Liquid Trees
Liquid Trees
209 comments
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While I don't want to spoil the joke (but I will) and I hate techno-optimist solutions that displace actual solutions for our biosphere as much as the next person: supposedly, Belgrade is such a dense concrete hell that trees aren't viable solution (at least in the short term).
There is some rumbling that liquid trees are not the solution to the real problems caused by large-scale deforestation, nor does it reduce erosion or enrich the soil. However, much of this wrath is misplaced as Liquid tree designers say that it was not made as a replacement for trees but was designed to work in areas where growing trees would be non-viable. Initiatives like Trillion Trees are laudable, but there is something to be said for the true utility of this tiny bioreactor. The fact that they can capture useful amounts of carbon dioxide from day one is another benefit for them. Such bioreactors are expected to become widespread in urban areas around the world as the planet battles rising carbon levels in the atmosphere.
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They can thrive in tap water and can withstand temperature extremes.
So maybe they can be used in regions that are too hot for trees, like desert cities
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And for people who think that the trillion tree idea is anything else than just the oil lobby running with a feel good solution, I have a great podcast episode for you
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They seem to be focusing on CO2. Trees in cities are going to capture a negligible amount of CO2 and for relatively high cost versus doing things outside a city. The point of trees in cities is shade and looking nice (good for mental health). Liquid trees solve neither of those.
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And ameliorating the heat island effect.
But mainly quality of life.
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im guessing "where will the animals go" is also a stupid question?
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I would guess into the tree soup.
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Like I always think that people don’t get one thing about trees in a city. There purpose is is not about co2. The co2 reduction of city trees is neglectable. The reason you need them in a city is temperature regulation, shade, air quality, mood, the local eco system and maybe solidifying unsealed ground. Putting these tanks in a city is laughably inefficient w.r.t. co2 conversion if you compare this to any effort to do this in instustrial capacity ( which is is also still laughably inefficient)
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From the top of my head, they also help manage storm water by filtering rainwater into the aquifer, while also lowering flood risks, provides habitats for plants, insects, birds, and small animals while also being a natural sound barriers, which reduces noise pollution. All of these together greatly increase mental health for everyone too
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So.. are you saying the air inside a city park isn't better at all?
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They were talking about CO2 which is what the algae tank is about.
Trees have other benefits around filtering pollutants that affect air quality such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Also the shading effect reduces ozone accumulation as well as generally helping reduce the urban heat island effect (which in turn reduces the amount of air conditioning needed, even a small amount saves energy and reduces pollution from power stations).
City parks have clean air partly because of tree but also because youre away from roads and buildings so further from car exhausts and chimney stacks. The concentration of pollutants in wide open spaces is lower because the wind can move it around more easily, and there isn't a pollution source directly near by. Tree and grass do help too.
By far the most effective way of reducing pollution is reducing the sources. Trees are CO2 sinks and would reduce some CO2 if there was massive reforestation globally but that is outweighed by the ongoing CO2 production. The best solution is clean energy sources and getting rid of combustion engines.
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To be fair, I think it's important to make a distinction between a city park, and a handful of trees lining a busy street.
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It is, because of the humidity, temperature and also they remove air pollution. Just not CO2
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CO² isn't want you should be concerned about with air in a city anyway, its the other emissions like particulates. Just being further away from busy roads reduces that significantly so the park air would be better.
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Probably not a statistically significant difference since wind is a thing.
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This is missing out on likely the most important part of trees in urban areas. Shade. They give you a cooler place to stand or walk through.
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No standing or sitting allowed. Resume consumerism!
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My condo complex is easily 5 degrees cooler than the rest of my city cause we’re covered in trees. It’s always noticeable when you leave the complex and go across the road
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taller buildings and smog do a more consistent job of providing shade than a new tree will in a decade.
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ITT: People who looked at some random headline, didn't bother looking further and assumed they knew everything.
It's a stupid headline. These tanks, are to directly affect air polution/quality in urban areas. Trees are terrible at that. The microalgae is 10-50x more effective in cleaning the air.
They aren't going to rip out trees for these. It would have taken you 10 seconds to find the source of the image and the article from 3 years ago to find out, the social media post was misleading. You spent more time making incorrect and wild accusations.
