Greenwash, offset, culling and cars.

Granite City Forest Project
New planting at Inverdee.

Aberdeen-based readers will no doubt be aware of the controversy surrounding the planned cull of roe deer on Tullos Hill. This cull is necessitated, so its proponents insist, by the Granite City Forest Project, which had aimed to plant a "Tree for Every Citizen" by 2011.

There's an excellent article in the current Aberdeen Voice citizen journalism online news and information source - which we recommend, along with their ongoing coverage of this issue.

According to the council web-page, the trees of the "Tree for Every Citizen" project are intended to 'reduce' [sic] CO2 emissions, by offsetting 15,000 tonnes of the greenhouse gas over the next 50 years. That's 300 tonnes / year.

We just consulted the Other Aberdeen Abacus...

A mid-range Ford Focus (the most average of cars) emits 150 g/km CO2. And the planned Aberdeen Bypass AWPR (pdf) route is 46km total one way.

When you crunch it all together and cancel zeros and everything, the Granite City Forest will offset only sixty (60) average-car return journeys using the AWPR per day. That represents only 3 cars on the road at any one time (approx).

So, we can see that the 'tree for every citizen project' is meaningless greenwash which is being executed - including the deer cull - rather than make the politically much more difficult effort to encourage just sixty people to change their commuting arrangements. Indeed, it is clear that the forthcoming Aberdeen Bypass AWPR will much more likely induce additional people to commute to Aberdeen from distance using cars.

Yay for Aberdeen Cars!