Planting More Trees In Cities Could Cut Deaths From Summer Heat, Says Study 111
Planting more trees could mean fewer people die from increasingly high summer temperatures in cities, a study suggests. The Guardian reports: Increasing the level of tree cover from the European average of 14.9% to 30% can lower the temperature in cities by 0.4C, which could reduce heat-related deaths by 39.5%, according to first-of-its-kind modeling of 93 European cities by an international team of researchers. [...] The researchers used mortality data to estimate the potential reduction in deaths from lower temperatures as a result of increased tree coverage. Using data from 2015 they estimated that out of the 6,700 premature deaths that year attributed to higher urban temperatures, 2,644 could have been prevented had tree cover been increased.
The cities most likely to benefit from the increase in tree coverage are in south and eastern Europe, where summer temperatures are highest and tree coverage tends to be lower. In Cluj-Napoca in Romania -- which had the highest number of premature deaths due to heat in 2015, at 32 per 100,000 people -- tree coverage is just 7%. In Lisbon, Portugal it is as low as 3.6% and in Barcelona its 8.4%. That compares with 15.5% in London and 34% in Oslo. Study co-author Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said the team picked 30% as that is a target that many cities are currently working towards.
He said there was no need for buildings to be razed and replaced with parks, since there is enough space to plant more trees in all the cities the team looked at. He praised initiatives such as the EU's 3 billion trees plan, and the UK government's proposal to ensure every home is within a 15-minute walk from green space, though he noted that policymakers must ensure trees are evenly distributed between richer and poor neighborhoods. He added that cities which are "too car-dominated" should consider replacing asphalt roads, which absorb heat, with trees. Planting more trees in cities should be prioritized because it brings a huge range of health benefits beyond reducing heat-related deaths, he added, including reducing cardiovascular disease, dementia and poor mental health. The study has been published in the journal The Lancet.
The cities most likely to benefit from the increase in tree coverage are in south and eastern Europe, where summer temperatures are highest and tree coverage tends to be lower. In Cluj-Napoca in Romania -- which had the highest number of premature deaths due to heat in 2015, at 32 per 100,000 people -- tree coverage is just 7%. In Lisbon, Portugal it is as low as 3.6% and in Barcelona its 8.4%. That compares with 15.5% in London and 34% in Oslo. Study co-author Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said the team picked 30% as that is a target that many cities are currently working towards.
He said there was no need for buildings to be razed and replaced with parks, since there is enough space to plant more trees in all the cities the team looked at. He praised initiatives such as the EU's 3 billion trees plan, and the UK government's proposal to ensure every home is within a 15-minute walk from green space, though he noted that policymakers must ensure trees are evenly distributed between richer and poor neighborhoods. He added that cities which are "too car-dominated" should consider replacing asphalt roads, which absorb heat, with trees. Planting more trees in cities should be prioritized because it brings a huge range of health benefits beyond reducing heat-related deaths, he added, including reducing cardiovascular disease, dementia and poor mental health. The study has been published in the journal The Lancet.
Get the cars out, let the people use the roads (Score:4, Insightful)
It's time to stop pussyfooting around with tiny measures and like this and finally TAKE BACK THE SPACE and use it for people, playgrounds, gardens, cycle paths and yes, even trees.
Re:Get the cars out, let the people use the roads (Score:4, Insightful)
Going carless makes sense for many European cities that grew before cars were common.
But most American cities were designed around cars. There is huge political resistance to new high-density housing in urban cores. Everyone claims to hate sprawl, but they vote for the policies which promote it.
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Even without cars, people need ways to move themselves and items like groceries, furniture and white goods around quickly and efficiently. You're not going to do all of that that with busses or subways or trollies or green walkways.
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Even without cars, people need ways to move themselves and items like groceries, furniture and white goods around quickly and efficiently. You're not going to do all of that that with busses or subways or trollies or green walkways.
