Wait for it… “dozens” of Melbournians are writing emails to trees and the trees are writing back (thanks to paid staff who can speak Elmlish, Oatin, and Planely). Lots of trees are being told they are set to die off thanks to climate change. The Stress!
Right now, you can log onto the City of Melbourne’s Urban Forest Visual map and email any tree you’d like within the council’s boundaries.
Yep, all 60,000 of them.
The Gulf Today. AE
But almost a quarter of its trees, including oaks, elms and planes, are set to die off by the end of the decade, and that figure will rise to almost 40 per cent by 2030, speeded by a devastating 13-year drought that broke in 2012.
“As our climate becomes more and more extreme, we’re going to have to look at trees that are fit for purpose,” Councillor Arron Wood said.
So you can write to a tree in Melbourne and it will write back:
The quirky emails, to which staff respond on behalf of the trees, are building awareness of climate change in Melbourne, regarded as Australia’s most European city, thanks to its architecture and wide tree-lined boulevards.
Send these trees a message of hope
These poor trees are victims of 20 years of dysfunctional science. They need some messages of hope, and skeptics might like to cheer them up by reminding them of how much extra plant food we are pouring into the sky. Tell the trees you care for them by driving your V8 full size pickup truck, and you like to brake hard. If you win lotto you’ll import a Ford Raptor from America.
If you are a Melbourne City Council ratepayer, I wouldn’t write to the trees, I’d write to your councillor.
If a tree falls on a warmist in the middle of the city, will it care?
241
Spotty I’ve just emailed one of your cousins, Spotty Gum re extra plant food. Will be interested to see what sort of reply, if any, I get.
161
maculosa or maculata (I must confess I can never remember who is whom.)
102
E. maculosa is scribbly gum, and maculata is spotted gum, but think the latter is not a eucalypt anymore.
72
Sorry to play the grammar Nazi, Gnome, but in English, the verbs to be, to become to seem and to appear take the nominative complement rather than the usual objective case. So, the correct rendition of your parenthetical comment is, “I must confess I can never remember who is who“.
63
Gnome & Robert O,
You might be interested in this current extract from Wikipedia:
Eucalyptus /ˌjuːkəˈlɪptəs/[2] L’Heritier 1789[3]is a diverse genus of flowering trees and shrubs (including a distinct group with a multiple-stem mallee growth habit) in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia. There are more than 700 species of eucalyptus, mostly native to Australia…
Eucalyptus is one of three similar genera that are commonly referred to as “eucalypts”, the others being Corymbia and Angophora. Many species, but far from all, are known as gum trees because they exude copious kino from any break in the bark (e.g., scribbly gum). The generic name is derived from the Greek words ευ (eu) “well” and καλύπτω (kalýpto) “to cover”, referring to the operculum on the calyx that initially conceals the flower.[4]
And yes, the taxonomy description of Spotted Gum has been changed to Corymbia Maculata. I seem to remember that a few decades ago taxonomists were grumbling that the list of known eucalypts was far too long to handle. To me it seems a new academic pedantry in that for instance it takes a very sharp eye to tell the difference between say Angophora Costata, (which I’ve successfully grown in Melbourne) and what ordinary humans recognise as one of many beautiful eucalyptus species.
Allen Ford,
In your effort to introduce topically irrelevant English grammar, may I point out that you were somewhat semantically skewed? It was not a question of “who is who”? ” but “what is what, or correct”. Could I suggest an anonymous handlebar for you such as: ‘Pedant Tick’. Whatever, my understanding is that the English language is a living-changing thing, and its purpose is to convey meaning.
23
[To the tune of ‘Stranger in Paradise.]
I write to the trees,
That’s why they put me away……
122
As opposed to:
I talk to the trees, that’s why they put me away’.
Wasn’t that by the Goons? or one of them.
I was down in Melbourne today and the trees were actually looking pretty good. They’ve had plenty of rain lately and coolish, windy weather.
OTOH, conifers in the Yarra Valley seem to be sick…I couldn’t help wondering whether some Greenies had deliberately nobbled them. Quite a few are turning brown; disease, poison? It seems to have happened quickly and widely, between Healesville and Wong Park area. Very odd.
60
Wonga Park…sigh!
20
Write state wong park Annie. 🙂
20
🙂
10
If you look around, this problem is everywhere in southern Vic. My street alone has more than obvious conifers AND banksia in distress, die ing or dead. This is a curiosity.
…..maybe I should ask the Melbourne councils if they wouldn’t mind sending their banksianese and coniferance liason officers out so I can send an email to my trees to ask them what ails them
30
Our hakeas are dying, one by one. The black cocktails love them and shred them….maybe this doesn’t help?
00
Cockatoos….cocktails….predictive text strikes again!
30
Don’t forget the media Parrots or the political Galahs
30
twas Spike Milligna the well known typing error, as Eccles in Napoleons Piano, October 11, 1955.
“Have a gorilla”
10
Next it will be streamers and balloon waving, elves in the forest…..
Maybe we should buy concrete gnomes and mushrooms, then and invite the fairies….er…..greenies to dress up and make a “fairy circle” and everyone can come and make a “wish”……
The people who thougth this up must have a new batch of “weed”…..
Wouldnt this be grounds to sack the MCC?
Clealry they dont understand bvasic biology that MORE CO2 = better growing trees?
*slaps forehead*…..
30
Trees have limbatations
30
Would anybody care?
10
Aircraft shredders?
“NSW Planning throws Yass Valley wind farm project into doubt after scathing report
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/nsw-planning-throws-yass-valley-wind-farm-project-into-doubt-after-scathing-report-20150204-135lz6.html
The proponents of a $670 million wind farm west of Yass have not consulted properly with 23 airstrips in the area, or provided enough information to AirServices on impacts on radar equipment near the wind farm and near Canberra Airport.
In a scathing assessment which has thrown into doubt the project’s future, NSW Planning and Environment found aircraft from nine of the rural airstrips may not have achieved enough altitude before reaching the wind turbines.
An independent review cited in the assessment found that impacts at these airstrips needed to be fully understood, particularly in relation to aircraft performance and departure gradients, which would determine whether or not an aircraft would be able to obtain sufficient obstacle clearance and turn safely.
Neighbouring farmers who waged a long campaign against the project have cracked open champagne to celebrate the department’s findings, while a spokesman for proponent Epuron Projects, Andrew Wilson, says he is surprised.
“We have just received it [the department’s assessment], we are very surprised, it wasn’t what we were expecting,” Mr Wilson said.
NSW Planning’s recommendation to reject the project is being considered by NSW’s Planning Assessment Commission for final determination.
AirServices Australia refused to support Epuron’s aeronautical assessment for air traffic control radar equipment on Mt Majura [Canberra] and Mt Bobbara [near Binalong] because it was not given enough information.”
20
“We have just received it [the department’s assessment], we are very surprised, it wasn’t what we were expecting,” Mr Wilson said.
This simple statement from Mr Wilson says a lot about his organisation’s professionalism in the first place.
00
I wonder if any of those trees speak Earthian, that fabled language that’s an inferential deduction of that noun used by the ex-leader of the Green party in his farewell speech. Perhaps I should give it a try.
Srekcus yonom rouy emmig.
