'Make Earth great again': Trump Forest initiative reaches one million trees pledged in under a year

One million trees have been pledged to Trump Forest in an attempt to "soak up the extra greenhouse gases" the US president "plans to put into our atmosphere" with decisions made about climate change laws by the White House in the past year.

Since the global Trump Forest initiative was launched just under one year ago, 1,055,838 trees have been pledged by 3,352 people and $139,588.10 has been invested in the idea, which aims to see one billion trees planted by people across the world in Trump's name.

In December, Trump's administration decided it would no longer consider climate change a national security threat as the latest National Security Strategy (NSS) report largely ignored the issue. This is despite studies suggesting large parts of several US states, including New York, Florida and California, could be threatened by rising ocean waters.

Earlier in 2017, Trump took the US out of the Paris climate agreement, claiming it was bad for the country's economy. He was globally condemned for withdrawing from the treaty, which aims to keep average global temperature increase below 2 degrees and which predecessor Barack Obama signed for the US in 2015.

However, Trump said last month that he would consider reentering the Paris agreement if "they made a good deal" and it underwent major change.

Trump Forest was set up in March 2017 by British climate scientist Dr Dan Price, American PhD candidate Jeff Willis and French-New Zealander Adrien Taylor, the founder of sustainable cap company Offcut, after Trump signed an Executive Order entitled "Promoting energy independence and economic growth". The order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to begin rewriting the Clean Power Plan, with the aim of restoring the coal industry.

The Trump Forest founders said this was a "devastating blow" from a climate perspective as coal is the most harmful fuel for its warming influence on the atmosphere, and they feared it would have a negative impact across the world. They state on their website: "The influx of additional planet warming gas, prompted by Trump's suggested policy will aggravate climate change.

"The rhetoric sends a signal to the rest of the world that the government of the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases is not on board to meet this challenge."

Trump Forest aims to see 10 billion trees planted to cover an area of around 100,000 square kilometers (37,000 square miles), about the size of the US state of Kentucky, to offset the carbon in the atmosphere from Trump's Clean Power Plan.

February 19 marked the day that one million trees had been pledged - but a further 55,000 were pledged in just the next 24 hours after publicity about the project, including on the front page of website Reddit. All of the trees except those pledged this week are in the ground, and have a survival rate of 80%.

In a video message posted on Twitter, Taylor said: "Thanks to you guys, you've pledged more than a million trees all over the world to try and offset that ignorance. In doing so, you've not only offset some of the carbon emissions that have come out of the Trump administration, you've also helped reforest communities, and you've helped create a small silver lining in the very dark cloud of ignorance which is in the White House."

Price added: "One million trees is only the beginning. Despite new evidence of the chaos of climate change everyday, Trump continues to use his position to exacerbate the problem and prop up the fossil fuel industry. We really look forward to making Earth great again."