Rooted in environmental justice, trees are a cause that Houston can get behind
In a world full of discord, it’s nice to remember the things that unite us.We mostly love dogs, even if we don’t deserve them; we’re all excited to see the greatest-of-all-time gymnast Simone Biles soar to unprecedented heights in Tokyo.
Trees should be on that list, too.
They can be litterbugs at times, shedding leaves and needles and berries wherever they stand. Occasionally they harbor a rowdy animal. Their root systems can disrupt sidewalks, to the exasperation of homeowners’ associations.
But these are quibbles, really. Trees do so much good for us. They pull carbon out of the atmosphere, and dust particulate matter from the air. They increase the porosity of the soil, and filter groundwater before it reaches our bayous. They have a positive effect on physical and mental health, and make it
possible, even in the sultriest stretches of summer, to spent time outside.
“That is perhaps the salient point about trees: the vast majority of people, irrespective of political inclination, can get behind them,” observed Barry Ward, the executive director of Trees For Houston, after summarizing some of these benefits.
The data that supports these findings, he added, is extensive and points to a real role for more trees in improving Houston’s resiliency as well as our quality of life—“not a panacea, but an inexpensive, remediative factor in many of our urban problems.”
A new report from American Forests highlights the issue of “tree equity” in cities, including Houston—an issue across the nation, grounded in racist redlining policies of the 1930s.
The federal government then drew maps of cities to determine areas in which loans would be secured; race and ethnicity were among the factors used to grade neighborhoods, meaning that people of color were effectively blocked from equitable access to credit.
You can see the connection if you compare their map of Houston now to the one used for redlining at the time. Tree equity is generally better inside the loop than outside it, and better in affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods than in Third or Second Ward, with the long diagonal of Main Street serving as a clear line of demarcation.
It’s a consequential issue, because the parts of Houston that lack trees are unable to realize any of the benefits they provide. A 2020 study, published in Climate, looked at 108 American cities and found that redlined neighborhoods were measurably warmer than nonredlined neighborhood, in some cases, by more than ten degrees.
The issue has long been on the radar of Robert Bullard, distinguished professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University, who has been working on racial, environmental, and climate justice issues for over four decades and written nearly twenty books on the subject.
He sent me a PDF of a PowerPoint presentation he put together to help the White House frame its “Justice40” initiative, a commitment to deliver at least 40 percent of federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities — which have indeed been measurably disadvantaged, in terms of environmental justice.
A 2019 study, for example, found that white Americans enjoy a “pollution advantage,” whereas Black and Latino Americans are exposed to 56 percent and 63 percent more air pollution, respectively, than is caused by their consumption.
This uneven burden of pollution contributes to well-established health disparities: across the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control, Black and Hispanic children are four times more likely to be admitted to the hospital for asthma than non-Hispanic white children.
“Money follows money; money follows power; money follows whites,” Bullard told me. “It’s not really rocket science. It’s political science.”
Houston’s nature-deprived neighborhoods, he continued, often lack access to amenities such as grocery stores and public transportation — all of this the result of policies, planning and funding that failed to prioritize equity, among other things.
Addressing these interrelated issues will not happen overnight, or without the involvement of the entire community. But as the “father of environmental justice,” Bullard reckons, we’re at a dynamic moment in time, due to the convergence of several justice movements in the summer of 2020.
“It was not always this way,” he said, reminiscing that in the 1970s when he started talking about environmental justice he felt like an alien dropped from a spaceship. “Let me put an exclamation point on that: it was not always this way!”
The city, as it stands, has a goal of planting 4.6 million native trees by 2030, as part of the Resilient Houston strategy and Houston Climate Action Plan.
Donald Trump showed some leadership on this issue as president. In January 2020, he announced that the United States would join the World Economic Forum’s One Trillion Trees initiative, which calls on nations to grow and preserve one trillion trees by 2030.
If the political exists, says Luke Metzger, the executive director of Environment Texas, the issue is one that offers leaders a chance to do something that actually enjoys widespread popular support: “It’s a costeffective way to reduce pollution while beautifying our cities.”
The American Forests report should serve as a call to action, because in a sense it’s highlighting an opportunity for us to ensure that everyone in the Houston community can enjoy more of the benefits and protection that trees provide — and which we can see.
The city has some spectacular stretches of tree canopies, thanks to the Houstonians of the past who had the foresight to plant and nurture the saplings of neighborhoods such as Broadacres and the Woodland Heights decades ago.
“I don’t know anybody that would be against trees,” Bullard said with a laugh. “That would be like being against children’s health.”