Pointman
280
….Srekcus yenom….. surely?
170
Crocert!
Pointy
40
Well, that took me a bit longer, but I knew I was!
30
You should be called CrypticDog.
Xbou up hp gps uisff pvu pg uisff?
Pointy.
00
VFMNX FU?
We have ham and eggs have you?
01
Ah, you’ve got me there Pointy.
00
It looks horrible but it’s really a simple substitution code. Encode any message by replacing each letter in it by the one following it in the alphabet.
Pointy
10
Thanks for that below Pointy.
Just saw “The Imitation Game” last weekend too!
00
There are trees at the bottom of the garden where the Green fairies gather to be consulted by Greens
10
Email a tree? You must mistake me for some kind of sap.
320
Try it and branch out, turning over a new leaf, and finding what’s the root cause of this planely barking mad old chestnut, will have you up a gum tree.
😕
120
Can we write to Yamal06 as well? Think of the tales it would tell. What’s the address?
10
One has to remember that Oaks, planes etc. are decidous trees which are not native to the dry Mediterranean climate, and generally enjoy a warm and moist Summer and a dry Winter. They tend to grow better in the moister cooler climate of the foothills. So if not watered over the Summer months they are under stress each year which reduces their longevity.
150
Not all oaks are created equal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_oak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_oak_woodland
80
The oaks around our southern cities are usually the English or European oak, Quercus robur or pendunculata, the acorns are on peduncles or stalks. Around Canberra there are large specimens of the Pin oak, Quercus palustris, and the Red oak, Quercus rubra, both have vivid red-orange Autumn foliage and are N. American species. The Cork oak, Quercus ilex, is an evergreen tree and not used for street planting; it is far more drought tolerant being a native of Portugal.
40
Robert O,
If you are ever around Melbourne, visit the Maroondah Reservoir Park in the north east. The walk through the gardens up to the dam wall reveals a spectacular cork tree.
10
The plane and elm trees prefer a wetland or river bank in the wild. They couldn’t survive in the city without human help even though they are drought tolerant (for a European).
I think that they’re referring to the English oak which doesn’t do well even around the Mediterranean except in the mountains.
If they die its because the council refused to water them (and good riddance to the plane trees).
102
We have English oaks absolutely thriving on our property NE of MEL and we are not in the mountains, although we can see some of them.
30
Not to mention being imprisoned in an urban heat island about 5˚C warmer than it would normally be.
Why don’t the staff in question just go and water the bloody tree in question?
180
I seem to remember, in an old episode of the now defunct New Inventors, a clever idea to bore 5cm holes in gutters, in the vicinity of street trees, deep enough to reach the depth of the root zones of said trees, so that when rain falls, at least part of the runoff is directed strategically to the trees.
I don’t know if any councils took up this idea, but now might be good time to dust off the archival footage from their ABC and put it into practice!
30
According to Garth Clarke the London plane tree is a health hazard, so I will not be conversing with them.
‘My problem is not the tree itself, but those spiky fibres on the backs of its leaves which it sheds in abundance throughout October and early November.
‘They’re called trichomes and believe me, if you happen to get a mouthful of these you’ll be barking like a bronchial dog for hours afterwards.’
90
That comes from barking up the wrong tree!
190
A bark worse than its bite?
60
Shades of puns from Asterix and Obelix here……
10
Infantilization, one of the Green/Left’s favourite pastimes.
When everyone is as babyish as they are, Utopia will have been achieved.
160
Yes, and balloons and unicorns for everyone!!!!
30
Trees are marvelous things. I have more than a few on several acres (~5 hectares) and in a couple of instances these are like the Pando Aspen – a clonal colony of a single male quaking aspen. I play “whack a tree” each year, cutting off the larger trunks that are just the right thickness for firewood. The underground part is undamaged and the neighboring trunks have more water and nutrients. The Wikipedia entry for Pando_(tree) considers the issue of climate change in the 80,000 year history of this organism.
I’m in western North America and spring planting is soon. I’ve got a few pines and spruce ordered.
Melbournians could water the trees a little, if you know what I mean.
110
In the manner in which our lemon tree is watered, you mean? 😉
00
Sorry about duplication…I entered it once but I think pad a little sensitive?
10
In the manner in which our lemon tree is watered, you mean? 😉
10
From The Gulf Today:
“…and that figure will rise to almost 40 per cent by 2030, speeded by a devastating 13-year drought that broke in 2012.”
Try unravelling that one.
Melbourne did have bad dry years between 1998 and 2009, though its driest year was in 1967. (Not a wet town anyway.)
My region (NSW Midcoast) must have been exempted from CC, since it had its driest run in the two decades after 1899. Drought is scattered through Sydney’s record. The thirties and early forties may have been a bit drier, but the worst single years were in 1862 and 1888.
But why not just attach personal messages to trees in urban forests? Plenty of syringes for pinning them.
100
Is this an own goal?
Funny, isn’t it? The three trees they pick which will write back to you, Oaks, Elms and Planes are all introduced species.
Why plant an introduced tree when an Australian Native tree is probably better suited to our climate.
Surely this is an admirable opportunity to replace those foreign tress with good Australian trees, eh!
Tony.
Reference – Australian Native Plants (John W Wrigley and Murray Fagg)
202
No- Oaks and Planes are the perfect street trees. (They look good, are cheap to propagate and fairly fast growing, long-lived, mostly downward growing root systems, take pruning well if necessary.)
Natives are good on private property but they shed leaves all year round and occasionally shed branches which kill people, crush cars etc. (Some rainforest species would be good but not totally suited to most Australian cities- white cedar OK, widely used, but slow in cold climates and the seeds are messy.)
Elms- less good- a tendency to sucker (but no tree looks better than a big mature chinese elm).
180
Perfect? I think not.
Just lazy night-workers who won’t photosynthesize. It’s a wonder they haven’t unionised yet.
50
Sorry Tony, have never given you a thumbs down before but I agree with gnome. Native gums and boxes usually look crappy (compared to their European counterparts) and can be downright dangerous, particularly in an urban environment. Look at our national capital. IMO the nicest areas are where the old European trees are.
Having said that, I work on the land and love it, but am very wary of natives, especially in summer.
110
Ditto.
40
Tony
O/T
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/httpstoptheseth.html#comments
00
This article gives new meaning to the song which has the line:
I talk to the trees but they don’t listen to me…
Except that they seem to listen?
100
Then there is the other verse.. I talk to the trees.. That’s why they put me away.
70
Next verse … “The trees talk back to me, that’s why they put them a’waaaay”
50
This is tree racism. Under the cover of Green Warmism, extremist tree racists want to cull healthy English trees by refusing to water them in rare need, so we have lost many beautiful elms, entire avenues of them. This is despite the fact that Victorians are paying $1Billion a year until 2040 for a Green Warmist Green desalination plant which will never be used. Treeism is a cover for people who hate their English heritage, the Royal family and very evil British trees. They particularly hate beautiful elms, planes and oaks often planted a century ago they do not indulge in shedding branches randomly from a great height, bushfires and actually provide fabulous shade in summer from the scorching sum, full light in winter and are limited in height where our gum trees do none of this and are more nuisance than useful. In fact Victorians pay over $100Million a year to trim these fire prone, branch shedding, twisted and largely leafless brown gum trees and the streets of Melbourne are often a wasteland of tortured ugly skeletons of trees which drop leaves all year.
