tandempower

I wouldn't assume you know where things belong or don't belong more than anyone else. You may be right that some plants or other things naturally fail to survive, but that's something different than being killed/removed because they don't belong. This is really starting to sound political, so let's link to a P&R thread and leave the 5-year predictions thread intact.

Walter S

Tandempower sees the obvious competition that forms between people and trees and seems to favor the trees over roads, utility right of ways, ball fields, etc. He expresses shock at the idea of removing trees that just pop up here and there. Of course if you don't, and you've chosen for various reasons to keep the area treeless, well what a sorry excuse for a person you are regardless.

badger1

This thread has recently become quite fascinating, from a psychopathological point of view -- the last page, carrying over to this one, most especially.

cooker

Back on track - anyone got a car-free prediction for the next five years, or a follow-up on an earlier one in the thread?

tmac100

Yes, it is quite fascinating. Those professing a love of trees - and who admonish others who "allegedly" do not have a similar love, are forgetting that they, Machka, and myself all live in countries where the "Rule of Law" is more important than one's personal perspective on trees or anything else.

That said, everyone also knows what the law-changing process is - and it does NOT include this forum.

B. Carfree

In Yolo County, CA (just a wee bit west of Sacramento) some women's auxiliary planted walnut trees along the roads over a century ago so that when people went out for wagon rides after church in the summer they would have some shade. Along the way, some of the trees died and were replanted, and some were recently cut down for road expansions as more and more car-bound commuters moved in. Mind you, this is a county that, until very recently, was pretty much all farms. Trees were considered precious.

Funny enough, over the past decade or two nut trees have been replacing other crops and now many cyclists are complaining that they have lost their view of the coast range hills on their rides. Meh, the hills are only twenty miles away; ride to them and see them close up.

Machka 

All right ... get to it then. Come here and start replacing millions and millions of eucalyptus trees.

tmac100

Yes Machka, you know me well enough to know I really mean it when I say: I will provide free of charge a "Southern Hemisphere" shovel to anyone wishing to help solve this problem... they will, naturally have to pay for their ETA, transportation, etc. That is my personal "enticement" to planting trees in Australia. But they will have to follow Australian laws - including no firearms (because they won't have an Australian license) and no paid employment. After all, the Rule of Law is followed in Australia.

I can point out many places along the road to Cook, SA where they can plant lots of trees. No one would mind, and tree planters would be tolerated and welcomed.

Whatcha think about planting along that road, Machka? Any other roads needing trees? How about the "Gibber Plain" N of Cober Pedy, or the roads near CP?

Machka 

Not sure where Cook is, but yes, north of Coober Pedy could probably use some trees. Don't think there would be many people about to object!

tmac100

Sorry for the mistake - Cook is in SA, not WA. My bad ....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook,_South_Australia

The 100 km road N from the Eyre Hwy to Cook could sure use some trees.

Machka 

Yes ... and the very name Nullarbor suggests that perhaps someone should be out there planting trees. But of course, they'd have to change the name then.

cooker

Can we please get back to 5 year predictions?

Maelochs

Wow. I cannot believe all this has been going on and I have been missing it. Be right back ... need to make popcorn.

Maelochs

You realize this translates to "LCF is an irrelevant idea which may be relevant at some future time"?

As a former multi-decade LCF sufferer .... who has driven about seven times in the past two years .... I feel I can say with some basis that LCF is Not timeless ... until 1896 it was completely meaningless .... and it has become increasingly irrelevant for a growing portion of the world's population since that time.

It does make me wonder how much (by percentage) of the world's population is involuntarily car-free (not counting incarcerated people (so many of those in the US it would probably skew global numbers.)

I like trees ... in general. I like trees, in general, much better than people.

If I could cut down people like I can cut down trees .... It would be a Very different world.

The problem with herds of goats or sheep controlling ground cover and shrubbery is predation, or lack thereof. They just keep breeding ... something needs to eat them. Too many of those tree-huggers are vegetarian or vegan ... so they spoil the plan.

