Judy Geyer

This was a fun challenge. My interest was piqued because I spent some time on a small boat on the sea in February, and saw way too much plastic washed up on small islands. I also saw through the flimsy facades that fool us into thinking we are tidy: flushing the boat toilet may seem civilized, but once you come above deck you realize that however large the oceans are, our crap is floating in it. 

Check out this greenhouse gas equivalency calculator. https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator 
Every time I fill up my 16 gallon tank? Need another 0.167 acres of forest to sequester the damage done by running the car. 

Here is the letter I sent to 4 legislators about increasing efforts to restore forests: 

Hello Senator Warren, 

I am very proud of your support of efforts to protect our environment. I would like to draw your attention to the simplest, most cost-effective solution for sequestering greenhouse gases: forests. Forest restoration should be a local, national, and international policy priority. Forests’ power to store carbon dioxide through the simple process of tree growth is amazing: one tree can store an average of about 48 pounds of carbon dioxide in one year. That's a lot of work for one tree, but we need large forests to make up for all of the fossil fuels we burn. The gas tank in my car stores 16 gallons of fuel- and it takes 0.167 acres of forest one year to sequester the resulting emissions.

While we work on reducing emissions, we also need to work on technology to sequester all of the greenhouse gases that result from our activity. Now is the time to increase investment in and attention to forest protection and restoration. 

Thank you,
Judy Geyer

Sources: 
de Groot, H. (2018) The Best Technology for Fighting Climate Change Isn't a Technology. Scientific American
EPA: Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator