The following announcement was provided by Trees for Watertown:
In the coming decades, our New England region will be at the heart of climate change impacts. According to a 2022 University of Massachusetts report, at current CO2 emission levels, the number of 90-degree days our city sees will increase to 80 per year by the end of the century, vector-borne diseases will increase, and animal and plant species will be lost.
Of particular importance to Watertown, precipitation rates and river resulting stormwater flooding are set to rise substantially. Storms will be more intense, leading to costly home flooding and personal property loss.
In January 2020 the World Economic Forum launched the One Trillion Tree initiative. In July 2022 the Biden Administration announced the US government aims to plant over a billion trees. Along with restoring forests, a healthy established population of urban shade trees is internationally recognized as one of the most powerfully effective means for protecting us from the most punishing effects of climate change. Cities across the world are planting thousands of trees to increase their tree canopy. However, the success of tree-planting efforts world-wide and here in Watertown depends on proper planning for the long term. Trees provide exponentially more protective ecological services when they are mature. This means it’s important to take good care of existing healthy trees, and to select, site, plant and maintain new trees carefully so that they can have long healthy lifetimes.
