Flyers buy trees to pay back CO[TM].Byline: By DAVID JONES David Jones is a common name, particularly in Wales, and there have been several well-known individuals with this name. Variations include Dave Jones and Davy Jones. Business Correspondent A NEW business with its roots in mid Wales is aiming to do its bit to halt climate change. Treeflights.com is a scheme that offers people an easy way to offset the carbon dioxide carbon dioxide, chemical compound, CO2, a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is about one and one-half times as dense as air under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. released when they fly. The idea is simple - one tree is planted for every passenger flight and as it grows it gradually re-absorbs the carbon dioxide produced by the jet's engines. The website-based business has three forest planting sites high up in the Cambrian Mountains south of Aberystwyth and although it has only been trading for two months has already attracted custom from airline passengers around the world wanting to make their flight more ecologically positive. Treeflights airline passengers choose their own tree at pounds 10 a time from eight broad-leaved species, including oak, beech, cherry and willow. Company director Ru Hartwell, 48, said: "I have been a self employed tree planter for a long time and this business is a development of that. "The idea underlying the business is that when you fly you produce a lot of carbon dioxide which is the main cause of global warming. "Trees can absorb carbon dioxide so they are a good system for taking CO out of the atmosphere where it is dangerous by fixing it in their woody tissues. "Air travellers are able to log onto our www.treeflights.com website, log in their flight numbers and choose what species of tree they want us to plant for them. For pounds 10, the tree is tagged with their name and details and then planted on the Welsh mountainside." Mr Hartwell, who lives on eco-powered smallholding smallholding Noun a piece of agricultural land smaller than a farm smallholder n Noun 1. smallholding - a piece of land under 50 acres that is sold or let to someone for cultivation , said all three planting sites have public access so customers can, if they wish, visit their tree from time to time and watch it grow. "We have room to plant 10,000 trees and our target is to do 7,000 of them in the first year. We have a nursery with 20,000 trees and once the three sites are fully planted we will look for other locations. "With 8 billion individual flights last year, more CO is in the atmosphere now than for 650,000 years and an annual deforestation deforestation Process of clearing forests. Rates of deforestation are particularly high in the tropics, where the poor quality of the soil has led to the practice of routine clear-cutting to make new soil available for agricultural use. rate of 20 million acres, perhaps this project is overdue." david David, in the Bible David, d. c.970 B.C., king of ancient Israel (c.1010–970 B.C.), successor of Saul. The Book of First Samuel introduces him as the youngest of eight sons who is anointed king by Samuel to replace Saul, who had been deemed a failure. .r.jones@dailypost.co.uk CAPTION(S): Ru Hartwell and some of the tagged trees he's already planted out |
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