Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our normal comment rules apply to all other comments.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Plant SO MANY TREEEEEEEES!

The NYTimes just published an article on Baghdad losing a lot of green space due to a building boom, which is driving up temperatures in the city.

>Baghdad Loses Green Space to Real Estate Boom

>The problem is driving up temperatures in what is already one of the hottest cities in the world, where air-conditioning is a luxury only the rich can afford.

(The link I posted is without pay wall.)

This is so depressing ie that fact that in 2023 itxs "news" that trees are important to mocroclimates/human survival/life on the planet.

Like f-ken "DER".

Yes I get that it needs to be laid out in a paper to get anything done.

Yes I get that it's "good" to officially "know".

But...fuuuuuuuc.

We've known for decades that it would not lead to good things to not pay attention to this.

Now we're here frantucaly trying to patch things up from the wrong end of history and we have to watch the scientific equivalent of toddler level concepts being floated as "surprising and/or important".

Just....f-k.

Exactly this!

Did you even read the paper? What the paper authors did was take a real heatwave (August '15 I think), model what the cities temps would have been with 30% more trees(something that requires a decent understanding of the effect you claim is just being 'discovered' here), calculate new death tolls from that, then compare the new death tolls with the real death tolls.

Your annoyance is misplaced, scientists know that trees make cities better in many ways, which is why they are performing studies like this one, to convince policymakers and developers to consider the benefits.

Problem is that trees take way too long to grow to a desirable height. I wonder if geneticists and botanists have ever designed a tree that would reach its maximum height in less than 10 years.

[removed]

Bamboo is pretty close

Who knew that the plant life the earth grew was something it actually needed to successfully harbor life.

No way,... Nature fixes urbanisation by being nature? Madness....

the real problem always was that we have a monetary system that incentivizes infinite growth based on % annually forever but live on a planet with finite resources...so we outpace the growth/replacement rate of natural normal biology

[removed]

Gotta be able to prove it on paper to the bean counters and the policy makers.

[removed]

True. Good thing then!

[removed]

But will it effect revenue?

[removed]

I live near Atlanta. It has been dubbed the "city in a forest", as there's about a 50% tree canopy.

Other than the pollen, people killed and power outages caused by falling trees, and dealing with loblolly pines (they are basically 80 ft/20 m tall weeds) they are great.

That said, it only works because Atlanta had mostly low density housing. For instance I have a suburban tract house with around 20 mature trees. As the housing density is bumping up, we are losing tree canopy.

[removed]

Eh I like using scientific evidence to prove hunches instead of just running policy based on “commons sense”

https://www.thesustainablecity.ae

We need to build only these types of cities. It’s beautiful & sustainable. Great YouTube video too

Forest fire fuel though. Better make sure you keep a good fire break.

The problem with a plant like that is the line between helpful plant and invasive species would be very thin depending on where it landed. in my part of the world we have issues with palm trees choking out native species because they grow so fast.

There almost needs to be a different plant solution for each different geographical area using plants that are indigenous to the area

Yes! Palm trees, my sworn enemies...not really but I don't really like that people plant palm trees to the detriment of trees with big fronds just because they like the way they look. Its not just planting trees, the trees need to block sunlight to the ground around it. This should prevent the creation of heat islands (areas of ground that reach high temperatures and thus prevent cold air from coming down there because hot air rises).

I agree, a solution integrating native trees to the area is the way.

Policy makers and developers "We prefer profits over comfort for the poors"

Bamboo is incredibly invasive, no one should plant it for decoration.

Sounds like the sooner we plant native trees the better imo.

Sir, we don't do that around here. This is reddit!

Sure, decades ago for the paper industry. Problem is, they are pretty fragile, not meant to live long.

Im sure they are frantically working on the problem if slow growing trees. Heck, in my City, native Elm trees can grow several feet a year, but thats just tall, the trunks take awhile to catch up.