So! This is a perfect case study in situations where you should be wary of misinformation.

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

1. Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or
2. Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.

So yeah, there's actually quite a lot of places that would like these. Lots of people currently breathing in terrible quality air would much rather have their boring city benches replaced with really fucking cool algae tanks that clean the air and can be used to help create + sustain future green spaces in cities. I dunno about you, but I'd take that over a dumb metal bench any day. Put these at every bus stop and I'd be delighted.

Except you missed out on the part in your article that states (emphasis mine):

The microalgae replaces two 10-year-old trees or 200 square metres of lawn

And as another post says:

... liquid trees don't reduce erosion, enrich soil, prevent flooding, and improve the quality of groundwater ...

(source)

Also: algae bloom. You'd have to clean / replace / remove the algae once a month - on public (tax?) money and you'd need the tools (gasoline fuelled?), vehicles (! gasoline fuelled?). Someone should check whether the CO2 emissions caused by maintenance are (easily) offset by the product itself.

Promoting stop-gap measures without extensive calculations doesn't help. Shutting down Belgrade's two in-city coal fired power plants and replacing them with a clean energy solution would help at once. Guess what? There isn't enough money for that, so you can imagine that there isn't enough money for a sufficient amount of tanks and their maintenance. This is palliative care at best - it doesn't cure the cause.

Hi! I'm going to block you after I offer this correction because you're clearly behaving maliciously, but for those curious as to how I could know that, let's take a quick look at how bad actors can try to smear any signs of progress.

Note how they highlight that part of the article that says "replaces"? I'll offer people the full quote for context,

The microalgae replace two 10-year-old trees or 200 square meters of lawn. The function of the LIQUID 3 is practically an imitation of it. Both trees and grass perform photosynthesis and bind carbon dioxide. However, the advantage of microalgae is that it is 10 to 50 times more efficient than trees. The team behind LIQUID 3 has stated that their goal is not to replace forests or tree planting plans but to use this system to fill those urban pockets where there is no space for planting trees. In conditions of intense pollution, such as Belgrade, many trees cannot survive, while algae do not have a problem with the great levels of pollution.

It's extremely clear to anyone who reads more than two sentences that the term "replace" in the first sentence is meant to mean "equivalent to".

You'll then notice that they get into a strawman argument. No one ever said that algae could do any of the things listed there, although, frankly, urban trees can't really do a lot of them either unless planted in a large quantity that's often impossible in dense urban areas. The Liquid 3 is specifically concerned with air quality. But they pretend that the goal is to somehow replace trees.

Then they get into an argument that boils down to "you have to maintain systems" something that the article also covers,

Dr. Ivan Spasojevic also explained that “the Institute used single-celled freshwater algae, which exist in ponds and lakes in Serbia and can grow in tap water, and are resistant to high and low temperatures. The system does not require special maintenance – it is enough to remove the biomass created by dividing algae, which can be used as an excellent fertilizer, in a month and a half, pour new water and minerals, and the algae continue to grow indefinitely. This project aims to popularize and expand the use of microalgae in Serbia, because they can be used in wastewater treatment, as compost for green areas, for the production of biomass and biofuels, as well as for air purification from exhaust gases from the factories”.

Pulling the biomass out is actually quite a quick project. It takes about an hour when it's not streamlined, there are ways it could be made faster. You can watch a video of it if you'd like, it's on their instagram.

Perhaps more importantly, urban trees take just as much if not more maintenance. In order to plant them in the first place, concrete would need to be dug out, soil needs to be trucked in, saplings need to be planted and that's just to get started. Trees then need to be pruned, they need to be checked for pests, they need to be inspected to make sure they don't intrude on sidewalks or roadways, fruits need to be cleaned up from female trees (male trees can worsen air quality with pollen release), dead trees have to be fully removed and replaced, etc. All of which costs money and can add up quickly. Urban trees already cost quite a bit to maintain. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't maintain them! But much in the same vein, the fact that Liquid 3 would require maintaining doesn't mean it's not a viable option. Nothing is free or comes without needing to maintain it. But the person above acts as if urban trees require no care.

Shutting down Belgrade's two in-city coal fired power plants and replacing them with a clean energy solution would help at once. Guess what? There isn't enough money for that, so you can imagine that there isn't enough money for a sufficient amount of tanks and their maintenance. This is palliative care at best - it doesn't cure the cause.