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Even with the misleading headline, has nobody commenting about how bad it is ever seen how many trees die when set up in low light conditions? These can be used in places trees wouldn't be effective, and that's before the whole "they're better at cleaning the air" bit.
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Even with ideal light conditions, there's still more to consider.
I lived in Louisville for many years. It's fairly green as cities go. In older parts of the city, trees had been planted between the streets and sidewalks ... definitely a long time ago, maybe 30 to 50 years? Maybe longer?
Every spring, we lost a number of those trees to thunderstorms. Enough rain, followed by strong winds, would topple multiple trees. Every single one that I saw had a root ball that was exactly the size of the opening where it had been planted, so maybe two square meters and maybe a meter or two deep. (For those keeping score at home, that's not enough root volume to support a full-sized tree.)
So we'd lose those lovely trees and on a good day, we'd lose the use of the street for a while. On a bad day, someone would lose a car or a chunk of their house.
"Just plant more trees in the middle of the city" is not the brilliant fix that many people seem to think it is.
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They get in the way of parking spots. The steel cages must rule supreme.
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These have to take up more space than a tree...
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The steel cages must rule supreme.
Just ask The Undertaker and Mankind...
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I discovered when I joined a volunteer litter-picking group in my town that some people really hate trees. And I must emphasise HATE. They hate the shade they cast in summer, the way the leaves block the all-important View. They hate the fallen leaves in autumn. They hate the bare branches in winter. They hate the risk of branches falling in storms. They hate the racket the birds make. I was astonished - it never occurred to me that people would feel so strongly.
Turns out I'm a bloody tree-hugging extremist.
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That's just unhinged. The trees are the view.
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Those "people" would better serve as fertilizer (specifically for trees)
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Yeah trees are assholes. They always ring my doorbell trying to sell me the book of Gaia. Constantly telling me "you can't smoke here, sir". There's a tree behind my house who constantly wears the same glasses as me. Whenever I buy new ones, a day later this tree has the same. He's constantly mocking me for no reason.
I think all trees should be cut down and burned. Algae never complain, are always kind and always say "good day sir" when you walk by.
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I guess I'm too...born and raised in a forest?...to be the same species as those people.
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Leaves are annoying in urban areas with full concrete/asphalt/metal/glass environments. Different people like different things and some aesthetics are incompatible.
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annoying how?
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I guess the "problem" with trees is obvious: it takes decades for them to produce the desired cooling effect in urban areas. You plant a dozen young trees today, you can begin to reap the cooldown 10 years later at best. Also, they need a lot if water, and many of them just don't make it - urban surroundings are just much hotter and more stressful (smog, salt...) then standing with other trees in a forest. I fail to see though how these artificial "trees" provide any kind of benefit at all.
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I think the problem is putting them in those dumb tanks where a tree would be, as if to say "do this instead". The principle would be fine if they got a bit more creative with it and played to its strengths, e.g. if you make a train platform out of it, or the railings of an overpass, or the external wall panels of buildings etc.
Ofc OOP didn't actually provide a source so we've no idea what the creators were actually thinking...
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A cursory search for "liquid trees micro algae" led me here: https://liquidtrees.org/urban-solutions
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The roots destroy sewer systems etc too. There's a bike path I take to work where the pavement is all distorted by the roots, making it very unsafe, but I still prefer that the trees are there.
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That's why you have to properly select the species that will be planted, there are many different species which have roots that won't cause this type of damage and you can most likely get by with native plants for better adaptability
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Real answer is probably that they'd be used in addition to trees, designed to fit in places unsuitable for a tree.
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This. Trees (especially large ones) are a pain to irrigate properly, might not be drought-resistant, grow very slowly until they reach their full potential at removing CO2, interfere with infrastructure that we humans are used to (piping, electricity, telco), roots break up pavements, branches can be a hazard after storms, fruit might attract rats, ...
I'm very much pro trees (despite what I've listed in the first paragraph), but I'm sure there are places in cities where you can't plant trees but could put up algae tanks.
