WHY WE LOVE THIS TREE
GOOD TO KNOW!
Trees help clean air and sequester carbon. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and other particulates from the air and produce oxygen. For this reason they have been called the “lungs of the planet” and are saving an average one life per year. A single tree can absorb up to 48 pounds of carbon dioxide in one year, which equates to a ton by the time it is 40 years old.
Trees help with temperature control. Trees cool cities by releasing water vapor through their leaves and by providing shade. In this way, trees reduce the “heat island effect” – the phenomena in which urban spaces can be as much as 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer then their rural surroundings due to the replacement of plants and soil with asphalt and concrete. Impressively, the net cooling effect of a tree can be the equivalent as 10 room-size air conditioners operating for 20 hours per day!
Trees help conserve energy: properly places trees will reduce air conditioning use by 30 percent and heater use by 20 – 50 percent.
Trees are good for our physical and mental health. The presence of trees mitigates deaths caused by heart disease and respiratory disease by cleaning the air, lowering blood pressure, and lessening muscle tension. Shade provided by trees reduces exposure to UV-B radiation by 50%. Trees also help expedite recovery from injury and illnesses – patients with views of trees from their windows recover more quickly and with fewer complications. Trees also improve cognitive functioning, relieve stress, and lessen mental fatigue.
Relieving stress and lessening mental fatigue results in lower crime rates, since both are typical contributors to violent acts. The presence of trees on property further reduces the level of fear of crime. Studies have shown that neighborhoods with trees also have fewer crimes, likely because green spaces encourage people to spend more time outside with their neighbors – a catalyst for creating community trust.
Community trust creates a greater since of unity in neighborhoods. Planting trees is a means for a community to work together to improve the quality of life of their own neighborhood. Tree plantings provide a project in which all cultures, ages, and genders can have a role. The planting of trees also creates community landmarks, encourages civic pride, and helps develop a neighborhood identity.
However, sometimes creating barriers is a good thing and trees do that too! Trees are excellent blockades against unpleasant sights and sounds. Trees are often used as masks for visual eyesores like parking lots, landfills, and concrete walls. Trees can also be used to muffle urban noises from freeways, city streets, and airports. Trees can also become shields for buildings from dust, wind, and sun glare.
Trees have several economic benefits. First, the presence of trees adds value to property. In fact, houses surrounded by trees are valued 7 – 25 percent higher than houses without. Second, trees are great for business. Trees not only make real estate more appealing to prospective tenants, they also make commercial retail areas more attractive to consumers. Consumers will spent as much as 13 percent more time around businesses with green space. Additionally, tree-lined streets typically have slower traffic, which creates more time for drivers to look at storefronts. Third, trees create jobs. The presence of trees in urban areas create small business and employment opportunities in a number of industries including landscaping, recreation, green waste management and more.
Trees have many water benefits as well. Trees planted in urban spaces improve water quality, lessen runoff and erosion, and help recharge groundwater supply. Trees reduce the amount of contaminants that reach local waters following storm events by absorbing water that would otherwise become runoff. Leaf litter and tree roots promote the infiltration of stormwater into the soil, which replenishes the groundwater supply that can be tapped into during periods of drought. Trees also provide shade to lawns, slowing evaporation of water from lawns and thereby conserving water resources.
Trees prevent deterioration in two ways. First, a tree’s roots will hold soil in place on hillsides near homes, schools, and businesses. Second, shade from trees has been shown to elongate the life of city streets. Tree-provided shade keeps asphalt cooler, and prevents the binding agent from evaporating (which hardens pavement and makes asphalt easier to crack). A study done in Modesto, California revealed that more shade (largely provided by trees) resulted in larger periods of time between repaving. In fact, with 20% shade on an asphalt street, the asphalt condition improves by 11% with savings of 60% over a period of 30 years.
Trees provide many benefits to wildlife. Many wildlife species need trees for nesting, mating, shelter, and shade (essential for Central Valley summers!). Wildlife also seek trees as sources of food as well as locations from which to capture or hunt for prey.
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by Maria Popova
“Go plant this seed… And give it water and love and conversation.”