Now this is a truly wild sentence to behold. For those unaware, Belgrade/Serbia in general is currently very reliant on coal for power. It's a very cold country and they don't have a ton of alternatives. A somewhat bigger problem is that all of their coal plants are very old and thus less efficient and cause significantly more pollution.

The argument put forth here, is that because there isn't money to instantly shut down the coal plants in Belgrade and switch to some magic clean energy source that would just appear already set up, that means algae tanks must be impossible.

In reality, Belgrade and Serbia are taking a number of steps to transition to renewable energy where possible and to also improve their current coal plants to reduce pollution and improve efficiency. Since the 1990s, Serbia has managed to cut it's carbon emissions by about 25%, and they're actively investing billions into both renewable energy where possible and cleaning their current energy. In fact, they've committed to phasing coal out entirely by 2050.

But the fact is that these things more than anything take time. It doesn't matter how much money you throw at a problem, building a reliable renewable energy infrastructure doesn't happen over night.

And again, kids growing up now can't wait for 2030.

That's exactly what stop-gap measures can do. They can help in the here and now while the larger goals are worked on. That's what these tanks are meant to do.

Always be wary of people who kick their feet and demand that "if we can't fix everything right this instant then there's no point in even trying to do something about it". They aren't good faith actors. Efforts like what Dr. Ivan Spasojević are working on might not be a silver bullet that fixes every problem ever created, but they're little steps of progress. They're things that help out people in the here and now. They're chipping away at the massive undertaking of solving climate change.

Plus you get a really fucking cool city bench out of it.

And I'm pretty sure that's a hell of a lot more valuable then anything the person above has offered in the fight against climate change.

So! This is a perfect case study in situations where you should be wary of misinformation.

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

1. Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or
2. Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.

So yeah, there's actually quite a lot of places that would like these. Lots of people currently breathing in terrible quality air would much rather have their boring city benches replaced with really fucking cool algae tanks that clean the air and can be used to help create + sustain future green spaces in cities. I dunno about you, but I'd take that over a dumb metal bench any day. Put these at every bus stop and I'd be delighted.

Except you missed out on the part in your article that states (emphasis mine):

The microalgae replaces two 10-year-old trees or 200 square metres of lawn

And as another post says:

... liquid trees don't reduce erosion, enrich soil, prevent flooding, and improve the quality of groundwater ...

(source)

Also: algae bloom. You'd have to clean / replace / remove the algae once a month - on public (tax?) money and you'd need the tools (gasoline fuelled?), vehicles (! gasoline fuelled?). Someone should check whether the CO2 emissions caused by maintenance are (easily) offset by the product itself.

Promoting stop-gap measures without extensive calculations doesn't help. Shutting down Belgrade's two in-city coal fired power plants and replacing them with a clean energy solution would help at once. Guess what? There isn't enough money for that, so you can imagine that there isn't enough money for a sufficient amount of tanks and their maintenance. This is palliative care at best - it doesn't cure the cause.

Hi! I'm going to block you after I offer this correction because you're clearly behaving maliciously, but for those curious as to how I could know that, let's take a quick look at how bad actors can try to smear any signs of progress.

Note how they highlight that part of the article that says "replaces"? I'll offer people the full quote for context,

The microalgae replace two 10-year-old trees or 200 square meters of lawn. The function of the LIQUID 3 is practically an imitation of it. Both trees and grass perform photosynthesis and bind carbon dioxide. However, the advantage of microalgae is that it is 10 to 50 times more efficient than trees. The team behind LIQUID 3 has stated that their goal is not to replace forests or tree planting plans but to use this system to fill those urban pockets where there is no space for planting trees. In conditions of intense pollution, such as Belgrade, many trees cannot survive, while algae do not have a problem with the great levels of pollution.

It's extremely clear to anyone who reads more than two sentences that the term "replace" in the first sentence is meant to mean "equivalent to".

You'll then notice that they get into a strawman argument. No one ever said that algae could do any of the things listed there, although, frankly, urban trees can't really do a lot of them either unless planted in a large quantity that's often impossible in dense urban areas. The Liquid 3 is specifically concerned with air quality. But they pretend that the goal is to somehow replace trees.