Exactly, this nonsense in conflating walkable cities and robust reliable cheap public transportation with no freaking roads is crazy. There is a reason why all walkable cities still have roads and yes, even cars in many places - you absolutely need roads. How is the trash getting taken out? How are contractors supposed to work? What about medical emergencies and ambulances? What happens when a fire breaks out? People advocate for taking away cars when there is no alternatives like corralled populations
Re:Get the cars out, let the people use the roads (Score:5, Informative)
What is even this discussion? Nobody ever suggests removing all roads
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What is even this discussion? Nobody ever suggests removing all roads
You must be new here. /s
There is a concerted effort to conflate walkable cities and proper public transport options with removing all roads and all private ownership of means of transport. It’s being done purposely to stop increased urban density policy popularity and to protect monied interests.
Re:Get the cars out, let the people use the roads (Score:4, Interesting)
What is even this discussion? Nobody ever suggests removing all roads
You must be new here. /s
There is a concerted effort to conflate walkable cities and proper public transport options with removing all roads and all private ownership of means of transport. It’s being done purposely to stop increased urban density policy popularity and to protect monied interests.
I can note that the campus I worked at went walkable. They pretty much made the place very hostile to automobiles and trucks.
It made things a bit problematic. It's a big campus, like around 2 miles across. They discovered that they had to make ambulance access. Ended up placing the blocks that allow drainage at certain points so that if someone had a heart attack, they didn't have to be helicoptered out.
And there was a real problem, in that they would make walkway only access to all new construction.
That real problem is that maintenance, food delivery, even newspapers, needed access to these buildings.
Guess where all of these needed vehicles ended up - exactly, on the walkways for people. On my walk from the parking lot to my building, it became a bit scary. You had to peek around corners before stepping around the corner. I was nearly run over maybe 3 times.
Then to top it off, these walkways were built for humans, not vehicles. There are radically different construction methods between sidewalks and roads. So the walkways were getting destroyed by the weight.
Minor irritants were classes at opposite sides of the campus. The add/drop class process got a real workout, although there were sometimes students just had to have a lot of hiking around. The little electric scooters are now pretty popular. Some people look at the owners as lazy, but it's more like saving them 10 miles of hiking every day. So it isn't like there are people who become so enamored of eliminate vehicular traffic that they implement really bad systems.
If we are really serious about the walkable city, we probably need to place all vehicular traffic underground.
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If we are really serious about the walkable city, we probably need to place all vehicular traffic underground.
That’s only one of many possible solutions. You don’t need to ban all traffic, the university campuses I spent time at all had extensive roads. However, without parking and with side roads dead ending or only servicing loops you don’t get excessive traffic, emergency vehicles still have access, trash collection can be done on proper vehicles, on and on. There were also even more dedicated bike and pedestrian paths. On those the only time I’ve come close to getting hit is when the
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If we are really serious about the walkable city, we probably need to place all vehicular traffic underground.
That’s only one of many possible solutions. You don’t need to ban all traffic, the university campuses I spent time at all had extensive roads. However, without parking and with side roads dead ending or only servicing loops you don’t get excessive traffic, emergency vehicles still have access, trash collection can be done on proper vehicles, on and on. There were also even more dedicated bike and pedestrian paths. On those the only time I’ve come close to getting hit is when the cops think it’s fun to drive on them because rules don’t apply.
The roads on my campus were turned into walkways. No vehicular traffic unless there had to be. Brilliant move that, the student now walked and blocked. So if the need for a vehicle arose, they had to put up with the issue.
I could be wrong, but if the vehicle services don't go underground, there will always be problems.
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Ugh, then I'd have to mow it!
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There's not much nuance in this comment [slashdot.org] up-thread that argues we should get rid of motor vehicles and roads.
Re: Get the cars out, let the people use the roads (Score:1)
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Even without cars, people need ways to move themselves and items like groceries, furniture and white goods around quickly and efficiently. You're not going to do all of that that with busses or subways or trollies or green walkways.
Exactly, this nonsense in conflating walkable cities and robust reliable cheap public transportation with no freaking roads is crazy. There is a reason why all walkable cities still have roads and yes, even cars in many places - you absolutely need roads. How is the trash getting taken out? How are contractors supposed to work? What about medical emergencies and ambulances? What happens when a fire breaks out? People advocate for taking away cars when there is no alternatives like corralled populations are ok and people don’t need any freedom of movement. All these and many more currently require roads in every place on earth and all walkable cities have them. All this conflation does is drive people away from walkable cities and transportation.
The concept of the Walkable city is interesting. Everything I need to live my best life within walking distance.
