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Now here's a perfect story to exemplify why we named this site and production company after the word Consilience (The Unity of Knowledge):

Maybe Only God Can Make a Tree, but Only People Can Put a Price on It

It seems like a Zen koan: how much is a New York City tree worth? Since New York's first park was created in 1733, the various incarnations of the modern Parks and Recreation Department have tried to quantify a resource that at best is viewed as inherently valuable, like sunshine, or at worst is chopped down.

Indeed, this entry could have been written on our MONEY blog:

"Trees are great for a variety of reasons, but how do you explain that to the Office of Management and Budget?" Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner, has said.

Now, for the first time, the Parks Department can actually translate the value of the city's trees into real dollars and cents. And as expected, it's a big number.

This fascinating article continues with the methods these researchers used to come up with the value of all of New York City's trees: $122 million. That's $5.60 of value for every dollar spent on trees. This number can now be used to lobby for more money for the preservation and distribution of trees on New York's streets (the value doesn't include all the trees and plants in the city's parks).

And how did they come up with that number?

The first step in determining a tree's environmental value is measuring the rate at which different tree species absorb pollutants. This is being done at a monitoring station at the University of California that simulates New York's City's climate, said Dr. Greg McPherson, the lead designer of the program and the director of the Forest Service's Center for Urban Forest Research.

Read the rest of the article for the details on this comprehensive study.

Oh yeah...and how on earth are these trees distributed in New York City?

The tree census found that Queens has about 40 percent of the city's street trees, followed by Brooklyn, with about 25 percent; Staten Island, with about 16 percent; the Bronx, with about 10 percent; and Manhattan, with roughly 8 percent.

Poor Manhattan...rich in culture and architecture...poor in the tree department.

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