Then they get into an argument that boils down to "you have to maintain systems" something that the article also covers,

Dr. Ivan Spasojevic also explained that “the Institute used single-celled freshwater algae, which exist in ponds and lakes in Serbia and can grow in tap water, and are resistant to high and low temperatures. The system does not require special maintenance – it is enough to remove the biomass created by dividing algae, which can be used as an excellent fertilizer, in a month and a half, pour new water and minerals, and the algae continue to grow indefinitely. This project aims to popularize and expand the use of microalgae in Serbia, because they can be used in wastewater treatment, as compost for green areas, for the production of biomass and biofuels, as well as for air purification from exhaust gases from the factories”.

Pulling the biomass out is actually quite a quick project. It takes about an hour when it's not streamlined, there are ways it could be made faster. You can watch a video of it if you'd like, it's on their instagram.

Perhaps more importantly, urban trees take just as much if not more maintenance. In order to plant them in the first place, concrete would need to be dug out, soil needs to be trucked in, saplings need to be planted and that's just to get started. Trees then need to be pruned, they need to be checked for pests, they need to be inspected to make sure they don't intrude on sidewalks or roadways, fruits need to be cleaned up from female trees (male trees can worsen air quality with pollen release), dead trees have to be fully removed and replaced, etc. All of which costs money and can add up quickly. Urban trees already cost quite a bit to maintain. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't maintain them! But much in the same vein, the fact that Liquid 3 would require maintaining doesn't mean it's not a viable option. Nothing is free or comes without needing to maintain it. But the person above acts as if urban trees require no care.

Shutting down Belgrade's two in-city coal fired power plants and replacing them with a clean energy solution would help at once. Guess what? There isn't enough money for that, so you can imagine that there isn't enough money for a sufficient amount of tanks and their maintenance. This is palliative care at best - it doesn't cure the cause.

Now this is a truly wild sentence to behold. For those unaware, Belgrade/Serbia in general is currently very reliant on coal for power. It's a very cold country and they don't have a ton of alternatives. A somewhat bigger problem is that all of their coal plants are very old and thus less efficient and cause significantly more pollution.

The argument put forth here, is that because there isn't money to instantly shut down the coal plants in Belgrade and switch to some magic clean energy source that would just appear already set up, that means algae tanks must be impossible.

In reality, Belgrade and Serbia are taking a number of steps to transition to renewable energy where possible and to also improve their current coal plants to reduce pollution and improve efficiency. Since the 1990s, Serbia has managed to cut it's carbon emissions by about 25%, and they're actively investing billions into both renewable energy where possible and cleaning their current energy. In fact, they've committed to phasing coal out entirely by 2050.

But the fact is that these things more than anything take time. It doesn't matter how much money you throw at a problem, building a reliable renewable energy infrastructure doesn't happen over night.

And again, kids growing up now can't wait for 2030.

That's exactly what stop-gap measures can do. They can help in the here and now while the larger goals are worked on. That's what these tanks are meant to do.

Always be wary of people who kick their feet and demand that "if we can't fix everything right this instant then there's no point in even trying to do something about it". They aren't good faith actors. Efforts like what Dr. Ivan Spasojević are working on might not be a silver bullet that fixes every problem ever created, but they're little steps of progress. They're things that help out people in the here and now. They're chipping away at the massive undertaking of solving climate change.

Plus you get a really fucking cool city bench out of it.

And I'm pretty sure that's a hell of a lot more valuable then anything the person above has offered in the fight against climate change.

So! This is a perfect case study in situations where you should be wary of misinformation.

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

1. Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or
2. Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.

So yeah, there's actually quite a lot of places that would like these. Lots of people currently breathing in terrible quality air would much rather have their boring city benches replaced with really fucking cool algae tanks that clean the air and can be used to help create + sustain future green spaces in cities. I dunno about you, but I'd take that over a dumb metal bench any day. Put these at every bus stop and I'd be delighted.

Except you missed out on the part in your article that states (emphasis mine):

The microalgae replaces two 10-year-old trees or 200 square metres of lawn

And as another post says:

... liquid trees don't reduce erosion, enrich soil, prevent flooding, and improve the quality of groundwater ...

(source)

Also: algae bloom. You'd have to clean / replace / remove the algae once a month - on public (tax?) money and you'd need the tools (gasoline fuelled?), vehicles (! gasoline fuelled?). Someone should check whether the CO2 emissions caused by maintenance are (easily) offset by the product itself.