The Tree warmists are using our recent drought and the alleged cost of the water to kill beautiful trees which have reached full maturity. They also want more possums (declared vermin in NZ) to eat the tulips and roses and camellias and tomatoes, so that we can enjoy a flowerless, unhappy stark existence. These people call themselves Greens when in fact they are heartless haters of all things green and lovely, preferring all things brown and dry and covered in tan bark. Even the huge lawns on the North side of the Yarra have been converted to gravel, eliminating the need to mow occasionally and turning the green paradise of speakers’ corner into a shunting yard. There should be a place in Central Australia where such heartless activists where can be employed moving Stevenson Boxes and homogenizing. The pay is poor but they could have the brown treeless desert they love and not have to look at a beautiful green tree again.
241
That idea was around in the early ‘70s when it was feared that Dutch elm disease would kill Melbourne’s magnificent elms as it had done in Europe and Britain.
The tree xenophobes couldn’t wait to see them die off and be replaced by ‘natives’.
150
Oak trees can tolerate regular burns, Maquis is a type of fire adapted scrub that gave the French Resistance a name during WW11,Oaks are a major component of these scrubs,common all over the Mediteranean region,notwithstanding Oaks are a magnificent Park tree
100
There are a couple of oak species in S. France, the cork oak and the sessile oak, also there is the Montpelier maple; all are fairly small species, but not planted here very much. I won’t get into an arguement about native and exotic trees, only to say that the Northern Hemisphere hardwoods provide excellent shade for parks in the Summer months and and in the Winter let the sun in. The leaves provide good mulch for garden beds.
40
I was walking along there today TdeF. That darned gravel kept getting into my shoes (ouch!). All the lycra bums had a smooth surface to ride on.
60
As the aforesaid lycra bum, it is not so smooth. There are huge ruts from poor drainage. When grass grows so easily and we do not have snow in Melbourne, ever, why get rid of the lawns? It used to be part of Melbourne. Now it has an aboriginal name, Birrarung Marr and no one goes there, not even aboriginals. What a waste, but think of the money we save on maintaining vast areas of lawn! Surely concrete would be even easier to maintain, but the intial cost would be too much. Those elm trees are a nuisance too.
40
The cyclists bit is much easier to walk on than the footpath and grass is almost non existent. I enjoyed the beautiful green of what is left of the elms. There are some attractive pink trunked eucalypts….can’t remember what type though, where the old Batman Ave was.
30
Tell them that we love them, that we don’t want them to die, tell them that we care.
70
Seriously?
00
Here’s a good one. Whispering Grass by Windsor Davies and Don Estelle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10dmK7O-KSY
60
When you hear Don’s beautiful voice, it just takes your breath away. That last note.
Windsor has the best line in the song.
“I will not have gossip in this jungle.”
Tony.
100
Another fine example of a government that is too big, with too much money, and too many employees with too little to do.
Try cutting the city’s budget by about 50% and you will not see more of this nonsense and I bet the service is much better, targeted at jobs for those need them, education, safety, and all the things that make a city a better place to live.
The problem is not climate change or drought. The problem is leftists socialism and its desire of control over everyone that brings big government and foolish, things as sending messages to trees while people are in need of help and relief from big government.
260
Tony, as you say, they don’t belong there.
The trees in question are all water-guzzling deciduous spp. and Melbourne is in a rainfall zone with high Winter dominance. In other words when Melbourne is getting most of its rainfall, those trees are dormant, and when they are active it is Melbourne’s dry season. They are a poor match for the Melbourne climate. They were never going to survive for centuries in an Australian climate like that.
Also, most of these trees that are dying are unlikely to have been around at the time of the Federation Drought, so this is probably their first real test of climatic suitability. A lot of trees planted after WWI as memorial avenues in many Victorian towns are now dying off too for various reasons.
Reality is teaching the Melbournians a long, slow lesson: they aren’t living in London or Paris, they’re living in Australia.
If they are worried about emptying their dams to water their tress, I suppose they could always crank up their fabulous desal plant for some “cheap” water.
Hell what are they whinging about? When the trees die it just makes more space for urban wind turbines. A heap of wind turbines should improve the Melbourne skyline no end, and the only birds they mince will be the pigeons. Kill two birds with one stone (or many birds with one turbine). And think of the savings in power transmission costs.
123
Nor do most of us belong. White skins. We belong in high latitudes, not in Australia, Asia or Africa. What is the cost of all the sun block for a nation of white skinned, often red haired freckled people who should just go home. The same with the ridiculous foreign large leaf deciduous trees which need a little water assistance in summer. Get rid of the lot and put in Australian natives. As for those roses, who needs them? Tulips are ridiculous and who expects councils to water plants, mow lawns in public parks or maintain garden beds. Tan bark and concrete please. Now that’s sustainable.
61
Perhaps you can explain why most of the oak trees down the main street in Marysville survived Black Saturday…not to mention other deciduous northern hemisphere trees?
60
Unlike gums and pines, oaks and planes and elms do not reproduce by fire. We have exported bushfires to the world, to California, Spain and Greece. There are groups in California who want to remove gum trees as dangerous.
80
Quite rightly. Your reply underlines why oaks, planes and elms are actually good in Melbourne and other cities. They and other deciduous trees do well on our property and I certainly prefer them in the house area. Some of the natives are not only very messy but downright dangerous. There are plenty of them to be enjoyed in the surrounding mountains and forested areas. It’s too cold in our area to grow the pretty smaller eucalypts.
50
Annie & TdeF
I made no mention of bushfire resistance when I said we should let nature take its course on species which are unsuited to the areas where they are planted. If the oaks survived in Marysville that’s nice and they are apparently suited to that particular niche. I don’t seek their demise. If something like that can survive on its own, then let it. I’m not a purist, just a realist. I have long since moved on from your position in this matter.
If the Californians and Spaniards have any brains they will rid themselves of our fire-prone gumtrees, and of our paperbarks choking parts of the Everglades, and of our acacias taking over various parts of the world.
When you two think of natives, your minds apparently immediately run from exotics to the extreme of fire-dependent eucalypts, ignoring everything in between. Australia has many other species to choose from. Nor is the alternative “tan bark and concrete” – what a ridiculous statement.
Where I come from (Hunter Valley) patches of dry rainforest are regularly attacked by fire and survive. The outer transitional species are fire-adapted. Some will even coppice if wiped out, but mostly they resist fire well without the need to coppice. They are lush and green to comply with that requirement of yours TdeF. They are handsome looking trees and large shrubs. Many would leave the plain European trees for dead in the looks department.
In bushfires, many of our trees/shrubs are just as effective for sacrificial fire barriers as deciduous imports AND they can survive on their own between times.
Up here I’ve never seen an elm. The only English Oak I know of was in our school playground 50 years ago and the London Plane Trees in the shopping centre carpark make a hell of a mess when they dump their leaves and seedpods. Tidy, they are definitely not. They do provide great shade and they do it without any attention from the council whatsoever, but we have Summer/Autumn dominant rainfall here, the opposite to Melbourne. All of our other street and park trees are natives with very few gum trees.