If you understand German (specifically Austrian dialect) you might like this podcast episode about challenges and methods to overcome them in the context of greenery in the city of Graz:
Simple Smart Buildings: Bäume in der Stadt
Webseite der Episode: https://podcasted3e6b.podigee.io/153-baume-in-der-stadt
Mediendatei: https://audio.podigee-cdn.net/1742586-m-9ecab280e580cd07f75c83ed9379b970.mp3?source=feed
TL;DL of this episode: it's not as simple as "just plant more trees".
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Yes. Algae is better in absorbing co2 than tree, but tree is important as a shade and creating a cooling effect for the surrounding. Both is important for different thing and combine it you get the best of both world, especially in a lot of urban area where planting big tree isn't possible
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Like walls of high-rises.
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We can have both trees and this ! Let’s replace the stupid ad spots on bus stops with these 😮
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A few reasons: Trees need a lot of space and the space underneath a sidewalk isn't enough for long term life. They can die after like 30 years? This is tree dependent and location dependent.
Tree roots can destroy sidewalks making it harder for people to go over them. (Think people in wheel chairs)
Liability in terms of damage (have you seen trees after a storm?)
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Sounds like we need to remove the need for sidewalks. Rip up all the roads in the city and replace them with green space. Problem solved
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I disagree. Pavement is valuable to pedestrians, cyclists, emergency and service vehicles, and the disabled. While it's important to preserve nature as much as possible, some urbanisation is also a good thing. That said, I'm not sure algae tanks would be necessary in areas where huge tracts of land aren't dedicated to parking. I can't really think of where my city would benefit from them.
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Still and this is the big thing, these are all possible considerations, plenty of urban areas, once they reduce street traffic to what is seen in European and other areas could also vastly greenify areas via mini parks allowing root space (and tbh if it messes with a sidewalk well then fix it like what functional societies with infrastructure budgets doi). All in all this just gives off techbro "genius solution" grifting and likely isn't even possible on a large scale given I swear I've seen this same tumblr reblog before and yet areas that are hard on trees (Like LA) still has a crap ton of palms and other trees not even remotely habitable to the climate.
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I should have mentioned this but usually stuff like this is planted in front of people's houses etc. I wouldn't expect a pine tree planted in one of those. Same with a palm tree.
I'm from Pittsburgh and there's a lot of greenery projects and ecological restoration currently going on. Outside of the city, it's very heavily wooded. But it's slow progress.
Those giant algae tanks miss the large point of trees and their physical benefits and do feel like a tech bro solution looking for a problem.
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fuck sidewalks, tree roots can fuck up entire buildings
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My first thought, having lived in an area with trees but inadequate funding for clearing leaves, is that every sidewall just gets buried and slick with wet leaves.
Idk what the labour costs are for these things.
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Not all tree species destroy sidewalks.
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I recently learned that there's a group dedicated to planting 1000 trees in the city of Trenton, NJ, USA. I'm really glad to see a city working to bring back a little nature!
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In Vienna, Austria, Europe, every tree removed has to be replaced with a new as per regulation
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Trees don’t attract VC funding the way some dumb new invention does.
I guess this could be useful in places trees don’t fit but I think there are other simpler solutions.
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useful in places trees don’t fit
I have a tree sitting in a pot on my desk.
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Your potted tree isn’t a tree in the sense that I’m talking about. The environmental services trees provide are all based on size and so are predominantly provided by larger trees. Cities usually avoid planting these under electrical wires and in smaller tree basins to avoid damage to infrastructure. So practically, there are many urban locations where big trees won’t fit.
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How much CO2 does the tree on your desk take in? Do you think it approaches 1/1000 of the amount that a bunch of algae can take in? So maybe it’s not the same and comparing it as being the same is done in bad faith. Trees are great and in many cases are superior as they also provide shade, but you can’t ignore the negatives of them(mostly related to their roots) and that they don’t work in every situation
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Does its root structure break the pavement above it?
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Has the manufacturer even calculated how much energy is needed for production and how long it will take for the corresponding CO2 emissions to be amortized?
We are living in strange times...
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And trees that are planted in cities are not seeded. They are grown in a forestry until they reach a certain height. And then dug up with machines transported with machines and then planted with machines. The CO2 produced to plant a single tree also takes quite a while to be absorbed by that tree.
