Palm Trees Could Disappear From Disney World Due to Ongoing Climate Crisis

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From the moment you land at Orlando International Airport, the first thing that you may notice is that it is instantly humid, even inside the airport, and there are palm trees outside every window.

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Credit: Celebration Florida

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Florida is known for its swampy waters and stunning palm trees, and even though Disney World has created its own imaginative world, palm trees still line the property as well as many Resorts, giving Guests that true tropical Florida feeling. Well, it seems that there may be a day where Disney World, and Florida, in general, might ditch the palm trees all together!

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CNN recently reported that due to the climate change crisis, there are communities in South Florida that are doing away with palm trees. This change may also extend out to all of Florida, which could include Disney World if that was something the company wanted to do.

“Palm trees do not sequester carbon at the same rate as our native canopy trees and do not provide shade, cool down streets and sidewalks to help counter the urban heat island effect that canopy trees do,” said Penni Redford, the Resilience and Climate Change Manager for West Palm Beach.

It seems that the issue is not that palm trees are doing anything negative for the environment, but that they are not doing enough. With atmospheric carbon dioxide levels today higher than at any point in at least the past 800,000 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Unfortunately, palm trees are the least effective at carbon sequestration. Because of this, communities are no longer planting palm trees in new development areas but other trees that can better sequester carbon dioxide.

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Disney has not noted that they would be doing anything like this, but it would be interesting to see if, in the future, we see other trees in Disney World property rather than palm trees.

Do you think that Disney would ever remove palm trees from their property? Would you be upset to see them go?

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