Many of the natives that grow here would grow in Melbourne. Our frosts are probably heavier, our maxima at least as hot as Melbourne.
My point is that there is no need to jump from the extreme of European trees to the other extreme of eucalypts or concrete. There are lots of good alternatives in between.
Personally I have never watered a lawn in my life and I see red when I drive past good, potable water being plastered onto golf courses, especially if we have water restrictions. Grass comes and goes. It either survives or it doesn’t. It will grow back when the rains return, unlike poorly chosen trees. Watering trees to get them established is one thing; mass watering of established, decades-old trees on a regular basis is a fool’s game.
As for redheads TdeF, you’re talking to one, and if my family’s history of skin cancer is anything to go by, then yes, ultimately our days here are numbered as we are weeded out too. So be it. However if the next ice age comes soon, I’ll be set.
20
The point is that, yes Australia is now populated by inappropriate species of plants, people and even imported concepts like democracy, Christianity, universal suffrage and dams, the rule of law not tribes, irrigation even agriculture. Prior to 1778 there was no agriculture, no watering of plants or lawns and this very dry country could not support crops, grapes, elms and lawns. The invention of agriculture changed the world so instead of 10sq.km per person, we could have thousands per sq.km. We built dams, built cities, planted gardens and brought Europe with us. Inappropriate. Unsustainable? Who says so?
However we also prospered and can afford to water from our dams and pay councils to water and expect our gardens and trees and lawns to be maintained simply because we pay for it and work for it. If councils and council employees have a political view of the world which extends to trees, that only ‘appropriate’ species should be maintained, we should all leave and go back to overcrowded Europe, but it seems very convenient that they can cut their costs, keep our rates and let the gardens and lawns and trees die. The excuse is that it returns the environment to what was there, defeating 200 years of hard work on economic and extremist plant racism. Councils keep our money and lecture us on plant racism. No.
Yes we will be selected against and change, in time, but not if we can help it. Yes, humans like to water their favorite plants. It is what enables this planet to support 7 billion people, some in great comfort. It is morally and practically right? Should we have more water tolerant species and dig up the lawns and plant spinifex in sand? That is not for councils to dictate. We need more dams and to harvest more water and grow plants we want, inappropriate plants like wheat in the desert and foreign plants like sugar cane and oranges and wine grapes in the desert at Mildura. Lawns. Elms. It is our choice.
This extremist logic of letting nature have its way is the opposite of what humans have fought since we came out of Africa. From the arctic to the equator, humans have defied nature and plant the trees, grasses, flower and crops we want and water them. We fly in the air and cross oceans. All unnatural. However there is no evidence at all that we control the planet’s temperature or climate but we do make the deserts bloom and build Edens in the sand and in the oceans. Similarly doctors keep people alive because we want it. They stop mothers and babies from dying in childbirth when in Victorian times the maternal death rate was 30%. Dentists fix teeth where Queen Elizabeth 1 had black teeth. Surgeons save lives and limbs. Builders build houses from artificial products when we could live on the sand. Why not let, insist that nature take its course? Not if we can help it.
It is not for tree racists in Councils to decide it is somehow morally wrong and refuse to do their jobs and pass judgements and follow their own extremist ideas for the future. It is not for governments to spend tens of billions of dollars on useless desalination plants and windmills because Green politicians believe in Global Warming and bankrupting evil capitalist societies. They are wrong and everyone pays for their extremism. In a democratic country, we have to fight for our rights and we want beautiful trees in our cities. We want crops we like and need. We want broad acres. We cannot live in forests of inedible gum trees or on beach sand in bark huts. We want our elms. We want our Eden.
100
An excellent comment TdeF.
We can work with nature to enhance nature. Migration of species has been going on throughout the planet’s history in one way or another.
We’ve lived in inner Melbourne suburbs and the sandy soil there is ghastly unless it is well enhanced.
20
Beowulf, I think you are comparing the relatively lush and semi tropical Hunter Valley (750mm rainfall) with Melbourne’s sparse sandy inner and Western suburbs (400mm rainfall). The Hunter valley has twice the rainfall of Melbourne and natural watercourses. Melbourne is largely flat and very dry, except for the hilly, green and leafy Eastern suburbs (650mm) where elm lined streets abound. The Western suburbs are near desert and wind swept. It is often hard to have a lawn let alone a garden. Much of the inner city is dead flat housing was built on sand and gardens created from very poor sandy soil with scrubby trees at best and salt tolerant grasses. The dream of these early settler was to create lush gardens they remembered, but we now have council tree nazis who want to enforce their ideas and destroy these gardens and parks. It coincides strangely with avoiding doing any maintenance work which has been done for 150 years while council rates are rising rapidly with inner city housing prices, so it looks like rampant commercial opportunism, not sustainability.
With a population approaching 4 million and with an amazing 83% of Victoria’s population, Melbourne is special. If people want to live in the bush, they are welcome. However they need to be aware that bushfires are a perfectly natural aspect of the Australian bush and not a product of Global Warming or Climate Change.
I am amazed that Tim Flannery claims bushfires are a result of Climate Change. If we have a drought, fires burn because everything is tinder dry, so Climate Change. If we have a wet year, the bush is lush and the fires burn because there is so much fuel, so Climate Change. Either way, Tim Flannery blames all bushfires on Climate Change. They are as natural as lighting strikes.
What has to be resisted is the push to eliminate foreign species simply because they are not Australian. What is? Name and Australian fruit tree. Can you farm kangaroos? Where do you stop with extremism like that? People? Animal Species? Materials? Society? There are simply People Against Everything, with no solutions themselves for life on earth. Strangely they live in the inner city with their lentils, their fixed wheel bicycles and lattes, living a very privileged lifestyle provided by others and so the least sustainable class in the country. Greens.
91
The dumping of leaves and seeds is a distinctly seasonal thing and they make good compost. Eucalypts and other natives we have are a nightmare all year long and especially in the summer…the fireprone endless dumping of leaves, twigs, branches, massive trunk like branches and bark is something not needed in residential areas. Australia is huge and the human population pretty small….you only have to fly over huge swathes of QLD to see phenomenal amounts of native forest, for example, so why not just make sure the relatively small areas we live in remain safe?
I have tried growing various ‘safe’ native alternatives BTW. Most won’t grow in our parts. Has it occurred to others that bringing in’natives’ from, say, WA, to VIC, is actually bringing in something just as ‘exotic’
20
Yep…. just look at what happened to Canberra…. no problem with the old suburbs filled with European trees…. but where the natives were fried.
40
And these idiots wonder why nobody is listening to them. Go figure!
70
I actually love trees (but I’m not a tree hugger), especially of the European variety, as they are cleaner and often far more versatile and practical than natives (we have far too many gums that create mess all year round), and they are far less of a bushfire hazard. That said, I wonder whether you can buy retail what Melbourne City Council is drinking, I really could use some of that from time to time.
110
I think we have officially won.
70
You are right Graeme, I now have all the subdivisions in the north-west using native trees and shrubs in parks and gardens; shires have been finally moving away from exotics. It’s been a battle changing the bureaucracy from exotic ‘palms and crotons’ replacing with northern rainforest and woodland species.
