July 16, 2025 • 46 mins
Time to meet my new friend Corey Kerkela a new Rotary member that in making a Inpact right from the start. He wants to join together Rotary clubs from all over the world to plant 1 billion trees, and you and your club can help.
Join us for a great chat.
Fellowshipofthetrees.org
Join me as I talk to those "amazing people turning their Actions 2 Impact all over the world. #BE THE CHANGE
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Hi there everyone, I'm Gwen Jones and welcome once
again to the Action to Impactpodcast, the weekly podcast
where I introduce you towonderful people from all over
the world that are turning theiractions into impact.
Well this week we're on anenvironmental kick.
Remember a few weeks ago welearned about some wonderful
(00:22):
seniors that are cleaning upponds all over Cape Cod.
Well this one has got more of aworldwide tinged I'm being
joined today by Corey Kirkala.
And who is he?
Well, he is the guy who's incharge of the Rotary Club's
United for One Billion Trees.
(00:43):
That's right.
One billion trees.
Now, I got to tell you, Coreyhas not been in Rotary for very
long.
And to say that this gentlemanis already making an impact,
well, did I mention one billiontrees?
So join me, won't you?
The podcast takes on anenvironmental kick this week,
(01:07):
talking about Rotarians from allover the world and the ease and
wonder of planting trees.
Welcome back to the podcast,everybody.
I'm super excited.
I am off to Florida, Vera Beach,Florida, for the record, to
speak to Corey Kirkula.
And I nailed his last name andhe wasn't sure I could tell you.
(01:27):
He wasn't sure if I was going toget his last name.
But He is a representative of anamazing group, Rotary Clubs
United for One Billion Trees,for planting, that is, one
billion trees.
And I don't think I, as apodcaster, do enough about the
environment and what Rotary isdoing in the environment.
And Corey's going to fix thatproblem right here, right now.
(01:50):
Corey, welcome to the show.
It's so great to have you.
SPEAKER_00 (01:53):
Thank you so much.
I'm thrilled to be here andlooking forward to kind of
sharing some of the things thatI think are amazing that are
going on with Rotary right
SPEAKER_02 (02:03):
now.
So, awesome.
First off, awesome.
Second of all, I had originallyslotted this was a fellowship,
so we're going to get that outof the way.
As of right now, you are not afellowship, but maybe in the
future.
Is that a good way to look atit?
We're crossing our fingers andour toes.
SPEAKER_00 (02:22):
Definitely, there's some unders...
Sorry.
SPEAKER_02 (02:26):
The paperwork has been filled out.
How do we say it?
SPEAKER_00 (02:29):
There's been some processes that are going on that
will allow fellowships to be alittle bit more broad and be a
little bit more environmentaland activism type of
orientation.
So there is the opportunity forme to reapply or for our group
to reapply as a fellowship.
And we may take that upeventually.
But for right now, we're goingforward as a major multinational
(02:52):
Rotary program.
And we set up a nonprofit tosupport So we're just kind of
doing the best of both worlds,acting like it's a fellowship,
but also bringing forth like anetworking opportunity that may
actually be better thanfellowship.
SPEAKER_02 (03:06):
Okay.
So we got all that paperwork outof the way.
So that's awesome.
But of course, everybody's like,okay, that's great.
We weren't privy to thatconversation.
So we don't know what all thatmeans, but...
We would like to find out abouta billion trees.
Now, first off, I also want tothrow you under the bus that
you've only been a Rotarian for18 months.
So you've been a Rotarian for 18months.
(03:29):
You've already put together acoalition of tree planters and
you're on the podcast.
Not necessarily in that order,but that's that's pretty good
for 18 months.
I just got to say.
SPEAKER_00 (03:40):
And I've been president of my club for a
couple of months.
And so we're doing some bigthings.
The program's already in over100 countries with members right
now.
It truly is an internationalrotary, almost, I don't know,
it's just taken a life of itsown at this point.
And I'm just excited to kind ofme and my team try to help
(04:02):
direct it into becomingsomething that hopefully is very
important.
SPEAKER_02 (04:05):
Well, let's get to the it, shall we?
Because everybody's alreadylike, damn, in 18 months, I
can't get somebody to likevolunteer to do the bulletin.
And you have this multicultural,multi-country fast thing.
Tell us what exactly is theRotary Clubs United for planting
(04:25):
1 billion trees.
What is it, Corey?
SPEAKER_00 (04:28):
So this is something that was born of almost like a
near-death experience.
My son and I have traveled alot.
We're both anthropologists, andwe had been traveling around the
world, and we almost died in arock slide in Nepal.
Wow.
And afterwards, you're in Nepal,so you have a lot of time to
talk with your son.
(04:49):
And he kind of came up with theidea that we would start to
offset our carbon every timethat we traveled, start a
YouTube channel that tried topromote things that had to do
with responsible travel andenvironmental travel and
cultural heritage and kind ofrespecting that.
And that kind of evolved into mebecoming a Rotarian.
(05:09):
And then starting about 18months ago to plant trees
everywhere that I went withother Rotary clubs and Rotaract
clubs and things like that.
So what that morphed itself intowas, hey, we can plant a lot of
trees for very little moneywithout even a whole lot of work
if we're working with Rotarybecause Rotary is so networked
in that maybe we should start aprogram that helps Rotary expand
(05:33):
the amount of trees that it'splanting.
And so we started to work onthat.
And it all still just kind ofgrows.
We were just in Calgary and itgrew again in that we can't
manage 120 different countriesworth of projects where we're
managing them.
So now we've actually taken someof my experience with the
(05:53):
corporate world and we'restarting to build micro networks
in different districts where webuild district teams.
We bring in university peopleand we bring in government
people and other NGO people toallow them to get trees planted
most of the time for free, itseems like lately, or really
discounted places to plant them.
And then anyone who wants toplant trees, we're trying to
(06:16):
help them be able to do it veryaffordably, very sustainably,
and hopefully offset theircarbon and maybe get to a
billion trees in 10 years, whichis the ultimate goal.
SPEAKER_02 (06:27):
Okay, so that was a lot of information.
I already know there's peopledriving in their cars going, how
did we go from a rock slide to abillion trees?
So what you're telling me isyour son, and thank goodness
everybody's okay.
I'm sure your son is alive andkicking and doing very well.
SPEAKER_00 (06:46):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (06:47):
What's your son's name?
SPEAKER_00 (06:48):
His name is Brendan.
SPEAKER_02 (06:49):
Way, way to go, Brendan.
Thank you for surviving a rockslide.
But I assume you said, well, wehad this rock slide, and then
after the rock slide, we had alot of time on our hands, which
turned into maybe we should dosomething about our carbon
footprint.
So how do we connect that?
Because I'm sure there's somepeople driving in their car
(07:10):
going, how do we go from a rockslide to maybe we should think
more about our carbon footprint?
Was the rock slide caused bypeople not taking care of their
carbon footprint?
Like, how did you go from one tothe other?
SPEAKER_00 (07:24):
If you're in Nepal...
you see some of the mostwonderful humanity and examples
of uh of culture and the food isamazing and the air is clean but
the pollution was really heavyand so it really kind of started
with hey there's a whole lot ofpollution here and there was
SPEAKER_02 (07:43):
okay wait wait you just said the air was clean but
you now said there was a wholebunch of pollution here i'm
SPEAKER_00 (07:50):
There's a lot of pollution as far as like people
who are trekking and they'rejust throwing things.
They're just throwing stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (07:56):
Yeah.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (07:57):
And the lack of infrastructure to be able to get
rid of garbage and things likethat.
So it's very dichotomous thatyou're in this place that feels
so pure as long as you don'tlook at your feet.
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
Gotcha.
A lot of it started out with,well, we love to do beach
cleanups.
And we thought, well, we'll docleaning while we did it.
We're at the
SPEAKER_02 (08:16):
top of the world.
Why don't we clean it up up heretoo?
SPEAKER_00 (08:19):
Right.
So it started out as that, andthen we're both park rangers, or
I was until recently, and so itjust kind of evolved with our
environmental ethic to where thebest way for us to offset our
harm that we may do as touristsis both to plant trees and also
(08:39):
to influence people positively.
as tourists and to do like asustainable tourism type of
thing, which led to plantingtrees.
Actually, a past districtgovernor, a friend of mine, Rick
Gromas, who's on our board now,he was a volunteer for me at the
job that I was doing.
And we were talking aboutplanting trees and how hard it
was for me to find a place toplant trees when I would travel.
(09:01):
So I was just offsetting thecarbon back at home.
And he said, you know, if youjoined Rotary, you'd have 1.2
million friends all around theworld who would love to plant
trees with you.
And we really found that,especially in Rotaract, that was
definitely true.
Rotaract actually is super,super hyped about planting
trees.
And we've actually had a part inplanting three Rotaract plants.
(09:23):
clubs.
SPEAKER_02 (09:24):
I was going to say three Rotaract clubs or three
Rotaractors in the ground to seeif they'll grow.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (09:30):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, like if you getthe right Rotaractor in the
ground, you never know, right?
You know, we've got one, we'vegot one particular Rotaractor in
Romania who we have a team inRomania to try to plant trees
because their government willgive them pretty much an
unlimited amount of trees andplant them.
So Romania is in this awesomeposition, but there's this kid
(09:52):
Dragos there.
And when we we meet with him,he's always like pushing the
envelope.
He's 18 year old actuallyinteractor and he pushes
everybody.
Oh, we're gonna do a thousandtrees on that planting.
Let's try to do 5,000 trees.
And so I think that trees andthe environment in general is a
really good purpose and talkingpoint for younger people, which
(10:13):
Rotary needs very much.
So I actually see theenvironment as something that we
need to push to the forefront ofRotary so that we can actually
grow because we're all concernedabout growth, especially with
younger people.
SPEAKER_02 (10:26):
So if there's somebody who's listening to my
voice who doesn't understandwhat you're saying when you say
offset carbon, can you give thedumbiest, the carbon for dummies
example of what are we talkingabout when we say that you and
your son were so interested inoffsetting your carbon
footprint?
