Right now most of our cities are directly dealing with the problems of the "Heat Island effect". It's dangerous and causing very real, very scary death statistics.
We know the easy fixes: add more trees to parking lots. Replace more parking lots with trees.
We know exactly why that is an unpopular solution: most parking lots are privately owned and trees don't pay parking fees. Also, our cities are so car-centric parking is "important" and removing any parking spaces is seen as hurting surrounding businesses because fewer people will commute there from the suburbs/exurbs.
"Ban cars and reforest parking lots" is a joke of an extremist take, but also both one of the easiest solutions and one of the hardest solutions, to the Heat Island effect specifically, but also as a microcosm of the things we need to do to solve climate change issues in general.
We know the easy fixes: add more trees to parking lots. Replace more parking lots with trees.
We know exactly why that is an unpopular solution: most parking lots are privately owned and trees don't pay parking fees. Also, our cities are so car-centric parking is "important" and removing any parking spaces is seen as hurting surrounding businesses because fewer people will commute there from the suburbs/exurbs.
"Ban cars and reforest parking lots" is a joke of an extremist take, but also both one of the easiest solutions and one of the hardest solutions, to the Heat Island effect specifically, but also as a microcosm of the things we need to do to solve climate change issues in general.