Maelochs

personal transport is still important ... but even more than that is the fact that a bike is not only personal a bike (except for a tandem) is Purely personal.

Try taking out a date on a bike. An Uber, a cab, a rental, a train, even ... but show up on a tandem and good luck.

Once people are done dating and are pumping out puppies ... well, I guess you can put them in the catapult char on the rear fender ... after all, you can always make another if one breaks.

If you have two or three kids, and the kids have knapsacks and bags of sports gear .... or if you and the spouse want to visit another couple ... pay for the babysitter's Uber and rent a car?

Add to that, a lot of the country is unhealthy for any kind of casual cycling for at least a few months out of each year.

It is a lot more than "car=freedom." Urban sprawl, climate, terrain, fitness, family obligations .... and cost.

My very old father had a paid-off car. He could operate that car for a fairly low cost per mile because he didn't abuse it, and only had to pay for fuel and insurance and the most basic maintenance. He is simply too old and unfit to be cycling. And sadly ... too old to be driving. After a pair of accidents, he has had to surrender on driving ... he won't say it, but he knows he is unsafe.

And he finds that Ubers and cabs are a lot more expensive than his paid-off car. He lives in a retirement home a long way from any suburban center and he finds the costs of hiring cars prohibitive on his fixed income.

All this stuff ... make me think in terms of cycling, particuipation will remain about levle for a lot more than five years.

One thing i notice: the one place where cycling could, with a little infrastructure help, make a big advance, is in dense urban areas. if "bike-exclusive" lanes protected by walls were added, cycling would be a lot more practical. even people in office wear could do slowish, shortish rides to lunch or from the train to the office--at least in spring and fall.

Thing is ... Money. Money would need to be spent by the body politic for the Perceived benefit of only a very limited few (1.2 percent?) Roads would end up being a little narrower .... and roads would be almost constantly blocked with the added construction and maintenance (much caused by drivers crashing thought the walls ... some, trying to squeeze into the bike lanes.)

Yes, speeds would drop, and bicycler messengers would hate it. Most riders wouldn't Want to go that fast, because they would be wearing nice clothes, have expensive haircuts, and so forth.

Drivers would have the option to like it but probably wouldn't.

That is One place i see some gains being Possible.

One thing LCF people seem to forget---a lot of people simply do not Want to ride a bike. I mean,. people could jog to work, too. But a lot of people are not interested in the exercise do not want to bun the energy, do not want to show up to work either sweaty and dirty , or rain-soaked, or freezing .... even if there are lockers and showers ... a lot pf people don't want to get up, shower dress, ride, undress, shower, and dress again. and in most places, (In my decades of experience) everybody complains at least for a while while you try to explain that you need to wash up and cool down, or warm up, or whatever.

Maybe cycling to work is more accepted now, but from what i read ... not a lot.

So, add to the sweat, the soreness, the need to face the weather, the risk, the social opprobrium, the hassle of bring changes of clothes, weather gear, meals, maybe books, notebooks, and laptops .... and the idea fo getting out of work on a Friday evening (or whenever) and facing a bike ride home is the craziest rush-hour traffic, and then ... if you want to go out Friday night ...

LCF is not an easy option. it takes sacrifices and it takes discipline and it takes either a bunch of DUIs or a very strong will to live that way. And most people simply do not want to.

Imagine if I tried to make line-dancing and bowling mandatory.

I don't expect there to be a huge upturn in the number of peple who Want to embrace a car-free lifestyle, and those who do, most of them i would expect would still not want to depend on a bike. (Think of how the Vespa blossomed in post-war Italy.)

In fact ... if we really want more people on bikes .. we need to be promoting electric-assist bikes. I don't want one, but a few of the biggest obstacles to transport-cycling could be lessened or eliminated with a little battery power.

Maelochs

Sanity.

Insanity.

