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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, our Climate Story of the Week, which we're doing every Tuesday on the show all this year. Forested urban areas may sound like an oxymoron, forested urban areas, but our next guest says that they are a key to combating extreme heat in cities like we've had in so many parts of the country this year.

With us now to discuss the cooling effects of certain kinds of natural areas, particularly in New York City, is Sarah Charlop-Powers, executive director of the Natural Areas Conservancy, which recently released a report comparing the cooling effect of natural versus landscaped green spaces in 12 cities across the United States. Sarah, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Thank you so much for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Can you start by telling us what you mean by natural areas? How do natural areas differ from other sorts of greenery?

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Sure. Natural areas are places within the urban landscape that look and feel like the woods. If you can picture places like the North Woods in Van Cortlandt Park or the Greenbelt in Central Staten Island or the Forest Park or Casino Park or Cunningham Park in Central Queens, these larger, intact woodland areas function very similarly to rural forests and offer tremendous cooling benefits as I'll describe, but also recreational and social benefits for New Yorkers.

Brian Lehrer: What did the report find?

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Well, we know that as of a couple of years ago, extreme heat is the number one cause of weather-related deaths in the United States. We know that in urban areas, extreme heat is particularly insidious and takes a tremendous public health toll on our residents. We've found that natural areas of which there are over 10,000 acres of forested natural areas within New York City are up to 13 degrees cooler than adjacent landscaped areas, including areas under street trees.

This is really significant for two reasons. One is that our natural areas have the potential to cool our overall environment. They help our city to cool off, especially in the evenings, which is critically important because our built environment retains a tremendous amount of heat, which exacerbates the high temperatures that we see during heat waves. They're also incredibly important if you picture a day that's 90 degrees or 95 degrees. You can bring that temperature down into the high 70s by taking a walk or a hike in a neighborhood park. It's critically important that New Yorkers have the opportunity to recreate and spend time in these cool oases during our hottest weather.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you want to get in with your stories or comments or questions on our Climate Story of the Week for this week, do you want to see more forested natural areas in the city, New York, or any other city? Does our city already have too little of these? Would you welcome more natural green spaces or is that what the suburbs are for or do you have a favorite urban forest you want to share with us? Call or text us, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

We also welcome questions for Sarah Charlop-Powers from the Natural Areas Conservancy about the findings in her report. 212-433-WNYC or tweet @BrianLehrer. You mentioned some of the parks in New York City where there are enough trees, I guess, to count as wooded areas, parts of Fort Tryon Park, Cunningham Park, and Forest Park, Staten Island area that you mentioned. You didn't mention Central Park. Does anything in Central Park count?

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Yes. The ramble in the northern portion of Central Park would certainly count as a natural area. I would say really within most of the large parks in the city, we see some portion of that parkland as natural areas. In fact, there are over 300 miles of trails spread across the natural areas within our city park system, so it's both a larger resource than many people realize. Access to these places is a priority for this administration.

There was a big Earth Day announcement in April of this year announcing support for the improvement to the city's citywide trail system. It's a large resource. It's a resource that's distributed across all five boroughs. We know that 50% of New Yorkers experience nature either exclusively or primarily within the city park system. As I mentioned earlier, it's also a really, really important way for New Yorkers to access and spend time in the natural world.

Brian Lehrer: I have to point out that I don't think you mentioned the beautiful forested Inwood Hill Park, which I happen to live near. I'm lucky enough to live near the top of Manhattan. One of the great forested areas of New York City. Certainly, Inwood Hill Park. Is there anything that policy can do about this?

When you're talking about these kinds of woods, I can't imagine the Inwood Hill Park woods, for example, with as much area as they take up being replicated in some other parts of the city just because we decide that they're better than other kinds of greenery for cooling the heat in the summer. Can anything be done about that or are the natural wooded areas in New York City the natural wooded areas in New York City? You're just pointing out how good they are compared to other kinds of greenery.

Sarah Charlop-Powers: I have, I think, two points to make in response to that question. The first is that our research shows that our healthiest natural areas and the core area of Inwood Hill Park, which has 100-year-old towering trees, certainly would fit into that category, are much, much more effective at cooling than degraded woodlands. Within the footprint of natural areas that we have, it is really important that the city provides sufficient funding to the parks department to care for these places and make sure that this cooling benefit, which is something that forests are providing essentially for free to New Yorkers, continues to exist and that we continue to experience that benefit.

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Brian Lehrer: Oh, go ahead. Do you want to make another point? Go ahead.