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Who cares? You can sell these tanks for a better profit than trees.
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The issue with trees is you need to adapt the city to them, you can't adapt them to the city. And people have proven once and again that they would invent anything to not move by an inch when our way of life is put in question.
So we push forward with absurd solutions one after the other: carbon capture, atmospheric geo-engineering, a damned nuke in antarctica, and now "liquid trees".
Because the alternative is to change our ways, and we can't face that.
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I would be fine with changing my ways if changing my anything didn’t require endless paperwork. How is it fair that some guy invents agriculture and now I have to have a credit score
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That's an incredibly negative spin.
All these technologies are improvements on the natural version, not a replacement for the natural version, but an upgrade. If you want nice trees go take a walk in a city park, these aren't for looking at they have a different objective. We can have both things, one isn't trying to replace the other.
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Yeah, can plant a tree? Plant a tree. If you can't, the alternative right now is nothing. This introduces another option.
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Trees provide shades that cool down the cities. These algae don't. The main benefit of these "liquid trees" is to reduce pollution. You know what reduces even more pollution? Electrification and public transportation. Combine both. You'll need much less space for motor vehicles lane inside the city and no need for "depolluting" inventions. Add some bike lanes and you'll still have plenty of space for trees. They're better looking and will do the cooling job.
So, as I was saying: praising a less efficient solution that may bring new unexpected issues down the road because the efficient solution requires people to change.
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trees take don't come with actual requirement lists. An algae pool can and will come with explicit instructions that are able to be met and won't destroy the sidewalk for no reason.
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trees are not as profitable
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Insert random copypasta about biotech breakthrough that turns water and CO2 and nutrients into sustainable building materials which sounds like space age technology but it's just trees
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The problem with trees in an urban setting is trees have roots, and these cause issues. The can damage pipes and other underground objects. And many trees that are designed to not have these issues, end up with stunted/damaged roots which severely effects the trees growth. Planting trees in urban settings take quite a lot of pre-planning, and aren't drop in solutions, and if the areas weren't originally designed with trees in mind, you are likely to cause more problems than solutions.
https://greenblue.com/gb/avoid-root-heave-pavement-damage-caused-urban-trees/ https://tiptoptreeandgroundcare.co.uk/2025/01/06/tree-roots-in-urban-spaces/
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In Australian temperate climate areas we have the brush box whose roots do not cause these problems. Unfortunately evergreen, casting shade in winter.
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You can’t charge a subscription fee for trees.
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What you can do is take all the trees and put them in a tree museum and charge the people a dollar and a half to see them.
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That's where youre wrong.
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Trees don’t create shareholder profits
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useless pests they are. who cares that they provide free shade, free oxygen, free beauty for all to enjoy. Fucking commies.
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I agree trees are commies. Must be why Trump is going to clear cut several hundred million acres of the last remaining old growth forests …because they’re full of commie trees
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But they look good and provide shade. Worth it.
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Wake me up as soon as some goofy ass startup found out how to arrange the algae to display ads.
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Add a blockchain and you could get libertarians tripping over to invest
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Trees take ages to grow, and their root systems damage buildings and pavements.
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Also really really hard to keep trees alive on the sides of buildings where these units could conceivably be used. Modular trees plus trees where we can fit them.
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But the shade of a tree is far superior and reduces the overall temperature around them if many are planted, so overall much better.
Also certain trees dont need deep roots and can grow without neccessairliy damaging the pavement.
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You can take trees and replant them in the city, you don't have to grow it there. There are tree farms.
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Few things about trees in cities: (1) tree roots ruin sidewalks because they upend that stuff; (2) tree roots get into and ruin infrastructure, (3) not every curb can sustain a tree, so these could fit where a tree could not; and (4) they damage stuff when they fall over in storms.
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Crazy thought - instead of just putting trees near curbs, have dedicated green spaces in cities where there aren't sidewalks or other important infrastructure near the trees.
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let me introduce you to this: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/robo-bees-could-aid-insects-with-pollination-duties/
humans are crazy. You want to know whats wrong with trees and bees? It's pretty hard to make a profit of them
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Welp, all the trees are gone but at least there are these cloudy stinking tanks of goo everywhere. Does anything not dystopian happen anymore? Like these things are a set piece from Blade Runner FFS.
