Sure fireworks can be awesome, but given the deteriorating state of our planet, perhaps Americans should give thought to a more constructive activity during the celebration of our nation's Independence. Planting a tree is more than just a symbolic gesture that embodies hope--a small seedling growing into a giant able to withstand the storms to come and live for centuries. Trees absorb CO2 and produce oxygen. A natural process we need to offset the increasing amounts of CO2 industrialized humans dump into the atmosphere. One of the champion CO2 absorbers is the American chestnut tree. The chestnut was almost wiped out by an Asian fungus (cryphonectria parasitica) imported to this country at the beginning of the 20th century. O
nce a dominant species throughout the eastern United States the chestnut now lingers as a mere shrub growing in disturbed forest sites. The strong, rot resistant wood was prized for building cabins, floors and furniture. The nut was fed to hogs and cattle as well as humans who enjoyed roasting it during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays when it ripened. Efforts to hybridize the remaining chestnut trees with blight resistant Chinese chestnuts have produced a hybrid that is 94% American and resistant to blight. The tree is fast growing and massive. Chestnuts can reach 120 feet tall with a trunk as much as 17 feet in diameter. So it stores more carbon in its biomass than other species do. According to Purdue scientist Douglass Jacobs who has studied the hybrid chestnut, trees absorb about one-sixth of the CO2 produced in the world each year. Citizens, do something positive for America and the planet: plant a tree this Fourth of July.[photo: a Tennessee family stand next to an old chestnut]