What are you basically sayingwhen you say that?
SPEAKER_00 (10:48):
So the nuts and the bolts of it is pretty much
everything that we do, exceptfor walking and breathing and
swimming and things that don'tinvolve other things, including
just wearing clothes is going tohave a carbon footprint.
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
You
SPEAKER_00 (11:02):
can get all lost in the weeds of the politics of
carbon footprint and whateverybody tries to sell it as,
but it's definitely somethingthat we have emissions that are
part of that.
And there are a myriad of waysthat you can actually offset
carbon.
It's just that trees is one ofthe most obvious it's the low
fruit really when you're talkingabout carbon offsetting and it's
(11:26):
done wrong in a lot of cases andso it gets a little bit vilified
and so the thing about rotarythere's two things about rotary
that i think makes it superiorto almost any other organization
for doing tree planting forcarbon offsetting is that number
one we're in hundreds ofcountries 1.2 million of the
(11:47):
best volunteers in the world.
So whereas nonprofits have tostruggle to find places to plant
trees, as a rotary network, wedon't have to struggle to find
places to plant trees, right?
And number two, that volunteerbase is...
just amazing.
I was a volunteer coordinatorwith the park service and the
(12:10):
finding of a volunteer, a singlevolunteer that fits into
something is actually verydifficult to do unless you have
1.2 million volunteers who arealready
SPEAKER_02 (12:21):
willing to do it.
We volunteer to volunteer.
SPEAKER_00 (12:25):
Carbon sequestration You can get in the weeds on it,
but the simplest way of sayingit is that we're all doing
things that emit gases into theatmosphere that are detrimental
to the environment.
If we plant trees, they suck upthe major offender of that,
which is carbon into the treestructure itself.
(12:46):
And therefore, as long as thattree is alive, or it's being
used as timber, that carbon issequestered.
It's stuck inside of that woodand it's not in the atmosphere.
SPEAKER_02 (12:58):
So why trees?
Have you always loved trees?
Because you were a park ranger,which kind of makes sense to me,
but why trees?
Are trees the answer?
SPEAKER_00 (13:12):
I think trees are the answer, and this is a why.
I'll go outside of carbonsequestration for a minute.
I'll go to less traditional andless argumentative things.
Trees do like 150 differentservices for you.
They cool urban areas.
They do micro cooling in theirclimates.
They allow oxygen to go into theair.
You know, they aid in watertranspiration and water
(13:35):
filtration and, you know, windblocking during storms and all
these different things.
I think it's actually one of thefew things you can do that
applies to at least five of thecore principles of Rotary.
And so trees are just magical.
And there's more and morescience behind like how they
communicate beneath it and makethe forest work better and all
(13:59):
the microbiomes and all thesedifferent things.
But my favorite thing really isthat there's a study that says
if you have a tree in your yard,You live as much as three years
longer than somebody who doesn'thave a tree in their yard.
And so the psychological effectsof actually spending time
looking up at the blue skies andwatching the green leaves just
(14:21):
blow around, it's just kind ofmagical to be in the forest.
And I'd like to see moreforests.
SPEAKER_02 (14:28):
I'm in the process of actually saving a black
walnut that's in our backyardbecause everybody was like, oh,
no, you want to cut that downbecause it's toxic.
No, we're saving our tree.
So I'll be with you on thesaving of the tree part.
I agree.
So did you say you were anarchaeologist?
Did you say that as well?
(14:48):
Okay, so you're an archaeologistand a park ranger.
Or were you a park ranger andthen an archaeologist?
SPEAKER_00 (14:56):
I was a corporate guy.
after the Coast Guard and thengot kind of tired of the whole
corporate life and decided to goback to school to be an
archaeologist and be a parkranger at the same time.
And so I actually studiedecological archaeology.
I studied the sustainablefarming of the Maya from a
thousand years ago.
And it was a very interestingand eye-opening subject to both
(15:20):
for sustainability and just for,it's kind of fun to pretend
you're Indiana Jones every oncein a while.
SPEAKER_02 (15:25):
I was going to say, do you have the hat?
Do you have the wig
SPEAKER_00 (15:28):
or is that too private to ask?
I don't have any wigs, you know,but I do have a hat that I would
say resembles that and used tohave long hair.
And, you know, I was prettyquintessential trying to be that
adventurous guy.
I mean, I got caught in a rockslide in the fall, so I did a
little bit.
(15:48):
No one ever shot at me.
SPEAKER_02 (15:50):
That's true.
Right.
Yeah.
had you know opened an arcaround you or any
SPEAKER_00 (15:55):
cool stuff like that giant balls rolling after me
that i have to run from
SPEAKER_02 (15:59):
man bomber but to say that you went from that to
trees you say that trees couldvery well be the answer do you
take that from the park rangerside of you do you take it from
the archaeologist side of you orfrom Both like, because you took
this education, this extra stepin education, that's how you
(16:22):
think you found that this treesolution.
SPEAKER_00 (16:25):
I think that you add science to your argument by
taking education, but I thinkthat you're always who you are.
And when I was a kid, we alwayswent to national parks and did
the junior ranger thing.
And I've found that acombination of experiencing
other people's cultures and Andexperiencing the purity of
(16:47):
nature and things has made mewho I am.
And I think that a lot of peoplewould, uh, would stick with
that.
It's really hard if you go outthere and you just go on a
platform of, Hey, I love trees.
Don't you love trees?
Let's plant trees.
SPEAKER_02 (17:00):
Cause who's going to be an ass and say they don't
like a tree.
SPEAKER_00 (17:03):
Yeah, I hate trees.
Trees are evil.
I wish the whole world lookedlike
SPEAKER_02 (17:07):
them.
Hey, no one's going to want it.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:09):
So really the core of what we're doing is we're
saying, hey, it's actually cheapand easy to offset your carbon
with trees.
And we've got ways of making itsometimes free.
And trees are going to make yourcommunity more beautiful.
It's going to bring up yourcommunity's value for its
houses.
It's going to do all these greatthings for you.
And if we can't build them inyour community for some reason,
(17:31):
because you're in Timbuktu, twoor something like that, we
actually figured out ways thatyou can help replant the
rainforest.
So it's just a really easy wayto make the world a little bit
greener.
And the other thing that's inthe way that we're doing it that
I think is super cool is it'smaking connections all over the
world.
And so we kind of playmatchmaker both in the local
(17:53):
community with people who areoutside of Rotary, but we also
play matchmaker with people fromdifferent areas.
And so if you need to have apartner because where you want
to plant a million trees, youobviously can't afford a million
trees.
SPEAKER_01 (18:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (18:10):
There are areas where we can partner you with
people that can help to help youplant a million trees,
especially if they're 10 cents apiece like they are in some
places.
SPEAKER_02 (18:19):
So is planting a billion trees like is there some
places?
OK, let me let me start over bysaying we have this big blue
marble.
And what happens if 80% of thesebillion trees are in this one
section.
And then over here, there isn'tas many trees.
(18:40):
Will the trees still do theirjob?
Will they still help?
SPEAKER_00 (18:44):
They'll still do some portions of their job.
Right.
They're still going.
So we
SPEAKER_02 (18:48):
really need a global tree planting.
SPEAKER_00 (18:51):
Right.
That again is like where I thinkthat Rotary is best positioned.
And I won't name any names oforganizations, but if you dig
deep into a lot of these treeplanting organizations that are
big, big names, they're lucky tohave 12 different places around
the planet where they're gettingto plant trees and they're
planting them in mass andthey're doing wonderful things.
And I'm not bad mouthing them atall.
SPEAKER_01 (19:12):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (19:12):
But to have as many countries and communities as we
have accessible to us in Rotaryactually allows us to not only
do that whole overarchingworrying about carbon thing, but
we also get to make our citiescooler and make it a more
peaceful place to live and makeit so that there's more birds
chirping in our apartment windowand all these different things.
(19:35):
And so only about probably 20%of the services that trees do
for you are on a global scale.
SPEAKER_03 (19:43):
About
SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
80% is on a local scale.
And so we always encouragepeople to try to plant the trees
locally.
SPEAKER_02 (19:50):
So...
you call yourself, yourselfprofessed a tree cheerleader.
And before we get to thiscoalition that I know you wanted
to talk to me about, youmentioned real quickly that the
people who are most interestedin this environmental part of
things are, are interactors androtor actors.
In other words, on the showhere, we call them the mythical
(20:13):
rainbow unicorns.
In other words, the 30 and underRotarian.
And so our, our, Are a wholebunch of groups not getting
these youthful members becausethey're not concentrating on
this environmental part?
And if they do like engage youand your trees, they might
(20:34):
actually get some new members.
They may actually get some moreenergy in their group if they
think more environmentally.
SPEAKER_00 (20:42):
My son and I speak on when we speak at conferences
and things are growing yourrotary clubs by growing trees or
by planting trees.
So I believe that on a scale ofwhat you're saying that that's
true.
But I also think that the thingthat we're missing with bringing
young people in is purpose.
(21:02):
and
SPEAKER_03 (21:02):
purpose
SPEAKER_00 (21:03):
that are something they're drawn to.
So I don't think that the onlything they're drawn to is the
environment.
I again think it's kind of lowhanging fruit because young
people are eitherenvironmentalists or they
position themselves as such onsocial media.
And so we're tapping intosomething that allows them to
have esteem in what they'redoing and have purpose.
(21:27):
And everybody kind of gives thema bad rap because they got their
phone out all the time orwhatever, trying to...
That
SPEAKER_02 (21:34):
aren't exactly good for the environment.
SPEAKER_00 (21:36):
Right, right.
But the thing is, like, I reallysee a generation that actually
really wants to make adifference.
SPEAKER_02 (21:46):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (21:46):
You just have to find ways that that ties into
Rotary.
And that may expand theirability to do it because it's
definitely expanded my abilityto do it.
And like I told you, my26-year-old son was the one who
came up with the Billion Treesprogram.
So he and his cohort are verybehind it.
