Most of us notice our trees when they provide shade on a hot July afternoon or when we're raking leaves in the fall. But long before we admire their fall color or grumble about cleaning up after them they've already been hard at work.
Trees are among the few things in our communities that work around the clock without asking for anything in return. Every hour of every day they're cooling neighborhoods, capturing stormwater before it floods streets, filtering pollutants from the air we breathe, storing carbon, providing wildlife habitat, and even helping reduce energy bills.
As author Jim Robbins once wrote,
"If we had to pay for the services that trees provide, we couldn't afford them. Because trees offer their services in silence, and for free, we take them for granted."
Those benefits can seem difficult to picture, but free online tools such as MyTree, by iTreetools.org allow anyone to estimate the real world value of an individual tree. Rather than relying on broad averages, iTree translates a tree's environmental benefits into terms that make sense in everyday life.
For example, I looked at a mature Chinkapin oak growing outside my office. Over the course of one year, this single tree is estimated to offset the carbon emissions from driving 365 miles in a family vehicle, capture enough stormwater to fill 114 household bathtubs, remove enough pollutants from the air to equal the weight of seven smartphones, and finally, reduce energy use by providing shade during our Kansas summers.