Can you explain how that will work? It seems a bit like a return to the 1300's.
Do we need to have a population level that is similar to the 1300's?
Take a place like New York City and it's boroughs. Around 6.5 million residents. What is needed to turn that into a walkable city for all 6.5 million?
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What is needed is your everyday things: food, pharmacy, etc, to be within walking distance (or maybe mass transit).
NYC has 6.5 million residents, but it's also a very large area, so it's not like all 6.5 million residents are going to the same grocery store.
Re: Get the cars out, let the people use the roads (Score:2)
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The answer is Company Owned Towns. You live in a small unit in a high density building. In or next to the building is your place of work, your grocery store, etc. All company owned of course. No need to ever leave. When you retire you get shifted to a retirement home which follows the same model.
That makes the suburbs look really good! 8^)
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Mainly just mixed-use planning. So you can go downstairs and there's a cafe on the ground floor, a grocery across the street. There's a school is a few blocks away, maybe even your office.
That's not going to be always possible of course so you can take a tram or subway to your destination. Or even a car if really needed, because the streets aren't clogged up with everyone driving their children to school and work.
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Mainly just mixed-use planning. So you can go downstairs and there's a cafe on the ground floor, a grocery across the street. There's a school is a few blocks away, maybe even your office.
That's not going to be always possible of course so you can take a tram or subway to your destination. Or even a car if really needed, because the streets aren't clogged up with everyone driving their children to school and work.
That will take some significant planning. Make no mistake, the concept is pretty charming.
As well, imagine a pub right near your place. Don't have to worry about getting a DUI, and as likely as not, has a nice atmosphere.
Definitely nice for the elderly.
But there not only has to be planning, there has to be a lot of cooperation between government and businesses.
And of course, no big box stores. Home updates will be an issue.
Now for myself, I wouldn't live in such a place. My lifestyle involves a
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Now for myself, I wouldn't live in such a place. My lifestyle involves a fair amount of travel, and I'm not much for being surrounded by millions of people within a few miles of me, although I have no issues with traveling and temporarily working in super high density cities, after a couple weeks, my skin crawls. I need a vehicle, my attempts at using public transit didn't work out at all, even in my home small city. Nothing like living right in a forest for some of us. 3 mile out of town, my neighbors are great, we all look out for each other, and living surrounded by trees and wildlife is my style. Deer and even bears walk through our yards, it's weird, they are half tame. So I have a bit of a different perspective than urbanites.
I grew up in that kind of environment as a kid and I hated it. It's no wonder I got so into video games. When any activity involves using a car, I couldn't do anything else.
Now, if you like it, as an adult, that's fine. I don't mean to say you're dumb for liking it. It's just that very car-centric living sucks for those who having a car isn't an option.
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Keeping in mind I know no more of your situation than can be expected by someone thousands of Km away from you...
DON'T assume a bear is "half tame"! EVER!! Always keep in mind that a bear can outrun you, and can turn you into lunch in a heartbeat. You can turn a corner, see a bear, and then see the cub, and by then the mama bear has decided you're too close to her wee bairn, and turned you into a pile of cooling meat...
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Well, the places today that sell food in the bottom story or on the corner tend to be high priced from what I've seen. They're more like convenience stores and priced for those who need the item now. However growing up this was a bit more common that there was a market, or even "super" market close by that could be walked to even if not across the street. My grandmother had the folding cart to get the groceries from 3 blocks away.
Not too long ago my mother hurt her back and was in the hospital for a week
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No _everything_ is in walking distance. But you have local shops, and most stuff you need is in walking distance. You then can walk to mass transit to get to your job perhaps. I'm from a small town and this seems the normal way to me. Why put a housing area 10 miles from where all the shops are and 20 miles from the jobs, Orange County style? Or just head to Europe and visit places like Helsinki, Stockhom, Frankfurt, etc.
It was not very long ago when automobiles did not even exist. And yet we had large
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No _everything_ is in walking distance. But you have local shops, and most stuff you need is in walking distance. You then can walk to mass transit to get to your job perhaps. I'm from a small town and this seems the normal way to me. Why put a housing area 10 miles from where all the shops are and 20 miles from the jobs, Orange County style? Or just head to Europe and visit places like Helsinki, Stockhom, Frankfurt, etc.
