Talk about high expectations! Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants LA to be the greenest city in the U.S... He's got a ways to go -- but, his Million Trees LA initiative seems to be a very cool start (at least on the surface).
Green FYI: Million Trees LA
If you haven't heard about the program already, it's pretty self-explanatory: The Mayor wants to plant one million trees in LA over the next several years.
The coolest and, simultaneously, the most controversial part of the plan includes hundreds of thousands of free trees for the people of LA -- because 70 percent of the 1 million trees are slated for residential planting.
The free trees (which are being given away at fairs and special events in LA and through the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) pose a potential problem because of how many will most likely die in the hands of people who are ill-equipped to care for them.
(Read all about the initiative and its problems in this LA Times article)
On the flip-side -- this is a wonderful opportunity for residents of LA who have the space, time, and inclination to plant and nurture a tree.
If you live in LA and want a free tree, check out the LADWP web site, take an online tutorial, click a few boxes, and it will be delivered to your door.
Image: Via www.milliontreesla.org
Comments (5)
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LA is a giant, sprawling city in the middle of the desert. There is no possible way to make it green.
view dancingspring's profile
I live in a Tree City which basicly means that any new building projects have to have x amount of trees for however much land they are building on. It's really great. I know in my parents back yard alone they have 13 trees. LA would really benifit from this!
view surferartchick's profile
Mayor Hickenlooper of our fair city, Denver, announced a Million Trees initiative in 2006, and launched it in April 07:
http://www.greenprintdenver.org/trees/
to date, we have a total of 67K trees:
http://www.greenprintdenver.org/trees/tallies.php
...just in case Villaraigosa thinks he's on to a new idea ;)
view ttee's profile
That's what I was thinking, dancingspring: L.A. is basically a desert. You can plant all the trees you want to make it a "greener" city or even the greenest city, but where are you going to get the water to keep them all alive? In a city with drought issues, how is this a green idea?
view jamjaree's profile
There are plenty of drought tolerant native and non-native species that could be planted without endangering the water supply. And to correct the misnomer, Los Angeles is not a desert, it is a coastal basin, described as "humid" according to the Koppen classification. Locals often refer to LA's climate as Mediterranean, since we do experience winter rains and warm summers like our European counterparts.
In fact, migrants from the eastern states, arriving in the early nineteenth century, described a Los Angeles plain filled with ponds, forested, and anything but a desert. The ponds dried up and the forests disappeared, not because the climate changed but because resources were simply overused.
...to qualify as a desert under the Koppen system Los Angeles' yearly rainfall would have to average less than 7.22 inches. That has occurred less than ten times in the past 125 years. To put it another way, with its nearly 15 inches of rain each year the city would have to have a mean annual temperature of 100 degrees to be a desert. With a temperature like that the basin's overpopulation problem would quickly disappear.
Just because Los Angeles brings in water from hundreds of miles away does not make it a desert. Nearly all of the world's largest cities, located in humid areas, have to import water from great distances to supply their needs. And no one seriously refers to New York or San Francisco as deserts.
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2003/11/la_is_not_a_des.php
view aquietevolution's profile