(22:06):
And that doesn't mean thatthere's not older people that
are behind it because there's alot of environmentalists that
are older people.
It means that it's a conduit forus to communicate to a
generation that has beenproblematic for us as Rotary, I
think.
SPEAKER_02 (22:23):
Well, because there's also, there's very much
some environmentalists that areolder.
I'm pushing the 60 mark and I'ma huge environmentalist.
My daughter kind of rolls hereyes every once in a while when
I'm talking about plastic andall that kind of stuff.
But we do have some olderRotarians that are climate
(22:44):
deniers, which also I find veryinteresting.
Have you had any hit back fromanybody?
SPEAKER_00 (22:50):
A little bit, but the best way to do that is when
I speak outside of Rotary.
Okay.
I'm normally just speaking abouthow great trees are, and that
trees are awesome, and I don'teven touch carbon sequestration,
right?
So let's
SPEAKER_02 (23:04):
just keep it simple.
Know your audience, as they sayin showbiz, right?
Know your audience, that ifyou're a bunch of climate
designers, but
SPEAKER_00 (23:13):
you like trees.
Yeah.
default to think that at least90% of Rotarians have an
environmental mindset.
I
SPEAKER_03 (23:20):
think so too.
SPEAKER_00 (23:21):
I don't feel badly throwing around carbon
sequestration as something.
But when you're outside of it,if you throw carbon
sequestration as the very firstthing that you're throwing out
there, there's so many peoplewho will just shut their ears.
SPEAKER_02 (23:33):
They'll just glaze over.
SPEAKER_00 (23:34):
They're like, oh, carbon sequestration equals
global warming equals let'sargue about this.
And so I find that when you'respeaking outside, you're saying,
hey, let's go plant trees.
It's the same as when we try todo programs with Rotary Clubs
and things like that, becauseall our programs are with Rotary
Clubs.
(23:55):
When you put the public thingsout there, we don't talk about
carbon sequestration ever.
It's like, hey, park, we'regoing to put a thousand trees in
this park and there's going tobe more birds and people are
going to be happy.
Kids are going to play in theshade.
And Everything's going to belike greener and more beautiful,
which is absolutely how you needto sell trees outside of an
(24:16):
organizational level.
At an organizational level,we've found that the average
Rotarian would offset theirrotary carbon footprint with
just eight trees per person.
SPEAKER_02 (24:26):
Wow.
Well, that makes me feel good.
I could plant eight trees on mybehalf.
SPEAKER_00 (24:32):
Sometimes like, and then they think, oh, well now I
have to plant a hundred dollartree.
So now it's been spending$800,but we're getting some, we're
getting a lot of trees for free,like millions of trees in the
last two months we've foundfree.
SPEAKER_02 (24:45):
So, so where do you get those trees?
I mean, cause we're obviouslytalking seedlings.
Now I, my past friends, where Iused to live was Washington
State.
And Washington State has a thingthat if you cut down a tree, you
have to plant 10 in its place.
So you'll see people after amajor cutting, you'll see tons
(25:08):
of timber people, timber men andwomen planting seedlings all up
and down a hillside, all up anddown a hillside.
So getting trees there waspretty easy.
But where do all these treescome from?
Some that are Like who's growingthem?
What are they?
A
SPEAKER_00 (25:24):
lot of times it's government or it's, I mean,
you're, you're almost alwaysgetting seedlings from
governments or nonprofits.
If you're going for biggertrees, then what you want to do
is try to exercise your networkwith landscapers and find a way
to get a tax deductible, allthose kinds of things.
And we do that sometimes, butmost of the time, like for
instance, in Florida, InFlorida, because I was park
(25:46):
service, I know exactly who togo to for at least certain kinds
of trees.
And so I get those trees forabout 25 cents a piece.
SPEAKER_01 (25:53):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (25:53):
And in America, 25 cents a piece is really, really
inexpensive for trees.
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (25:58):
And you're talking seedlings, just so we're all on
the same page.
We're not talking, you went tothe local beautiful nursery and
bought some fabulous Japanesemaple.
This is like a seedling.
SPEAKER_00 (26:09):
Right.
And most of the seedlings thatwe try to get are at least a
foot tall.
Some of them are up to threefoot tall and we can
SPEAKER_02 (26:16):
get
SPEAKER_00 (26:16):
for 25 cents in Florida.
That's what Romania is giving toany Rotary Club in Romania that
wants for free.
So we're not talking about liketiny little seedlings, but But
something that's maybe a foot tothree foot tall has a foot to
three foot of root mass orwhatever, things like that.
(26:37):
Those are the best.
A lot of people think that youhave to plant a really big tree
because that big tree is a lotmore likely to live.
And plus you have a betterpicture for Instagram or
whatever.
But if you study it, you seethat over 30% of those big trees
die.
(26:57):
Wow.
And so no matter what you do,you're going to take care of
them.
They go through shock.
They've also been inside of anursery where they've been
babied for four years and nowyou're in a normal environment.
So you're going to lose acertain percentage of those
trees and maybe you're paying ahundred dollars for this tree,
right?
So I buy a seven foot tree.
It's a hundred dollars.
I put it in the ground.
It has a 70% chance, let's sayroughly of living, right?
(27:21):
For that price.
I could get hundreds ofseedlings, plant a diverse micro
forest, right?
And 30 years down the road, Iprobably have 30 times the
amount of trees.
You might have lost, let's sayyou lose 70% so that you're
totally at the different thing.
But if you lose 70% of 25 centtrees compared to 30% of$100
(27:44):
trees, you're making a whole lotmore impact by planting a bunch
of seedlings, especially ifthey're native.
if they're accustomed to theenvironmental conditions that
you're in.
A lot of our stuff that we'redoing is in county parks,
national parks, state parks,especially a lot of state park
(28:05):
stuff in Florida because we juststarted a few months ago.
But we do have some really bigthings coming up in Brazil,
India.
Of course, I'm working with theteam in Romania.
We've got teams starting in 103countries, I think, right now.
So we'll have trades going upall over the world here pretty
soon.
The other part of this isnobody's tracking how many trees
(28:27):
that Rotarians plant around theworld.
And we were trying to sit down,a few of us, and discuss like
what we thought.
We think they're probablyplanting six or seven million a
year, which was the number theygot to when Ian Risely was the
president.
But it could be as much as 20million trees because really
nobody's counting them.
And we found some very largetrees.
(28:49):
projects that were already goingon that we're trying to wrap
into and see if we can scale orsee if we can learn from and
things like that.
So we're already planting a lotof trees as Rotarians, but we're
only like at the tip of theiceberg of what we could do with
1.2 million people who areengaged in trying to plant some
trees.
Or
SPEAKER_02 (29:06):
how much you have done because we just don't have
the data telling us how muchyou've done.
SPEAKER_03 (29:11):
So
SPEAKER_02 (29:13):
let me ask you a question because you did say
something that 30 years fromnow, I mean, I would be in my
90s, okay?
I don't know how old you wouldbe.
I would love to see a tree 30years from now that I planted.
SPEAKER_03 (29:26):
You
SPEAKER_02 (29:27):
can do it.
Let's do it.
But the question is, is thiskind of slow moving?
I mean, you listen to some ofthe doom and gloom in the
environmental world and it's toolate.
We've already tipped.
The end is near, you know?
Have another cocktail becausethe world is just going to hell.
(29:49):
Is a tree I'm going to plant nowmake any difference if it's a
little seedling like that?
SPEAKER_00 (29:56):
Well, so of course it does.
There's two things that I reallylove that both have kind of to
do with this.
Okay.
One is, I think it's a Chineseproverb or something, and it's
like you never plant a tree thatyou plan on living under its
shade.
Under its
SPEAKER_02 (30:10):
shade, yep.
SPEAKER_00 (30:11):
Right?
And the other one is...
the best time to plant a treewas 20 years ago, but well, you
should settle for today.
You know, the second best timewas today.
SPEAKER_01 (30:21):
Gotcha.
SPEAKER_00 (30:22):
Yeah.
It's not going to immediatelyturn the world around if you are
one of those doom and gloomerswho think that we've got 20
years until Florida's underwateror whatever.
SPEAKER_03 (30:35):
Right,
SPEAKER_00 (30:36):
right.
This isn't the answer to that.
If that ends up being true, thenthis is for the other part of
the world that doesn't end upunderwater.
I'm not one that subscribes tothat level of gloom and doom and
that kind of thing.
But all it can do is good.
There's nothing negative aboutplanting a tree unless you plant
(30:58):
some invasive tree that takesover.
But I mean, if you're plantingthe right tree in the right
place, there's really nothingnegative that's going to come of
that.
And there'll be people who couldargue that and they're like, it
could fall on my house.
Well, don't plant it a littlefurther away from your house,
you know?
SPEAKER_03 (31:17):
Yeah.
I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_00 (31:19):
Yeah.
So there's just really nonegative to it.
And it's such a visual and hotpoint for the world right now
that it only makes sense forRotary to take leadership in it
because Rotary We're looking forthings to take leadership in.
And I really think that we'rebetter structured than almost
(31:41):
anyone who's trying to tackletrees right now because of how
widespread and how amazing ourpeople are.
SPEAKER_02 (31:49):
So we have those amazing people.
And I would be really remiss ifI didn't include in this podcast
something that we talked aboutbefore we went on air today.
And that is that you...
are a huge person on trying toget a coalition together of some
of these environmental groups.
And I'm just going to putenvironmental group under like,
(32:12):
you know, an umbrella.
We have, of course, the handwashing and we have wells and we
have all these different things.
But one of our favoritefellowships here on the show was
from Slovenia.
There was the bee fellowship,which we had so much fun with.
And we have...
All of these great groups thatare doing this environmental
stuff, you, Corey, are the firstperson that said, I don't
(32:34):
understand how come we're notworking all together, which was
like music to my ears.
Tell me what your real masterplan with these environmental
groups is.