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Yes. One other point, which is that there's actually legislation currently under consideration by the city council, which is likely to be voted on September 14th to create an urban forest plan for New York City, which would expand the canopy cover. That's the amount of our city that is shaded by trees from 22% to 30%. Folks can find more information about that hearing at the Natural Areas Conservancy's website by signing up for our mailing list.

We view natural areas as less well-understood but critically important piece of the entire urban forest. That would include the trees in front of people's homes, the trees in yards, the trees in picnic areas and parks, and the expansion of the overall canopy, plus the care of the natural areas within that urban forest are both really critical areas for both policy support and for increased public spending.

Brian Lehrer: To be clear, even though this report emphasizes how important these denser wooded natural areas are compared to, say, individual street trees or other landscape greenery, you're not saying those aren't important because that's where a lot of the city's efforts have been over the last few decades. As you know, the campaign to plant a million trees and things like that, it's not necessarily to create more forest land within the city. A lot of it is to put individual trees on streets that don't have enough.

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Yes, that's exactly right. We need an all-hands-on-deck approach to addressing heat. We need to make our built environment cooler. We need to think about how to put white roofs on the roofs of our buildings. We need to make air conditioning more accessible. There is tremendous untapped potential within the natural world to advance a cooler city for New York City. We view this work as an important puzzle piece in solving the really large and thorny challenge of extreme heat in New York City and in cities across the country.

Brian Lehrer: We have a lot of calls coming in from all kinds of neighborhoods. Let's start with Jean in Kew Gardens. You're on WNYC. Hi, Jean.

Jean: Hi. Good morning. I love you, Brian Lehrer. First-time caller. I live in Kew Gardens near Forest Park, one of the parks you mentioned. You mentioned that it is cooler. It is genuinely cooler, but I'm just curious what is the radius of the coolness. I'm very lucky. Would it extend to the three blocks that I live at? I'm three blocks away, or do I have to go into the forest?

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Yes, that's a really great question. We know that there is an adjacent to cooling effect and we have not fully finished calculating that benefit. We know there's a tremendous benefit as you mentioned to visiting these parks and also a benefit to living near them. I would say stay tuned for more information about the extent or magnitude of that benefit coming out of our research team in the near future.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks, Jean. Matt on Staten Island, you're on WNYC. Hi, Matt.

Matt: Oh, great. Hi. I just wanted to say that I think more city trees actually would go a long way. I know you just mentioned that it's not all just about parks or anything but city trees where the city can put them where they own the sidewalk. They really make the place look better. You don't notice it until you're on a sidewalk on a street without trees and you can really hear the cars. Then when it's hot out, you're really hot. It looks like you're in a desert or something of pavement. The trees really go a long way. Even though they're so tall, they offer some amount of screening. They really improve any block, any neighborhood.

Brian Lehrer: Matt, thank you very much. Joe in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Joe.

Joe: Hi. I wanted to mention that I live in Brooklyn near some of the underutilized piers along the Columbia Waterfront and Red Hook district. There's a tremendous of underutilized land that could be purposed for even larger trees and intact habitats. There's some successful examples you may have seen a bit further close to Dumbo, where some of the state-owned piers were converted and forested. It provides a tremendous canopy for wildlife.

There's already infrastructure to travel there using public transit. Frankly, it's beautiful. I think that's an area that we should look into. There's room for really big trees. I think there's a statistic that says the larger the tree, the more it consumes pollutants and produces more oxygen. Typically, you don't get to see that a lot on the sidewalk-type planting. Maybe that's an area that folks could look into. I think it would be great,

Brian Lehrer: Joe, thank you very much. Sarah, what do you think about that part of the Brooklyn waterfront, or are there any other areas that you, at the Natural Areas Conservancy, have your eyes on that are ripe for planting of more dense greenery?

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Great question. I will defer to colleagues within the parks department and other agencies about the recommendation for piers. I certainly love the idea of adding more trees wherever they can fit. As it relates to more planting, as I mentioned, there's legislation underway to expand the canopy from 22% to 30%.

That would require both a significant amount of planting and also the time and care to allow the young trees that exist on our streets and in our forests to grow to maturity. That point is just something I want to really emphasize. It's a stressful place to be a tree in New York City. It takes a lot of care to help our young baby trees to grow and thrive. That care and investment in management is really, really important for achieving this vision of a well-shaded city.

Brian Lehrer: It's not easy being green in New York City. Linda in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Linda.