Now I am tendering for Abbott’s 20 million trees, but the ‘carbon’ bit means it’s a ‘non-compliant’ bid. I told them it was crap.
Carbon incomes? What do you think?
20
“So you can write to a tree in Melbourne and it will write back:”
Trees reading email? Heck I’m willing to bet they can’t even login to the net.
I doubt trees have a clue how to use a keyboard anyway.
And yes, I am ashamed of myself for what I just wrote.
Seriously, is the Melbourne City Council a branch clinic of Bedlam?
180
I think that what you’re trying to say is that they are barking up the wrong tree and hoping that some sap won’t come along and right royally root them, attempting some light re-leaf, but consequently lumbering into an log jam of emergent proportions.
170
The whole thing reminds me of this:
Centurion: What’s this thing? “ROMANES EUNT DOMUS”? “People called Romanes they go the house?”
Brian: It… it says “Romans go home”. Centurion: No it doesn’t. What’s Latin for “Roman”?
Brian hesitates
Centurion: Come on, come on! Brian: (uncertain) “ROMANUS”.
Centurion: Goes like? Brian: “-ANUS”. Centurion: Vocative plural of “-ANUS” is? Brian: “-ANI”. Centurion: (takes paintbrush from
Brian and paints over) “RO-MA-NI”. “EUNT”? What is “EUNT”?
Brian: “Go”. Centurion: Conjugate the verb “to go”!
Brian: “IRE”; “EO”, “IS”, “IT”, “IMUS”, “ITIS”, “EUNT”.
Centurion: So “EUNT” is …? Brian: Third person plural present indicative, “they go”. Centurion: But “Romans, go home!” is an order, so you must use the …?
He lifts Brian by his short hairs
Brian: The … imperative. Centurion: Which is?
Brian: Um, oh, oh, “I”, “I”!
Centurion: How many Romans? (pulls harder) Brian: Plural, plural! “ITE”.
Centurion strikes over “EUNT” and paints “ITE” on the wall
Centurion: “I-TE”. “DOMUS”? Nominative? “Go home”, this is motion towards, isn’t it, boy?
Brian: (very anxious) Dative?
Centurion draws his sword and holds it to Brian’s throat
Brian: Ahh! No, ablative, ablative, sir. No, the, accusative, accusative, ah, DOMUM, sir.
Centurion: Except that “DOMUS” takes the …?
Brian: … the locative, sir! Centurion: Which is? Brian: “DOMUM”.
Centurion: (satisfied) “DOMUM”…
He strikes out “DOMUS” and writes “DOMUM”
Centurian: …”-MUM”. Understand?
Brian: Yes sir.
Centurion: Now write it down a hundred times.
Brian: Yes sir, thank you sir, hail Caesar, sir.
50
Project: You’ve Got Mail
Tyler Durden, via a secret process builds and army and uses a select secret ingredient to make high-quality soap that he sells back to dumb rich folk, who write emails to trees, With the profits, and his dat job spicign together Starwars films, he obtains a truck full of chains saws and begins to supply copious quantities of black market timber to IKEA factories. Yin meets Yang, midi-chlorian fauna regrows and Balance is finally restored to the Farce.
Empire-of-Stupid explodes, the Galaxy is saved.
____
“Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, we would have no knowledge of the Farce. They continually speak to us, telling us of the will of the Farce.”
40
Email a tree?, rookie mistake, everyone knows trees prefer you to ring especially trunk calls.
Even though Oak is a symbol for strength and endurance they just weren’t designed to withstand the destructive force of Green Council Dendrocronyism.
90
Are any of these “trees” being paid less than AUD$100,000 pa for their acting skills?
Thank you local government ratepayers!
KK
50
When you cruise through those 13 images of those fuel sucking monsters in the U.S. be aware that the fuel consumption is measured in U.S. gallons, so it is fractionally better when converted to Imperial gallons.
Think of our poor American friends paying their absolutely exorbitant price for their fuel though.
While they pay their (current U.S. average) $US2.10 per gallon, which when you convert the exchange rate and from gallons to litres that comes in at 73.9 cents per litre. Umm, hang on a minute.
Wish I had that first car I owned back again, a ’69 Corolla, purchased new. That averaged 42MPG over its 110,000 Mile life, and that equates to 6.73 litres per 100KM. Very few cars will do that these days.
Back on topic, I guess writing to the trees is just a natural progression really. Write to Santa as a child, and when you grow up, just change the addressee to your friendly local tree!
Tony.
60
Once a child has been taught to submit supplications to an omniscient distributor of causeless wealth, they don’t go on to write trees- they go on to vote.
30
TonyfromOz, a link to notrickszone you might enjoy:
Germany’s “Energiewende” Leading To Suicide By Cannibalism. Huge Oversupply Risks Destabilization
The coming age of power cannibalism…Germany on the verge of committing energy suicide
30
nothing CAGW surprises me any more, but it is highly amusing.
then again, so is this!
3 Jan: Fortune: Stephen Gandel: How Wall Street got snowed on weather derivatives
A potential gold mine has entered the deep freeze
Wall Street is no longer minting money off the snow. But it’s still trying…
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange listed dozens of contracts based on snowfall in numerous cities that could be traded like stocks, and were expected to rise and fall daily based on the forecast. A number of large Wall Street firms seemed interested in getting into the market.
These days, though, Wall Street’s market for betting on snow has, well, melted. The CME says that not a single snow-related weather contract traded in 2013. That’s down from 510 trades in 2011…
“The market took off quickly, but then it never hit critical mass,” says Jeff Hodgson, who heads the Chicago Weather Exchange and had sought to specialize in snow derivatives. Now Hodgson is focused on contracts tied to temperature or rainfall for utilities or farmers…
Typically, the contracts are priced based on the expected inches of snow in a particular time period in a given city. If accumulation is greater than the set amount, the seller of the derivative has to pay out. But if the snowfall is less than that figure, the contract will expire worthless…
Late last year, you could have bought a snow contract for $30,000 that would have paid out $100,000 if it snowed more than 50 inches in New York City. New York’s snowfall, even including the most recent storm, as measured at LaGuardia Airport, has been 14 inches. So that contract still looks like a long shot…
The lack of interest can be partly chalked up to the fact that, up until this week, there has been a lack of snow. It turns out there are many more companies that want to protect themselves against too much snow than too little. Large ski mountains, perhaps because they pre-sell season tickets, never took an interest in the market…
Wall Street made a killing in the winter of 2011-12, which saw a record lack of snow across the U.S. Since then, buyers of the contracts, who lost money on the insurance, have failed to come back…
In general, the markets for more esoteric derivatives have dried up since the financial crisis. That could be hurting demand for weather contracts as well. Also, given the effects of climate change, the number of people expecting record snowfalls is rapidly shrinking…
Still, snowstorms like the one that hit the East Coast on Friday give Wall Street hope…
eWeatherRisk CEO Brian Ohearne says his company is trying to develop snow contracts that are based on the number of storms rather than the absolute number of inches. He thinks those contacts will be more popular.
http://fortune.com/2014/01/03/how-wall-street-got-snowed-on-weather-derivatives/
20
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Wood.
