October 2021
1. 17.4 million tons of air pollutants: Amount of air pollutants that trees in the U.S. absorb, helping to prevent 670,000 cases of asthma and other acute respiratory symptoms annually.
Reference: https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/46102
2. $7.8 billion: Annual reduction in energy bills for homes, from small towns to metro areas in the U.S., due to trees blocking wind and providing shade.
Reference: https://forestclimateworkinggroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Urban-Forests_Energy-Savings-from-Urban-Trees_nrs_2017_nowak_001.pdf
3. 55% of Americans get their drinking water from forests (both public and private).
Reference: https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/national-forests-grasslands/water-facts
4. One tree can capture an average of 616 metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) over its lifetime. That is equivalent to the carbon emissions from driving one car 1,500 miles.
Reference: http://apps.fs.usda.gov/Evalidator/evalidator.jsp
5. US. forests (including urban forests) and forest products capture and store approximately 15% of U.S carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels each year.
Reference: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks-1990-2018
6. Spending 120-300 minutes/week in the natural environment contributes to good health and subjective well-being.
Reference: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44097-3
7. Products made from wood currently store more than 100 million metric tons of CO2e, equivalent to the carbon emissions from driving more than 21 million cars for an entire year.
Reference: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks-1990-2018
8. Climate change has doubled the cumulative forest fire area since 1984. It is responsible for half of the documented increases in fuel aridity since the 1970s
Reference: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/42/11770
9. Urban forests in the U.S. currently store an estimated 3.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, valued at $119 billion.
Reference: https://academic.oup.com/jof/article/116/2/164/4930764
10. In cities nationwide, city trees already prevent approximately 1,200 heat-related deaths and countless heat-related illnesses annually.