Cities plant trees as part of an urban plan because trees need resources like anything else. Too many trees will kill grass, tear up roads and sidewalks, tear up power and sewer lines ...

Look, no one here has better credentials as a tree-hugger ... unless you also worked for several years for Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

People who feel that plants and trees and animals are important, need to learn to think and feel, not just feel. Trees are part of a system. Animals are part of a system. So are people. Because man has disturbed this system is so many ways, managing it is exceedingly difficult.

“Let the pretty trees grow” works fine ... except when the trees get big enough they will choke each other out and then we have dying trees hanging over city streets. A lot of tree-huggers don’t think about plants as predators, but they fight for water, soil, and light ... and kill each other thoughtlessly to survive.

By planting trees thoughtfully and selectively, an urban planner can make sure that those trees will have enough space, water and light to survive and be healthy.

Also ... if you want to live in a forest, go for it. If you want to live in suburbia or an urban center, then you have to accept that trees play a smaller part of the landscape.

I happen to think (and I won’t make any claims, because I don’t have the studies on hand) that having more greenery around has a positive effect on people. There are lots of ways to introduce more plant life into urban environments ... but the areas have to be Planned for it.

People who want more trees and plants in the city need to get on planning boards and start doing research. There are designs for buildings like ziggurats with layers of greenery, and rooftop gardens ... planters can be placed in some places ... people who care (and not just “internet care”) can make a difference.

Otherwise .. the city has to cut down dying trees, has to dig up and cut down trees whose roots have invaded water or sewer lines or cause upheavals and buckling in roads, cracked sidewalks or invaded foundations and basements.

Someone who is cutting grass is probably supposed to cut the grass in a place where there is Supposed to Be Grass ... not Trees.

People who refuse to accept reality are either much happier ... or like a certain poster quoted above, unhappy and nasty and hateful because they don’t like reality.

Personal choice.

But if I wanted more trees in a region where I lived, I would take action a lot more effective than insulting sensible people on the internet.

cooker

Where is your five year prediction?

cooker

okay, at least there is some predicting here.

Maelochs

I predict that if I am alive I will still be riding a bicycle as much more than 99 percent of my transport five years from now.

By the way ... feel free not to quote my entire novella .... even I don't want to have to read all that ...

cooker

Too hard to edit on the phone so I sometimes trim the quote boxes later

Mobile 155

Sometimes I have to switch to the full site to edit on my phone as well.

But to modify my prediction about EV trikes, it doesn't look as if it will make it in the original five years. I now believe nothing much will change in the next two years. I don't see car free growing much as it hasn't in the last 43 years since I started cycling. It might be discouragement because I tore a ligament in my foot and it took months before I wanted to put much distance on my bike. I have walked a lot in the last several months. I am never going to be a bus person anyway. All those years listening to my sister talk about bus riders when she was a bus driver have tainted my thought on the subject. So I tend to place my prediction on the hope of some kind of private or semi private EV transportation if anything ever does change. And no I don't worry about sprawl, I see it as natural.

tandempower

Idk if it's possible or not, and/or how long it would take. I don't think the issue is whether they çan all be replaced or how long it would take but whether it would make sense for people to generally start removing them and replacing them with less diuretic trees. I don't claim to have ultimate answers, but I just say what I think based on what I've learned, which is all anyone can do.

Machka 

Well, that's easy then ...

It would not make any sense to do that.

There are a whole bunch of reasons why it would not make any sense, but I won't go into them here.

That said, people are encouraged to plant non-natives around their houses, and to keep their lawns well mowed, in order to reduce the chance of bushfire damage.

tandempower

Here's the problem. I'm going to respond to your post, then someone is going to complain the thread is being hijacked to discuss urban forestry. Let's start an urban forest thread in P&R or LCF if the mods will allow it. I understand trees can be damaging, but I believe it's worth working around them and finding ways to mitigate the damage/encroachment because of the fundamental role they play in ecology and climate.

