Tree Tape Measures the Climate Benefits of Your Backyard Trees

Want to know how much that big oak in your front yard is helping in the climate fight? Designer Nitipak Samsen created this very cool—and educational—tool that helps put the carbon sequestering ability of trees into context. The Tree Tape can be customized for specific types of trees—rainforest, native hardwood, or softwood—and will tell you the amount of carbon dioxide that is absorbed in terms of a more common activities like air travel, electricity consumed, and even cheeseburgers eaten.

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You can download Tree Tape here.

Samsen writes:

Ever wondered how much CO2 absorbed in a tree? And how much is how much?

In the process of developing the BuyProduct project, I designed a tree measuring tape for children. This tape translates how much CO2 absorbed in the tree into the amount of activities rather than grams of CO2, e.g. 1 hour on a flight or 2 days of breathing.

Since then I received quite a few interests wanted to use it in schools. So I decided to make it available for public to create and try it for themselves.

I’ve made a web app, user selects the tree type and the activity, it will create the PDF which will be printed, cut, glued and ready to try.

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I think this could be really useful for kids and adults alike. Even having spent a fair amount of time reading about and studying carbon sequestration and the greenhouse impacts of deforestation, I still couldn't tell you what my backyard maples are doing.