Linda: Hi. I just wanted to tell you a little bit about my experience when I was living in Queens. We had a very, very large backyard, something like 40 x 60. Part of it was patio, which was slate. We had our dining table out there. When it got really, really hot, we would move the table to under the two magnolia trees, which formed like a canopy. We could sit there for hours. I don't know, but it seemed to me as if it was like 10, 15-degree cooler. It was lovely.

There are so many places that I realize now because they have such large leaves, I think that they would do beautifully in New York to serve the purpose that we're talking about. I just wanted to tell you about that. Also, I wanted to mention that I'm living in New York now, so there are times when it's very hot and I like to be outside. I do go to the North Woods in Central Park. Lots of trees there, very pleasant. The other place I go to is the Bird Sanctuary in Riverside Park. The same situation. To me, it makes a very, very big difference.

Brian Lehrer: Linda, thank you very much. In fact, I think we're getting a caller in Central Park if I'm seeing this right. Jasper in Central Park, you're on WNYC. Hi there. Where are you?

Jasper: Hey there. I am in Central Park. I actually work here. I'm here 40 hours a week and I notice definitely the difference in temperature when I walk to the subway after work. It's pretty noticeable, especially during that heat wave a few weeks ago. Actually, I called in last week to All Of It because she had a similar segment about the urban heat island is what they called it. It has to do a lot with pavement.

Even if you're not in a shade and you're in the park, the pavement, because it's a lot of turf lawns and that, it just makes it much cooler. You can definitely notice. I also wanted to bring attention to this group called Forest for All NYC. I heard them give a talk at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I wonder if your guest has any connection to this group, but they're advocating for some of the same things.

One interesting thing in that presentation they gave was that they showed three maps. One of them was where a majority of the street trees are planted in New York. One was along economic lines and the third was the heat index. The maps were all highlighted in the same spot. It's basically the poorer the neighborhood, the less trees. The less trees, the more heat. It's an issue of equity as well, I would say. Like your guest said, heat exhaustion is a huge cause of death. It's affecting the poorest New Yorkers first.

Brian Lehrer: Absolutely. Jasper, thank you. Thank you. Sarah?

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Yes, the Forest for All NYC coalition is one of the, I think, most exciting organizing efforts that's existed in New York City in a long time. The Natural Areas Conservancy is a member of the leadership committee. That coalition consists of over 80 nonprofit community groups and agencies.

A lot of the most innovative and visionary work about policy research and organizing related, as I mentioned, to this all-hands-on-deck approach to prioritizing tree canopy as an important piece of our public infrastructure and providing the support and care that it needs to really maximize that benefit is being generated from within that group. A great shout-out from the previous caller. I would absolutely encourage people to check out that coalition. You can find information online at Forest for All NYC.

Brian Lehrer: You also happen to mention pavement. Here's a tweet from a listener who asks, "Why is new paving in Harlem that is going up right now black asphalt? Shouldn't it all be light going forward?" Are you looking at the color of pavement as an urban heat issue?

Sarah Charlop-Powers: There's a lot of innovation in terms of pavement that is cooler and also roofing and building materials that are cooler. I do not know the specifics of the pavement that's being described, but I do know that both the public and private sectors are innovating and putting a lot of resources into thinking about how our built environment can also absorb less heat and cool down more quickly at the end of a hot day.

Brian Lehrer: A few more minutes in our Climate Story of the Week, which we do every Tuesday here on The Brian Lehrer Show today talking about urban forests, which is not necessarily an oxymoron as we've been hearing with Sarah Charlop-Powers, executive director of the Natural Areas Conservancy, which recently released a report comparing the cooling effects of natural versus other kinds of landscaped green spaces in 12 cities across the United States. Density matters. Dean on Staten Island, you're on WNYC. Hi, Dean.

Dean: Hi. My question is about artificial fields, TPE, clay fields. Where I live, a lot of the schools and the parks have redone the fields over the past five years. The fields are huge because they're for football and other sports. I just was curious living right next to one, does that increase the heat where I am or have bad health effects?

Sarah Charlop-Powers: The question is whether having-

Brian Lehrer: -artificial turf.

Sarah Charlop-Powers: -artificial turf?

Dean: Well, making fields that are artificial as opposed to these big green where you're putting down regular grass. I don't know. It's a huge initiative here in Staten Island. There are just so many fields being redone and they're not with natural grass.

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Yes, that's a great question. I would say I am not an expert on artificial turf, but I would say that where there's opportunities to add shading, that's obviously really beneficial.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. We should do a separate segment on artificial turf. Dean, do you know why in your parts of Staten Island, there's a movement to replace grass with turf? Is it because it's cheaper to keep up or something like that?