Promoting stop-gap measures without extensive calculations doesn't help. Shutting down Belgrade's two in-city coal fired power plants and replacing them with a clean energy solution would help at once. Guess what? There isn't enough money for that, so you can imagine that there isn't enough money for a sufficient amount of tanks and their maintenance. This is palliative care at best - it doesn't cure the cause.

Hi! I'm going to block you after I offer this correction because you're clearly behaving maliciously, but for those curious as to how I could know that, let's take a quick look at how bad actors can try to smear any signs of progress.

Note how they highlight that part of the article that says "replaces"? I'll offer people the full quote for context,

The microalgae replace two 10-year-old trees or 200 square meters of lawn. The function of the LIQUID 3 is practically an imitation of it. Both trees and grass perform photosynthesis and bind carbon dioxide. However, the advantage of microalgae is that it is 10 to 50 times more efficient than trees. The team behind LIQUID 3 has stated that their goal is not to replace forests or tree planting plans but to use this system to fill those urban pockets where there is no space for planting trees. In conditions of intense pollution, such as Belgrade, many trees cannot survive, while algae do not have a problem with the great levels of pollution.

It's extremely clear to anyone who reads more than two sentences that the term "replace" in the first sentence is meant to mean "equivalent to".

You'll then notice that they get into a strawman argument. No one ever said that algae could do any of the things listed there, although, frankly, urban trees can't really do a lot of them either unless planted in a large quantity that's often impossible in dense urban areas. The Liquid 3 is specifically concerned with air quality. But they pretend that the goal is to somehow replace trees.

Then they get into an argument that boils down to "you have to maintain systems" something that the article also covers,

Dr. Ivan Spasojevic also explained that “the Institute used single-celled freshwater algae, which exist in ponds and lakes in Serbia and can grow in tap water, and are resistant to high and low temperatures. The system does not require special maintenance – it is enough to remove the biomass created by dividing algae, which can be used as an excellent fertilizer, in a month and a half, pour new water and minerals, and the algae continue to grow indefinitely. This project aims to popularize and expand the use of microalgae in Serbia, because they can be used in wastewater treatment, as compost for green areas, for the production of biomass and biofuels, as well as for air purification from exhaust gases from the factories”.

Pulling the biomass out is actually quite a quick project. It takes about an hour when it's not streamlined, there are ways it could be made faster. You can watch a video of it if you'd like, it's on their instagram.

Perhaps more importantly, urban trees take just as much if not more maintenance. In order to plant them in the first place, concrete would need to be dug out, soil needs to be trucked in, saplings need to be planted and that's just to get started. Trees then need to be pruned, they need to be checked for pests, they need to be inspected to make sure they don't intrude on sidewalks or roadways, fruits need to be cleaned up from female trees (male trees can worsen air quality with pollen release), dead trees have to be fully removed and replaced, etc. All of which costs money and can add up quickly. Urban trees already cost quite a bit to maintain. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't maintain them! But much in the same vein, the fact that Liquid 3 would require maintaining doesn't mean it's not a viable option. Nothing is free or comes without needing to maintain it. But the person above acts as if urban trees require no care.

Shutting down Belgrade's two in-city coal fired power plants and replacing them with a clean energy solution would help at once. Guess what? There isn't enough money for that, so you can imagine that there isn't enough money for a sufficient amount of tanks and their maintenance. This is palliative care at best - it doesn't cure the cause.

Now this is a truly wild sentence to behold. For those unaware, Belgrade/Serbia in general is currently very reliant on coal for power. It's a very cold country and they don't have a ton of alternatives. A somewhat bigger problem is that all of their coal plants are very old and thus less efficient and cause significantly more pollution.

The argument put forth here, is that because there isn't money to instantly shut down the coal plants in Belgrade and switch to some magic clean energy source that would just appear already set up, that means algae tanks must be impossible.

In reality, Belgrade and Serbia are taking a number of steps to transition to renewable energy where possible and to also improve their current coal plants to reduce pollution and improve efficiency. Since the 1990s, Serbia has managed to cut it's carbon emissions by about 25%, and they're actively investing billions into both renewable energy where possible and cleaning their current energy. In fact, they've committed to phasing coal out entirely by 2050.

But the fact is that these things more than anything take time. It doesn't matter how much money you throw at a problem, building a reliable renewable energy infrastructure doesn't happen over night.