It was not very long ago when automobiles did not even exist. And yet we had large cities back then.
I was waiting for that. Some history.
New York City found motorized mobility a real godsend. Before the car, horses provided the mobility services, carriages, deliveries, even trolleys. huge numbers of horses all over the city.
And the place stunk to high heaven. Horse manure all over. Crossing a street was an exercise in getting your shoes all messy. A Disease vector. What's more, that many horses running about, there were always some dying. The owners of the carcass often just left them there to rot on
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Agreed, all those horses weren't good. Not everyone owned one though, it wasn't like you needed to own a horse to get anywhere, just like today in NYC you don't need a car to get anywhere.
However, we WILL have high density levels of humans living together because we have a lot of people on a small planet. No one wants to be evenly spread out, it's bad for business, bad for efficiency, etc. So people will clump together. Especially if they're not rich.
Re:Get the cars out, let the people use the roads (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in a city, we don't have a car at all. We mostly walk or use bicycle, sometimes use bus or train or even taxi. Groceries we carry in a backbag, furniture we order to be delivered.
As we indirectly need cars like delivery, shipments to local shop, bus, taxi, there is need for roads. But because we use those so little, there is no need for 16-line road. Simple road is enough.. It leaves room for walk/bicycle lines and trees.
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Really? So how did people do it before cars were in?
Oh, that's right, there were small stores all over, not giant stupormarkets who drove small farmers out of business, and are part of the agribusiness chain from farm to your wallet.
Re:Get the cars out, let the people use the roads (Score:5, Informative)
There is no need for high density housing if you have mixed use zones.
Look at parts of Japan. Decent sized houses, mixed with retail and small offices/factories/farms. Everyone has facilities and public transport within walking distance, as well as a pleasant environment to live in.
It's not perfect, but walkable cities don't have to mean micro houses or tower blocks.
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Look at parts of Japan. Decent sized houses, mixed with retail and small offices/factories/farms. Everyone has facilities and public transport within walking distance, as well as a pleasant environment to live in.
They also have roads and cars at the same time. Sounds like a win for everyone.
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True, although the speed limits are much lower too. 20 kph in some urban areas, rarely more than 30. Even on the motorway it's only 100 kph.
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Re:Get the cars out, let the people use the roads (Score:5, Informative)
Going carless makes sense for many European cities that grew before cars were common. But most American cities were designed around cars.
Completely false and ignorant of history. Much of Europe followed the same trend as America for car centric city design started even before WW2 and continuing long afterwards. Hell Amsterdam, cycling and pedestrian mecca that it is today even had a proposal drafted up by an American traffic expert David Jokinen to build a multi-lane highway through the middle of the city razing poor neighbourhoods as Americans love to do, and then building a raised monorail over the top giving layered transport, Chicago style.
Europe didn't become what it is today because it wasn't built for the car. It became what it is today because of pressure to reclaim it from cars. The Amsterdam plan didn't come to fruition, but many others did and you wouldn't have been able to tell a Dutch city apart from any American one in the 70s.
Then along came sensible city planners. Public transport was improved. Roads were converted. Utrecht's main entry road used to be 3 lanes each way. It's now 1 lane each way with protected cycleways and a bus transit lane. Rotterdam, a city levelled during world war 2 was completely rebuilt solely with the car in mind. Let me repeat that and add some HTML tags Rotterdam was levelled during WW2 and completely rebuilt solely with the car in mind, and last year the inner city main road was torn up, and the 3 lane each way road was replaced by 1 lane each way, an extra wide 2 lane bikeway, 2 dedicated tram lines, and new tram stops next to the metro. Incidentally a metro which was built *after* the Dutch started giving the middle finger to the carification of their country.
In 1988, the Delft city centre was a literal parking lot. It's now a pedestrian mall. In the 1980s you could drive down every street in The Hague, now most of the city centre is effectively for pedestrians and delivery vans only.
There is no historical differences that make Europe unique. Most American cities were built well before cars were a thing. Look up old pictures of New York, complete with horse and carriages, and "European" style cobblestone streets.
The only difference is the USA bought GM's lobbying, while Europe rejected it.
