Improving the Living Urban Infrastucture by minkavb

Hi Minka, You make some good points here on protecting urban tree coverage. Most modern cities would benefit by having more trees, and with value officially recognized. Also, I read your research about methane leaks in Cambridge. Do you know if the gas company made repairs yet? The number of leaks and neighborhood locations are scary. Thank you for the vote of support on my proposal. Murray

Dear Minka: The CoLab had a typo in their previous message to you. The proposal revision period closes on March 1st, NOT the 31st. Below are your proposal's comments from the judging team. Thank you for participating! Judge 1: It makes sense to hold onto the healthy mature trees that we have in Cambridge. I like that you've provided examples of other cities that have policies to protect trees - it would be good to know (besides timeframe, mentioned in the Fellow's comment) a few other details: how the tree's health is to be managed and assessed, how to ensure that we keep mature trees healthy but prune unhealthy trees and remove dead trees that pose safety hazards. This idea would really benefit from a little discussion of how to balance priorities to maintain a number of mature trees and maintain healthy trees (no matter their size and age.) Perhaps you can draw additional analogies from the Atlanta and California examples you reference? Judge 2: This is an important and potentially highly beneficial strategy. I need more information, though, to know about what the proposed policy mechanism would look like and also how it would address the vacuum you're trying to address. For example, would this be part of the environmental impact statement for proposed development projects and if so what does this idea specifically add? Also, when does it become appropriate to cut down trees - for example, how do you propose this will fit with the inevitable skyrights, PV installations, and invasive species arguments? More detail is needed.

Dear Minka: Thank you for submitting yet another interesting proposal to the Climate CoLab contest. While your project is a worthwhile endeavor, we have decided not to send it to the finals. Thank you for your participation! Sincerely, Jen