And again, kids growing up now can't wait for 2030.

That's exactly what stop-gap measures can do. They can help in the here and now while the larger goals are worked on. That's what these tanks are meant to do.

Always be wary of people who kick their feet and demand that "if we can't fix everything right this instant then there's no point in even trying to do something about it". They aren't good faith actors. Efforts like what Dr. Ivan Spasojević are working on might not be a silver bullet that fixes every problem ever created, but they're little steps of progress. They're things that help out people in the here and now. They're chipping away at the massive undertaking of solving climate change.

Plus you get a really fucking cool city bench out of it.

And I'm pretty sure that's a hell of a lot more valuable then anything the person above has offered in the fight against climate change.

So! This is a perfect case study in situations where you should be wary of misinformation.

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

1. Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or
2. Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.

So yeah, there's actually quite a lot of places that would like these. Lots of people currently breathing in terrible quality air would much rather have their boring city benches replaced with really fucking cool algae tanks that clean the air and can be used to help create + sustain future green spaces in cities. I dunno about you, but I'd take that over a dumb metal bench any day. Put these at every bus stop and I'd be delighted.

Except you missed out on the part in your article that states (emphasis mine):

The microalgae replaces two 10-year-old trees or 200 square metres of lawn

And as another post says:

... liquid trees don't reduce erosion, enrich soil, prevent flooding, and improve the quality of groundwater ...

(source)

Also: algae bloom. You'd have to clean / replace / remove the algae once a month - on public (tax?) money and you'd need the tools (gasoline fuelled?), vehicles (! gasoline fuelled?). Someone should check whether the CO2 emissions caused by maintenance are (easily) offset by the product itself.

Promoting stop-gap measures without extensive calculations doesn't help. Shutting down Belgrade's two in-city coal fired power plants and replacing them with a clean energy solution would help at once. Guess what? There isn't enough money for that, so you can imagine that there isn't enough money for a sufficient amount of tanks and their maintenance. This is palliative care at best - it doesn't cure the cause.

Hi! I'm going to block you after I offer this correction because you're clearly behaving maliciously, but for those curious as to how I could know that, let's take a quick look at how bad actors can try to smear any signs of progress.

Note how they highlight that part of the article that says "replaces"? I'll offer people the full quote for context,

The microalgae replace two 10-year-old trees or 200 square meters of lawn. The function of the LIQUID 3 is practically an imitation of it. Both trees and grass perform photosynthesis and bind carbon dioxide. However, the advantage of microalgae is that it is 10 to 50 times more efficient than trees. The team behind LIQUID 3 has stated that their goal is not to replace forests or tree planting plans but to use this system to fill those urban pockets where there is no space for planting trees. In conditions of intense pollution, such as Belgrade, many trees cannot survive, while algae do not have a problem with the great levels of pollution.

It's extremely clear to anyone who reads more than two sentences that the term "replace" in the first sentence is meant to mean "equivalent to".

You'll then notice that they get into a strawman argument. No one ever said that algae could do any of the things listed there, although, frankly, urban trees can't really do a lot of them either unless planted in a large quantity that's often impossible in dense urban areas. The Liquid 3 is specifically concerned with air quality. But they pretend that the goal is to somehow replace trees.

Then they get into an argument that boils down to "you have to maintain systems" something that the article also covers,

Dr. Ivan Spasojevic also explained that “the Institute used single-celled freshwater algae, which exist in ponds and lakes in Serbia and can grow in tap water, and are resistant to high and low temperatures. The system does not require special maintenance – it is enough to remove the biomass created by dividing algae, which can be used as an excellent fertilizer, in a month and a half, pour new water and minerals, and the algae continue to grow indefinitely. This project aims to popularize and expand the use of microalgae in Serbia, because they can be used in wastewater treatment, as compost for green areas, for the production of biomass and biofuels, as well as for air purification from exhaust gases from the factories”.

Pulling the biomass out is actually quite a quick project. It takes about an hour when it's not streamlined, there are ways it could be made faster. You can watch a video of it if you'd like, it's on their instagram.