SPEAKER_00 (32:44):
So I wouldn't want to say that I'm the...
total like driving force behindit this came from a really quick
discussion between n plasticsoup the bee fellowship and
ourselves and then trying todraw in other people from esrag
and things like that but beestrees and seas are even and will
include our fresh water and seasbecause it doesn't rhyme to say
(33:07):
and fresh water or whatever sowater quality water preservation
the need for pollinators, notjust bees, and the need for
trees, if we had all three ofthose working in concert as
environmental movements,
SPEAKER_03 (33:24):
then
SPEAKER_00 (33:25):
you see a real, real difference in the environment.
And so just being part of adialect for a bees, trees and
seas coalition is an honor.
I do see it being something thatcould drive Rotary forward,
especially in our seventh areaof focus.
But they're all likeinterrelated.
Like it took us five minutes tocome up with a project that
(33:47):
would help with watercleanliness and plant trees and
have pollinator gardens.
And so it's something that youcould work together.
But also the thing that we'refinding with the tree movement
and that other friends of mineare finding with different
environmental movements is onceyou have the network in place,
then it makes everything easier.
(34:08):
So now you are networking thenetworking part.
You know, let's think of it likeinternet, right?
And when you lock one networkwith another network, that's
when it works synergistically.
And to me, that's the model forall of Rotary is we don't need
to have our program.
We wouldn't have my club's nameon the Rotary Clubs United for
(34:30):
One Billion Trees if it wasn'tthat you had to have a club's
name on it.
Right.
We actually started in threecountries.
This is a club who ended upbeing under it, I guess, because
I'm the big mouth of the groupor whatever.
But I don't I love my club.
I love that my club's name is onit, but I don't really take a
source of pride from that.
(34:51):
I really think it's that allRotary programs should be Rotary
programs and we shouldn't becompeting programs.
And if I can help your programdo this or I can help your
program do that, then let's doit.
And so with bees, trees, andseeds, if that comes to
fruition, because it juststarted in Calgary where we
started discussing it, we have abig call that we're talking
(35:12):
about it next week.
But if that happens, then whatit does really is it just allows
that network to build and itgives you somebody to lean on.
But also, if you've been toEurope, do you know about in
plastic soup?
SPEAKER_02 (35:27):
No, I was going to talk about that after this.
Go ahead and give them a plugfor
SPEAKER_00 (35:31):
sure.
I want to give them a real quickplug because if you go to Europe
and you talk about anythingenvironmental, whatever, they're
like, hey, have you heard of InPlastic Soup?
It's this great organizationthat does a whole lot of things
for publicity and for actualphysical cleanups and things
like that of plastics andmicroplastics and tries to get
(35:52):
the word out of what plasticsare doing both to our bodies and
to the environment in theirThey're fire in Europe.
They're really growing likecrazy in Europe.
And so I had the opportunity tospeak with Garrett, who runs
that at the Rotary DanubeAlliance Conference in Galati,
Romania recently.
(36:12):
And we just kind of, we hit itoff in Calgary.
We said, how do we make thisbigger?
How do we make this that theenvironment rolls to the front
of Rotary?
And we think that havingcoalitions like this that work
with Ezrag with the differentroad reaction groups and things
like that, where everybodydoesn't have a proprietary
(36:34):
ownership of some program orwhatever.
It just will, it'll be moreRotarian.
SPEAKER_03 (36:41):
Because
SPEAKER_00 (36:42):
I don't want to have to compete with another tree
planting rotary program.
I just want to see, can I helpyou refine some part of yours
and you can help me refine somepart of yours.
Same goes for bees.
I get bees next week, I think.
So I have a totally organickitchen garden, my whole yard.
And so we don't have enough beesright now.
So we're going to get some beesin and, you know, we're going to
(37:04):
try to recycle and do all thesethings.
So why not tie the entireenvironmental ethic together
into a Well,
SPEAKER_02 (37:15):
I'm, I'm, I'm a full supporter.
I'm actually kind of a believerthat I think if we put
environmental on the top of ourseven areas of focus, things
like war and peace and, youknow, clean water and all that
kind of stuff, we'll all kind offilter in.
So, well, please.
SPEAKER_00 (37:36):
And the biggest thing that I would say is a
takeaway from tree planting allover the world, because I've
done it in five continents now.
No, four continents now.
Sorry, I've done it in fourcontinents now.
And when you plant trees withsomebody, they realize that you
care about them.
You see it in their faces.
We record these things.
We haven't put them out onYouTube per se yet, but we
(37:59):
record these and you see ontheir faces that they're just
impressed that you care aboutthem.
And you're giving a tangibleliving legacy of how you care
about them by leaving a treewhere they are.
And it's got to sponsor peace.
SPEAKER_03 (38:14):
I
SPEAKER_00 (38:14):
mean, I haven't gotten to do it in anywhere that
was traditionally not at peacewith America to test that part
of it out.
But if you have friendshipsaround the world, then you have
at least some conduit for peace.
And we can also realize thatThis is going to be a little
anthropological, but we're awhole lot more similar than we
(38:34):
are different from the peoplethat we don't traditionally have
peace with.
We want the same things and thatincludes trees and that includes
our kids growing up and beinghappy and to giggle and play
football.
And I mean, like, so as manyplaces as I've traveled and I've
traveled to 53 countries, I haveyet to see anywhere that has
(38:55):
trees.
more differences thansimilarities to us.
And so the more that we'rebonded and the more that we get
together and we love each otherand we do projects together,
whether it's trees or not, thebetter that we're going to be as
Rotary and as just a world.
SPEAKER_02 (39:09):
Well, amen to that.
So, Corey, I got one lastquestion for you, and I thank
you so much.
You're on vacation.
So thank you for breaking in,letting me break into your
vacation for this interview.
What do you think the worldwould look like when that
billionth tree goes in theground?
(39:29):
What does that world look like?
I don't know.
I mean, is it like a chainreaction?
Like, is it the hundredth monkeyand you put that billionth tree
in and all of a sudden the worldis a beautiful place?
SPEAKER_00 (39:41):
No, if it was the fourth trillionth tree, you
know, then we might seesomething like that.
I think that it's more aboutWhat does Rotary look like if
they're able to combine forcesto do this?
I think Rotary both grows, butit also grows metaphysically,
(40:02):
right?
It becomes an organization thatmaybe both has more people, but
also has more voice.
And there's other programs thatare trying to do a billion
trees.
There's governmental programs,there's a billion trees, things
like that.
Now, if all of those aresuccessful, then maybe we have a
much greener world and thehurricanes calm down or whatever
(40:22):
it is that's going to happen.
But I really think that...
it's making whatevercontribution that we can make as
Rotary.
And if we can get to a billiontrees by 2035, then maybe we
target planting a billion treesa year and see if we can get
there in 10 years.
And so I think it's just agrowing opportunity for us as
Rotary.
And it's a way to say, hey, Wereally do believe in this
(40:47):
environmental area of focus, andwe really would like to make a
difference there and make thetype of difference that Rotary
can make instead of the type ofdifference that a bunch of
disparate programs within Rotarycan make.
SPEAKER_02 (41:03):
A growing answer, all pun intended, right?
UNKNOWN (41:07):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (41:08):
Corey, thank you so much for being on the show.
I love it.
It is the, let's get this VeraBeach.
So Rotary Clubs United.
for planting 1 billion trees.
And if anybody wants to get ahold of your group, can we just
like club runner the Vero Beach,Florida?
SPEAKER_00 (41:30):
There's five clubs in Vero Beach.
I belong to the Oceanside one,but also you have my contact
information, I think, but ifnot, we can put it down in the
bottom.
And they can go to thefellowshipofthetrees.org.
SPEAK (41:45):
fellowshipofthetrees.org.
SPEAKER_00 (41:48):
Okay.
That is the nonprofit thatsupports the program.
But the best thing I would sayis if you'll put my email in the
bottom, it still hasn't outgrownme answering the emails.
So they can just email me andI'll get them with either me or
one of my team.
We'll start working on theirdistrict team to plant the trees
and see if we can do some magic.
(42:09):
I know our districtparticularly, it looks like
Almost every club is about tojoin.
We're going to join forces toplant 10,000 trees in Florida as
a fundraiser to plant a quartermillion trees a year in Brazil.
SPEAKER_01 (42:23):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (42:24):
You can do really magical like rotary math things
when you put your efforts andyour money and all those things
together.
SPEAK (42:31):
Fellowshipofthetrees.org.
Corey, the self-proclaimed treecheerleader.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
It's been an honor to have you.
SPEAKER_00 (42:41):
You're welcome.
It was an honor to be on hereand I appreciate it.
And I hope that your newlymarketed podcast goes off
really, really well.
SPEAKER_02 (42:51):
Well, thank you.
The old name seemed to do prettywell since 2019.
Let's hope the new one does too.
SPEAKER_00 (42:59):
We all evolve.
SPEAKER_02 (43:00):
That's right.
Yes, we do, Corey.
We all evolve.
Thank you so much for joining meon the show today, you guys.
Hey, what do you think onebillion trees and the way cory
talks about it we have over amillion people and rotary is
growing so just like the growingof rotary we could grow a tree i
(43:25):
mean let's just face it let'sthink of the numbers here people
if every single rotarian justplanted one tree we'd be up to
two billion two two two millionif everybody planted two trees
if every rotarian planted fivetrees We'd be halfway there.
Over.
Excuse me.
(43:45):
Maybe close to three quarters ofthe way there.
Anyway, let's think about it,shall we?
Let's plant a billion trees.
And Corey is there to help us.
The Rotary Clubs United forPlanting One Billion Trees.
Thank you so much for being onthe show this week.
And thank you so much out therefor listening.
(44:05):
Hey, if you liked the show,whatever it was named, please
get others to...
Join us in the listening party.
Have them download us and rateus.
As I've told you a milliontimes, that makes it easier for
everyone to find the Action toImpact podcast.
And if you'd like to hear mymore musical side, check me out
on the radio.
(44:26):
I have a weekly radio show onRotary Radio UK.
Alright then, until next week.
