I live in this community.
We need trees here.
I mean, it gets hot.
As a kid, I remembered a lot of trees.
I don't know what happened to them.
They died off.
People cut them down.
I don't know what happened.
Fifteen years ago, I tried to line at least my block.
So those trees are now these big, nice, beautiful trees.
I wish that we would do that all over.
And we can.
We are in a climate crisis.
We cannot afford to have the temperature
go up by 1.5 degrees or two degrees.
We just cannot.
By 2050, the whole globe has to become carbon neutral.
And, a lot of that is going to have an impact on people.
Eighty percent of people live in cities in urban areas.
So, if we want to make an impact of climate change, on people's lives,
we have to take into consideration of how our cities
are going to cope with the climate crisis that we are in.
I'm the co-founder of South LA Cafe
and South LA Market.
South Central has been great to me.
It's been-
How can I say this?
I wouldn't want to grow up anywhere else.
I love the diversity here.
I love the way we stick up for each other
and care about each other in this community.
The other thing about South Central is that we don't have a lot of trees.
When I came to this spot, this was all you know, just no seating out here.
This was all concrete, and it was hot and ugly.
You know, and just-
well I won't say ugly because I had a vision.
And I like trees, and I like greenery.
As the world gets hotter and hotter,
the places where we feel that most are in dense urban areas.
The urban heat island effect is making this issue
so palpable and visceral for every Angelino.
Today is an incredibly hot day, and I can feel it.
It's visceral; it's real. It is happening now.
I'm the executive director of City Plants.
We're a nonprofit started by the city of LA
that plants 20,000 trees each year with a collaborative of nonprofit,
city, federal, state, local agencies and community members.
I see tree planting as kind of the gateway to climate change resilience.
Yeah, so we're holding, as you can see, a tree distribution.
We hold these pretty much every week or so.
What folks do is they'll sign up online for a tree
that they would like to take home.
They walk up, we hand them the tree, give them some basic instructions in terms
of how to care for the tree.
Some folks are interested in like native trees,
and restoring habitat.
Some folks are interested in like specifically fruit trees
and some folks kind of just want a tree that's like really pretty.
I think people feel better around trees.
I think that people are calmer, nicer.
This little section, now that I think about it, is a little safe haven.
The people on the outside, that normally would cause problems
see that everybody's chillin and beautifying.
They don't come and mess it up.
It's weird, but it's happening here.
You know, we should do it everywhere.
The tree is the powerhouse of the city.
They're one of the most cost effective,
nature-based solutions that we could be enacting.
They do so much for our urban environment.
They provide biodiversity for birds, insects.
They make our air cleaner and cooler.
They help us cut back on energy costs in our buildings,
and they honestly make the places we live feel like home in many ways.
There are plenty of studies that have shown
there is a direct relationship between tree cover and temperature.
We are sitting under a tree, why?
Because it is shaded, right?
We are not sitting out there in the sun.
There is a direct relationship, but there is also
a disparity in tree cover within cities.
Me and my colleagues, we did a national level study
looking at 5,000 cities in US,
trying to understand the tree cover
disparity, and it was
interesting to find that there is a systematic disparity
in tree cover between low income and high income communities.
Low income communities had 15%
less tree cover and were 1.5 degrees hotter,
which is going to impact everybody living there.
I'm from an underserved area, South Westlake specifically.
We have a 10% tree canopy.
So, right now we're in Griffith Park.
This is 40% tree canopy.
So you can really tell the difference between neighborhoods.
You walk under the shade of those trees, and it's fantastic.
And then you have other places that haven't been treated
so well, where there's basically no trees, all concrete, all heat.
So, if you want to think of a solution,
we have an opportunity now with data
and science to systematically think, how do we address that problem?
We took a stab at that in California, where we tried
to look at statewide level,
how can we reduce the disparity in tree cover and the disparity
in urban heat island across 200 cities in California
and where urban afforestation needs to happen?
So, looking at socioeconomic variables and land surface temperature variables,
to combine all of that, to really understand
what is the capacity of a city to take trees
and if we plant trees, how much temperature is going to drop.
So we can build those kind of models to really understand that.
When we had to present that result,
we summarized that result on StoryMaps.
AWS tools provides
TNC support in two broad ways:
processing large non-spatial datasets,
and the other way is creating StoryMaps.
StoryMaps are a great way for us to really translate
complicated science into some action items.
Like, when I say that, you know, California has 24 million
acres land for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
It's a number.
But now all of a sudden, if I'm able to spatially show you where that area is,
that's information. That calls for action.
The decision maker
can then go into the tool and see that within their area.
What are the opportunities in reducing carbon emission?
In that StoryMap, you also showcase
local partners like City Plants on the work they are already doing.
So, we then create a bridge
between local partners like City Plants and the decision makers.
So I think one of our biggest success stories is actually right here.
Right now, I'm standing in the Commonwealth nursery, the Commonwealth Tree Nursery.
The vision here is to start
growing the trees that we're distributing into the local environment,
into the LA region from seed and launch a workforce
development program to train youth and grow the green jobs of the future
in the meanwhile.
With support from the Forest Service and
LA Department of Water and Power,
we've launched the new Tree Ambassador program,
which is in its pilot year, and we've already just seen
so many wonderful connections and community needs being identified.
They are the future.
They're the movers and shakers of their communities that know what's best
for their communities and being able to listen to them and work
alongside them to build and grow a greener
and more equitable future for Los Angeles is what keeps me hopeful.
As part of the Tree Ambassador program,
we're trying to find people within a community to become leaders
in that community.
I lived in Westlake all of my life.
I know the area fairly well.
I know a lot of people from there.
So, it's under that assumption that I'm going in and I'm trying
to educate the people from my community.
More people are coming to understand how important trees are.
The Nature Conservancy is a science driven organization
where we produce a lot of datasets and look at complex questions.
But when it comes to really trying to identify where we can
touch ground, where the science can be actually applied,
we work with our local partners, like City Plants in LA
and other organizations, to really understand and learn from them
that, you know, what are the challenges that the community is facing?
Hey, Rachel.
Hey, Tanu, How's it going?
Good. Good to see you.
Yeah, thanks so much for joining.
We get to take the work of tree planting prioritization
that you are helping define and apply it directly here in Los Angeles.
For somebody like me
who works off a satellite imagery and looks at the world from the top,
you are like helping our work to touch down.
Like, science can say what is needed, but you can say what can be done.
And I think that's important.
Shade equity to me is a social justice issue.
It's an environmental justice issue.
And I know Los Angeles is not alone in our struggle with shade equity.
I know many, many sister
cities all across the country and world that are feeling this.
When we're faced with huge kind of ominous,
harrowing, scary ideas and issues like climate change,
I see tree planting as a vehicle to overcome a lot of that anxiety.
The globe has to reduce its temperature
which means we have to work on something big.
We have to really work together.
We have to think what are the lessons that our partners
have learned from here that can be applied to other cities?
That's the power of cloud computing.
It's now exchange of human knowledge.
This block is now what people talk about.
You know, the neighbors come down and say to me,
"oh my God, you've changed that corner."
Well, I didn't really change the corner.
Just look at those trees.
I mean, getting emotional.
Wow, these are goosebumps.
I talked about it being plain concrete.
Now, we have three big, beautiful trees planted on this block.
And it makes me- oh, makes me feel good.