Wouldn’t it be wonderful if life was simple and everything that looked green was indeed ‘green’? Most of us probably think urban trees are a good thing (in my case; amazing) providing shade from the sun, habitats for useful bugs and oxygen. And trees do provide those services, but it turns out that their effectiveness varies widely. Slower-growing species provide only 25 per cent of the cooling effect of their turbocharged cousins according to recent research. Poor growing conditions also have a significant impact.  

But you wouldn’t know that – couldn’t know that – if you were only consuming headlines. Good or bad? How about ‘potentially very good’? Nuances are often lost when brought into mainstream media. And as we know, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. We make the wrong policy decisions, elect the wrong leaders and plant the wrong trees if we don’t allow for the complexity of the world to colour the choices we make.