As I've said before, take careof yourself and the world around
you and we'll hear you next weekon the Action to impact podcast.
Have a wonderful week,everybody.
Thank you so much for being outthere listening.
(44:48):
We'll talk to you soon.
Hi there everyone, I'm Gwen Jones and welcome once
again to the Action to Impactpodcast, the weekly podcast
where I introduce you towonderful people from all over
the world that are turning theiractions into impact.
Well this week we're on anenvironmental kick.
Remember a few weeks ago welearned about some wonderful
(00:22):
seniors that are cleaning upponds all over Cape Cod.
Well this one has got more of aworldwide tinged I'm being
joined today by Corey Kirkala.
And who is he?
Well, he is the guy who's incharge of the Rotary Club's
United for One Billion Trees.
(00:43):
That's right.
One billion trees.
Now, I got to tell you, Coreyhas not been in Rotary for very
long.
And to say that this gentlemanis already making an impact,
well, did I mention one billiontrees?
So join me, won't you?
The podcast takes on anenvironmental kick this week,
(01:07):
talking about Rotarians from allover the world and the ease and
wonder of planting trees.
Welcome back to the podcast,everybody.
I'm super excited.
I am off to Florida, Vera Beach,Florida, for the record, to
speak to Corey Kirkula.
And I nailed his last name andhe wasn't sure I could tell you.
(01:27):
He wasn't sure if I was going toget his last name.
But He is a representative of anamazing group, Rotary Clubs
United for One Billion Trees,for planting, that is, one
billion trees.
And I don't think I, as apodcaster, do enough about the
environment and what Rotary isdoing in the environment.
And Corey's going to fix thatproblem right here, right now.
(01:50):
Corey, welcome to the show.
It's so great to have you.
SPEAKER_00 (01:53):
Thank you so much.
I'm thrilled to be here andlooking forward to kind of
sharing some of the things thatI think are amazing that are
going on with Rotary right
SPEAKER_02 (02:03):
now.
So, awesome.
First off, awesome.
Second of all, I had originallyslotted this was a fellowship,
so we're going to get that outof the way.
As of right now, you are not afellowship, but maybe in the
future.
Is that a good way to look atit?
We're crossing our fingers andour toes.
SPEAKER_00 (02:22):
Definitely, there's some unders...
Sorry.
SPEAKER_02 (02:26):
The paperwork has been filled out.
How do we say it?
SPEAKER_00 (02:29):
There's been some processes that are going on that
will allow fellowships to be alittle bit more broad and be a
little bit more environmentaland activism type of
orientation.
So there is the opportunity forme to reapply or for our group
to reapply as a fellowship.
And we may take that upeventually.
But for right now, we're goingforward as a major multinational
(02:52):
Rotary program.
And we set up a nonprofit tosupport So we're just kind of
doing the best of both worlds,acting like it's a fellowship,
but also bringing forth like anetworking opportunity that may
actually be better thanfellowship.
SPEAKER_02 (03:06):
Okay.
So we got all that paperwork outof the way.
So that's awesome.
But of course, everybody's like,okay, that's great.
We weren't privy to thatconversation.
So we don't know what all thatmeans, but...
We would like to find out abouta billion trees.
Now, first off, I also want tothrow you under the bus that
you've only been a Rotarian for18 months.
So you've been a Rotarian for 18months.
(03:29):
You've already put together acoalition of tree planters and
you're on the podcast.
Not necessarily in that order,but that's that's pretty good
for 18 months.
I just got to say.
SPEAKER_00 (03:40):
And I've been president of my club for a
couple of months.
And so we're doing some bigthings.
The program's already in over100 countries with members right
now.
It truly is an internationalrotary, almost, I don't know,
it's just taken a life of itsown at this point.
And I'm just excited to kind ofme and my team try to help
(04:02):
direct it into becomingsomething that hopefully is very
important.
SPEAKER_02 (04:05):
Well, let's get to the it, shall we?
Because everybody's alreadylike, damn, in 18 months, I
can't get somebody to likevolunteer to do the bulletin.
And you have this multicultural,multi-country fast thing.
Tell us what exactly is theRotary Clubs United for planting
(04:25):
1 billion trees.
What is it, Corey?
SPEAKER_00 (04:28):
So this is something that was born of almost like a
near-death experience.
My son and I have traveled alot.
We're both anthropologists, andwe had been traveling around the
world, and we almost died in arock slide in Nepal.
Wow.
And afterwards, you're in Nepal,so you have a lot of time to
talk with your son.
(04:49):
And he kind of came up with theidea that we would start to
offset our carbon every timethat we traveled, start a
YouTube channel that tried topromote things that had to do
with responsible travel andenvironmental travel and
cultural heritage and kind ofrespecting that.
And that kind of evolved into mebecoming a Rotarian.
(05:09):
And then starting about 18months ago to plant trees
everywhere that I went withother Rotary clubs and Rotaract
clubs and things like that.
So what that morphed itself intowas, hey, we can plant a lot of
trees for very little moneywithout even a whole lot of work
if we're working with Rotarybecause Rotary is so networked
in that maybe we should start aprogram that helps Rotary expand
(05:33):
the amount of trees that it'splanting.
And so we started to work onthat.
And it all still just kind ofgrows.
We were just in Calgary and itgrew again in that we can't
manage 120 different countriesworth of projects where we're
managing them.
So now we've actually taken someof my experience with the
(05:53):
corporate world and we'restarting to build micro networks
in different districts where webuild district teams.
We bring in university peopleand we bring in government
people and other NGO people toallow them to get trees planted
most of the time for free, itseems like lately, or really
discounted places to plant them.
And then anyone who wants toplant trees, we're trying to
(06:16):
help them be able to do it veryaffordably, very sustainably,
and hopefully offset theircarbon and maybe get to a
billion trees in 10 years, whichis the ultimate goal.
SPEAKER_02 (06:27):
Okay, so that was a lot of information.
I already know there's peopledriving in their cars going, how
did we go from a rock slide to abillion trees?
So what you're telling me isyour son, and thank goodness
everybody's okay.
I'm sure your son is alive andkicking and doing very well.
SPEAKER_00 (06:46):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (06:47):
What's your son's name?
SPEAKER_00 (06:48):
His name is Brendan.
SPEAKER_02 (06:49):
Way, way to go, Brendan.
Thank you for surviving a rockslide.
But I assume you said, well, wehad this rock slide, and then
after the rock slide, we had alot of time on our hands, which
turned into maybe we should dosomething about our carbon
footprint.
So how do we connect that?
Because I'm sure there's somepeople driving in their car
(07:10):
going, how do we go from a rockslide to maybe we should think
more about our carbon footprint?
Was the rock slide caused bypeople not taking care of their
carbon footprint?
Like, how did you go from one tothe other?
SPEAKER_00 (07:24):
If you're in Nepal...
you see some of the mostwonderful humanity and examples
of uh of culture and the food isamazing and the air is clean but
the pollution was really heavyand so it really kind of started
with hey there's a whole lot ofpollution here and there was
SPEAKER_02 (07:43):
okay wait wait you just said the air was clean but
you now said there was a wholebunch of pollution here i'm
SPEAKER_00 (07:50):
There's a lot of pollution as far as like people
who are trekking and they'rejust throwing things.
They're just throwing stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (07:56):
Yeah.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (07:57):
And the lack of infrastructure to be able to get
rid of garbage and things likethat.
So it's very dichotomous thatyou're in this place that feels
so pure as long as you don'tlook at your feet.
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
Gotcha.
A lot of it started out with,well, we love to do beach
cleanups.
And we thought, well, we'll docleaning while we did it.
We're at the
SPEAKER_02 (08:16):
top of the world.
Why don't we clean it up up heretoo?
SPEAKER_00 (08:19):
Right.
So it started out as that, andthen we're both park rangers, or
I was until recently, and so itjust kind of evolved with our
environmental ethic to where thebest way for us to offset our
harm that we may do as touristsis both to plant trees and also
(08:39):
to influence people positively.
as tourists and to do like asustainable tourism type of
thing, which led to plantingtrees.
Actually, a past districtgovernor, a friend of mine, Rick
Gromas, who's on our board now,he was a volunteer for me at the
job that I was doing.
And we were talking aboutplanting trees and how hard it
was for me to find a place toplant trees when I would travel.
(09:01):
So I was just offsetting thecarbon back at home.
And he said, you know, if youjoined Rotary, you'd have 1.2
million friends all around theworld who would love to plant
trees with you.
And we really found that,especially in Rotaract, that was
definitely true.
Rotaract actually is super,super hyped about planting
trees.
And we've actually had a part inplanting three Rotaract plants.
(09:23):
clubs.
SPEAKER_02 (09:24):
I was going to say three Rotaract clubs or three
Rotaractors in the ground to seeif they'll grow.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (09:30):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, like if you getthe right Rotaractor in the
ground, you never know, right?
You know, we've got one, we'vegot one particular Rotaractor in
Romania who we have a team inRomania to try to plant trees
because their government willgive them pretty much an
unlimited amount of trees andplant them.
So Romania is in this awesomeposition, but there's this kid
(09:52):
Dragos there.
And when we we meet with him,he's always like pushing the
envelope.
He's 18 year old actuallyinteractor and he pushes
everybody.
Oh, we're gonna do a thousandtrees on that planting.
Let's try to do 5,000 trees.
And so I think that trees andthe environment in general is a
really good purpose and talkingpoint for younger people, which
(10:13):
Rotary needs very much.
So I actually see theenvironment as something that we
need to push to the forefront ofRotary so that we can actually
grow because we're all concernedabout growth, especially with
younger people.
SPEAKER_02 (10:26):
So if there's somebody who's listening to my
voice who doesn't understandwhat you're saying when you say
offset carbon, can you give thedumbiest, the carbon for dummies
example of what are we talkingabout when we say that you and
your son were so interested inoffsetting your carbon
footprint?
What are you basically sayingwhen you say that?