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Many cities were planned in the US to expect large rises in productivity even before cars. While even before that what was to become New York was a development testbed for increasing population density and services to them. That grid system in Manhattan was on the drawing board before the 1800's. And mostly proposed by the Dutch I think?
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Pictures. Just to really drive this point home, on Reddit these coincidentally popped up today of Utrecht's Stadsbuitengracht (Outer city canal). Yep it used to be a highway: https://imgur.com/eWjuao2 [imgur.com]
Most cities in the world (including American cities) weren't built for cars. They were demolished for cars. But it doesn't need to stay like that.
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But most American cities were designed around cars. There is huge political resistance to new high-density housing in urban cores. Everyone claims to hate sprawl, but they vote for the policies which promote it.
By "designed" you mean existing neighborhoods were bulldozed and tram lines ripped out and urban highways were built in place. It could be undone if there was the will.
But yeah there's huge opposition in the form of auto lobby and the "muh freedoms" contingent.
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Damn.
Back to the drawing board.
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Yeah, because we all know that those aren't taken into account in town planning what so ever. It can never work. Except for all the places where it does work perfectly because there's no reason that reducing space for cars means that any of the things you list suddenly don't work.
Actually I know of plenty of examples of places where cars were banned because they had a tendency to block exactly the things you've listed.
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Some of the inhabitants of car-free cities won't die of starvation but will be smothered under vast piles of accumulated detritus.
Whatever, it is quite obvious car-free cities cannot work and do not in fact work anywhere in the world.
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Except where they do.
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Yeah, it's only the circulatory system of a city; what could go wrong?
Literally nothing. It has been a boost in productivity and quality of life in every example where it has been implemented to date. You're right, roads are the circulatory system of a city. So it's rather insane that we dedicate them to an inefficient form of transport where 1 person consumes just shy of 10m^2 of it at a time, largely stuck standing still because they are incapable of handling junctions without some form of electronic control unlike e.g. a crowd walking through a pedestrian zone.
Air conditioners contribute too (Score:2)
In built up areas air conditioners actually cause the outside air to rise by 1 or 2 C thanks to the heat island effect. Countries shouldn't go down the route of just running AC all the time like the US. Just wastes an inordinate amount of power and makes the problem worse. Passive techniques like shade, heat reflective materials, insulation, indirect sunlight would negate the need for AC in a lot of cases and reduce the need to run it continuously even where the need still exists.
Re:Air conditioners contribute too (Score:5, Interesting)
Painting rooftops white can make a big difference.
Ground-source heat pumps can also be a big help: Dump heat into the ground during the summer, and pull it back out during the winter.
Ground source heat pump [wikipedia.org]
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Painting rooftops white can make a big difference.
Painting them "infrared window" can make an even bigger difference. Like 95W of air conditioning per square meter, 24/7.
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Really get serious about state and national parks and keep them as close to a natural state as possible. The policies will then influence green spaces in populated areas.
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I have to disagree on the "natural state as possible" bit. Far too much of our state and natural parks are closed to recreational uses. Can't camp, can't hunt, can't fish, can't trap, can't hike off-trail unless you want to get yelled at, and god forbid you want to clear out (non-native invasive) vegetation. The park I hike at has more Chinese privet and yam than most of China. It's not ideal.
If you want to have wild lands, that's great. I love it. They need to be useful spaces though, not shrines to so
Re: Air conditioners contribute too (Score:1)
If only a fraction of the population can do those things, hunting and fishing in particular then really restrict those activities further in places. Everyone who is able own a firearm cannot go hunting for example it's not possible. The lands were managed very well before we settled here I agree. But those people hunted, fished, camped for survival while virtually no one now does so for anything more than recreation. Good skills all from a conservationist point of view but if we are not prepared to teach ev
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Painting rooftops white can make a big difference.
More outdated thinking from the 90s. You want to make a difference, plant a rooftop garden. Better cooling than a white roof while also providing better water management, more greenery, can be combined as a source of food as well.
Re: Air conditioners contribute too (Score:2, Troll)
On the other hand the US doesnâ(TM)t nearly have the problem with heat related deaths than Europe because they have AC. AC in Europe is a luxury due to its high energy costs.
Cities across the world are already running empty, just decrease energy cost by increasing the availability of cheap base load supply (nuclear, natural gas etc) and people can adapt out of the situation.
