More days of extreme heat on Long Island highlight shade gap

The heat wave that settled over the eastern half of the United States late last month brought triple-digit temperatures to Long Island as well as a wide swath of the Midwest and the East Coast, from Omaha to Cape Cod, Massachusetts,  to Tallahassee, Florida.

In parts of Nassau County, temperatures reached 102 on June 24, with humidity that made the air feel like 111. The following day, even the crows perched on a fence in Uniondale were panting to cool down.

A string of brutally hot days can’t be directly and solely attributed to human-caused climate change. But according to researchers at Climate Central, a collaboration of scientists and journalists based in Princeton, New Jersey, global warming made this recent heat dome at least five times more likely.

That means the coming decades will likely bring more scorching days.

"By the 2050s, extreme heat events are expected to become more frequent, severe, and prolonged," according to a report from the state Department of Environmental Conservation published last year.

Average annual temperatures on Long Island are projected to increase between 3.8 degrees and 5.8 degrees by the 2050s. By the 2080s, when babies born today are reaching middle age, temperatures will climb between 5.1 and 9.5 degrees, compared with the average from 1981 to 2010.

By the 2080s, the report said, in a median emissions scenario, residents of Bridgehampton — which has the most complete long-term weather records in the region for the assessment — will endure 30 days of above-90 temperatures, compared with about five today.

While no one can escape the effects of a hotter planet, experts say the consequences fall disproportionately on lower-income communities, where residents are less likely to have air conditioning and more likely to have chronic health conditions that are exacerbated by very high temperatures.

These communities also tend to have fewer of the most effective, yet low-tech, solutions to extreme heat: trees. And government records show programs to increase tree cover have so far brought little relief to Long Island's disadvantaged communities. 

"We lack trees and shade," said William Bailey, senior director at the Hempstead office of New York Communities for Change, an advocacy group. "All we have is concrete."

Trees slow global warming by locking away carbon, and they moderate ambient temperatures by shading streets, sidewalks and buildings, which otherwise absorb heat and release it at night, creating a "heat island effect." Trees also cool the air by releasing water vapor through their leaves — a process called evapotranspiration. 

Experts say planting trees — millions of them — will be a crucial strategy if New York is to meet its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 85% compared with 1990 levels by 2050.

"In fact," said Marci Bortman, director of conservation and science at The Nature Conservancy in New York, "we would not meet those targets without having tree planting as part of the solution."

Advocates said greening up lower-income communities like Hempstead should be an urgent priority of any planting plan.

Tree canopy disparities

Researchers have found just about everywhere in the United States, lower-income and communities of color have fewer trees than whiter, more affluent towns and neighborhoods. In a 2021 study of nearly 6,000 communities published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One, researchers found  low-income blocks had 15.2% less tree cover and were 2.7 degrees hotter than high-income blocks. In parts of the Northeast, the disparity was greater: Some low-income blocks had 30% less tree cover and were 7.2 degrees hotter.

That pattern is striking at the border of Hempstead and Garden City.

The houses along Yale Street in Hempstead have peaked roofs and small, tidy lawns decorated with an occasional shrub. There are almost no street trees. On day three of last month’s heat wave, the sun on the asphalt and concrete sidewalk felt punishing.

A few blocks away in Garden City, the houses and yards on Meadow Street are larger, and mature London plane trees grow on both sides of the road, their branches meeting overhead. In the dappled shade of the tree canopy, it seemed at least 10 degrees cooler.

The evident difference in tree cover is confirmed by data compiled by the nonprofit American Forests, based in Washington. The group's tree equity map shows the three census blocks on the Garden City side of Meadow Street have 37% to 41% tree canopy cover; on the Hempstead side, the bordering tracts have between 5% and 19% tree cover. 

The contrast is not lost on Bradley Hinton, 74, who lives in public housing for seniors on a treeless block in Hempstead. On a day in the upper 90s during last month’s heat wave, Hinton told Newsday, "When you go six blocks away, there’s trees everywhere — it’s obviously cooler and more pleasant — you can hide away from the sun."

Property owners in the town of Hempstead can request curbside trees to be planted in front of their house. If the town approves the location, the owner can select from a list of five species, some native and some not. The cost is $495.

Brian Devine, a spokesman for Hempstead Town Supervisor Donald X. Clavin Jr., noted the town also plants trees through streetscape renewal projects, funded through the state Housing and Urban Development office. He did not respond to questions about how many trees have been or will be planted.

Millions of dollars in federal and state grants have been set aside for tree planting, but so far Long Island's more barren neighborhoods haven't benefited.

Then-President Joe Biden allocated $1.5 billion to the U.S. Forest Service’s urban and community forest program, as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. That was about 40 times what the federal government had typically spent on urban canopy projects each year.

Glen Cove was the only municipality on Long Island to receive grants from the program, according to a tally on Gov. Kathy Hochul's website (and the money was for preventing losses from the invasive emerald ash borer beetle, not for planting new trees).

But in February, the U.S. Forest Service under President Donald Trump began canceling grants, notifying recipients the program "no longer aligns with agency priorities regarding diversity, equity and inclusion," according to NPR.

Hochul last year announced a goal of planting 25 million trees across the state by 2033, setting aside $37 million from the state environmental bond act and the executive budget for the effort. Last year, Patchogue and Valley Stream each received $75,000 for tree planting. (Neither village is a disadvantaged community under the state's definition, a community with concentrations of low-income households or that bear burdens of environmental pollution or climate change impacts.)

Roughly 327,000 trees have been planted from 2024 to the present, according to the state’s Tree Tracker dashboard. Of those, 90,624 were planted in disadvantaged communities. But only 2,800 of themare taking root on Long Island — the lowest number of any of 10 regions, even though Long Island is the least forested region of the state, after New York City, according to the state's 2024 climate assessment. 

When Hinton, the Hempstead resident, was asked if he would favor a large-scale tree-planting effort in his area, he said, "I sure would.
I'll be waiting on my knees."