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It's a pretty bad example in this case because the picture is literally on a street with trees. What these are probably for is putting in places where no one's going to look at them but places where you can't put trees, like industrial estates and the rooftops of buildings. Aesthetics aren't important if no one is ever going to look at them aesthetically, and anyway they kind of look cool.
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I'm sure they're probably a good idea, I'm just crabby.
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Dumb take. If someone crashes their car into one of these, it can be replaced in a few days. Trees take decades to grow in ideal conditions. Between tall buildings in a city is far from ideal conditions.
Also algae is way more efficient at converting CO2 into O2; I think it's maybe multiple times more efficient using the same amount of light.
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As an emergency responder, I can say with confidence that when a car hits a tree, it's rare that the car wins. The tree usually just shrugs it off.
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I've definitely seen "median trees" and "sidewalk trees" here in Atlanta get removed or replaced after a car hits them. But for sure, large trees can easily shrug off a car crash. Those are just not usually in heavily urban areas like these tanks are meant for.
Not that it is super relevant to this discussion, but last month someone with a chainsaw cut down multiple (I wanna say a dozen or so) trees along a street in Atlanta in the middle of the night. Who TF would do that?!?! Sad and pointless....
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Dumb take, by the guy who has no idea how much it costs to maintain these tanks or any understanding of the scales involved, all while wanting to live in a world of green goo in tanks instead of one with trees in their cities.
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Who said I wouldn't want to live in a city with trees? I just said that in some areas, these make more sense than trees.
Jeez, get off the Internet for a while. Obviously you're looking for someone to argue with. I'm not that guy.
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This just makes me think it’s an aquarium that needs to be cleaned.
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Less infrastructure erosion from roots? Integration into places like above ground parking spaces? Hell could you imagine integrating them into bridge underpasses or walk ways? Heck make a semi destructible version and use that for crash bollards. Only a level 5 vegan is going to complain if some allege is spilt.
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Upkeep costs. Oh, wait.
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You see, trees get in the way when we want to put down more asphalt to make more room for cars. We need more lanes for cars to park in and more parking lots for cars to park in. The goal is to turn the city into a place devoid of anything but asphalt. Then with no access to dirt to grow food or water to keep them alive, the people will be 100% dependent on their capitalist overlords. Everyone wins.
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Trees arent liquid
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People really like vandalizing trees, diseases exist, and they are less efficient carbon sinks
Like how we found it’s better to feed cattle seaweed than grass but nobody wants to because it’s different
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Good thing people don't like to vandalize glass.
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Usually spray paint it rather than breaking it, and you would hope it’d be fiberglass so it doesn’t just break
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If it's actually more efficient then trees, could be a good idea. Saw a 51/49 video where he explained the urban development in the US requiring only male trees be planted leads to increased pollen levels and has made the "allergy season" 30+ days longer over the past 50 years or so.
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While I would hate to lose actual trees, I'm medium on the idea of this on it's own. People need lots of things and space, which causes the removal of trees. If we can replicate some of their functions, such as CO2 absorption with this tech, then that seems good. If upkeep is the same as a tree, I don't see a downside to the overall concept.
My thought would be that this shows up on top of the buildings instead of at ground level, though.... Plant real trees and put these on the roof. The real loss would be if we stop making green spaces because these things meet the need for O2. Green spaces in cities do way more than just clean the air, though, so I'm not sure we're that dystopian yet.
The photo looks like it doubles as a bench too, so maybe that helps justify its footprint. Make them a mini-light show with varied colors and it can become a functional art installation. How long until it has spikes to prevent someone from taking a nap on it, though?
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Yeah completely agree, I like trees and don't want them completely gone or anything.
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I still want the trees outdoors, but this would be cool for indoor spaces. Each mall or parking lot could have a solar panel overhead and slime-tanks to produce useful byproducts.
Maybe it could be mixed with and aquaculture like fish and sea plants to create cool scenery
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I would support legislation that mandated these be used around the highest carbon emitting facilities. Maybe a few very well designed structures (algae tanks) in very densely populated cities.
