The free solar energy that hits the Earth each day can keep
us warm, light our homes, grow our food, and generate clean renewable
electricity, so we often invite it into our lives, but when the weather heats
up in the summer, the sun can actually cause us to use more energy, because we
then need to run air conditioners to cool us back down.
Keeping the sun off of our homes and windows during the
summer can end up saving us both money and energy, because we can avoid some of
the heating effects and keep our homes cooler to begin with, so less energy is
required to keep them comfortable. And one of the best ways to do that is by
planting shade trees in the right location around our home, where they can
block the sun from streaming in our windows and heating our walls and roofs
during certain times of the day.