Perhaps more importantly, urban trees take just as much if not more maintenance. In order to plant them in the first place, concrete would need to be dug out, soil needs to be trucked in, saplings need to be planted and that's just to get started. Trees then need to be pruned, they need to be checked for pests, they need to be inspected to make sure they don't intrude on sidewalks or roadways, fruits need to be cleaned up from female trees (male trees can worsen air quality with pollen release), dead trees have to be fully removed and replaced, etc. All of which costs money and can add up quickly. Urban trees already cost quite a bit to maintain. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't maintain them! But much in the same vein, the fact that Liquid 3 would require maintaining doesn't mean it's not a viable option. Nothing is free or comes without needing to maintain it. But the person above acts as if urban trees require no care.

Shutting down Belgrade's two in-city coal fired power plants and replacing them with a clean energy solution would help at once. Guess what? There isn't enough money for that, so you can imagine that there isn't enough money for a sufficient amount of tanks and their maintenance. This is palliative care at best - it doesn't cure the cause.

Now this is a truly wild sentence to behold. For those unaware, Belgrade/Serbia in general is currently very reliant on coal for power. It's a very cold country and they don't have a ton of alternatives. A somewhat bigger problem is that all of their coal plants are very old and thus less efficient and cause significantly more pollution.

The argument put forth here, is that because there isn't money to instantly shut down the coal plants in Belgrade and switch to some magic clean energy source that would just appear already set up, that means algae tanks must be impossible.

In reality, Belgrade and Serbia are taking a number of steps to transition to renewable energy where possible and to also improve their current coal plants to reduce pollution and improve efficiency. Since the 1990s, Serbia has managed to cut it's carbon emissions by about 25%, and they're actively investing billions into both renewable energy where possible and cleaning their current energy. In fact, they've committed to phasing coal out entirely by 2050.

But the fact is that these things more than anything take time. It doesn't matter how much money you throw at a problem, building a reliable renewable energy infrastructure doesn't happen over night.

And again, kids growing up now can't wait for 2030.

That's exactly what stop-gap measures can do. They can help in the here and now while the larger goals are worked on. That's what these tanks are meant to do.

Always be wary of people who kick their feet and demand that "if we can't fix everything right this instant then there's no point in even trying to do something about it". They aren't good faith actors. Efforts like what Dr. Ivan Spasojević are working on might not be a silver bullet that fixes every problem ever created, but they're little steps of progress. They're things that help out people in the here and now. They're chipping away at the massive undertaking of solving climate change.

Plus you get a really fucking cool city bench out of it.

And I'm pretty sure that's a hell of a lot more valuable then anything the person above has offered in the fight against climate change.

So! This is a perfect case study in situations where you should be wary of misinformation.

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

1. Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or
2. Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.

So yeah, there's actually quite a lot of places that would like these. Lots of people currently breathing in terrible quality air would much rather have their boring city benches replaced with really fucking cool algae tanks that clean the air and can be used to help create + sustain future green spaces in cities. I dunno about you, but I'd take that over a dumb metal bench any day. Put these at every bus stop and I'd be delighted.

Except you missed out on the part in your article that states (emphasis mine):

The microalgae replaces two 10-year-old trees or 200 square metres of lawn

And as another post says:

... liquid trees don't reduce erosion, enrich soil, prevent flooding, and improve the quality of groundwater ...

(source)

Also: algae bloom. You'd have to clean / replace / remove the algae once a month - on public (tax?) money and you'd need the tools (gasoline fuelled?), vehicles (! gasoline fuelled?). Someone should check whether the CO2 emissions caused by maintenance are (easily) offset by the product itself.

Promoting stop-gap measures without extensive calculations doesn't help. Shutting down Belgrade's two in-city coal fired power plants and replacing them with a clean energy solution would help at once. Guess what? There isn't enough money for that, so you can imagine that there isn't enough money for a sufficient amount of tanks and their maintenance. This is palliative care at best - it doesn't cure the cause.

Hi! I'm going to block you after I offer this correction because you're clearly behaving maliciously, but for those curious as to how I could know that, let's take a quick look at how bad actors can try to smear any signs of progress.

Note how they highlight that part of the article that says "replaces"? I'll offer people the full quote for context,

The microalgae replace two 10-year-old trees or 200 square meters of lawn. The function of the LIQUID 3 is practically an imitation of it. Both trees and grass perform photosynthesis and bind carbon dioxide. However, the advantage of microalgae is that it is 10 to 50 times more efficient than trees. The team behind LIQUID 3 has stated that their goal is not to replace forests or tree planting plans but to use this system to fill those urban pockets where there is no space for planting trees. In conditions of intense pollution, such as Belgrade, many trees cannot survive, while algae do not have a problem with the great levels of pollution.

