Neighborhoods with more trees and green space stay cooler, while those coated with layers of asphalt swelter. Lower-income neighborhoods tend to be hottest, a city report found, and they have the least tree canopy.
The same is true in cities across the country, where poor and minority neighborhoods disproportionately suffer the consequences of rising temperatures. Research shows the temperatures in a single city, from Portland, Oregon, to Baltimore, can vary by up to 20 degrees. For a resident in a leafy suburb, a steamy summer day may feel uncomfortable. But for their friend a few neighborhoods over, it’s more than uncomfortable — it’s dangerous.
Trees are a good thing? Who knew?
Not like they’ve been part of the ecosystem for
billionshundreds of millions of years or anything.More like 375 million years, about the middle Devonian period.
Tangentally: for millions of years after plants started using lignin as a structural material the decomposers couldn’t break it down very effectively, so for like 60 million years lots of that tough plant material stacked up into deep layers and eventually turned into coal.
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But car drivers crash into them and hurt themselves sometimes or birds perch and poop on cars. Not worth having trees /s
If you live some place in a drought, water is an issue when planting new trees.
Build covers with solar panels on their roofs. Provide shade and generate money in the long run. Most brick-and-mortar shoppers would be more attracted to covered parking, too.
It blows my mind that an article about shade deserts doesn’t mention covering with solar collection systems. We all should expect anything intended to take sunlight should be a photovoltaic surface.
An increase in the number of solar cells in an area can be useful, but shade cover from trees would have a greater cooling effect on most areas. Trees both shade and provide transpiration cooling. The water evaporating from leaves cools the surrounding air as the water goes from a liquid to gas phase.
I really hope Biden pushes something next term that allows promotes solar like the current ev push.
Even better, ban HoAs from banning solar. Fuck that noise.
Trees should be the first priority, with solar cell shade a distant second. Trees only need water and minor maintenance, are far cooler to be under than a simple shade barrier, provide a lot of benefits like wind breaking and homes for nature to live in that are better for people than artificial structures.
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Pv is now around $30/m^2 wholesale and $60/m^2 retail.
Not much more expensive than a sheet metal roof (far cheaper than a mature tree after all the water and tending), but a sheet metal roof doesn’t produce $100/yr worth of electricity.
Tree good. If can’t afford tree, then pv obvious choice.
It would cost about $30,000 for us to do solar cells and battery. That’s more than my car cost.
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You can buy the panels, inverter, racking and a battery which produces more than enough for anything smaller than a mansion for <$10k. Batteries are also not really necessary and can be added later.
Why are you paying > $20k for someone to put in 60 screws and a piece of conduit?
For one thing, that’s not what I’ve seen in terms of pricing overall. For another, believe it or not, not all of us are able to do things like install solar panels on a roof.
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I live in a nice, heavily treed neighborhood. I always dress wrong, cause it gets so much hotter once I get into the city and open areas.
One of the biggest shocks moving from the midwest to Los Angeles wasn’t the palm trees, it was that there were so few shade trees.
Sure, there were some shady neighborhoods, and there was the very shady Griffith park, but overall, almost no shade. It was nuts.
Gotta make life tough on those homeless.people. /s
I was rock climbing yesterday on a rockface getting pounded by the sun on a 90° day the entire day I felt sick, tired, and drank a shitton of water and it was not enough. People should value the shade.
Gotta keep your electrolytes up too. I learned that one the hard way. You don’t need to do that in an office, you do when its 110 degrees in the shade and doing physical activities.
I don’t understand why city planners love barren plains of asphalt. Throw some greenery in there. Parking lots are so depressing.
Every parking lot in the world should be covered in solar for charging. Break it up with large trees too.
They’re already ugly. Make them useful.
