CONSERVATION: Trees Offer More than just Shade

by Ki Gray

Austin takes it's trees pretty seriously. This spring the Austin City Council considered rules for how developers can both treat existing trees on a property and quotas for planting future trees. This effort comes through the city's Watershed Protection Department and would represent the first major change to Austin's tree rules in 25 years.

As reported by the Austin-American Statesman, these rules are part of an ongoing effort to reduce the effects of urban heat islands, which are exactly what they sound like: urban areas dominated by buildings, roads and parking lots that trap heat. These non-permeable, dry surfaces cause temperatures that are 50 to 90 degrees warmer than the actual air temperature.

The Environmental Protection Agency reports that shaded, moister areas, more commonly rural areas, remain close to air temperature. That means that on a 100 degree day a parking lot is giving off temperatures closer to 200 degrees.

These urban heat islands affect energy consumption, particularly in denser city centers. There is a vicious cycle of increased energy consumption, which leads to elevated emissions and greenhouse gases that warm the surface temperature that cause an increased need for energy consumption to air condition buildings ... the cycle goes on and on. The elevated temperatures caused by these non-permeable urban heat islands impair air and water quality. In other words, as Austin grows the quality of life diminishes in some respects.

It's not just the shade that trees offer that makes them so central to environmental efforts. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, largely considered to be the principal gas that is the cause of increased temperatures in the earth's atmosphere. Efforts like these in Austin to maintain current trees as well as plant more trees are beneficial on many levels.

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that efforts in California to save forests by restricting logging have long lasting benefits to combating climate change. A tree saved here improves the quality of air for the neighborhood; a forest saved in California can improve the air quality for an entire state.

And Austinites are all about saving trees, as the recent uproar of the possible removal of trees at Barton Springs Pool has shown. In April city officials announced that as many as 29 trees would need to be cut down around the area of the pool and Zilker Park playscape. For obvious reasons this did not go over well with the city's residents. Through the power of the people, only three trees are now slated to be cut down sometime this summer.

The reasons to plant trees and care for existing trees are both environmentally and aesthetically compelling. Unfortunately, there are many issues at the root of the future tree rules and rulings, like the one about the trees in Zilker Park. The fact is, trees, old and new, cost money. The rules proposed by the city council will cost developers more money, which at some point gets passed down to the consumer. The same thing with a city that is compelled to care for its aging trees; eventually that is going to come out of the taxpayers' pockets. However, the cost to the planet in the loss of trees may be one we can't afford to pay.

Ki helps buyers interested in Austin real estate http://www.escapesomewhere.com his website has a free search of the Austin MLS http://www.escapesomewhere.com/realestate_searchthemls.html along with updates on his Austin real estate blog http://www.escapesomewhere.com/austinblog/.