It's extremely clear to anyone who reads more than two sentences that the term "replace" in the first sentence is meant to mean "equivalent to".

You'll then notice that they get into a strawman argument. No one ever said that algae could do any of the things listed there, although, frankly, urban trees can't really do a lot of them either unless planted in a large quantity that's often impossible in dense urban areas. The Liquid 3 is specifically concerned with air quality. But they pretend that the goal is to somehow replace trees.

Then they get into an argument that boils down to "you have to maintain systems" something that the article also covers,

Dr. Ivan Spasojevic also explained that “the Institute used single-celled freshwater algae, which exist in ponds and lakes in Serbia and can grow in tap water, and are resistant to high and low temperatures. The system does not require special maintenance – it is enough to remove the biomass created by dividing algae, which can be used as an excellent fertilizer, in a month and a half, pour new water and minerals, and the algae continue to grow indefinitely. This project aims to popularize and expand the use of microalgae in Serbia, because they can be used in wastewater treatment, as compost for green areas, for the production of biomass and biofuels, as well as for air purification from exhaust gases from the factories”.

Pulling the biomass out is actually quite a quick project. It takes about an hour when it's not streamlined, there are ways it could be made faster. You can watch a video of it if you'd like, it's on their instagram.

Perhaps more importantly, urban trees take just as much if not more maintenance. In order to plant them in the first place, concrete would need to be dug out, soil needs to be trucked in, saplings need to be planted and that's just to get started. Trees then need to be pruned, they need to be checked for pests, they need to be inspected to make sure they don't intrude on sidewalks or roadways, fruits need to be cleaned up from female trees (male trees can worsen air quality with pollen release), dead trees have to be fully removed and replaced, etc. All of which costs money and can add up quickly. Urban trees already cost quite a bit to maintain. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't maintain them! But much in the same vein, the fact that Liquid 3 would require maintaining doesn't mean it's not a viable option. Nothing is free or comes without needing to maintain it. But the person above acts as if urban trees require no care.

Shutting down Belgrade's two in-city coal fired power plants and replacing them with a clean energy solution would help at once. Guess what? There isn't enough money for that, so you can imagine that there isn't enough money for a sufficient amount of tanks and their maintenance. This is palliative care at best - it doesn't cure the cause.

Now this is a truly wild sentence to behold. For those unaware, Belgrade/Serbia in general is currently very reliant on coal for power. It's a very cold country and they don't have a ton of alternatives. A somewhat bigger problem is that all of their coal plants are very old and thus less efficient and cause significantly more pollution.

The argument put forth here, is that because there isn't money to instantly shut down the coal plants in Belgrade and switch to some magic clean energy source that would just appear already set up, that means algae tanks must be impossible.

In reality, Belgrade and Serbia are taking a number of steps to transition to renewable energy where possible and to also improve their current coal plants to reduce pollution and improve efficiency. Since the 1990s, Serbia has managed to cut it's carbon emissions by about 25%, and they're actively investing billions into both renewable energy where possible and cleaning their current energy. In fact, they've committed to phasing coal out entirely by 2050.

But the fact is that these things more than anything take time. It doesn't matter how much money you throw at a problem, building a reliable renewable energy infrastructure doesn't happen over night.

And again, kids growing up now can't wait for 2030.

That's exactly what stop-gap measures can do. They can help in the here and now while the larger goals are worked on. That's what these tanks are meant to do.

Always be wary of people who kick their feet and demand that "if we can't fix everything right this instant then there's no point in even trying to do something about it". They aren't good faith actors. Efforts like what Dr. Ivan Spasojević are working on might not be a silver bullet that fixes every problem ever created, but they're little steps of progress. They're things that help out people in the here and now. They're chipping away at the massive undertaking of solving climate change.

Plus you get a really fucking cool city bench out of it.

And I'm pretty sure that's a hell of a lot more valuable then anything the person above has offered in the fight against climate change.

PLATONIC INTERPRETATIONS OF CHARACTER DYNAMICS ARENT ANY LESS VALID THAN ROMANTIC ONES PELASEE

Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it

video killed the radio star