SPEAKER_00 (10:48):
So the nuts and the bolts of it is pretty much
everything that we do, exceptfor walking and breathing and
swimming and things that don'tinvolve other things, including
just wearing clothes is going tohave a carbon footprint.
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
You
SPEAKER_00 (11:02):
can get all lost in the weeds of the politics of
carbon footprint and whateverybody tries to sell it as,
but it's definitely somethingthat we have emissions that are
part of that.
And there are a myriad of waysthat you can actually offset
carbon.
It's just that trees is one ofthe most obvious it's the low
fruit really when you're talkingabout carbon offsetting and it's
(11:26):
done wrong in a lot of cases andso it gets a little bit vilified
and so the thing about rotarythere's two things about rotary
that i think makes it superiorto almost any other organization
for doing tree planting forcarbon offsetting is that number
one we're in hundreds ofcountries 1.2 million of the
(11:47):
best volunteers in the world.
So whereas nonprofits have tostruggle to find places to plant
trees, as a rotary network, wedon't have to struggle to find
places to plant trees, right?
And number two, that volunteerbase is...
just amazing.
I was a volunteer coordinatorwith the park service and the
(12:10):
finding of a volunteer, a singlevolunteer that fits into
something is actually verydifficult to do unless you have
1.2 million volunteers who arealready
SPEAKER_02 (12:21):
willing to do it.
We volunteer to volunteer.
SPEAKER_00 (12:25):
Carbon sequestration You can get in the weeds on it,
but the simplest way of sayingit is that we're all doing
things that emit gases into theatmosphere that are detrimental
to the environment.
If we plant trees, they suck upthe major offender of that,
which is carbon into the treestructure itself.
(12:46):
And therefore, as long as thattree is alive, or it's being
used as timber, that carbon issequestered.
It's stuck inside of that woodand it's not in the atmosphere.
SPEAKER_02 (12:58):
So why trees?
Have you always loved trees?
Because you were a park ranger,which kind of makes sense to me,
but why trees?
Are trees the answer?
SPEAKER_00 (13:12):
I think trees are the answer, and this is a why.
I'll go outside of carbonsequestration for a minute.
I'll go to less traditional andless argumentative things.
Trees do like 150 differentservices for you.
They cool urban areas.
They do micro cooling in theirclimates.
They allow oxygen to go into theair.
You know, they aid in watertranspiration and water
(13:35):
filtration and, you know, windblocking during storms and all
these different things.
I think it's actually one of thefew things you can do that
applies to at least five of thecore principles of Rotary.
And so trees are just magical.
And there's more and morescience behind like how they
communicate beneath it and makethe forest work better and all
(13:59):
the microbiomes and all thesedifferent things.
But my favorite thing really isthat there's a study that says
if you have a tree in your yard,You live as much as three years
longer than somebody who doesn'thave a tree in their yard.
And so the psychological effectsof actually spending time
looking up at the blue skies andwatching the green leaves just
(14:21):
blow around, it's just kind ofmagical to be in the forest.
And I'd like to see moreforests.
SPEAKER_02 (14:28):
I'm in the process of actually saving a black
walnut that's in our backyardbecause everybody was like, oh,
no, you want to cut that downbecause it's toxic.
No, we're saving our tree.
So I'll be with you on thesaving of the tree part.
I agree.
So did you say you were anarchaeologist?
Did you say that as well?
(14:48):
Okay, so you're an archaeologistand a park ranger.
Or were you a park ranger andthen an archaeologist?
SPEAKER_00 (14:56):
I was a corporate guy.
after the Coast Guard and thengot kind of tired of the whole
corporate life and decided to goback to school to be an
archaeologist and be a parkranger at the same time.
And so I actually studiedecological archaeology.
I studied the sustainablefarming of the Maya from a
thousand years ago.
And it was a very interestingand eye-opening subject to both
(15:20):
for sustainability and just for,it's kind of fun to pretend
you're Indiana Jones every oncein a while.
SPEAKER_02 (15:25):
I was going to say, do you have the hat?
Do you have the wig
SPEAKER_00 (15:28):
or is that too private to ask?
I don't have any wigs, you know,but I do have a hat that I would
say resembles that and used tohave long hair.
And, you know, I was prettyquintessential trying to be that
adventurous guy.
I mean, I got caught in a rockslide in the fall, so I did a
little bit.
(15:48):
No one ever shot at me.
SPEAKER_02 (15:50):
That's true.
Right.
Yeah.
had you know opened an arcaround you or any
SPEAKER_00 (15:55):
cool stuff like that giant balls rolling after me
that i have to run from
SPEAKER_02 (15:59):
man bomber but to say that you went from that to
trees you say that trees couldvery well be the answer do you
take that from the park rangerside of you do you take it from
the archaeologist side of you orfrom Both like, because you took
this education, this extra stepin education, that's how you
(16:22):
think you found that this treesolution.
SPEAKER_00 (16:25):
I think that you add science to your argument by
taking education, but I thinkthat you're always who you are.
And when I was a kid, we alwayswent to national parks and did
the junior ranger thing.
And I've found that acombination of experiencing
other people's cultures and Andexperiencing the purity of
(16:47):
nature and things has made mewho I am.
And I think that a lot of peoplewould, uh, would stick with
that.
It's really hard if you go outthere and you just go on a
platform of, Hey, I love trees.
Don't you love trees?
Let's plant trees.
SPEAKER_02 (17:00):
Cause who's going to be an ass and say they don't
like a tree.
SPEAKER_00 (17:03):
Yeah, I hate trees.
Trees are evil.
I wish the whole world lookedlike
SPEAKER_02 (17:07):
them.
Hey, no one's going to want it.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:09):
So really the core of what we're doing is we're
saying, hey, it's actually cheapand easy to offset your carbon
with trees.
And we've got ways of making itsometimes free.
And trees are going to make yourcommunity more beautiful.
It's going to bring up yourcommunity's value for its
houses.
It's going to do all these greatthings for you.
And if we can't build them inyour community for some reason,
(17:31):
because you're in Timbuktu, twoor something like that, we
actually figured out ways thatyou can help replant the
rainforest.
So it's just a really easy wayto make the world a little bit
greener.
And the other thing that's inthe way that we're doing it that
I think is super cool is it'smaking connections all over the
world.
And so we kind of playmatchmaker both in the local
(17:53):
community with people who areoutside of Rotary, but we also
play matchmaker with people fromdifferent areas.
And so if you need to have apartner because where you want
to plant a million trees, youobviously can't afford a million
trees.
SPEAKER_01 (18:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (18:10):
There are areas where we can partner you with
people that can help to help youplant a million trees,
especially if they're 10 cents apiece like they are in some
places.
SPEAKER_02 (18:19):
So is planting a billion trees like is there some
places?
OK, let me let me start over bysaying we have this big blue
marble.
And what happens if 80% of thesebillion trees are in this one
section.
And then over here, there isn'tas many trees.
(18:40):
Will the trees still do theirjob?
Will they still help?
SPEAKER_00 (18:44):
They'll still do some portions of their job.
Right.
They're still going.
So we
SPEAKER_02 (18:48):
really need a global tree planting.
SPEAKER_00 (18:51):
Right.
That again is like where I thinkthat Rotary is best positioned.
And I won't name any names oforganizations, but if you dig
deep into a lot of these treeplanting organizations that are
big, big names, they're lucky tohave 12 different places around
the planet where they're gettingto plant trees and they're
planting them in mass andthey're doing wonderful things.
And I'm not bad mouthing them atall.
SPEAKER_01 (19:12):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (19:12):
But to have as many countries and communities as we
have accessible to us in Rotaryactually allows us to not only
do that whole overarchingworrying about carbon thing, but
we also get to make our citiescooler and make it a more
peaceful place to live and makeit so that there's more birds
chirping in our apartment windowand all these different things.
(19:35):
And so only about probably 20%of the services that trees do
for you are on a global scale.
SPEAKER_03 (19:43):
About
SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
80% is on a local scale.
And so we always encouragepeople to try to plant the trees
locally.
SPEAKER_02 (19:50):
So...
you call yourself, yourselfprofessed a tree cheerleader.
And before we get to thiscoalition that I know you wanted
to talk to me about, youmentioned real quickly that the
people who are most interestedin this environmental part of
things are, are interactors androtor actors.
In other words, on the showhere, we call them the mythical
(20:13):
rainbow unicorns.
In other words, the 30 and underRotarian.
And so our, our, Are a wholebunch of groups not getting
these youthful members becausethey're not concentrating on
this environmental part?
And if they do like engage youand your trees, they might
(20:34):
actually get some new members.
They may actually get some moreenergy in their group if they
think more environmentally.
SPEAKER_00 (20:42):
My son and I speak on when we speak at conferences
and things are growing yourrotary clubs by growing trees or
by planting trees.
So I believe that on a scale ofwhat you're saying that that's
true.
But I also think that the thingthat we're missing with bringing
young people in is purpose.
(21:02):
and
SPEAKER_03 (21:02):
purpose
SPEAKER_00 (21:03):
that are something they're drawn to.
So I don't think that the onlything they're drawn to is the
environment.
I again think it's kind of lowhanging fruit because young
people are eitherenvironmentalists or they
position themselves as such onsocial media.
And so we're tapping intosomething that allows them to
have esteem in what they'redoing and have purpose.
(21:27):
And everybody kind of gives thema bad rap because they got their
phone out all the time orwhatever, trying to...
That
SPEAKER_02 (21:34):
aren't exactly good for the environment.
SPEAKER_00 (21:36):
Right, right.
But the thing is, like, I reallysee a generation that actually
really wants to make adifference.
SPEAKER_02 (21:46):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (21:46):
You just have to find ways that that ties into
Rotary.
And that may expand theirability to do it because it's
definitely expanded my abilityto do it.
And like I told you, my26-year-old son was the one who
came up with the Billion Treesprogram.
So he and his cohort are verybehind it.
(22:06):
And that doesn't mean thatthere's not older people that
are behind it because there's alot of environmentalists that
are older people.
It means that it's a conduit forus to communicate to a
generation that has beenproblematic for us as Rotary, I
think.