Wood who?
Wood pecker, who do you think would be knocking on a tree?
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Wood.
Wood who?
Wood pecker! I just told you. If you’re going to ask ‘who?’ every time I knock, this is going to get boring real quick.
110
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Leaf.
Leaf who?
Leaf the woodpecker alone!
110
Knock, knock
Who’s there?
Acorn
Acorn who?
Acornier joke you won’t find…..
100
I’m always perplexed by inner city Melbourne gruppies. If they love trees so much, why do they choose to live as far away from the bush as they possibly can?
If I ever meet Adam Bandt I’ll ask him that.
60
I Talk to the Trees
21
I prefer the Eccles (Goon Show) version (are you old enough, Turtle?). The punch line was ……. “That’s why the put me away!). Seems appropriate!
70
Prince of Wales…..where are you? Charles speaks in plant/tree/nonsense tongue. A man of such fertilising intellect would no doubt add gravitas to this botanical blight.
30
I’d say that some of the trees in Melbourne are simply stressed by all the building works around them….nothing to do with climate change/whatever.
60
Dear Boab tree (100m due north of the Fitzroy Pub).
I remember you back in the early 1980’s. I hope that you will survive the next LIA which will then inevitably make your location drier while at the same time our Southwest will inevitably become wetter, thanks to the jet stream moving further north towards the Equator. Unfortunately the Sun has a mind of its own and I wish you the best of luck adapting to your new environment. Don’t expect any visits from the “Warmists” because they will no doubt be in therapy.
King Geo
50
Make that the “Fitzroy Crossing Pub” – apologies boab for my typo and please pass on my regards to your other boab mates.
50
I have not yet written to a tree, but I did once send an email to Laurie Oakes…will that do?
120
I wonder if his friends call him “Stumpy” 😛
50
More like boab!
10
Stuff the trees!.
Go Grass!
Ever tried eating trees. Maybe the fruit but not much else is directly edible on a tree for the Homo sapiens species.
We eat lots of things from grass and the seed of grasses like wheat and barley products such as bread and pasta and starch and beer and sugar from sugar cane and sorghum and millet and rice and the immense range of rice products and etc and etc.
If we don’t eat grass and it’s seeds directly, then we eat a whole range of animal products that have been fed almost exclusively on grass derived products. Animals such as sheep , goats, cattle, pigs, chooks, farmed fish of every type , kangaroos, deer and etc, all almost exclusively grass eaters or fed on products derived from grass and it’s seeds in one way or another.
Agriculture is the careful nurturing of grasses of many species and agriculture enabled mankind’s numbers to expand a million fold over the last ten thousand years since agriculture was first practiced in the Fertile Crescent where towns and cities like those ancient cities such as the 7000 years BCE Catalhoyuk in Anatolia Turkey and the even much older Göbekli Tepe monument / temple ? also in SE Turkey which was built around 10,000 BCE or about 7000 years before Stonehenge was built,
Whereever man has gone, to suport his growing numbers he has had to remove the trees so he could grow the grasses that provide him with food to feed his growing numbers.
The Great Forests that covered much of central Europe in the latter parts of the first millenium were cleared as population increased into the 11th century’
In China first possibly millet, a grass was domesticated and used as a food crop but by about 6000 BCE, Rice had been domesticated in both China and India and these two proto civilisations became established.
[Pathways to Asian Civilizations: Tracing the Originsand Spread of Rice and Rice Cultures]
Trees are marvelous, soothing, pleasant, good to look at, shade and protection providers and providers of the second oldest building material on earth plus much, much more.
But we as the species Homo sapiens cannot survive in numbers of more than a few tens of individuals per square kilometre where only trees grow,
But we live in many hundreds per square kilometer where the grasses grow in all their proliferation and provide us with our basic food stuffs that sustain ourselves and our species and have done so for probably nearly two million years past as our species evolved into what we are today.
Nor is our evolution finished as we have evolved from a rural agricultural reliant society with eight out of ten people involved in food and fibre production and living outside of the towns and cities of those past times some 250 years ago to a increasingly “Hive” dwelling species where over half of our global numbers now live in cities / hives of over 100,000 individuals plus.
Today it only needs a very small workers of the great human Hives to go out and source the food and the energy and the water and the steel and oil and everything needed to keep the human Hive running.
Like the insect nests and Hives, there are even major tracks, the inter city highways, with a furiously running convoy of carriers of Hive necessities running in a vast network of tracks between each of the major and lesser Hives of those millions of humans.
Nor is there any need for an individual to ever leave his / her Hive as everything is provided.
Even the Hive dwellers are slowly, like insect hives, starting to stratify into permanent classes as academics send their off spring to university, trades folk send their off spring to learn a trade and the drones offspring continues to act a drones of little use and at much cost to the Hive.
And all this because the grass based food crops the plant breeders have now developed are so prolific in their production and the few individuals left in farming outside of the great Hives [ 5% of the population are now still directly engaged in agriculture ie; food production ] can now produce enough food so that the millions of Hive dwellers will for the present, never be short of food.
But evolution also says that a hive can be totally wiped out by disease in a very short time unless rigid levels of hive hygiene are maintained as any keeper of bee Hives can tell you.
So for me its;
GO GRASSES! and “May you live in interesting times” for thats what they will be if those grasses ever fail for any length of time to continue to produce their incredible bounty.
[ROM, I’m not sure why your posts get caught so often. You might try splitting them into shorter posts if that is possible. ] ED
40
Whilst I am not proposing replacing grasses with trees, I might point out the difficulties of replacing trees with grasses in areas of poor soils, unreliable rains, rough terrains, high rainfall events (and etcetera).
Both have their places, but overclearing for grazing or cultivation is a quicker recipe for human degradation than conservation or revegetation.
20
Awesome! I live in that council and happily sent the following
“Dear Tree
I thought we had an arrangement? Unlike the other stupid greenies, who want to completely destroy your sole diet – CO2, you know that I feed you with a healthy dose of CO2 exhaust from my nicely worked V8.
So could you please stop dropping all your horrible yellow seeds over my fine machinery?
Thanks
Oh and sorry about my dog but hey, you are right their when we head out on our walk.”
60
No need to apologise to the tree for Your dog’s “presents” as the tree will really appreciate the nitrates , of course for the shallow rooted grass at the base of the tree there can be too much of a good thing .
40
Hmm, no response yet. Who’d have thought the tree outside my door was so busy!
10
Did they ever think of watering them?
I live in Lima and as in all Peruvian cities a council water truck comes around regularly.
40
Alas Joanne, you can’t see the forest for the trees. All that CO2 plant food we’re dumping into the atmosphere is making the trees fat. “Tree-obesity,” the next crisis to be addressed by the First Lady of the United States.
70
Oh Goody! I’ll do that immediately. I’ve always wanted to write a letter to a tree.
And I’ve always wanted to write to a rock too. If anyone knows the right address for that please post it.
Thank you very much
Roy
Oops! Wait another minute. All I have to do in both cases is to pick a U.S. Senator or Representative at random and I’ll be writing to both at the same time. 🙂
60
Well, what did you expect?
I used to think the inmates were in charge of the asylum. Or maybe the children were in charge of the nursery. But it’s worse than that, isn’t it?
