I wonder if this sort of technology could become a standard for evaluating towns and quality of life. For instance, a drone or fixed cameras mounted throughout a town could provide an aerial view of how "green" that town is, both in terms of literal greenery and how much CO2 is being absorbed.

My personal belief is that towns/suburban life is dying by the very thing that made it: cars. Not only is pollution a huge problem, but at least with the towns that I've lived in, greenery is being torn down entirely and being replaced with a sea of cement, asphalt, shopping plazas, highways, etc. I'd love to use a tool like mentioned in the article to actually quantify and grade/score a town on this matter. Then codify in law certain "greenery standards".

We know that seeing nature reduces stress, cleans the air, etc., so this truly is a matter of quality of life as much as it is about our environment.