SPEAKER_02 (22:23):
Well, because there's also, there's very much
some environmentalists that areolder.
I'm pushing the 60 mark and I'ma huge environmentalist.
My daughter kind of rolls hereyes every once in a while when
I'm talking about plastic andall that kind of stuff.
But we do have some olderRotarians that are climate
(22:44):
deniers, which also I find veryinteresting.
Have you had any hit back fromanybody?
SPEAKER_00 (22:50):
A little bit, but the best way to do that is when
I speak outside of Rotary.
Okay.
I'm normally just speaking abouthow great trees are, and that
trees are awesome, and I don'teven touch carbon sequestration,
right?
So let's
SPEAKER_02 (23:04):
just keep it simple.
Know your audience, as they sayin showbiz, right?
Know your audience, that ifyou're a bunch of climate
designers, but
SPEAKER_00 (23:13):
you like trees.
Yeah.
default to think that at least90% of Rotarians have an
environmental mindset.
I
SPEAKER_03 (23:20):
think so too.
SPEAKER_00 (23:21):
I don't feel badly throwing around carbon
sequestration as something.
But when you're outside of it,if you throw carbon
sequestration as the very firstthing that you're throwing out
there, there's so many peoplewho will just shut their ears.
SPEAKER_02 (23:33):
They'll just glaze over.
SPEAKER_00 (23:34):
They're like, oh, carbon sequestration equals
global warming equals let'sargue about this.
And so I find that when you'respeaking outside, you're saying,
hey, let's go plant trees.
It's the same as when we try todo programs with Rotary Clubs
and things like that, becauseall our programs are with Rotary
Clubs.
(23:55):
When you put the public thingsout there, we don't talk about
carbon sequestration ever.
It's like, hey, park, we'regoing to put a thousand trees in
this park and there's going tobe more birds and people are
going to be happy.
Kids are going to play in theshade.
And Everything's going to belike greener and more beautiful,
which is absolutely how you needto sell trees outside of an
(24:16):
organizational level.
At an organizational level,we've found that the average
Rotarian would offset theirrotary carbon footprint with
just eight trees per person.
SPEAKER_02 (24:26):
Wow.
Well, that makes me feel good.
I could plant eight trees on mybehalf.
SPEAKER_00 (24:32):
Sometimes like, and then they think, oh, well now I
have to plant a hundred dollartree.
So now it's been spending$800,but we're getting some, we're
getting a lot of trees for free,like millions of trees in the
last two months we've foundfree.
SPEAKER_02 (24:45):
So, so where do you get those trees?
I mean, cause we're obviouslytalking seedlings.
Now I, my past friends, where Iused to live was Washington
State.
And Washington State has a thingthat if you cut down a tree, you
have to plant 10 in its place.
So you'll see people after amajor cutting, you'll see tons
(25:08):
of timber people, timber men andwomen planting seedlings all up
and down a hillside, all up anddown a hillside.
So getting trees there waspretty easy.
But where do all these treescome from?
Some that are Like who's growingthem?
What are they?
A
SPEAKER_00 (25:24):
lot of times it's government or it's, I mean,
you're, you're almost alwaysgetting seedlings from
governments or nonprofits.
If you're going for biggertrees, then what you want to do
is try to exercise your networkwith landscapers and find a way
to get a tax deductible, allthose kinds of things.
And we do that sometimes, butmost of the time, like for
instance, in Florida, InFlorida, because I was park
(25:46):
service, I know exactly who togo to for at least certain kinds
of trees.
And so I get those trees forabout 25 cents a piece.
SPEAKER_01 (25:53):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (25:53):
And in America, 25 cents a piece is really, really
inexpensive for trees.
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (25:58):
And you're talking seedlings, just so we're all on
the same page.
We're not talking, you went tothe local beautiful nursery and
bought some fabulous Japanesemaple.
This is like a seedling.
SPEAKER_00 (26:09):
Right.
And most of the seedlings thatwe try to get are at least a
foot tall.
Some of them are up to threefoot tall and we can
SPEAKER_02 (26:16):
get
SPEAKER_00 (26:16):
for 25 cents in Florida.
That's what Romania is giving toany Rotary Club in Romania that
wants for free.
So we're not talking about liketiny little seedlings, but But
something that's maybe a foot tothree foot tall has a foot to
three foot of root mass orwhatever, things like that.
(26:37):
Those are the best.
A lot of people think that youhave to plant a really big tree
because that big tree is a lotmore likely to live.
And plus you have a betterpicture for Instagram or
whatever.
But if you study it, you seethat over 30% of those big trees
die.
(26:57):
Wow.
And so no matter what you do,you're going to take care of
them.
They go through shock.
They've also been inside of anursery where they've been
babied for four years and nowyou're in a normal environment.
So you're going to lose acertain percentage of those
trees and maybe you're paying ahundred dollars for this tree,
right?
So I buy a seven foot tree.
It's a hundred dollars.
I put it in the ground.
It has a 70% chance, let's sayroughly of living, right?
(27:21):
For that price.
I could get hundreds ofseedlings, plant a diverse micro
forest, right?
And 30 years down the road, Iprobably have 30 times the
amount of trees.
You might have lost, let's sayyou lose 70% so that you're
totally at the different thing.
But if you lose 70% of 25 centtrees compared to 30% of$100
(27:44):
trees, you're making a whole lotmore impact by planting a bunch
of seedlings, especially ifthey're native.
if they're accustomed to theenvironmental conditions that
you're in.
A lot of our stuff that we'redoing is in county parks,
national parks, state parks,especially a lot of state park
(28:05):
stuff in Florida because we juststarted a few months ago.
But we do have some really bigthings coming up in Brazil,
India.
Of course, I'm working with theteam in Romania.
We've got teams starting in 103countries, I think, right now.
So we'll have trades going upall over the world here pretty
soon.
The other part of this isnobody's tracking how many trees
(28:27):
that Rotarians plant around theworld.
And we were trying to sit down,a few of us, and discuss like
what we thought.
We think they're probablyplanting six or seven million a
year, which was the number theygot to when Ian Risely was the
president.
But it could be as much as 20million trees because really
nobody's counting them.
And we found some very largetrees.
(28:49):
projects that were already goingon that we're trying to wrap
into and see if we can scale orsee if we can learn from and
things like that.
So we're already planting a lotof trees as Rotarians, but we're
only like at the tip of theiceberg of what we could do with
1.2 million people who areengaged in trying to plant some
trees.
Or
SPEAKER_02 (29:06):
how much you have done because we just don't have
the data telling us how muchyou've done.
SPEAKER_03 (29:11):
So
SPEAKER_02 (29:13):
let me ask you a question because you did say
something that 30 years fromnow, I mean, I would be in my
90s, okay?
I don't know how old you wouldbe.
I would love to see a tree 30years from now that I planted.
SPEAKER_03 (29:26):
You
SPEAKER_02 (29:27):
can do it.
Let's do it.
But the question is, is thiskind of slow moving?
I mean, you listen to some ofthe doom and gloom in the
environmental world and it's toolate.
We've already tipped.
The end is near, you know?
Have another cocktail becausethe world is just going to hell.
(29:49):
Is a tree I'm going to plant nowmake any difference if it's a
little seedling like that?
SPEAKER_00 (29:56):
Well, so of course it does.
There's two things that I reallylove that both have kind of to
do with this.
Okay.
One is, I think it's a Chineseproverb or something, and it's
like you never plant a tree thatyou plan on living under its
shade.
Under its
SPEAKER_02 (30:10):
shade, yep.
SPEAKER_00 (30:11):
Right?
And the other one is...
the best time to plant a treewas 20 years ago, but well, you
should settle for today.
You know, the second best timewas today.
SPEAKER_01 (30:21):
Gotcha.
SPEAKER_00 (30:22):
Yeah.
It's not going to immediatelyturn the world around if you are
one of those doom and gloomerswho think that we've got 20
years until Florida's underwateror whatever.
SPEAKER_03 (30:35):
Right,
SPEAKER_00 (30:36):
right.
This isn't the answer to that.
If that ends up being true, thenthis is for the other part of
the world that doesn't end upunderwater.
I'm not one that subscribes tothat level of gloom and doom and
that kind of thing.
But all it can do is good.
There's nothing negative aboutplanting a tree unless you plant
(30:58):
some invasive tree that takesover.
But I mean, if you're plantingthe right tree in the right
place, there's really nothingnegative that's going to come of
that.
And there'll be people who couldargue that and they're like, it
could fall on my house.
Well, don't plant it a littlefurther away from your house,
you know?
SPEAKER_03 (31:17):
Yeah.
I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_00 (31:19):
Yeah.
So there's just really nonegative to it.
And it's such a visual and hotpoint for the world right now
that it only makes sense forRotary to take leadership in it
because Rotary We're looking forthings to take leadership in.
And I really think that we'rebetter structured than almost
(31:41):
anyone who's trying to tackletrees right now because of how
widespread and how amazing ourpeople are.
SPEAKER_02 (31:49):
So we have those amazing people.
And I would be really remiss ifI didn't include in this podcast
something that we talked aboutbefore we went on air today.
And that is that you...
are a huge person on trying toget a coalition together of some
of these environmental groups.
And I'm just going to putenvironmental group under like,
(32:12):
you know, an umbrella.
We have, of course, the handwashing and we have wells and we
have all these different things.
But one of our favoritefellowships here on the show was
from Slovenia.
There was the bee fellowship,which we had so much fun with.
And we have...
All of these great groups thatare doing this environmental
stuff, you, Corey, are the firstperson that said, I don't
(32:34):
understand how come we're notworking all together, which was
like music to my ears.
Tell me what your real masterplan with these environmental
groups is.