No one is in charge at all. 🙁
60
Obama is a tree expert, an Abhorist of growth that specializes in rooting countrees…..
50
And Prince Charles is a plant whisperer.
20
Very pithy Greg
10
how did that get past the censor
🙂
10
Interesting comments.
When global warming first appeared it was very much evident that someone was in charge of the narrative, the IPPC. As off the wall as they have been, it’s very much in keeping with the observable behavior of any cause — there is some top dog in control of the narrative and they present a united face to the world.
But over the years it’s morphed into a chaotic bunch of totally independent looking smaller groups each trying to outdo the other for recognition. Hence my comment about no one being in charge at all.
As the rhetoric of these groups gets more and more threatening and their antics get more and more ridiculous I can’t help but wonder how it’ll play out. We’re looking at a descent into darkness and anarchy that worries me a lot. I hope I’m wrong but I fear there will be violence eventually.
30
Jo
This might help
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2015/02/a-unified-theory-of-poor-risk-management-what-climate-change-hysteria-the-anti-gmo-movement-and-the-anti-vaccination-movement-have-in-common.html
The cartoon helps.
10
The more basic problem that overrides risk analysis is that in none of those topics is there even a polite conversation. When a topic is discussed with namecalling, scorn and derision first and last, we can’t drill down in an unemotional way to assess which parts of both sides are valid. To me it is ludicrous that our national conversation is stuck with teams saying GMO is 100% good or 100% bad. It’s as if a stone age culture was up in arms with divided in camps repeating “all axes are good” or “all axes are bad”. It is a stupid conversation. – Jo
40
Nice cartoon but a little off base.
I can categorically state that jelly beans do not cause acne. I’ve been eating them for years, sometimes by the handful and I do not have acne. I also have all my teeth so they don’t cause tooth decay either.
On the other hand, from the onset of puberty through my early teenage years I was constantly beset with acne. We can safely conclude from my experience that puberty causes acne. Period!
Nuts to what any researchers may say on the subject. As Al Gore said, “No more debate is possible.”
00
And if you believe any of that you’ll be interested in buying stock in a renewable energy company about to go public with technology that overcomes the objections to both wind and solar by putting solar cells on the blades of wind turbines so that when one source fails the other can still provide power.
Or, we can actually do good science and debate like reasonable, responsible adults. I can sell you stock in that too if you want it. So can Jo. So can most anyone commenting on this blog regularly.
Do we have a stupid conversation or an intelligent one? It seems we’ve opted for the stupid one. 🙁
00
Adult behavior escapes the zealot no matter which side of the argument he’s on.
00
Well done, humans. We’ve killed Melbourne’s Separation Tree
by Jeff Sparrow
(the guardian.com)
. . .
Uh. oh. Incoming emails …
10
From the article:
While being nonsense, did he at all consider the millions of tons of wood being pelletised to provide “green” fuel to the Drax power station in the UK?
40
I wonder if one of your bureaucratic wood whisperers could have a quiet word with my 60 year-old kitchen cabinets that are facing impending danger of being torn out and sent to a land fill. Any kind word would will help them cope with this sad reality in the time they have left.
20
I say get rid of all those evil European trees and replace them with what Nature had there in the first place, good, native aboriginal trees… or should that be arboriginal trees?
20
Unfortunately the London plane tree holds sway over gum trees in cities, here’s Garth Clarke with the final word.
‘Councils prefer them to the shallow rooting eucalypts which have an unfortunate habit of damaging pavements, curbs and gutters not to mention clogging water pipes and drains.
‘We might wish to be good Australians and long for a home among the gum trees but believe me these eucalypts are selfish little suckers with little regard for their environment.’
20
I wonder how the leftists would know now that their Tree of Knowledge is dead in Barcaldine Queensland, not fat from the light on the hill that was extinguished some time earlier
10
I say keep those European trees that Melbourne is famous for,
and plant some more.Plane Trees are ideally suited for scrubbing
particulate pollution out of the air, as they did in the London
smog of the nineteen fifties.The hairy leaves trap air born
pollutants and keep them out of human lungs. The bark collects
and sheds soot as it sheds its bark. The shade beneath these
lovely trees creates a mini climate. Like human population, go
for variety, not just native.I plant both along the railway line
embankments.
70
as “planting trees” – rather than writing to them – is part of Direct Action, just want to say…
overnight radio news had a headline stating Malcolm Turnbull had assured his colleagues he would keep Direct Action if he gets the leadership back. should i be surprised that no amount of searching this morning can find an actual quote from Turnbull to this effect. the best i can find is this false headline about an “understanding”!
5 Feb: West Australian: Andrew Probyn: Turnbull in climate change shift
The West Australian understands that Mr Turnbull’s supporters have been assuring colleagues that he would stick with the Direct Action policy to give business long-term certainty…
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/26199682/turnbull-in-climate-change-shift/
however, there is this:
4 Feb: Guardian: Lenore Taylor: Liberal leadership: how Direct Action works in Malcolm Turnbull’s favour
Climate policy cost Turnbull the Liberal leadership but it need not be a hurdle to winning it back, thanks to Tony Abbott’s Direct Action scheme
***But the possible “changes and extensions or whatever” for a tougher scheme – and a carbon price – are buried in the deal Tony Abbott’s climate minister, Greg Hunt, did with crossbench senators to pass the Direct Action legislation…
The first is through “safeguards” the government must develop to make sure businesses that are not seeking money from his “direct action” fund don’t increase their emissions and undo all the reductions the government is buying…
But Hunt’s policy says if baselines are exceeded, the offending companies could make up for it by “purchasing credits created by other accredited emissions reduction projects”.
The policy also says that companies that promise a certain quantity of reductions in return for money from the $2.5bn emissions reduction fund, but then don’t manage to live up to their promises, could buy credits from companies that reduce emissions by more than they had envisaged.
Both those scenarios involve trading – and a carbon price…
The scheme would be more credible still if some of the emissions reduction fund was set aside to buy cheaper international carbon permits if Australia looked like missing its target – something that business wants but Abbott vetoed. (He once described buying international permits as being like sending “money … offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan”.)…
Abbott’s alternative policy, a little bit “changed or extended or whatever” could help Turnbull find a way to return to the job and still have a reasonably credible policy on climate change.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/04/liberal-leadership-how-direct-action-works-in-malcolm-turnbulls-favour
ah yes, the devil is in the detail. it’s all about an ETS.
10
Rosetta, the Comet, and the Science of Surprise
via discovermagazine.com
Most importantly, what sort of shirt were the scientists wearing?
00
Now here is a tree …
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)
Progress of submissions by parties (to date = zero)
(It is a tree where leaves represent countries)
00
and while folks are being distracted by appeals to write to trees to save the planet from CAGW, the “market forces” relentlessly continue to plot their next big stock market bubble, the CO2 Emissions Trading Bubble!