These would be in no way a replacement for trees in a community but, I could see forcing the corporations to use them. Such as those that must pollute because, they can not manufacture these products without polluting.
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I guess it would take a lot of time to accommodate Mars for trees. More than for algae ;)
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All these braindead silicon valley tech bros trynna reinvent existing solutions to problems in very expensive and unnecessary ways, marketing it as "revolutionary" and "groundbreaking"
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The problem with trees is they are used as lumber. The national parks has always been protected. But Trump has unprotected parts of the national parks to be cut down for lumber.
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These algae also produce biogas that can be used for heating or producing electricity.
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Damn if only trees created something gaseous that was useful
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They emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and oxygen, which causes rust in metals and aging in humans. So it's a negative really...
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Can't they just put the algae in the ocean?
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If we put the algae in the oceans, then sink all of our cities underwater, all of our problems will be solved.
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There are algae in the ocean. The problem with ocean algae is not that they aren't there, but that their requirements (sunlight, oxygen, acidity, temperature, etc.) prevent them from expanding any further.
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even your trees will be slop. nice.
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Back when I was a kid, trees still lived under water.
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What happens when one of these breaks and drains into the sewer system? Algae blooms cause noxious odors and would proliferate quickly in the nitrogen-rich environment of human waste water, potentially building up as clogs in the sewer lines. And if the system drains into a natural body of water, the algae can have devastating toxic effects on the natural wildlife. If it doesn't drain and instead gets recycled, then the water treatment process becomes much more difficult and expensive.
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"Why do you say this is stupid? You're so negative." Run of the mill conformist toxic optimist tech bro dildo
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When I was visiting Europe, seeing all the trees so well integrated into urban areas was so nice.
Then we git our flight back to Toronto. Concrete jungle.
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Your just thinking outside the box!
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"What's wrong with trees" ask people who have never had an allergy or thought about what roots do to all those nice expensive foundations
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Trees won't get some tech bros bought out by Google.
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Can we please, stop reposting this same shit pic for the last, I dunno, year?
This is the gazillionth time. I get it. Is a stupid algea tank. where a simple tree does the same for a fraction of the cost. It's of no use in the public space except as a tech demo or art object.
So. Yeah... Next?
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This is only the second time I've seen it, but please... there was a time when complaining about reposts was the most often repeated thing I saw on reddit. Can we not have that bit of irony become a thing here?
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The issue with trees is you need to adapt the city to them, you can't adapt them to the city. And people have proven once and again that they would invent anything to not move by an inch when our way of life is put in question.
So we push forward with absurd solutions one after the other: carbon capture, atmospheric geo-engineering, a damned nuke in antarctica, and now "liquid trees".
Because the alternative is to change our ways, and we can't face that.
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Deja Vu
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Keep in mind that tree roots can brake through anything
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Not all do. That's an oak thing really. Pines, most stone fruits, etc, take a path of least resistance, unlike oaks which are more "I am going that way, and NOTHING will stop me!"
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Green shit on your terrace, leaves fucking everywhere, looming threat of bird shit on your head, seeds everywhere, roots growing through everything, blocking the sun at every step, tough lessons in gravity for things kids climbing them, lot of damage when it's stormy out.
But nah trees are great, really.
Edit: apparently I need to clarify that I really do love nature more than the concrete jungle, but there are things you can find that are not that great about trees.
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blocking the sun at every step
That's a feature. I don't want to be grilled by the sun everywhere I go.
Great for local air quality, too.
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Oh no, nature is getting in the way of...a civilization of bipedal animals that encroached on nature!
It's abhorrent!!
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ETA: Yes, that definitely needed clarification.
Gray shit on your everything, concrete fucking everywhere, looming threat of 2-ton steel death machines caving in your head, overheating everywhere, asphalt plowing through everything, soaking up the sun at every step, tough lessons in momentum for kids crossing them, lot of traffic and pollution when there are drivers out.
You could change half of your words, and keep the meaning the same, and make a compelling case that roads, or any other things, are humanity's greatest scourge.
If all you can do is complain that the natural world is insufficiently bent to your personal convenience, you are the problem with humanity right now.
Go touch whatever remaining local flora people like you have allowed to continue to exist, and quit being an imbecilic bellend online.
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