"The Problem With Palm Trees—They may look pretty, but fronds hurt cities' sustainability efforts"

Palm trees—Another thing for 2 Lake Worth enviros who are among the "19 Best Environmentalists in South Florida" to think about: an excerpt from this article:

     A recent study of three different tree groves in Tel Aviv, for example, showed that palms provide the least amount of shade and needed the most water, up to 1,000 liters per day. Ficus and Rosewood trees, meanwhile, have much lower water needs and managed to cool the surrounding area by seven degrees and three degrees, respectively. The palms chilled the air less than one degree.
     A similar study on oases in southern Israel found that palms actually managed to warm the surrounding area.
     “From a climatic point of view, it’s useless,” says Oded Potchter, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University. Potchter has tried to convince cities in Israel to stop using palms, to little avail. "They say it is nice and they will continue to use them," he says.
     Stateside, though, it’s another story. Many palm-worshipping cities are seeing to it that the fronds no longer dominate the landscape in a bid to add shade and carbon-trapping to their tree cover. "We are not using palms, but not because we don’t want to. We want to increase canopy coverage," says George Gonzalez, chief forester for the city of Los Angeles.