Climate change shapes where and how we live. That’s why NPR is dedicating a week to stories about solutions for building and living on a hotter planet.

Trees in the desert are like oxygen at high altitude — scarce and precious.

During a recent spring tree giveaway sponsored by Nevada’s Clark County, the team had a couple of hundred young trees ready and lined up for residents. All the trees disappeared within an hour.

Lulu Banks was eligible for two free trees. That’s because her neighborhood in North Las Vegas is a designated “urban heat island” — a specific area that’s hotter than other neighborhoods, in part because of lack of shade.

“I don’t have any trees on my property,” Banks said.

She knew exactly where she was going to plant the new trees: one close to her front window and another outside her bedroom. She hopes the shade will help lower her air conditioning bill in the summer.

Research has shown that trees can lower the temperature in the area around them significantly, by at least 10 degrees. And Las Vegas needs all the cooling it can get.

Climate change is driving up peak temperatures in cities across the country, and last summer, Las Vegas reached a record high of 120 degrees. Temperatures hit 100 degrees or higher for more than two months straight.

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That summer heat contributed to more than 500 deaths, according to the Clark County Coroner’s Office. Experts say heat-related deaths are likely undercounted across the country.

It prompted an increased focus on finding ways to help keep people safe from the heat.

In May, state lawmakers passed a bill requiring the state’s biggest cities and counties to create heat mitigation plans by next summer; it was signed into law this month.

In Las Vegas, the city, county and nonprofits are all stepping up efforts to plant more trees and provide more shade — especially in the hottest neighborhoods.

Tackling “shade disparity” 

Across the U.S., studies show heat disproportionately affects lower-income neighborhoods because they tend to have older, less-energy-efficient homes and often have little tree canopy.

Ariel Choinard calls it “shade disparity.”

Choinard leads the Southern Nevada Heat Resilience Lab, which studies how heat affects people and communities and then recommends data-based solutions. The lab was created in 2023 and is funded primarily by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency.

In April, Choinard visited several urban heat island neighborhoods to demonstrate how the built environment can dramatically increase surface temperatures, and the significant difference trees can make.

A 2022 heat mapping project found that several areas, including East Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, can experience temperatures up to 11 degrees hotter than other parts of the region. Each of these neighborhoods is relatively poorer than other parts of Las Vegas.

“Folks here have to work harder and longer to afford to cool their homes,” Choinard said. “And we know that people make really tough trade-offs when it’s superhot.”

That can mean choosing between keeping their homes at a safe and comfortable temperature and paying for groceries, or limiting medication.

Choinard pointed out a mature tree providing plenty of shade in a neighborhood without many others.

“It’s this tree that’s doing really great work here,” she said.

On this day in April, it was 95 degrees out. But under the tree, it was much cooler. Choinard measured the temperature on the ground with an infrared thermometer: 87 degrees.

Trees help cool the air through a process known as transpiration cooling. Essentially, trees release water into the atmosphere from their leaves, cooling the air around them. Tree cover also provides shade, keeping sidewalks, roads and buildings from absorbing and trapping as much of the sun’s heat.

At the Desert Inn Estates, a mobile home community with few trees in East Las Vegas, Choinard pointed the infrared thermometer at a picnic table sitting directly in the sun.