Value of Trees Is Rising

I love trees and forests and woodlands. Having vitiligo for the past 31 years has forced me to avoid the sun, so I fell in love with forests. I grew up with maple trees outside my window. Sounds like a nice rural setting, but at that time I lived on the 3rd floor of an apartment building. I must've fallen in love with trees as a child, but just didn't know it. Lebanon, PA, had a lot of trees on the streets, as most towns did back in the 50's.

I wonder if the pace of life picked up as we took the green out of our cities? When people took the time to garden and enjoyed trees enough to build around them, the pace was a lot slower. God gave us green growing plants to renew and refresh our busy minds.

The trees in American backyards may be worth far more than the cars in the front drive, at least in theory. Amid fears of global warming, tree hugging is on the rise. Michael Bloomberg has plans to plant 1 million trees in New York.

A recent “tree census” in New York City values the city's nearly 600,000 trees at $122 million. A rough breakdown:

$11 million for filtering out air pollutants
$28m saved in energy consumption (less need for air conditioners)
$36m for stemming storm-water run-off
$53m in “aesthetic benefits”

Read the entire story at The Economist.