November has come and gone, and with it finally came some clouds, rain, and cold
winds. But I’m not so willing to forget how hot our October was. I work at a coffee shop
downtown called Central Coffee, and I think any one of my coworkers can say that all of Tracy
was trying to beat the heat. I want to joke that iced drinks were selling like hot cakes, but again,
it would have been too miserably hot to buy a hot cake.
But why did our city get so hot in the middle of Autumn? The answer is that Tracy suffers
badly from what the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calls “The Heat Island Effect.”
The EPA states that surfaces in the affected city are paved, with little vegetation to offer shade
or moisture.
We could go on about the albedo of any given material used to build modern urban
areas, latent vs. sensible heat, or evapotranspiration, but the basic premise is that removing
natural features and replacing them with metals, asphalt, and concrete makes the area
significantly less able to keep cool. The use of tall buildings, unreflective material, and the
removal of trees and plants make our city hotter. I would argue that we have a very easy way to
cool it down: more trees!
“But Nick!” you say. “What about climate change? How are we supposed to cool our city
down when our area is heating up?” Well, dear reader, according to the US Department of
Agriculture, a single adult tree can stow 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year! Trees are one of the most effective carbon sinks there are, and if it ends up allowing us to leave our air conditioning off by October, then I am all for planting as many as we can get. Tree planting is a necessary service to beautify and
sustain our city. I don’t want our summers and even our autumns being so unbearably hot,
especially when the solution is something we can achieve together. Tracy needs some of its
trees back. Tracy Earth Project had a wonderful turnout during Arbor day, where volunteers from
all over the area planted trees where the vegetation is desperately needed. In fact, TEP does
tree plantings twice a year every year to try and mitigate our city’s low greenery. The plantings
are done each year to celebrate Earth Day in April and Tracy’s Arbor Day in October. Visit our
website at tracyearthproject.org to sign up and plant trees for your community!