It’s rare that a short news story can give the big picture, but NBC 4 did just that last night on the 6 o’clock news. (Click here to watch the whole segment.)

The NBC news team started at City Hall yesterday morning, where TreePeople hosted the forum: In Case of Emergency, Plant Trees, which brought together more than 100 people to learn about the impact of green infrastructure on climate change and heat reduction at City Hall with special guest Dr. Nigel Tapper from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Our Founder and President Andy Lipkis invited the esteemed Dr. Tapper to come to Los Angeles and be a part of this interactive discussion about the critical link between urban tree canopy and the life-threatening impacts of severe heat.

And we’re so glad he did. Dr. Tapper was able to share the story of Australia’s recent twelve-year drought and describe the short-term as well as long-term strategies that helped them to survive it. A key component of Australia’s approach was planting and maintaining healthy trees. Why? Because as everyone in the TreePeople community knows, trees offer vital natural functions like carbon sequestration, pollution abatement, heat island mitigation, and rainwater harvesting. They literally make life possible on our earth and livable in our cities. And that’s why we do what we do.