1,000,000 New Trees

The number boggles the mind. Planting one million new trees, 40 times the number of trees now in Central Park, is an ambitious undertaking to say the least.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week launched a campaign to plant one million new trees throughout the city during the next decade.
Choosing a site in the south Bronx for the first 12-foot-tall Carolina Silverbell, the mayor alluded to the annual fall foliage show of rich autumnal colors and through this initiative, Bloomberg is ensuring that our autumns in New York will only get better.
Trees filter the air pollutants that trigger asthma and other diseases - thereby cleansing our air and lungs - making our city a healthier place to live.
Mayor Bloomberg reminded those at the tree-planting event that “trees also take carbon dioxide - a greenhouse gas - out of the atmosphere.” He has set a goal of cutting the city’s production of climate-changing greenhouse gases by 30 percent by the year 2030.
As we have pointed out in the pages of The Queens Courier many times, trees absorb rainfall, reduce the storm water runoff that has been increasingly overloading our sewers and catch basins, and flooding our streets and homes.
Too many houses have been built in the last several decades whose owners or builders have paved over their front and back yards in concrete - a practice we dubbed as the “Concreting of Queens.” Developers must stop cutting down trees to allow several parking spaces in front of every house they are building.
This sensible initiative of planting a million new trees along with the decision by the Department for City Planning (DCP) to propose changes to the zoning laws that will require new houses to have a minimum percentage of landscaping in all front yards is a major step in the right direction.
We all have to help support Mayor Bloomberg’s plans. The Department of Parks and Recreation will plant 600,000 new trees in parks and along city streets, more than five times the number they have planted in the past 10 years.
They will need the help of private citizens, non-profit and community organizations, businesses and property developers to make sure the other 400,000 trees are planted. The Home Depot Foundation has stepped up and pledged $1.5 million in seed money for this effort.
Become a part of this worthy effort. Make a donation if you can or join a volunteer group planting trees in parks and on public land. Call 3-1-1 for more information about this campaign and to request a tree for your yard or block.
There is no shame in hugging a tree.