Comment Log Display

Arthur R. Boone
1616 Harmon Street 
Berkeley, CA 94703 
510/910-6451

6 April, 2016 

To: Planners writing the California Forest Carbon Plan Concept
Paper

From: Arthur R. Boone, Founder and now chief provisioner, Sierra
Club tree team, Oakland

Re: Comments on March 9, 2016 draft of FCAP. 

I was present in the audience on March 23 in Sacramento and made
spoken comments; this message extends my remarks. These are my
personal remarks, not a Sierra Club statement.
Urban forestry is, of course, a very small part of California's
forestry world. With the drought, disease and wildfires, it's a
wonder any attention to the urban forest is possible. But, as you
recognize, 95% of California's people live in urban areas and the
urban forest is more important than many consider. 
With that said, the existing language at pages 25-27 of the draft
report is woefully inadequate. Two points simply: one is that at no
point does your language acknowledge the high regard that trees are
capable of playing in reducing CO2 emissions, and, two, the
numerical goal to “increase statewide tree canopy in cities and
towns by 5% by 2030” (page 26, Para. On ENHANCE) is a feather in a
windstorm.

1.	When Fred Keeling first began the careful measurement of global
CO2 in 1960, he noted the consistent pattern of annual declines in
the summer months equal to 75-80% of the annual increases in CO2
levels in the winter months. With a background in measuring forest
oxygen production, he opined that the trees of the northern
hemisphere (where 80% of the world's landmass and 80% of its trees
are) was the cause. In 50 years no other scientist has created an
alternative explanation of the annual decline, which has continued
as regular as clockwork. When the Yale group published (Nature
magazine (September, 2015)) the startling fact that the world's
tree population had declined by 46% from the beginning of the
industrial age, it wasn't rocket science to conclude that more
trees would be a critical factor in controlling the increasing
level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Although entrepreneuers have chased
many high tech rainbows to reduce CO2 levels, the COP-21 in Paris
has given great deference to trees as a mitigating factor to CO2
emission increases. Several states are revising their urban tree
information with this in mind, but apparently not California, which
seems to be stuck in some old time zone.

2.	It's a well known fact that public trees are not randomly
distributed in a community; numerous studies have documented that
rich people's kids enjoy better teachers, have better health, have
more access to public sports fields, etc., than poor ones. They
also have more trees in their neighborhoods. In Oakland, where we
work, the imbalance in public trees by council districts is
immense, with CD#1 enjoying 9800 public trees while CD#7 has 3500
trees. (Data from a sidewalk study in 2008.) To bring the least
treed districts up to par with the best will require 30,000 new
trees to be planted in the flatlands of Oakland, a lot more than 5%
would ever get you. Everything we know about other cities around
the state suggests similar data. 5% new trees in 14 years is no
goal at all; 50% more in eight years would be more appropriate. 

The biggest problem here, of course, is that the content of this
concept paper and these numbers suggest that the planners
representing their various agencies who sat in the afternoon panel
don't really know anything about the current role of trees in world
CO2 reductions or in the urban scene in California where we have a
major need for an environmental justice perspective in all tree
work. The presentations were, in retrospect, both shocking and
distressing.

Respectfully submitted, 

Arthur R. Boone,


cc.	Governor Jerry Brown
John Melvin, CALFIRE Urban Forester
James Scheid, North Coast Urban Forester
Senator Kevin deLeon.
Marie Rose Taruc, APEN
Kemba Shakur, Bay Area member, CARB's EJ Advisory Committee
Monica Wilson, Bay Area member, CARB's EJ Advisory Committee
Kathryn Phillips, Sierra Club of California