Who competes with credentials to be a tree-hugger? I just posted about a situation where I was disappointed about a sapling being cut down and the result is a barrage of aggressive posts. Welcome to anti-TP LCF.

That's exactly what I think, except I understand those 'tree-huggers' who just 'feel,' because I understand how long it takes trees and the interwoven ecology to establish and stabilize, and how so many human factors destabilize, harm, and destroy life within a much shorter time frame than it takes it to grow and/or heal.

For LCF'ers, the directly relevant issue is shade when the sun is direct and the temperature is hot. Trees may compete some, but there are also mutualistic interactions, such as shading the ground so less moisture evaporates. Their roots also share nutrients with the roots of other trees/plants touching them. Partial shade prevents them from overheating and transpiring more water, and they then reach further with their branches, stimulating growth.

Chlorophyl has basically evolved to reflect the most abundant wavelength of sunlight, i.e. green, so while utilizing some light as energy, trees/plants are also protecting each other and other life forms from harsh sunlight, which dries and kills (and heats dead objects like buildings/roofs and pavements).

But whole ecosystems have evolved to care for, reproduce, and expand themselves. E.g. squirrels plant new trees and trees spread shade and protect moisture, etc. The ecological network functions better than trees and plants planted in isolation, without the natural symbiotic effects that cause neighboring varieties to thrive alongside each other generation after generation.

I've always been charmed by the idea of urban forestry, but the more I realize about ecology, the more I think urban forestry should involve more holistic ecological cultures of flora/fauna that evolve together in tandem and not just isolated species placed in an arrangement based on aesthetic reasoning, like cut flowers in a bouquet. Ecology is functionally self-supporting, not just aesthetically static.

I agree, but planners and developers, especially, don't grasp how trees and ecology are functional machines that run on energy the same as artificial machines, only the energy isn't derived from an electrical grid but from latent environmental energy sources such as wind, sunlight, and atmospheric heat. Do you realize that trees/plants move nutrients from their roots to branches by a combination of osmosis (utilizing brownian motion of water molecules) and the pumping action caused by wind stretching and squeezing the xylem and phloem? This is like having a wind and latent-heat powered pump that pulls water up from the ground, protects it in trunks and limbs, and uses it to grow a solar shield to protect the ground against sunlight and evaporation. Then, it stores carbon and buries it underground as root growth. These are slow-moving but extremely effective machines that have evolved to run at a slow speed because that is the natural speed caused by natural light and temperature levels. Yet, they are so effective that if you leave them alone for decades, they will spread, fertilize themselves, mulch themselves, and thus help hydrate themselves and their helper-organisms.

The thing that ultimately makes a difference is communicating reasoning in any context that is incontrovertible. I attempt to do this, but I have found that there are no shortage of people who will argue that things I say are unfounded, unproven, unsupported, etc. instead of taking a step back and understanding these a simple fundamental truths about ecology that many people throughout human history have observed.

If the people who resist allowing natural ecology to do its timeless duty of supporting life and cleansing land/air/water would just grasp these basic functions and allow developed areas to reforest, they would find ways to maintain human habitation and economic activity within the urban forests and life would get more sustainable and a lot less politically divisive.

Or just build structures that withstand tree droppings.

There are political battles where the grass is replaced with native plants for a while, and then someone will change the policy and the mowing will take over once again. It would be great if the mowers could be sent to P&R in real life the way political threads are sent to P&R at bikeforums.

It shouldn't be taken as an insult when someone tells you your post felt hurtful to them. You are talking about people who know me well as a person who loves and advocates for trees and natural ecology and so when they post something about preventing trees from being planted/spreading and tearing out any unauthorized tree, it is with the intention of figuratively spitting at me. That's not right. If nothing else, people should respect the love of trees/ecology/nature and the perspective that nature has been pushed back too far and that pavement and development have an effect on the quality of life for LCFers who are outside (i.e. not inside a car) when they are out traversing public corridors.

tandempower

Ok, well if you ever feel like discussing it P&R, count me in.