Planting trees is great but 1-2C of local temperature change doesnâ(TM)t solve the problem of heat related deaths which occur
Re: Air conditioners contribute too (Score:5, Informative)
AC in Europe is a luxury due to its high energy costs.
Also because it's hardly needed in Europe. For example, compare US city temperatures [currentresults.com] with European ones [currentresults.com]. Athens, Greece has temperatures comparable to cities like Charlotte, NC and Nashville, TN -- the southern US is much warmer than southern Europe.
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Having been to both Greece and North Carolina/Tennesee, I'd rather have AC in both places and I know tons of people in the US do have if not AC at least a swamp cooler.
Re: Air conditioners contribute too (Score:3)
Exactly, it's easy to forget that Europe, though similar in size to the lower 48 US states, has an incredibly different climate. Thr heat waves that have been "crippling" Europe the last couple of years are just "summer" in most of the US.
The central US in particular is volatile, reaching around 100 degrees F (38 C) with high humidity in summers and -40 in the dead of winter. The upper midwest historically has been able to survive without AC but that's getting more challenging, and the American south is vir
LOL, no they don't. (Score:1)
In built up areas air conditioners actually cause the outside air to rise by 1 or 2 C thanks to the heat island effect.
LOL, no they don't.
Probably true and false at the same time (Score:5, Insightful)
We are victims of the statistics' failures. There is this tendency to speak of "heatwave deaths" as if they are something absolute, like they take away perfectly healthy people that had years to live. That's usually not the case. Heat waves take (usually) the already very weak, hastening their deaths by months at most, so concentrating on reducing the heatwave deaths will just make them fall to the next cold wave deaths statistic, or the next flu's statistic, or just plain regular deaths where nobody can find something else to blame.
Of course the heat waves take a toll on everybody's health, so reducing them remains a worthy goal. But of late everything and his aunt needs to have a head count.
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But of late everything and his aunt needs to have a head count.
Always has. It's why there are seat belts in cars, lawn darts don't have metal tips, baby strollers are recalled, push to ban cigarettes, and trying to get obese Americans off their fat asses and do some exercise rather than staring at their phones on the couch.
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Trees also help reduce emissions. Less need for AC. They create more pleasant environments to live in.
The only real issue is that in many places the local government doesn't put enough effort into maintaining them and clearing away leaves. Overall I'd rather have them than not though.
Added thought: Quit cutting down trees (Score:2)
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That depends. trees do consume more CO2 while growing than fully grown up, but then there are several other factors in play like what you do with the cut trees etc..
Also it's pretty horrible if you do things such as cutting down native trees to replace em by pines despite "being good for the CO2 reduction".
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That is so un-American! Obviously, somebody earns money by cutting down those trees and that is clearly more importnant!
Architects hate sheltered areas for some reason (Score:3)
Outdoor public seating are also placed right in the middle of the fucking sunlight, so no one sits on them at all.
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I don't understand, especially in Australia, why buildings don't have overhangs to provide shelter from the sun and rain.
Because why would you want to do that? Trees are small and localised, don't require strange constructions with questionable ownership rights, and allow people to pick and choose whether they want shade or sun.
Bland concrete sucks
Full sun all the time sucks
Full shade all the time sucks (why bother going outside at all?)
Green spaces don't suck, and solve a whole host more problems than just providing shade, not the least of which being they are much more pleasant areas to be around.
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In the UK that kind of crap design is often due to buyers. They don't know what a good house is, they just like big windows and the design language equivalent of off white painted walls.
Here they also need to ram as many houses into the space as possible, and overhangs take up valuable room that is needed to meet the minimum interior space levels for human habitation.
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I liked how in Taiwan almost all buildings in the city have this overhang over the sidewalk, so you get more living space above and shelter from the rain/sun the pedestrians, e.g. here: https://goo.gl/maps/7gvbtja4Z6... [goo.gl]
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I don't understand, especially in Australia, why buildings don't have overhangs to provide shelter from the sun and rain. Do they not know what country we're living in?
You mean like a porch? Houses don't have porches in Australia?
Outdoor public seating are also placed right in the middle of the fucking sunlight, so no one sits on them at all.
