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CONSERVATION
Acres for the
Atmosphere
How can you save gas (in these days
of near $5 per gallon),energy and money, provide shade, shelter and
food, beautify your backyard, provide hours of fun for your kids,
promote clean air and help save a polar bear? Simple. Plant a tree!
Sure trees beautify
our landscape but take a look at what else they do:
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save you money by lowering your
energy costs by providing shade in the summer and windbreak in
the winter
-
can help cool the entire
neighborhood by shading concrete and asphalt
-
provide food (plant a fruit tree
and save on groceries and gas)
-
provide kids and some adventurous
adults with hours of climbing fun
-
clean the air by absorbing ozone,
nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon
-
can reduce soil erosion, increase
property value, and help conserve energy. According to the Arbor
Day Foundation, 100 million additional mature trees in U.S.
cities would save $2 billion dollars per year in energy costs
-
provide food and shelter for
wildlife
-
can help a polar bear in the
remote arctic
 How
does planting a tree in your backyard help a polar bear halfway
around the world?
If you’ve been to Glacier Run, the
Louisville Zoo’s newest bear habitat, you now know that polar bears
need ice to hunt and they must hunt to eat. Less ice, less time to
find food, less bears. Without more food gathering time (read ice)
they have shorter lifespans, less breeding and fewer cubs surviving
the increasingly harsh conditions. Enter your tree. As your backyard
shade-providing tree grows it reduces pollutants like Carbon Dioxide
which is widely recognized as the culprit for the Earth’s warming.
As Carbon Dioxide levels rise in the Earth’s atmosphere the Earth
heats up, melts the ice faster in the arctic and leaves polar bears
with less time to hunt for their life sustaining food. That backyard
tree that provides your kids seasons of fun in their treehouse can
play a part in providing a longer hunting/food gathering season for
the polar bears as it helps rid the Earth of robbing pollutants and
retain arctic ice. Finally, by planting that tree you might
ultimately be helping to ensure that a zoo isn’t the only place you
can see a polar bear.
Your Louisville Zoo is trying to plant
500 trees as part of its commitment to “Acres for the Atmosphere.”
Acres for the Atmosphere is a roll-up-your-sleeves tree-planting and
educational effort with zoos across North America. By year’s end we
hope to have planted one acre within our community. An acre is
generally between 450 and 600 trees. The Louisville Zoo planted 25
mature trees last year and will be planting 21 mature trees this
year thanks to LG&E and KU Energy. These companies provided grant
money to advance our Acres for the Atmosphere initiative in
partnership with Polar Bears International.
We want to partner
with you in this effort. We are challenging you to help us reach our
goal of 500 trees. Please pledge to plant a tree and save polar bear
habitat. Of course we won’t stop at 500. The more the better! Plant
on!
 As
of September 15, 2011 the Louisville Zoo has received
250
pledges. We're 50% of the way!
Send
us pictures of your tree planting and we may include your photo on
our website. We encourage you to organize a group planting with your
school, church, Girl Scout/Boy Scout troop or any community
organization.
Click
here to see pictures of tree
planting efforts.
That list of savings and beautifying
reasons is pretty satisfying, but if you want to reconnect with the
wildlife to remind you of why we need more trees come visit Arki,
your polar bear and arctic ambassador, at Glacier Run.
For information about native trees go
to:
www/uky.edu/Ag/Horticulture/Homewoodies.html.
For general information about trees
and tree planting go to:
www.Forestry.ky.gov.
For information on Acres for the
Atmosphere and Polar Bears International go to:
www.Polarbearsinternational.org/programs/acres. |
