Can’t even send it back

December 6, tree lights in Trafalgar Square will illuminate a 75ft-high Norwegian spruce, writes Catherine Gregory the sixty-first of its kind to make the journey from Oslo to London since the tradition began in 1947. That�s a lot of tree-miles. Is it perhaps time to end this annual tradition?

�The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree is a central part of Christmas in London,� says Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. Christmas trees add a special seasonal atmosphere to public areas, which is increasingly important in combating disbanding communities and the anonymity and animosity of the metropolis. But the spruce that stands beneath Nelson�s Column for a month each year is just one of six million Christmas trees in Britain alone. At a time of year when waste rises by 25 per cent and power stations are working over-time, it is worth reminding ourselves that we are cutting down the very things that absorb our harmful emissions. Deforestation adds to the threat posed to our climate by rising levels of carbon dioxide, so Christmas is understandably not nature�s best friend.

Fortunately, not every tree with a fairy atop travels such incredible distances as the one in Trafalgar Square. The �Queen of the forest� has just embarked on its 700-plus mile trip by ship and lorry. It will arrive in London a few days after the Mayor of Westminster, Councillor Carolyn Keen, who flew to Oslo for the felling ceremony. Aviation now constitutes as much as 18 per cent of UK CO2 emissions.

However, London�s authorities are not entirely devoid of environmental responsibility: the tree�s lights have energy-efficient bulbs, lit for only 12 hours each day, and on the twelfth day of Christmas the spruce is fed into the shredder : ten weeks later the result is 15 bags of lovely compost. This will provide a rich base for a good few young trees but it will not offset the carbon footprint that the Trafalgar Square tree�s unusual journey has left: around 0.7 tonnes, all told.

Tags: off-the-grid, Carbon-footprint, Christmas-Tree