Trees and the human quality of life

This is a newspaper column I just dashed off.

I saw a sign like this – actually a placard – only one other time in two decades of exploring both natural lands and urban places in Pennsylvania.

And that previous time wasn’t in a spot of public land. It was on the grounds of the Phipps Conservatory in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh.

The recent find: I was hiking along an urban thoroughfare from Point A (a parking lot in front of a strip mall) to Point B (the Church Street Marketplace) in Burlington, Vt., when the 6X10-inch sign placed at eye level in the crook of a northern oak tree invited me to look closer.

(Learn about the Church Street Marketplace at www.churchstmarketplace.com/).

“Please . . . love this tree,” said the sign’s headline next to a black-on-white impression of a tree with spreading crown.

Then: “It gives you shade and clean air to breathe.”

Indeed it does. Indeed they do.

More: “Water and care for it like it’s your own. This tree was planted by the Burlington Parks and Recreation Department. What type of tree is it?”

The closer: “This tree was grown by volunteers of Branch Out Burlington! In the Bulrington Community Tree Nursery. For more information on urban tree care: www.branchoutburlington.org

So Plant a tree, not a lawn (a.k.a. a turf farm). Here’s why:

-        Trees combat the greenhouse effect (To produce its food, a tree absorbs and locks away carbon dioxide in the wood, roots and leaves. Carbon dioxide is a global warming gas. A forest is a carbon storage area or a "sink" that can lock up as much carbon as it produces. This locking-up process "stores" carbon as wood and not as a global-warming "greenhouse" gas.

-        Trees clean the air;

-        Trees provide oxygen;

-        Trees cool the streets and the city;

-        Trees conserve energy and water;

-        Trees help prevent water pollution;

-        Trees slow runoff and hold soil in place;

-        Trees buffer noise pollution sources;

-        Trees act as wind breaks;

-        Trees make great places to hide in the childhood game of hide-and-seek, and the big ones are perfect locales for tree houses.

I remember many favorite trees, trees that I loved on first glance.

-        My first Alligator Juniper tree in south-central New Mexico;

-        The Shabark Hickory I once gawked at every time I stood near its trunk along Little Nescopeck Creek a mile from Conyngham;

-        The 1,000-year-old Douglas-fir wife Monica photographed me standing next to in the Grove of the Patriarchs, Mt. Rainer National Park, Washington State;

-        The Hackberry I planted in the backyard of our home in Conyngham;

-        And the big Yellow Birch I hugged uphill of the back side of Heart Lake, Adirondacks.

Take a moment; reflect back on your own encounters with the trees of Wild Nature. And ask your local municipality’s leaders why it doesn’t have a similar nature education program in place.

Local greenhouse gas factory

I shot this snapshot at the 5 Corners intersection in Essex Junction, Vt., yesterday. It's a casebook study on the carbon pollution of the great American motor vehicle. Pollute, pollute, pollute . . .

Gasoline prices this summer: Flat, no spikes forecase

Of course, "news" of this sort only serves to embolden American motorheads, who blithely go out and burn the stuff on "pleasure" rides. Our atmosphere would be better served if gasoline were taxed to the pointof making it $10 a gallon. Then, Americans might think twice about living in suburbia AND start walking and cycling.

EPA ballyoes greeenhouse gas reduction plan

But this will do nothing to stop or even slow (a teeny, tiny bit) the greenhouse gas pollution factories I see daily during my six-mile fitness walks. This photo, taken during my recent stay in Boise, Idaho, shows what a greenhouse gas factory in motion looks like.

Here's the EPA's morning cheer:
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today released its annual Climate Protection Partnerships report, highlighting the steps more than 21,000 organizations across the United States have taken to reduce greenhouse gas pollution while achieving significant environmental and economic benefits. 

“The urgency to act on climate change is clear,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “Through investments in cleaner technologies and energy-efficient practices, EPA’s Climate Protection Partners show us that we can cut the harmful carbon pollution that fuels climate change and protects public health—while continuing to grow a strong, sustainable economy.”

The achievements outlined in this report support the goals of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan by cutting energy waste, encouraging energy efficiency, and saving money for American families and businesses. The report, "EPA’s Office of Atmospheric Programs Climate Protection Partnerships 2012 Annual Report" includes accomplishments such as:

-- In 2012, EPA's climate protection programs prevented 365 million metric tons of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions—equivalent to the emissions from the annual electricity use of more than 50 million homes.

-- Americans saved more than $26 billion on their utility bills in 2012 with the help of ENERGY STAR® and prevented greenhouse gas emissions equal to the annual electricity use of 35 million homes. 

-- Since the Green Power Partnership was introduced in 2001, more than 1,400 organizations have committed to using about 29 billion kilowatt-hours of green power each year. 

-- More than 450 partners have installed over 5,700 megawatts of new combined heat and power since the Combined Heat and Power Partnership launched in 2001. 

-- In 2012, EPA’s methane and fluorinated greenhouse-gas-program partners used EPA tools and resources to prevent emissions equal to the annual electricity use from more than 10 million homes. 

-- In total, more than 21,000 organizations and millions of Americans have partnered with the EPA through the Office of Atmospheric Programs’ climate partnerships and produced significant environmental benefits.

EPA’s climate protection programs continue to advance greenhouse gas reduction goals and deliver greater benefits each year. These benefits can only grow as more businesses, public sector institutions, households, and others adopt the practices promoted by the climate protection partnerships. All of these benefits are the result of voluntary actions by individuals, businesses and industry. 

These reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are increasingly important to tackle climate change challenges. The global average temperature for every decade since the Industrial Revolution has been hotter than the previous decade, and the 12 hottest years on record have all occurred within the past 15 years. Scientists have observed changes in precipitation, rising sea level, melting ice and altered weather patterns, including more frequent and intense storms.

The report further outlines the environmental accomplishments of these programs. To read the full report:http://www.energystar.gov/about/sites/default/uploads/files/2012_AnnualReport_Final.pdf?3cd5-e266. To learn more about climate change: www.epa.gov/climatechange/

Cozy homes for cars: Parking garages

Here is another of my recent newspaper columns:

We’ve been down this road before, buckaroos, but let’s make a U-turn and take another look.

An on-line discussion about an alleged car-parking “problem” in Vermont’s capital, Montpelier, spurs this ramble. (See http://vtdigger.org/2013/12/02/survey-says-montpelier-parking-problem).

One person got things rolling by posting a wish that Montpelier have more parking spaces – slots closer to destinations, like shopping, workplaces, eateries, and such. The goal, of course, would be to make life “easier” and limit walking (a time-honored form of exercise) by building a parking “garage.”

Most Americans who drive a private car, SUV or truck have been in one of these concrete, asphalt and steel things. I hiked around inside the one at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington,Vt., a couple of weeks ago after a medical appointment inside. I hiked for a good hour before finding my car.

Parking garages are huge white elephants, expensive to build, expensive to maintain, unpleasant to look at, and, as others have noted, a crutch for our car-centric culture.

“It would be preferable to find ways to reduce cars in the city, not give them comfy subsidized nests that preclude other, more desirable, uses,” a reader wrote.

His conclusion: “I subscribe to the idea that Montpelier doesn’t have a parking problem – it has a walking problem. It’s easy to find a place to park and shop if you are willing to hoof it a bit. And, you might even drop in on some other store on impulse. Cool! Walking to a store in Montpelier is a lot more fun than playing dodge ‘em with cars in some soulless sidewalk-less big box asphalt desert.”
Wow, well said.
I started thinking about cars, congestion, air and noise pollution, and stormwater runoff about the same time my wife and I moved to Conyngham in 1989 after three years in the Adirondacks. Watching motor vehicles plying Route 93 in the Nescopeck Creek valley was the anecdotal-enriching experience.

Today, I see the same heartless expression of America on wheels in northern Vermont. This time it’s Vermont highway 2A.

Try this yourself sometime soon (it’s more fun than watching tee vee): With clipboard in hand, stand or, better yet, sit at a good place to observe a local highway (Route 309 would qualify nicely) and keep a tally of those passing vehicles with more than one person inside (the driver). If my own experience watching the flow of steel/rubber/plastic/glass is the same as yours, what you’ll record is this: Only one of every 100 or so automobiles passing your vantage point is carrying more than one individual.

I’m not sure what car-buyers these days learn from their dealer-of-choice about their auto’s emissions. And just this morning I sat in a niece’s new Toyota Prius. Nice car, you bet, and the electronic gizmos are astounding.
You can find out for yourself what your own vehicle emits by burning gasoline. Go to www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/420f08024.pdf

I drive a car too, but I’ve also been a committed walker (for fitness, transportation and fun) for a long time. But here’s the glitch: Parking is only an alleged “nightmare” if one chooses to limit his transportation options to one: The private automobile.

Arguably, the private, family car and the infrastructure needed to keep motor vehicle fleets on the move are among the biggest reasons out there for the ongoing decimation of our country’s natural heritage. McMansions these days come, more often than not, with a three-car garage.

Done right, municipalities can have a high quality-of-life rating and be more walkable, more livable, more fun to be in, and better for the air we all breath – motorists and walkers and bicyclists alike – if we stop trying to make things bigger and better for cars and cars alone.

A closing observation: Just days ago, I sadly found another road-killed owl. This time the species was barred owl. Over decades of birding and observing nature, I have now recorded these six road-kill owl species: barred, barn, eastern screech, great horned, burrowing and western screech.

Our ongoing societal desire to make things best for cars is to blame.

Is naural gas 'cleaner' than coal (i.e., dirt)?

A wittle bit, I suppose. But it is still a fossil fuel and burning it still releases a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, into our atmosphere (the only one we have, buckaroos). No matter matter how many holes we cram into Earth to get natural gas, we're still in trouble and future generations are in even more dire straits. But yet another debacle associated with gas and oil drilling remains under the news media's fuzzy umbrella: Drilling means road-building, which means wiping out a ribbon of natural landscape, which means fragmenting wildlife habitat, which means losing more biodiversity. This op-ed looks at the natural gas vs. coal/methane question.

Making it easier to pollute: Rev up the speed limit, to 80 mph

This is both a dangerous steering of Utah state law AND a way to make it easier for motor vehicle drivers in a car-centric society to pollute, as in carbon dioxide, crbonmonoxide, particulate, etc. etc. What a sham.

Forecast: Only moderate rise in gasoline prices

OK, that's good news for the gazillions of American suburbanites who commute hours and hours just so they can get enough cash to keep filling it up. The NY Times has this coverage. Actually, if American motorists had to pay what Europeans do, we might finally start using a lot less gasoline to keep ourselves moving.