SPEAKER_00 (32:44):
So I wouldn't want to say that I'm the...
total like driving force behindit this came from a really quick
discussion between n plasticsoup the bee fellowship and
ourselves and then trying todraw in other people from esrag
and things like that but beestrees and seas are even and will
include our fresh water and seasbecause it doesn't rhyme to say
(33:07):
and fresh water or whatever sowater quality water preservation
the need for pollinators, notjust bees, and the need for
trees, if we had all three ofthose working in concert as
environmental movements,
SPEAKER_03 (33:24):
then
SPEAKER_00 (33:25):
you see a real, real difference in the environment.
And so just being part of adialect for a bees, trees and
seas coalition is an honor.
I do see it being something thatcould drive Rotary forward,
especially in our seventh areaof focus.
But they're all likeinterrelated.
Like it took us five minutes tocome up with a project that
(33:47):
would help with watercleanliness and plant trees and
have pollinator gardens.
And so it's something that youcould work together.
But also the thing that we'refinding with the tree movement
and that other friends of mineare finding with different
environmental movements is onceyou have the network in place,
then it makes everything easier.
(34:08):
So now you are networking thenetworking part.
You know, let's think of it likeinternet, right?
And when you lock one networkwith another network, that's
when it works synergistically.
And to me, that's the model forall of Rotary is we don't need
to have our program.
We wouldn't have my club's nameon the Rotary Clubs United for
(34:30):
One Billion Trees if it wasn'tthat you had to have a club's
name on it.
Right.
We actually started in threecountries.
This is a club who ended upbeing under it, I guess, because
I'm the big mouth of the groupor whatever.
But I don't I love my club.
I love that my club's name is onit, but I don't really take a
source of pride from that.
(34:51):
I really think it's that allRotary programs should be Rotary
programs and we shouldn't becompeting programs.
And if I can help your programdo this or I can help your
program do that, then let's doit.
And so with bees, trees, andseeds, if that comes to
fruition, because it juststarted in Calgary where we
started discussing it, we have abig call that we're talking
(35:12):
about it next week.
But if that happens, then whatit does really is it just allows
that network to build and itgives you somebody to lean on.
But also, if you've been toEurope, do you know about in
plastic soup?
SPEAKER_02 (35:27):
No, I was going to talk about that after this.
Go ahead and give them a plugfor
SPEAKER_00 (35:31):
sure.
I want to give them a real quickplug because if you go to Europe
and you talk about anythingenvironmental, whatever, they're
like, hey, have you heard of InPlastic Soup?
It's this great organizationthat does a whole lot of things
for publicity and for actualphysical cleanups and things
like that of plastics andmicroplastics and tries to get
(35:52):
the word out of what plasticsare doing both to our bodies and
to the environment in theirThey're fire in Europe.
They're really growing likecrazy in Europe.
And so I had the opportunity tospeak with Garrett, who runs
that at the Rotary DanubeAlliance Conference in Galati,
Romania recently.
(36:12):
And we just kind of, we hit itoff in Calgary.
We said, how do we make thisbigger?
How do we make this that theenvironment rolls to the front
of Rotary?
And we think that havingcoalitions like this that work
with Ezrag with the differentroad reaction groups and things
like that, where everybodydoesn't have a proprietary
(36:34):
ownership of some program orwhatever.
It just will, it'll be moreRotarian.
SPEAKER_03 (36:41):
Because
SPEAKER_00 (36:42):
I don't want to have to compete with another tree
planting rotary program.
I just want to see, can I helpyou refine some part of yours
and you can help me refine somepart of yours.
Same goes for bees.
I get bees next week, I think.
So I have a totally organickitchen garden, my whole yard.
And so we don't have enough beesright now.
So we're going to get some beesin and, you know, we're going to
(37:04):
try to recycle and do all thesethings.
So why not tie the entireenvironmental ethic together
into a Well,
SPEAKER_02 (37:15):
I'm, I'm, I'm a full supporter.
I'm actually kind of a believerthat I think if we put
environmental on the top of ourseven areas of focus, things
like war and peace and, youknow, clean water and all that
kind of stuff, we'll all kind offilter in.
So, well, please.
SPEAKER_00 (37:36):
And the biggest thing that I would say is a
takeaway from tree planting allover the world, because I've
done it in five continents now.
No, four continents now.
Sorry, I've done it in fourcontinents now.
And when you plant trees withsomebody, they realize that you
care about them.
You see it in their faces.
We record these things.
We haven't put them out onYouTube per se yet, but we
(37:59):
record these and you see ontheir faces that they're just
impressed that you care aboutthem.
And you're giving a tangibleliving legacy of how you care
about them by leaving a treewhere they are.
And it's got to sponsor peace.
SPEAKER_03 (38:14):
I
SPEAKER_00 (38:14):
mean, I haven't gotten to do it in anywhere that
was traditionally not at peacewith America to test that part
of it out.
But if you have friendshipsaround the world, then you have
at least some conduit for peace.
And we can also realize thatThis is going to be a little
anthropological, but we're awhole lot more similar than we
(38:34):
are different from the peoplethat we don't traditionally have
peace with.
We want the same things and thatincludes trees and that includes
our kids growing up and beinghappy and to giggle and play
football.
And I mean, like, so as manyplaces as I've traveled and I've
traveled to 53 countries, I haveyet to see anywhere that has
(38:55):
trees.
more differences thansimilarities to us.
And so the more that we'rebonded and the more that we get
together and we love each otherand we do projects together,
whether it's trees or not, thebetter that we're going to be as
Rotary and as just a world.
SPEAKER_02 (39:09):
Well, amen to that.
So, Corey, I got one lastquestion for you, and I thank
you so much.
You're on vacation.
So thank you for breaking in,letting me break into your
vacation for this interview.
What do you think the worldwould look like when that
billionth tree goes in theground?
(39:29):
What does that world look like?
I don't know.
I mean, is it like a chainreaction?
Like, is it the hundredth monkeyand you put that billionth tree
in and all of a sudden the worldis a beautiful place?
SPEAKER_00 (39:41):
No, if it was the fourth trillionth tree, you
know, then we might seesomething like that.
I think that it's more aboutWhat does Rotary look like if
they're able to combine forcesto do this?
I think Rotary both grows, butit also grows metaphysically,
(40:02):
right?
It becomes an organization thatmaybe both has more people, but
also has more voice.
And there's other programs thatare trying to do a billion
trees.
There's governmental programs,there's a billion trees, things
like that.
Now, if all of those aresuccessful, then maybe we have a
much greener world and thehurricanes calm down or whatever
(40:22):
it is that's going to happen.
But I really think that...
it's making whatevercontribution that we can make as
Rotary.
And if we can get to a billiontrees by 2035, then maybe we
target planting a billion treesa year and see if we can get
there in 10 years.
And so I think it's just agrowing opportunity for us as
Rotary.
And it's a way to say, hey, Wereally do believe in this
(40:47):
environmental area of focus, andwe really would like to make a
difference there and make thetype of difference that Rotary
can make instead of the type ofdifference that a bunch of
disparate programs within Rotarycan make.
SPEAKER_02 (41:03):
A growing answer, all pun intended, right?
UNKNOWN (41:07):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (41:08):
Corey, thank you so much for being on the show.
I love it.
It is the, let's get this VeraBeach.
So Rotary Clubs United.
for planting 1 billion trees.
And if anybody wants to get ahold of your group, can we just
like club runner the Vero Beach,Florida?
SPEAKER_00 (41:30):
There's five clubs in Vero Beach.
I belong to the Oceanside one,but also you have my contact
information, I think, but ifnot, we can put it down in the
bottom.
And they can go to thefellowshipofthetrees.org.
SPEAK (41:45):
fellowshipofthetrees.org.
SPEAKER_00 (41:48):
Okay.
That is the nonprofit thatsupports the program.
But the best thing I would sayis if you'll put my email in the
bottom, it still hasn't outgrownme answering the emails.
So they can just email me andI'll get them with either me or
one of my team.
We'll start working on theirdistrict team to plant the trees
and see if we can do some magic.
(42:09):
I know our districtparticularly, it looks like
Almost every club is about tojoin.
We're going to join forces toplant 10,000 trees in Florida as
a fundraiser to plant a quartermillion trees a year in Brazil.
SPEAKER_01 (42:23):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (42:24):
You can do really magical like rotary math things
when you put your efforts andyour money and all those things
together.
SPEAK (42:31):
Fellowshipofthetrees.org.
Corey, the self-proclaimed treecheerleader.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
It's been an honor to have you.
SPEAKER_00 (42:41):
You're welcome.
It was an honor to be on hereand I appreciate it.
And I hope that your newlymarketed podcast goes off
really, really well.
SPEAKER_02 (42:51):
Well, thank you.
The old name seemed to do prettywell since 2019.
Let's hope the new one does too.
SPEAKER_00 (42:59):
We all evolve.
SPEAKER_02 (43:00):
That's right.
Yes, we do, Corey.
We all evolve.
Thank you so much for joining meon the show today, you guys.
Hey, what do you think onebillion trees and the way cory
talks about it we have over amillion people and rotary is
growing so just like the growingof rotary we could grow a tree i
(43:25):
mean let's just face it let'sthink of the numbers here people
if every single rotarian justplanted one tree we'd be up to
two billion two two two millionif everybody planted two trees
if every rotarian planted fivetrees We'd be halfway there.
Over.
Excuse me.
(43:45):
Maybe close to three quarters ofthe way there.
Anyway, let's think about it,shall we?
Let's plant a billion trees.
And Corey is there to help us.
The Rotary Clubs United forPlanting One Billion Trees.
Thank you so much for being onthe show this week.
And thank you so much out therefor listening.
(44:05):
Hey, if you liked the show,whatever it was named, please
get others to...
Join us in the listening party.
Have them download us and rateus.
As I've told you a milliontimes, that makes it easier for
everyone to find the Action toImpact podcast.
And if you'd like to hear mymore musical side, check me out
on the radio.
(44:26):
I have a weekly radio show onRotary Radio UK.
Alright then, until next week.
As I've said before, take careof yourself and the world around
you and we'll hear you next weekon the Action to impact podcast.
Have a wonderful week,everybody.
Thank you so much for being outthere listening.
(44:48):
We'll talk to you soon.
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