so we’ve no idea what the creators were actually thinking…
This is missing out on likely the most important part of trees in urban areas. Shade. They give you a cooler place to stand or walk through.
My condo complex is easily 5 degrees cooler than the rest of my city cause we’re covered in trees. It’s always noticeable when you leave the complex and go across the road
No standing or sitting allowed. Resume consumerism!
“Why do you say this is stupid? You’re so negative.” Run of the mill conformist toxic optimist tech bro dildo
I recently learned that there’s a group dedicated to planting 1000 trees in the city of Trenton, NJ, USA. I’m really glad to see a city working to bring back a little nature!
In Vienna, Austria, Europe, every tree removed has to be replaced with a new as per regulation
The problem even with that is that an old, standing tree and a young one are very different in their ability to provide the services we seek from them.
In Toronto Canada if you plant trees you get arrested
Same in Oslo
trees take a loooooong time to grow
But they look good and provide shade. Worth it.
Like I always think that people don’t get one thing about trees in a city. There purpose is is not about co2. The co2 reduction of city trees is neglectable. The reason you need them in a city is temperature regulation, shade, air quality, mood, the local eco system and maybe solidifying unsealed ground. Putting these tanks in a city is laughably inefficient w.r.t. co2 conversion if you compare this to any effort to do this in instustrial capacity ( which is is also still laughably inefficient)
So… are you saying the air inside a city park isn’t better at all?
Probably not a statistically significant difference since wind is a thing.
They were talking about CO2 which is what the algae tank is about.
Trees have other benefits around filtering pollutants that affect air quality such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Also the shading effect reduces ozone accumulation as well as generally helping reduce the urban heat island effect (which in turn reduces the amount of air conditioning needed, even a small amount saves energy and reduces pollution from power stations).
City parks have clean air partly because of tree but also because youre away from roads and buildings so further from car exhausts and chimney stacks. The concentration of pollutants in wide open spaces is lower because the wind can move it around more easily, and there isn’t a pollution source directly near by. Tree and grass do help too.
By far the most effective way of reducing pollution is reducing the sources. Trees are CO2 sinks and would reduce some CO2 if there was massive reforestation globally but that is outweighed by the ongoing CO2 production. The best solution is clean energy sources and getting rid of combustion engines.
Amazing answer, thanks a lot!
Dunno what i’m getting downvotes for
I think it’s because they mentioned trees improve air quality right there in their comment, and then you responded like you didn’t read it
I wish my garden was big enough for trees. There are quite a few trees in a park behind our house though, my wifi might just about reach the park too. A better access point would reach it easily.
Have wondered if there might be other options for shade. Perhaps some kind of vines on a trellis. But then sometimes you don’t want the shade.
I think there is a difference between air quality (pollution) and co2 levels.
Cool they you think they but there are not walls that prevent air from mixing.
I mean conceptually, not physically like between a park area and a road.
To be fair, I think it’s important to make a distinction between a city park, and a handful of trees lining a busy street.
CO² isn’t want you should be concerned about with air in a city anyway, its the other emissions like particulates. Just being further away from busy roads reduces that significantly so the park air would be better.
It is, because of the humidity, temperature and also they remove air pollution. Just not CO2
A few reasons: Trees need a lot of space and the space underneath a sidewalk isn’t enough for long term life. They can die after like 30 years? This is tree dependent and location dependent.
Tree roots can destroy sidewalks making it harder for people to go over them. (Think people in wheel chairs)
Liability in terms of damage (have you seen trees after a storm?)
Sounds like we need to remove the need for sidewalks. Rip up all the roads in the city and replace them with green space. Problem solved
I disagree. Pavement is valuable to pedestrians, cyclists, emergency and service vehicles, and the disabled. While it’s important to preserve nature as much as possible, some urbanisation is also a good thing. That said, I’m not sure algae tanks would be necessary in areas where huge tracts of land aren’t dedicated to parking. I can’t really think of where my city would benefit from them.
Yes to ripping up roads for greenspace, not to removing sidewalks too.
Make the citu green and walkable, and you solve so many problems in one go
If cities where walkable they wouldn’t be sprawling masses that they are.
fuck sidewalks, tree roots can fuck up entire buildings
Still and this is the big thing, these are all possible considerations, plenty of urban areas, once they reduce street traffic to what is seen in European and other areas could also vastly greenify areas via mini parks allowing root space (and tbh if it messes with a sidewalk well then fix it like what functional societies with infrastructure budgets doi). All in all this just gives off techbro “genius solution” grifting and likely isn’t even possible on a large scale given I swear I’ve seen this same tumblr reblog before and yet areas that are hard on trees (Like LA) still has a crap ton of palms and other trees not even remotely habitable to the climate.
I should have mentioned this but usually stuff like this is planted in front of people’s houses etc. I wouldn’t expect a pine tree planted in one of those. Same with a palm tree.
I’m from Pittsburgh and there’s a lot of greenery projects and ecological restoration currently going on. Outside of the city, it’s very heavily wooded. But it’s slow progress.
Those giant algae tanks miss the large point of trees and their physical benefits and do feel like a tech bro solution looking for a problem.
My first thought, having lived in an area with trees but inadequate funding for clearing leaves, is that every sidewall just gets buried and slick with wet leaves.
Idk what the labour costs are for these things.
