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Thank you, Ed. From KQBD in San Francisco, this is Forum. I'm Mina Kim. In Los Angeles County, famous for its sunshine, just 20% of urbanized areas are shaded at noon.

That's creating a serious health hazard for people who work outdoors, wait at bus stops, or play outside.

Environmental journalist Sam Block says that shade should be considered a basic human right,

akin to access to clean air and safe drinking water.

We'll talk to Block about why modern cities have so little shade and how we can reintroduce it as a fundamental part of urban design.

Do you struggle to find shade in your community?

Join us.

Well, Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're all familiar with the experience of desperately seeking shade to escape the glare of the sun, deliberately crossing the street to walk on the shaded side or seeking out the shade of a lone tree at the edge of a sunbate lawn.

Shade can make it feel cooler by some 20 degrees and cool surfaces by more than double that.

And with an increasingly warming planet, it can save lives.

But we haven't valued it enough and, in fact, even have a bias against it, says Sam Block,

who has looked at what it will take to provide more shaded areas and why it's more complicated than it sounds.

Blocks an environmental journalist and his new book is called Shade, The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource. Welcome to forum, Sam.

Mina, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Glad to have you. So we haven't always devalued shade,

right? You discovered in your reporting, ancient cities that likely organize those cells around it?

...