Ecosia uses planting trees as the poster child, because that's what people want to hear. But in reality, there's a lot more going on. Ecosia produces 200% of it's estimated energy footprint in solar. They also protect forests, and help populations in Africa with their forests and with adapting to a life without deforestation.

Thank you, I was about to point that out as well. Ecosia advertises with "we plant trees" because that is what people understand and want to hear. Under the hood, there is a lot more going on. Ecosia does not only support one but multiple projects with a variety of goals, including reforestation, preservation etc. What's also nice is the fact that their are extremely transparent about their finances. They are a registered non profit in Germany and they frequently publish their finances and other insights, which is always extremely interesting

They use data tools that I helped initiate to keep track of their work. Here is on dashboard I found. https://ecosia.akvolumen.org/s/2H9C92aluRg

At least on this climate policy simulator built by MIT, planting trees is indeed not a big winner for achieving climate goals. And actually, neither is limiting deforestation. (But we should do those things for other great reasons like preserving and restoring habitat.) This simulator doesn't address wetlands specifically, unfortunately.

If you really want to see what gets emissions down, move the carbon price slider.

https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7....

According to tons of leading economists, we can make a steadily rising fee on carbon emissions economically sustainable and politically viable by returning the net revenue from the fee to households as carbon dividends.

https://econstatement.org/

>According to tons of leading economists, we can make a steadily rising fee on carbon emissions economically sustainable and politically viable by returning the net revenue from the fee to households as carbon dividends.

Anyone who did a little research knows that a market based solution like carbon taxes is going to solve the problem very effectively. The concept is very simple. Calculate how much damage a ton of CO2 is causing and tax companies so that they pay for the damage they caused. In some cases it is easier to treat the damage. In others it is easier to reduce the damage. The market gets to decide what is most efficient.

The problem is that there are lots of people who are not deep in the subject who believe that it is just a money grab or that if you are going to give them the money back they would prefer no taxation in the first place.

This has lead to Germany introducing a carbon price instead of a carbon tax. The difference? You're not getting your money back. People's allergy to taxes backfired. Kind of ironic.

Taxing CO2 emissions of imports is another problem. You would have to introduce tariffs to nudge big foreign polluters to implement their own CO2 tax.

I thought new growth absorbed marginally more CO2? Happy to be corrected, perhaps you have a source?

That obviously depends with what happens with the trees that could not have been preserved. If you burn a tree you set almost it's entire absorbed CO2 free. On the other hand, a recently planted tree has absorbed almost nothing - it will take decades if not longer to grow to a big one - reaching the level of absorbed CO2 of the other tree before it has been burned.

Nevertheless, a tree at the place of an older one can help binding CO2 when the old tree is used such that the CO2 is not released to the atmopshere, such as for a well-crafted table (which could be used for decades, too). But don't forget that it usually is not just removing one tree - usually big areas are cut out, which includes the huge ecosystems around trees in untouched nature.

Though, always keep in mind, this is not a choice. The goal should be to preserve as much as possible (especially untouched ecosystems) as well as planting as much as possible.

There's more to climate change than CO2... Forests create micro climates; prevent soil erosion; help fixate water and nutrients; produce food for local populations, thus providing them income and reducing need to ship as much food to rural areas; improve yields of agriculture, so you don't need to water as much, or use as much ferilizer... And Ecosia is invested is projects to help with all of this (read their blog).

This single track kindset of climate change fight is why we get so much green washing.

CO2 isn't the only reason to take care of forests. If we replace a naturally grown forests with newly planted one we destroy an existing thriving habitat and replace it, in most cases, with a monoculture. This has tragic impact on biodiversity.

Here's a good article you might want to read. It also says that natural forests are actually better at capturing CO2.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01026-8

That's probably true, but when a forest is burned, that's decades of absorbed CO2 that goes back to the atmosphere, which would take another decades to be absorbed by the new trees.

When a forest burns, most of what burns is new growth: grass, leaves, needles, branches, etc. Rarely do trees fully incinerate, even in the hottest spots. I imagine the charred matchsticks left behind still contain the majority of a tree’s carbon.

The dead tree will eventually decay, releasing all its carbon. When talking about deforestation, this means reusing the land for something else.

Old forests better retain water and thus are able to grow better - marginally accumulate more biomass. I'm NOT against planting trees but against overdoing it as I explain in the other comment.

https://envirobites.org/2019/09/24/old-is-better-than-young-...

And Ecosia's business model relies on promoting consumerism (getting you to look at and click on ads).

You're absolutely right, but here's a counter point of view. People are not more likely to use Ecosia and click ads than they are to use Google and click ads. Ecosia is trying to give you a "greener" option to something you will do anyway.

But then you're having to ignore an even "greener" option. That's using and promoting ad blocking in general to lessen the environmental impact of consumerism. The thing with Ecosia is that it seems to ignore the damaging impact consumerism has on the environment. Instead, it encourages it by urging you to expose yourself and your friends to advertising.

You could always just donate to tree; https://edenprojects.org/

Eden is around 10 US cents per tree planted.

But then that's up to you, right? Ecosia does not encourage you to buy anything, but if you search for products, it suggests places where you could buy it. I don't get your point.

If I could legitimately help stop or reverse ecological damage to the planet by clicking ads, I would do it all day.

Be careful as click fraud could get them thrown off Bing.

doing both has an even bigger positive impact

Trees plant naturally themselves (keyword:natural succession) anytime when the land is ready (like not overgrazed, desertified, drained). In such locations the tree planting mania is superfluous even to the point of rejecting spontaneously grown shrubs/trees as "weeds". Such land is needlessly cleared and replanted with trees, with loss of biodiversity. I'm not exaggerating here in europe it happens all the time.

There's also animal species that will go extinct without their old growth forest habitat.