Tower Hill Botanic Garden is dedicated to understanding the ways climate change impacts our world and exploring methods we can use to combat its effects and improve our climate outlook. “Climate Talks” are an opportunity to connect with experts in the field to learn and understand the current effects of climate change and explore ways we can make a difference. This Climate Talk is sponsored by CounterAct Climate Change Project.

This talk will explore Tree Equity. Trees play an important role in building healthy and resilient communities. Yet, depending on where they live, not all residents receive the same benefits of trees. Some residents may live in rural communities surrounded by trees while others may live in urban “tree deserts”. The unequal distribution of trees in our landscape has a long history tied to issues such as redlining, land use patterns, and geography. The patchwork of tree distribution has become referred to as “Tree Equity” and is tied to issues of race, class, and wealth. Using various sources of data, including environmental and demographic data, Speak for the Trees partnered with Boston University’s Graduate Program in Urban Biogeoscience and Environmental Health (URBAN) to create an interactive map that explores the relationships between people, place, and tree canopy coverage in Boston. In this talk David Meshoulam, PhD, Executive Director of Speak for the Trees, and Raquel Jimenez, graduate student in the URBAN program, will discuss their partnership and will share the results of their Tree Equity map and how it informs the work of the organization. They will also share tools available for similar analyses in other communities. David (pronounced Dah-veed) co-founded Speak for the Trees in 2018. Trained as a science educator, his work has focused on ways to increase understanding of the connections between science, culture, and history and to empower them to be change agents. He holds a PhD in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is a Senior Fellow at the Environmental Leadership Program, and is co-chair of the Urban Ecology Collaborative. Free to attend thanks to our Sponsor (Please register for Zoom link HERE)