I have seen large areas being sheltered out in lots of places in the world. In France, outdoor farmers market have standard location with usually a large roof (no wall or anything, just a roof).
There seems to be somewhat standard in India. Outside the airport in Hyderabad, there is a large area sheltered from the sun for people to wait for planes to arrive.
You also see them quite a bit in the US, we have a couple at my university. One is part of
Plant, but also maintain the trees (Score:5, Informative)
In my part of London, the local government plants lots of trees. But the trees are maybe too cheap, or not suitable for the location or not maintained. Most die. The next year they remove the dead tree and plant a new one - which quickly dies. They are doing great on the planting trees metric. But there is no increase in actual tree cover.
Re:Plant, but also maintain the trees (Score:4, Interesting)
Planting trees is clearly a 'good thing'. But you then need to protect, feed and water that tree as needed. The actual goal is to increase the number of living trees, not just to plant lots of trees. This may seem obvious, but planting trees is a common example of a gamed metric.
No. If you're planting something which becomes an ongoing maintenance burden you're doing it wrong. Either in the wrong way, the wrong location, or the wrong species.
Planting trees is something that can largely be done and left. If you do it right they should require little to no maintenance (beyond maybe damaging the sidewalk). Better still if you're planting a forest then planting lots of trees actually changes in the local ecology to promote the number of trees which live.
It's not a gamed metric. It's not a metric at all since we're talking about "more" rather than giving an absolute figure.
In my part of London, the local government plants lots of trees. But the trees are maybe too cheap, or not suitable for the location or not maintained. Most die.
In my part of just on the other side of the channel the local government planted lots of trees in the sidewalk. They perform maintenance on none of them. All of them are thriving. The fact your government is run by idiots doesn't mean tree planting is somewho a gamed metric.
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While I agree with the sentiment "plant the right tree for the location", sometimes that isn't enough. Take the US Southwest drought, which is killing both natives and invasives, cultivated and wild. We lost 4 trees on our block last year, and while they're not local species, they are native to hot, dry areas that usually do fine with minimal maintenance.
And then there's the semi-regular maintenance to prevent them from growing up into the power lines. I wish they'd bury the lines, but it'll be 400 years be
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Planting trees is something that can largely be done and left. If you do it right they should require little to no maintenance (beyond maybe damaging the sidewalk). Better still if you're planting a forest then planting lots of trees actually changes in the local ecology to promote the number of trees which live.
Wild trees are one thing, but in a America, if a public agency owns a tree allows a tree's limbs or trunk to fail due to drought, rot, or pest and that tree then structurally fails, that public agency is liable for damages.
Trees require maintenance-- more maintenance in areas where high winds, droughts, and floods are predictable.
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None of this has to do with trees dying prematurely which is the topic of this thread.
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No. If you're planting something which becomes an ongoing maintenance burden you're doing it wrong. Either in the wrong way, the wrong location, or the wrong species.
Planting trees is something that can largely be done and left. If you do it right they should require little to no maintenance (beyond maybe damaging the sidewalk). Better still if you're planting a forest then planting lots of trees actually changes in the local ecology to promote the number of trees which live.
It's not a gamed metric. It's not a metric at all since we're talking about "more" rather than giving an absolute figure.
ANY tree in a city that's not in some kind of nature preserve requires ongoing maintenance. Dead branches need to be removed before they fall and injure someone or some property. You have to deal with fallen leaves. You need to keep them trimmed above the streets, below power lines, away from sidewalks, etc. Diseased or rotten trees need to be removed/replaced before they collapse on something/someone.
I used to live next to the hotel used by the Oncor crews cutting trees away from power lines. There were 20
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Who in their right mind clicks on Google ads? Any ads.
Literally none of that was what we are talking about here. The topic is dying trees and trying to keep them alive, please stay on it.
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If you're planting something which becomes an ongoing maintenance burden you're doing it wrong.
Not always. If you're planting trees in a desert or a water-free area covered in concrete or other impermeable material, you're going to need to provide the water that the trees need but the concrete didn't and desert not so much.
