The Earth has just experienced its warmest day in recent history, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) data. On 22 July 2024, the daily global average temperature reached a new record high in the ERA5 dataset, at 17.16°C. This exceeds the previous records of 17.09°C, set just one day before on 21 July 2024, and 17.08°C, set a year earlier on 6 July 2023.
Commenting on the record set on 21 July 2024, C3S Director Carlo Buontempo said:
“On July 21st, C3S recorded a new record for the daily global mean temperature. What is truly staggering is how large the difference is between the temperature of the last 13 months and the previous temperature records. We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years.”
Every business needs a workable path to net-zero carbon. Calculating carbon emissions, and implementing a plan to make good, is simple and inexpensive. However, to make it happen requires some responsibility from the business owner. But, sooner, rather than later, carbon capture has to be front and centre on every business website, with verifiable implementation, and (please) no green-washing. Make good your carbon footprint. You all have children.
Balloon companies, burning propane for fun, are some of the most visible carbon culprits on the planet. But if we plant trees to make good, and keep a running score posted on our websites, then others will follow.
A hot air balloon business generates approximately 30 kg of carbon dioxide per passenger, with every one-hour flight. And as hot air balloons cannot be electrified, the carbon generated needs to be captured. The only practical way forward, for small business, is to plant trees, which is easy. For the future of ballooning, make good now, on every flight, and make it visible. It costs approximately $2 per passenger, donated to ReForest Now to make good (over a period of 10-years) the carbon generated by ballooning. Simply charge your passengers an extra $2 and explain why. Passengers want this to happen. Passengers want to mitigate climate change, and they will reward your honesty and sensible approach to the future.
ReForest Now will clean your carbon and provide verifiable data backing up your commitment to net-zero. Put the carbon numbers front and centre on your websites, and demonstrate the fact that ballooning not only makes good on carbon capture, but plants trees beyond its envelope of responsibility. Make hot air ballooning a positive path for the planet by demonstrating just how easy it is to make good on carbon emissions. Talk to your passengers after every flight, and proudly explain to them how their balloon flight is regenerating Australian and Indonesian rainforest.
In 40-years of flying balloons, burning propane, Chris Dewhirst has delivered 1.5 million kg of CO₂ into the atmosphere, which is a huge carbon footprint. To make amends for his contribution to global warming, Dewhirst has written Everest, Guns & Money – a dangerously revealing memoir and page-turning political thriller – where all the profit from book sales is directed to ReForest Now: a not-for-profit organisation that finds the land, cultivates the seedlings, plants young trees, and regrows our future.
Time has run out to avoid dangerous climate change by reducing emissions alone. Storing carbon away from the atmosphere is essential: which are the opening sentences from Reduce, Remove and Store, a report on carbon sequestration by the Australian federal government’s Climate Change Authority in April 2023.
The only pathway known to science that has the immediate capacity to remove greenhouse gases (CO₂) from the atmosphere at scale is photosynthesis: the mechanism by which plants use light, CO₂ and water to create energy: quoting from Professor Ian Chubb’s independent review of Australia’s carbon credit units.
For Commercial Balloon Operators:
A 20-passenger, one-hour balloon flight burns 400 litres of propane, creating 600 kg of CO₂ – or 30 kg per passenger.
The average Australian hot air balloon company carries between 5,000 and 15,000 passengers a year, while generating 200,000 to 500,000 kg of CO₂ from burning propane. It takes 6 to 10 years for 300 newly planted trees to remove 200,000 kg of carbon from the atmosphere. However, after 10 years, the trees start generating auditable carbon credits. It’s simply good business for balloon companies to offset carbon by planting trees. Our passengers are demanding it, and legislation is coming for all companies, regardless.
A single tree converts 2,000 kg of atmospheric carbon dioxide into oxygen and stores 8,000 kg of carbon over its lifetime. Planting trees daily, in Australia, in the tens of thousands, will help mitigate Global Warming. According to ReForest Now it costs $6 to plant a tree in Australia, and $2 in Indonesia, which is the most efficient and cleanest method of capturing atmospheric carbon.
Paying ReForest Now directly is also the most efficient way for balloon companies to clean carbon from the atmosphere. ReForest Now operates with less than 10% administration overheads, and it leads the industry in sapling survival rates.
We can install solar panels on our hangars, electrify our vehicles, and recycle waste, but flying hot air balloons means that we will be burning propane into the foreseeable future. Plant one tree for every five passengers and the good news is that after 5 years your business will have cleaned the atmosphere from that particular flight. The better news is that after 5-years, the trees keep on cleaning.
If ReForest Now is not for you, then find a like-minded, not for profit company, with minimal overheads and a great tree survival rate.
Whatever else you do, plant a couple of trees for every flight.
Just do it.
CEO UPDATE: 13th March 2024
The past year has seen the RN vision continue to develop significantly. In late 2023 we saw the establishment of our first international project in Indonesia, working with OIC in North Sumatra, where we now have a number of permanent employees on the ground. This partnership is seeing hundreds of thousands of trees planted in the Gunung Leuser National Park, new power planting machines, facility upgrades, including power for remote workers. We are also funding forest patrols to protect against illegal logging, encroaching and other illegal activities.
In Australia, we have continued to proliferate plantings to a great number of sites, primarily within 2 hours of our base of operations in Mullumbimby. Our magnum opus ‘Banyula’ in Clunes NNSW is now in a state of maintenance and growth, with the earliest planted parts reaching several meters in height. We are now focusing on regenerating its seven kilometre river section, as well as tens of hectares of additional regeneration zones around the site. We are launching a special project in 2024, a multiple year collaboration with FAME called the ‘Enrichment Program’ to see bush regeneration and planted zones across the Byron Shire enhanced by adding in massive biodiversity with locally suitable species.
The rest of this planting season should be a strong one and encompasses sites near and far across NNSW and SEQ. We anticipate a further 100k trees in Byron and another 50k trees in Sumatra by June 2024 for EoFY.
Maximo Bottaro – CEO ReForest Now
Balloon Operators in the USA, Europe and the UK could support: onetreeplanted.org
Photograph Emi Cataldi.
Everest, Guns & Money, a page-turning political thriller, is available from your pilot and crew at breakfast, from the local bookshop, as an ebook, an audiobook, or mail order from this website.