TROY HULL | THE CHARLOTTE POST
Established research shows urban neighborhoods with fewer trees and other foliage are more at risk of climate-related incidents, including excessive head and cold. In Charlotte, that means lower-income communities, which are primarily in the east, west and north.
Climate change discriminates.The rate of global warming per decade since 1982 is 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit. There are many factors that cause climate change, and in Charlotte, there is a glaring correlation between environment and social inequality. Depending on where you live, exposure to pollution and extreme weather results in different outcomes.“It really takes someone seeing severe impacts, oftentimes, to change their thinking on something,” said UNC Charlotte professor Michael Ewers PhD, a human geographer and social scientist. … “And maybe here, until things get really bad, maybe people just continue to pretend there’s nothing wrong.”For example, there is less tree canopy in the east and west, said Allison Rhodes, executive director of the nonprofit Trees Charlotte. Without canopy, those areas heat more quickly in the summer and cool in the winter.“One of the initiatives we currently have is our Tree Zilliance initiative,” Rhodes said,” where we work in under-canopied and underserved communities. This is year three of that initiative. Currently, we are working in the McCrory Heights neighborhood, the Greenville neighborhood and the Ramblewood neighborhood. Two of those neighborhoods are in the crescent. Then the other is closer to the Nations Ford area. We go into these neighborhoods because they are considered under-canopied. The canopies there are anywhere from 39-42%.”Fewer trees lead to less absorption of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas, and with more of it in the atmosphere, areas without a canopy suffer.Rhodes said Trees Charlotte’s goal is a canopy of at least 50%. In older neighborhoods, the focus is on planting new trees as well as care for older ones. Often, people will cut down a large healthy tree for fear of it falling on their home.“It was really shocking to hear some of [Trees Charlotte’s] statistics on just the neighborhood differentials in percentage of tree canopy,” said Tina Shull PhD, a UNC Charlotte professor and historian of race, immigration and climate migration. “But then when you hear stories of individuals and family histories, you understand that, for example, maintaining trees in your yard is very expensive. There is a cost burden there. I had heard stories of families opting to cut trees down that are living, because they can’t afford it if a tree falls during a storm. It can be thousands of dollars to maintain it, or to clean that up, and it becomes this liability. So, programs that could help support tree maintenance are very important.”Fewer trees are but one aspect of environmental change on the underserved. There’s a disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities – like in Char
