Sélestat, France (pronounced “sill-eh-schtat”) is the birthplace of the Christmas tree tradition, a ritual started in 1521 as logged by town records of the first trees cut solely for decorative purposes. The first Christmas trees were hung from the ceiling of St. George’s Cathedral, a gothic church from the 15th century
Throughout history, it is estimated that human beings have cut down 2,000,000,000,000 (2 trillion) – 2,500,000,000,000 (2.5 trillion) trees. This means that even if human beings plant 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) trees within the coming decade(s), this would only replace 40% – 50% of what has been taken from nature. Drones are now being used to plant trees, capable of planting 120 trees per minute per drone at 10% of the traditional cost to do so. If humanity were to plant 20,000,000,000 (20 billion) trees per year for 50 years, which is a sustainable rate, this still only equates to 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) trees which once again would only replace 40% – 50% of that which has been taken. It would take 9000 drones operating 200 days per year to accomplish this feat. Drone production for this project would not require drones more complicated than a modern day smartphone. Trees, plants, grasses etc. are essentially crystallized air, and are more than 95% formed by air. This means that the mass of a tree is equitable to the mass of oxygen which it has been crystallized from, effectively adhering to the Law of the Conservation of Mass, the First Law of thermodynamics. The average tree weighs 2 tonnes with 50% of this weight being carbon, which means that 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) trees is directly equitable to 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) tonnes of carbon. The land requirement to produce such an ambitious project would take half the land mass of Brazil, with larger trees actually requiring less land, paradoxically
Because saffron is so expensive it’s often mixed with other plants which are not actually saffron but are closely related to saffron to build up the bulk of the weight of a purchase. Turmeric is a primary example of a plant often used to help bulk up supplies. Distributors also use plastic as it helps add weight and eye appeal whilst actually providing nothing more than visual esthetics. Scientists can perform deoxyribonucleic acid examinations to determine if a sample is actually pure saffron or not. High quality saffron should have a humid scent which indicates that it was picked fresh. If the scent of saffron is slightly rancid, it means that it is old or of low quality