Air Date: Week of March 23, 2012

A tree grows in San Francisco. (Photo: Jessica Ilyse Kurn)

Listener Enrico Fin of Michigan calls in with an idea for planting tress in the city.

Transcript

GELLERMAN: It's Living on Earth, I'm Bruce Gellerman. America’s urban forests are in trouble. That’s what David Nowak of the U.S. Forest Service told us in a recent interview. He should know, he counted them using satellite images, and found trees in virtually all the cities he studied are falling victim to insects, disease and development.
Nowak says that's a problem because the trees perform valuable eco-services.

NOWAK: They clean the air; they help clean the water by intercepting water and reducing run-off, they take in carbon dioxide, and they shade buildings and reduce air temperatures in cities and huge impacts on energy use.

GELLERMAN: But listener Enrico Fin didn't despair when he heard our interview on WUFM in Lake Orion, Michigan. Instead, Enrico came up with a Cool Fix for a Hot Planet. His idea, for every parking spot in a city or suburb you plant a tree:

FIN: Not only would this beautify those horrific parking lots, sequester CO2, create habit for birds, etc., it would save the country untold gallons of gasoline by allowing cars to be parked in the shade in the summer.
 
GELLERMAN: Thanks Enrico! And for your Cool Fix for a Hot Planet we’re sending you a cool-blue Living on Earth tire gauge. Keeping your tires properly inflated can save fuel, money, and the planet, by cutting climate changing emissions. So get pumped and send your ideas our way. Email coolfix at L-O-E dot org. That’s coolfix, just one word, at L-O-E dot O-R-G - or post your idea on our Facebook page - PRI’s Living on Earth.