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Waterloo's Christmas Tree Lab is trying to save a long-standing tradition from climate change
CBC News Canada ^ | December 6, 2025 | By James Chaarani

Posted on 12/06/2025 6:26:46 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer

Christmas trees farms across Ontario haven’t been spared by the devastating impacts of climate change, but a lab out of the University of Waterloo (UW) is pushing to curb the effects.

UW’s Christmas Tree Lab, founded in 2022, collaborates with Christmas tree farms across the province in their research to foster a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly industry in the face of climate change, while offering education and advocacy materials.

The lab’s director, Kelsey Leonard, said yields at some of these farms are impacted by major climate events, everything from extreme heat and drought to what she describes as “erratic freeze-thaw cycles.”

There are over 400 Christmas tree farms in Ontario, more than any other province in Canada, Leonard says. The trees they produce have much less of an impact on the environment than fake ones.

“It’s a climate-friendly choice,” Leonard says. “When we think about an artificial tree, they’re made from byproducts of fossil fuels, they’re often shipped long distances.”

For an artificial Christmas tree to have the same carbon footprint as a real one, it would need to be used for more than 20 years, according to the David Suzuki Foundation.

And Leonard says that this isn’t happening.

“They’re unfortunately becoming a fast fad fashion,” she explains. “People are turning out their artificial trees every two to three years.”

Climate has had such an impact that Leonard says what used to take a Christmas tree seven to 10 years to grow now takes eight to 12 — something that Joe Wareham with Chickadee Christmas Trees in Puslinch, Ont., has found on their farm.

“It’s taking longer now though with the hot, dry summers,” Wareham explains.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...


TOPICS: Canada; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: christmas; globalwarming; hoax; propaganda

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1 posted on 12/06/2025 6:26:46 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Move to the Yukon. Or is that too balmy?


2 posted on 12/06/2025 6:29:14 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (Democrats seek power through cheating and assassination. They are sociopaths. They just want power.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The very first sentence is climate doom fear propaganda psyops. It assumes facts not in evidence, and it would have been possible to write the article without mentioning climate change.


3 posted on 12/06/2025 6:29:49 AM PST by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Wait. Don’t trees eat CO2?


4 posted on 12/06/2025 6:32:13 AM PST by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

5 posted on 12/06/2025 6:35:12 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

What a load of BS. CBC -trash


6 posted on 12/06/2025 6:40:42 AM PST by iamgalt
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To: Larry Lucido

They are elites from the University of Waterloo. Your discernment is too strong for them


7 posted on 12/06/2025 6:43:06 AM PST by Steven Tyler
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
...some of these farms are impacted by major climate events, everything from extreme heat and drought to what she describes as “erratic freeze-thaw cycles...

And it's been everything from temperate to ice covered over the last few million years. Man up and adapt to it!

8 posted on 12/06/2025 6:43:20 AM PST by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Finish the damned WALL! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH! )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

It is probably illegal in Canada to teach kids the basic science that carbon dioxide is what trees eat.


9 posted on 12/06/2025 6:48:10 AM PST by UnwashedPeasant (The pandemic we suffer from is not COVID. It is Marxist Democrat Leftism. )
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To: Larry Lucido
Wait. Don’t trees eat CO2?

And release oxygen?

10 posted on 12/06/2025 6:48:41 AM PST by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Finish the damned WALL! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH! )
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To: coloradan

The very first sentence is climate doom fear propaganda psyops.


Evidently not all climate scare funding has been cut off.


11 posted on 12/06/2025 6:52:12 AM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“It kind of sounds strange, right? How can you have drought and flood and erratic freeze and thaw cycles, but because we just have such a biodiverse region from Windsor to Ottawa Valley, to up north and northern Ontario, we actually are in one growing season seeing all of these different types of events,” Leonard explains.


they used to be called seasons.....................


12 posted on 12/06/2025 6:53:31 AM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)
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To: UnwashedPeasant

That was pre WEXIT Canada.

The western provinces are in the act of becoming new nations or perhaps American territories or states. They were in Washington this week solidifying plans


13 posted on 12/06/2025 6:53:36 AM PST by bert ( (KE. NP. +12) Quid Quid Nominatur Fabricatur)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

For an artificial Christmas tree to have the same carbon footprint as a real one, it would need to be used for more than 20 years, according to the David Suzuki Foundation.


Well, there may be a nugget of truth.


14 posted on 12/06/2025 6:54:41 AM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
...what used to take a Christmas tree seven to 10 years to grow now takes eight to 12...

Of course, there's no other explanation other than climate change. The fact that these tree farms have been sucking nutrients out of the same soil for decades couldn't possibly have any effect on the tree's rate of growth.

15 posted on 12/06/2025 7:04:28 AM PST by econjack
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“Christmas trees farms across Ontario haven’t been spared by the devastating impacts of climate change”

The only devastating impact is in their stupid heads!


16 posted on 12/06/2025 7:06:39 AM PST by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I thought a Christmas Tree Lab was a new kind of holiday dog


17 posted on 12/06/2025 7:08:15 AM PST by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Don’t Christmas type trees, i.e., pines, firs and spruce grow everywhere from NC and TN to New England, MI, WI and MN? And that’s just in the eastern part of the country, they also grow in Northern CA, Or, and WA. Quite a variety of micro-climates. Why is this little piece of Canada being hit so hard? And is it even being hit so hard? They said the growth period ‘jumped’ from 7-10 years to 8-12. Not a huge difference.


18 posted on 12/06/2025 7:09:29 AM PST by redangus
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“Climate has had such an impact that Leonard says what used to take a Christmas tree seven to 10 years to grow now takes eight to 12 “

What pile of dung! Higher CO2 makes trees go faster.


19 posted on 12/06/2025 7:10:09 AM PST by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Where is the proof the earth is warming.


20 posted on 12/06/2025 7:11:07 AM PST by bray (It's not racist to be racist against races the DNC hates.)
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