Fewer people die from excessive heat under trees then out in a desert or over a cook-an-egg-on-it concrete jungle slab. Part of that's shade. But part of it is the tree evaporating wat
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If you're planting trees in a desert
No one is talking about an actual desert here.
or a water-free area covered in concrete or other impermeable material
Now you're on topic and speaking exactly to my point. If your tree is in an impermeable material *you're doing it wrong*. You can't just drill a hole in the ground and throw a branch in. You need to modify the surrounding structures somewhat. That's as easy as ripping up bitumen and replacing it with semi-permeable tiles or redirecting nearby drainage slightly.
Sounds hard, but both options are cheaper than sending a crew out to water the damn thing.
Does your city have enough water to irrigate its new forest?
You realise t
Paper link? (Score:2)
I want to understand how reducing the temperature by half a degree centrigade in urban areas results in thirty percent fewer heat related deaths.
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You seem to have missed where it says "could mean ... suggests." This study is in all likelihood nothing more that the work of arbophiliac advocates.
Literally wrong article summary (Score:5, Informative)
The summary says the heat reduction of half a degree would reduce deaths by thirty percent. This is wrong. Itâ(TM)s a totally incorrect summary of the actual article which says that increasing tree coverage may have two separate effects, the heat reduction and the death reduction.
Do people with poor english skills both read and write these summaries? Or is it poor cognitive or academic skills?
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Re: Literally wrong article summary (Score:3)
The Lancet article is making clear links between the urban heat island (UHI's) and premature deaths. They present the reduction in temperature and the reduction in deaths in two different sentences, but they're not independent at all. The goal of the paper is to quantify the connection between increased tree coverage and premature deaths due to heat. Their summarized findings:
"The population-weighted mean city temperature increase due to UHI effects was 1Â5ÂC (SD 0Â5; range 0Â5â"3
Maybe look at Singapore for ideas (Score:2)
Singapore although known as a concrete jungle, has alot of trees all over the country. Basically there are trees every few metres along the road side / car park and beside buildings. Just do a google image search on this and you can see many examples.
They should consider how Singapore does it to get some ideas.
"evenly distributed between rich and poor" (Score:3, Insightful)
WHY ?
What farking effect does it have on temperature if all the trees are, say, in the poor areas ?
NONE.
Maybe he should have said "policymakers must ensure the rich are taxed higher" or "policymakers must ensure men do not sit under trees".
Totally irrelevant, but OH SO WOKE.
How Republicans react to this (Score:1)
If you can't afford to run your air-conditioning in your home and in your car all the time then you deserve to suffer and die.
Fuck You is a basic Republican principle.
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Corelation, causation... (Score:2)
Romanian here: Cluj-Napoca is cited in the aticle as the city with most deaths, well, Cluj is kind of a local Bay area, the city grew a lot in the last few years as it is a place where a lot of tech companies opened offices, people move there from all country to work. Of course this created a housing crisis, prices exploded, new residential areas are built and such. And in this country, new residential areas are planned really bad, with no place for trees, schools and such, they are made to maximize number
They are just learning this now? (Score:2)
Great idea! (Score:1)
This is stupid (Score:2)
If city people wanted to live amount trees they'd move to a rural area. There must be other solutions, like shading with solar panels and terminals for water. Things like that. You can't tell someone who hates trees to live around them.
It's not the 0.4C reduction that matters (Score:3)
The 0.4C temperature reduction is just an average. Not a single person will be saved with a local 0.4C reduction in their vicinity. That would be totally pointless. However, the 0.4C average reduction potentially represents a much larger reduction in specific local areas, and if there are vulnerable people in those areas, then lives can be saved. It's the distribution of the temperature reduction that is important. What would be much more useful than a large-area average temperature reduction target is a local-area temperature reduction target (likely the absolute target temperature is much more important than the reduction), and that target is likely much greater than 0.4C.
Affirming what's already known. (Score:2)
Heat kills, especially high heat.
Greenery, especially trees, reduce the heat island effect, thus providing much needed cooling when it's hot.
They also perform numerous other beneficial actions including filtering various atmospheric pollutants, helping control water runoff, and that's not even bringing up the psychological benefits that have been measured.
In the US one of our larger cities did a study and determined the cost/benefit of having & maintaining t
Duh! (Score:2)
BRAWNDO (Score:2)
It's got what plants crave!
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It's not just shade. Trees actively transpire groundwater to produce lower temperatures. It's a pretty neat trick.