Dean: I don't know why they did. I know specifically for me. Well, you're right because Snug Harbor did theirs too. I just think that it's maybe easier and cheaper to maintain. They think it's a good thing for neighborhoods to be able to have the fields used at all hours day and night. It increases for people who are playing sports or if the schools are having football teams. I think they just think that the artificial fields are in their best interest. I guess I was just curious from the environmental change.

Brian Lehrer: Cooling standpoint.

Dean: Yes, the cooling part of it.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Dean, thank you very much. All right. I hereby promise everybody, we're going to do a separate on artificial fields and their pros and cons. Let me get one more caller in here. Stuart in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Stuart.

Stuart: Hi. I live in a building that is covered with ivy. It has a really tremendous effect on cooling the building we're in a lot. It also provides a lot of food for the migratory birds. The ivy is called the Boston ivy and there's also a five-leaf ivy. It's relatively benign towards buildings. A lot of the fear of landlords is the damage to the buildings. This one, it doesn't hurt the masonry. It would be a very easy solution because they grow very quickly. It's very easy to reproduce vine. You take cuttings and root them and, poof, they're off.

I just think that's something that should be explored to be handed out. I know they're growing a bunch of local trees in Staten Island for their tree. I don't know why they couldn't also grow ivies as to give away and promote that as a way to cool the city and to cool everybody's doing. It's also just beautiful. You look out to this green surrounding the windows and it's just gorgeous. There's always insects and it's just a whole little ecosystem that could be spread over the whole-- Most building surfaces could use that.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, what a cool idea, Stuart. Thank you very much. Your report, the parts of it that I've seen, are about trees, what you've been referring to as urban forest. What about vines and ivy all over buildings where applicable? Does that have a cooling effect?

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Yes, it definitely does. One thing I really liked about the last call is it really shows the place for individual innovation in tackling this issue. There's the need for big systemic investment in our city's park system and regulation and innovation in our building system. There's also a tremendous amount of opportunity for individual homeowners, builders, landlords to green the small patch or patch of land or area that they are responsible for.

The idea of layering plants on top of your home or your building is something that I think many of us have the opportunity to add a little bit more green in our hyper-local environment. I would caution against using invasive species that might jump ship into our natural areas and damage the integrity of our forests, but I would very much encourage folks to think about converting small patches of pavement or terraces or yards or patios into little green oases. I think that's a really nice complement to the kinds of large landscape-scale work and investment that we are focused on at the Natural Areas Conservancy.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to sneak in one more call so that we can accomplish the all-borough five-factor in this segment. We've had calls from Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan. Reed in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Reed.

Reed: Hi, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you.

Reed: Hello?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Reed: First-time caller, longtime listener. I really appreciate the work you do, Brian. I'm an arborist. I live in Brooklyn, but I'm currently in the Bronx doing inspections of newly planted trees. For anyone listening, if someone has planted a new tree, if there are stakes on it, they're really thirsty right now. Please go out, dump a couple of gallons of water on them, and they will thank you greatly in the coming years.

Brian Lehrer: Reed, thank you very much. At the beginning, Sarah, when you were listening, some of the naturally forested areas in the city, you didn't mention any in the Bronx. I'm just going to jump in with this anyway because the Bronx, for people who are not familiar with the Bronx and I have spent a lot of time in the Bronx in my life as a kid and as an adult, they may not know. Just going from west to east, you could start at Wave Hill in Riverdale, and then go to the wonderful wooded areas in Van Cortlandt Park, which is a vast park, and then east to Bronx Park, and then all the way east to Pelham Bay Park. There's a lot of woods in the Bronx, right?

Sarah Charlop-Powers: It's incredible. I grew up in Norwood in the North Central Bronx right off Mosholu Parkway, so I would say, yes, the Bronx is one of the-- It's a sleeper hit. The incredibly green borough with an incredible diversity of different landscape types. All the way from the rocky coastal shorelines of Pelham Bay Park, which has pitch pines and other rugged coastal trees, to the Bronx River Forest and the towering trees in Van Cortlandt Park. You're highlighting some of my very favorites. I certainly hope that listeners to the show will play on an excursion soon to visit some of these incredible places.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Ones that are close to my heart in some of those cases. Sarah Charlop-Powers, executive director of the Natural Areas Conservancy, which recently released a report comparing the cooling effects of natural and landscaped green spaces in 12 cities across the United States. That's our Climate Story of the Week. Thank you so much, Sarah.

Sarah Charlop-Powers: Thank you very much.

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