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Updated Saturday, March 13, 2010 11:16 am TWN, CNA Ma urges the public to help reduce carbon dioxideSpeaking at a tree-planting activity in Taipei County, Ma said the government has been promoting a reforestation project that has the goal of reclaiming 60,000 hectares of forest over eight years. With Taiwan's carbon dioxide emissions having decreased by about 4 percent in 2009, the government hopes to further decrease the emissions by 5 percent during the 2016-2020 period, Ma added. The president noted that the concept of planting trees has existed in Chinese culture since the time of Mencius. In 1894, Sun Yat-sen - who later became the founding father of the Republic of China - wrote to Ching Dynasty Prime Minister Li Hung-chang urging him to promote the planting of trees, Ma said. In 1924, the ROC government initiated a large-scale reforestation project as part of efforts to prevent flooding, he continued, adding that modern people should follow the examples of Sun and Mencius and continue to plant trees to create a better living environment for future generations. Council of Agriculture (COA) Chairman Chen Wu-hsiung noted that trees not only can green and beautify the environment but also can absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. According to the Forestry Bureau under the COA, one tree can absorb 5 to10 kilograms of carbon dioxide, while 112 trees can together remove the amount of carbon dioxide produced by one air conditioner in a year. If the country's 23 million people were each to plant a single tree, those trees would together clear the carbon dioxide released by 200,000 air conditioners in a single year, the bureau said. On the sidelines of the activity, however, a group of environmentalists from Taipei City created a disturbance, protesting against what they said was Ma's killing of numerous old trees during his terms as Taipei mayor and urging him to “stop putting on a show.” Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here Comments March 13, 2010 elumpen@ Reply Might it not be more effective to ask people to switch off their air-conditioning occasionally, or at least crank up the dial to something above freezing? We could then avoid the effort of planting one billion trees every year. I'm pretty certain the former is easier than the latter. March 15, 2010 johnny.brian@ Our good Pres. Ma is promoting tree-planting activities. Why not endorse into school curriculum? Teach young children to love nature for its best for them in the future. Beside, the government must have its own initiatives like planting trees on land, reduce deforestation due to industrialization and pro-environment. March 17, 2010 elumpen@ Good point. People's lack of knowledge about these issues (and science in general) is absolutely shocking considering how much time people spend in school here. A bit of practical in-the-great-outdoors education has got to be a good idea. April 7, 2010 khhenviros@ It's great to see tree planting taking place, even if it is a political stunt. What I'm more concerned about is who is taking care of the trees after they're planted? In Kaohsiung here I see BIG trees dying all the time in some of our most...ahem..."prestigious" parks because the park caretakers have no idea how to take care of a tree. |
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