Urban Forests Capture Carbon

[MineralMan]

Here's a photo of Minneapolis, MN. Like its sister city on the Mississippi River, one of its big features is a healthy, lush urban forest:



Both cities have their own forestry departments, and both cities have a long history of including trees in residential areas, parks, and other properties in the city.

Many cities look much the same from the air, with trees blocking out views of the individual homes in their neighborhoods. Many, but not all.

Here's an aerial view of Anaheim, CA, which lets you clearly see the roofs of almost every house:



We can do better.

[zipplewrath]

1. Vertical Forests

Get a load of this place. I saw this in Milan last year. Heck of an idea.

https://www.inexhibit.com/case-studies/the-vertical-forest-towers-in-milan-by-boeri-phenomenon-or-archetype/

[MineralMan]

2. What a nice idea.

I'm sure the people living in those buildings appreciate looking out their windows, too. I've noticed around here that some suburban communities, even older ones from the 60s, don't have the proliferation of large trees I see in the larger and older cities. I look at my own neighborhood, which was developed in St. Paul in the mid 1950s, and every house has a huge tree in the front yard and other trees elsewhere on the lots. The gigantic silver maple in my front yard was planted by the developer who built the house on my block, at the same time the house was built. Now, I admit that it can be an nuisance at times. It drops several cubic yards of leaves in the fall, along with uncounted thousands of its helicopter seeds in the spring. Still, it's a net remover of carbon in the atmosphere, so there it stands.

The city also has trees planted in the parkway spaces between the sidewalk and curb - two per lot. Our street has flowering crabapple trees there, which put on a brief show when they bloom each year. If one of those dies, the city comes and plants another one right away. St. Paul is serious about its urban forest.

[zipplewrath]

3. 6 fer 7

I've lost 6 trees on my property, and planted 5. I keep looking for a space for the 6th (or more) but the property just ain't that big. I do have alot of bushes and the like. Actually, very little grass.

[MineralMan]

4. Grass is not a good carbon trap, really. The problem is

that it has to be mowed. Use a gasoline-powered mower and you'll end up with a net positive on the CO2 emissions scale. Even an electric mower is a CO2 waster, since the juice has to come from somewhere, typically a fossil fuel plant.

Trees and shrubs are carbon grabbers, overall. Evergreens are best at it, but even deciduous trees are a net consumer of carbon.

[Bayard]

5. Love the big pine trees in our woods

Those, and the cedars, smell wonderful in this drizzley weather.

Trees are good for the planet, and the soul.