For the tellers of ancient myths, trees project the secret life of the spiritual world; for the great explainers of science, they remind us that we come from the sun; throughout history, trees have lent their shape to symbolic diagrams visualizing human knowledge. Humanity has always had a special relationship with trees — they are, after all, the oldest living unitary things in the world. Therein lies a potent metaphor that makes trees an exceptional storytelling device for some of the most difficult concepts with which the human mind tussles — notions like time, permanence, and impermanence. That’s precisely what author and illustrator Judith Clay explores with great gentleness and playful whimsy in Thea’s Tree (public library) — a belated but befitting addition to the best children’s books of 2014 by Indian independent publisher Karadi Tales, who bring to life wonderful and unusual stories from cultures around the world.
This particular masterpiece tells the story of a little girl named Thea, who lives in a city full of “houses, houses, and more houses,” and longs for nothing more than a tree — that exotic comrade in play and daydreaming, known to Thea only by her parents’ tales of their own childhood adventures.
As she dreams of “trees to climb, trees to hide in, trees to sit under and dream,” something unusual happens one late October day — a solitary leaf comes “floating gently and quietly past Thea’s window.”
Clay’s uncommonly imaginative and tender illustrations bring to life that delicate dance between desire and despair familiar to all who have yearned for something intensely and have been suddenly exhilarated by the faintest possibility of attaining it.
So uncontainable is Thea’s exhilaration that she rushes out to her friends, playing on the concrete street, and excitedly urges them to help her find the source of that hope-giving leaf. But they are unmoved, because “perhaps they didn’t even know what a tree was.” Indeed, implicit to the story is a subtle lamentation of how the legacy of the twentieth century has robbed children of essential childhood experiences like that vitalizing connection to the natural world.
Lulled by the precious leaf’s rustle, Thea drifts smoothly into a dream. The leaf carries her, by way of a giant moon — that quintessential patron saint of the child’s innocence — to the beautiful tree from which it came.
Once again, Clay’s subtle lament of how humanity has exploited the natural world comes to light as the tree speaks to Thea:
The tree saw right into Thea’s heart and found her deepest desire.
“Why do you want a tree, my dear?” the tree asked gently. “Do you want to build a hut or a boat or a fire with it? Do you want to make it into newspapers and books?”
Thea shook her head. Shyly, she said, “I want a tree for climbing and playing and to sit and dream under.”
“Then go plant this seed,” said the wise, white tree, “And give it water and love and conversation.”
When Thea awakes, she finds herself outside her house, seed in hand. She plants it into “a small patch of ground” and goes on to water it and love it and talk to it every day, until a tiny plant sprouts from the soil.
As Thea grows, so does the tree, which becomes a loyal dream-mate not only to her, and to her children, and to her grandchildren — a tender reminder that however much we may resist nature by replacing it with our houses and streets and treeless cities, the cycles of life are impervious to our resistance and peace only comes when we finally surrender to them and relinquish our vain resistance.
Thea’s Tree is absolutely magical from cover to cover. Complement it with The Farmer and the Clown, another belated addition to last year’s loveliest children’s books, then revisit a very different but equally rewarding Indian treasure celebrating trees, the breathtaking The Night Life of Trees.
Illustrations courtesy of Karadi Tales / Judith Clay
Brian Cox, a New Zealand native, spent years traveling the world and studying many different houses of worship. He’s also the owner of Tree locations, a company that moves and plants large trees. So when he returned home, he knew exactly what he wanted to do to build his own monument to spirituality.
In 2011, Brian began work on the Tree Church~ 4 years to complete.
Brian used steel frames to make the skeleton of this beautiful church.
He used a wide variety of trees and plants to create different textures and forms.
He was careful to make sure the canopy never got too dense, so that sunlight would always illuminate the church.
For the walls he used Copper Sheen trees, because the color of their bark is so similar to stone.
When it was finished, Brian decided that everyone should be able to enjoy the church, so he opened it up to the public.
Brian’s own nephew was recently married in the church.
The building requires a lot of upkeep – it takes over 8 hours of pruning and mowing to get it ready for visitors. But it’s worth it!
“Visitors have said that they find the Tree Church relaxing and that their worries disappear,” Brian says. “I find that sort of feedback immensely rewarding.”
A great video highlighting Tree Fresno – Produced by the following students of an AP Environmental Science Class at Buchannan Highschool, Clovis Unified:
Paige Le, Danika Avilla, CJ Paolilli, Wyatt Moore, Trien (Vince) Ngo, & Irene Lee.
