Montreal Is Planting Trees: A Good Way to Fight Heat As Well as Being Lovely

I woke up this morning to a delightful story about the city of Montreal planting trees. It's not particularly new news: the city announced last summer that it was planning on putting in 300,000 trees over the next 10 years.  The aim is increase the urban canopy of leaves in order to cut down on hot spots in the city.  

If I had any doubt that trees do make things cooler, I would have had them allayed this summer.  The picture at the right was taken in a nearby park about 7:30 a.m. on a day when it was frightfully hot and humid.  Yet in the shade of the trees it was delightful, and this couple had escaped their hot apartment to have breakfast on the grass.  As it happened I spent quite  a bit of time in this park this summer later in the day when I'd take Jeanne over a for a swing, and I can vouch for the fact that, while it was hot there, it was much less hot than it was a few streets over where there were smaller trees.