TAHK: A Citizen-Led Response to the Climate Crisis

Abstract

The environmental crisis is no longer a distant threat but a reality. Global deforestation, the loss of biodiversity and rising temperatures have placed the Earth’s ecological balance on the edge. While international treaties and governmental policies are essential in confronting these challenges, they are often slow and disconnected from the everyday actions of individuals. In this context, citizen-driven movements like TreeAndHumanKnot (TAHK) offer a scalable and practical commitment. This article explores how TAHK translates the concept of environmental responsibility into a personal and replicable act: planting a tree and creating a symbolic “knot” between a person and nature. With a goal to tie 100,000 TreeAndHumanKnots by 2030, the initiative operates on three fundamental principles: simplicity, innovation and sustainability. The philosophy and growing impact of TAHK is explored as a hopeful model to create positive change.

“Modern man talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side” (Schumacher, 1975: p.3). With this quotation, economist and philosopher E.F. Schumacher expressed the paradox at the heart of modern civilization. As we strive to conquer nature through extraction, expansion and technological dominance, we forget that nature is not a battlefield but our only home. Winning, in this case, means extinction.

In 2023, Earth’s average surface temperature reached its highest level since the 1850s (Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2024). That same year, wildfires in Canada burned more than 18 million hectares of forest, an area twice the size of Portugal, releasing over 640 million metric tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere. This means that the Canadian fires released more carbon in five months than Russia or Japan emitted from fossil fuels in all of 2022  (Younger, 2024). In the Amazon, deforestation continues at a rate of roughly one football field per minute, despite international agreements to halt it by 2030 (Shukman, 2019). Ocean heat is at record highs, ice sheets are melting faster than ever and species extinction rates are now estimated to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than natural extinction rate levels (WWF, n.d.). These are not isolated symptoms. They are expressions of a global system under stress, a biosphere collapsing under the weight of industrial growth.

Despite international commitments and scientific consensus, progress remains slow and uneven. The problems are too vast, too global. While large-scale institutional reforms are necessary, the role of individual and community-driven action has been underestimated. This is where TreeAndHumanKnot (TAHK) intervenes, by offering a way to create positive change: one that begins not in parliaments or summits, but in the soil, with a seed and a promise. TAHK is a citizen-led environmental initiative that responds to the climate crisis through symbolic and measurable acts: planting trees as a physical expression of ecological responsibility.

TAHK is a global movement grounded in the idea that reconnecting humans with nature is not only possible but essential. It invites people to tie a knot, literally and symbolically, with a tree. The act is simple: plant a tree, commit to its care and register it as a TreeAndHumanKnot, a living bond between person and planet. Participants are encouraged to check on their trees regularly, share progress and inspire others to do the same. The goal is to tie 100,000 knots by 2030, building not just a forest, but a global culture of care.

Unlike many tree-planting campaigns that only care about numbers, TAHK focuses on the connection between people and nature. A tree is a living being and it needs care from the person who plants it in order to survive, this turns the tree from just an object into a meaningful being. To spread this idea, TAHK has simple but powerful initiatives like “Green Birthdays”, in which people plant a tree on their birthday. It’s easy to do and a scalable action that could have a real  impact if many people join the initiative. Planting a tree is one of the simplest, yet most  powerful actions a person can take. A single tree provides shade, improves air quality, protects soil and contributes to biodiversity. Yet the power of this act increases exponentially when it is replicated and shared. TAHK encourages each participant to not only plant a tree but to inspire someone else to do the same. Through this chain reaction, a small act evolves into a large-scale movement. The simplicity of this act makes it genuinely inclusive, allowing individuals from all backgrounds to participate and contribute meaningfully. 

Furthermore, through these actions, festivals and cultural days also become opportunities for communal knot-planting, bringing people together to plant trees, turning moments of joy into opportunities for giving back to the Earth. These creative approaches help cultivate a long-term “green mindset” and make sustainability a meaningful part of people’s identities.

Behavioural science supports this approach. Research shows that small, visible commitments, especially when made in public or ritualized, can lead to sustained behavioural change and even political engagement (Nisa et al., 2019). By making environmental action both social and emotional, TAHK transforms apathy into identity. Participants do not merely “go green”; they become part of a community defined by care.

However, TAHK does not claim to solve the climate crisis alone. It is clear that no number of trees planted can replace industrial decarbonization. But TAHK refuses to accept the false idea that individual action can not create systemic change. When people feel connected to nature, they vote differently, buy differently and organize differently. A knot is the start; from there, movements grow.

In an era defined by collapse of biodiversity, TAHK offers a vision of rebuilding, not with slogans, but with soil and roots. It is not a grand solution, but it is a real one and in the face of despair, reality matters.

To plant a tree and promise to protect it is not naïve. In a society trained to extract and exploit, to plant is to care; and to tie a knot between yourself and the living world is to declare that you are still here, still hopeful, still human.

References

Copernicus Climate Change Service. (2024, January 9). Copernicus: 2023 is the hottest year on record, with global temperatures close to the 1.5°C limit. https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2023-hottest-year-record

Nisa, C. F., Bélanger, J. J., Schumpe, B. M. and Faller, D. G.  (2019). Meta-analysis of behavioural interventions to promote climate-friendly household behaviours. Nature Communications, 10 (4545), 1-13.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12457-2

Schumacher, E. (1975). Small is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered. HarperPerennial. https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/small_is_beautiful.pdf 

Shukman, D. (2019, July 2). ‘Football pitch’ of Amazon forest lost every minute. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48827490 

WWF. (n.d.). Well… this is the million dollar question. https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/biodiversity/biodiversity

Younger, S.. (2024, August 28). New NASA Study Tallies Carbon Emissions From Massive Canadian Fires. NASA California Institute of Technology https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-nasa-study-tallies-carbon-emissions-from-massive-canadian-fires/