26 Oct 2014: UK Independent: Climate change: Carbon trading edges closer as UN brokers deal
by Irene Hell, Ian Johnston
The world is on the brink of enlisting market forces in the fight against climate change on a truly global scale for the first time, United Nations officials have claimed…
This means that an international carbon market – in which companies buy and sell the right to produce harmful emissions – is now close to becoming a reality…
***Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of senior executives from pension funds, major banks and institutional and sovereign wealth funds in Copenhagen, Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, stressed the importance of a global system…
***And a group of 354 major institutional investors, such as BlackRock, the BT Pension Scheme, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rothschild & Cie Gestion, have also agreed to call on governments to “provide stable, reliable and economically meaningful carbon pricing that helps redirect investment commensurate with the scale of the climate change challenge”. Collectively, they handle about 15trn Pounds ($23 trillion) in assets – more than the United States’ GDP…
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-carbon-trading-edges-closer-as-un-brokers-deal-9818519.html#
29 Jan: Rolling Stone: Matt Taibbi: While Deflategate and Chaitgate Rage, America Quietly Robs Its Elderly
A wild new report on the wide-scale scamming of ordinary investors has arrived
For instance, it might surprise a lot of Americans to know that most brokers handling retirement funds aren’t required by law to act in the best interests of their clients.
Instead, the standard is a humorously amorphous thing called “suitability,” which basically means the broker must only have a “reasonable basis for believing that recommendation is suitable for you.”
Under that absurd standard, McConaughy-style brokers can justify just about any kind of “investment strategy,” including one that explicitly makes themselves more money through fees and commissions while making less for you, the client.
The Furman memo, first obtained by Bloomberg (I only just read it today), offers some startling numbers. It concludes that investors who rely upon conflicted brokers stand to lose enormous percentages of their savings. According to the internal report:
“An investor receiving conflicted advice who expects to retire in 30 years loses at least 5 to 10 percent of his or her potential retirement savings due to conflicts, or approximately 1 to 3 years worth of withdrawals during retirement.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/while-deflategate-and-chaitgate-rage-america-quietly-robs-its-elderly-20150129
wish Taibbi was able to grasp what the ETS could do to pensions, if it ever got the full go-ahead. if the Rolling Stone audience understood it, they’d realise how their own inheritances would be eaten away, and self-interest might kick in.
00
There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the Maples want more sunlight
And the Oaks ignore their pleas
20
I know that trees have bark, but can they growl?
20
The must be a root and branch inquiry
20
Google is my friend. I found an oat forest in Greece.
01
The Folóï oak forest is situated at an altitude of 688m
20
I wrote “oat” not “oak”. Oat trees speak Oatin.
01
Fair enough , though as Avena Sativa only grows to about 900mm and is a grass it should be referred to as a field . If it was an attack of the dreaded pre-emptive text thingy and it was oak forest in Greece that You were referring to that would probably be the Foloe forest , in Greek myth it was supposed the home of Phólos , chief of the centaurs from whence it gets it’s name .
10
genus capital first letter species lower case. Which reminds me if a mod or jo is watching, there is a “homo sapiens” in the OP of a January story but buggered if I can find it. It was about humans not ever experiencing heat like today,
00
http://www.ybig.ie/forum/uploads/20091005_161143_viz.jpg
10
I wonder what was the name on Councillor Arron Wood’s birth certificate?
00
Reminds me of this great skit from Sesame Street! At least the Sesame Street skit was funny!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7KGwc4L0xE
20
5 Feb: News Ltd: Athony Sharwood: Three days after the National Press Club debacle, we bring you the speech Tony Abbott should have given. We wish
Poll Results: Who should be Prime Minister? (approx figures)
Turnbull 40%
Abbott, Bishop, Shorten – each 15%
http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/three-days-after-the-national-press-club-debacle-we-bring-you-the-speech-tony-abbott-should-have-given-we-wish/story-fn5tas5k-1227208496998
24 Sept 2014: New Scientist: Fred Pearce: Big business steals the show at New York climate talks
Maybe it was because the UN’s big climate summit was being held within a couple of kilometres of Wall Street. Tuesday’s summit of world leaders, hosted by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, was upstaged by corporate leaders pledging to cut carbon emissions from their operations and investment portfolios.
Finance houses led the way. A group of investment institutions, including pension funds and corporate asset managers, promised to “decarbonise” their investment portfolios by $100 billion by the end of next year. This means pulling out of funding coal mines, oil wells and oil-palm plantations in rainforests, for instance…
A price on carbon
Meanwhile, an even larger group of 340 financial institutions – who claimed to be managing $24 trillion in assets – joined other corporations and many governments in calling for a global system of carbon pricing to reflect the environmental cost of carbon emissions. Such a system would push their investments out of fossil fuels and towards low-carbon energy, they said.
***But it would have to do better than the European Union carbon trading system, which is plagued by low carbon prices that provide little incentive…
The corporate declarations show how business, rather than governments, is taking centre stage in the climate change debate. The focus for climate diplomacy should be climate finance, argues wrote Stephen Tindale, former director of Greenpeace UK, and author of a report for the ***Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank backed by corporate donors, published last week…
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26263-big-business-steals-the-show-at-new-york-climate-talks.html
access the following from About CER at the link for the report in the above. this is what the CAGW followers are never allowed to understand:
***Centre for European Reform (CER) Advisory Board
(includes people from Harvard, BP, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, UN, EU, Shell, Allianz, Deutsche Bank, NATO, etc)
Centre for European Reform (CER)Corporate donors
Accenture
AIG Europe Limited
AIRBUS Group
UKAmerican Express
BAE Systems
BAT
Barclays Bank
BayerBG Group
BT plc
Centrica
Clifford Chance
***Daily Mail and General Trust
Deutsche Bank
AGDiageo plc
***The Economist
EDF
Ford
Goldman Sachs
HSBC
JP Morgan
Kingfisher plc
KPMG
Macro Advisory Partners
MarsMontrose Associates
Nomura
North Asset Management
Prudential
PwC
Rio Tinto
Rothschild
ShellStandard
CharteredStatoil
Tesco
Vodafone
00
On water. One argument presented here is that European trees need more water at the wrong time. Quite apart from the fact that the people who planted them knew that and the current custodians simply do not want to water them when needed, there is a more important point. Water.
The core biology and chemistry is that plants are made entirely, 99% or more, from H2O and CO2 and the O2 we breathe. When we eat the plants, we burn the CH2 with the O2 and recover the CO2 and H2O. That’s it. Plants combine these H2O and CO2 with the power of the sun to produce CH2 molecules, which is why rotted plants make coal and oil and petrol and gas. So do we. Cows fart CH4, methane, a far stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. Anyway as farmers know and as simple logic should tell you, dry farming produces 1/10th of the crop of wet farming. Irrigation is the key, no matter how ‘unnatural’. For desert landscapes like Australia we have sunshine, we have CO2, so all we need is water. Strangely the argument for killing off English trees is the cost of water, when we have plenty of it.
So the core point is that given the advantages of English trees, not the least of which being that they are not bushfire prone, the leaves dropping in the autumn and having green leaves for the summer and not full of explosive gum, they just need water. Australian trees with far fewer leaves are far hardier and require less water, but they have few of the benefits in a domestic existence. They are simply not the windbreaks farmers need on hilltops like Cypress, do not keep the bugs away like Peppercorn around every homestead and do not provide much or any shade in summer, when it is desperately needed or even in the cities. They grow too tall, drop branches on power lines and cause fires and act like roman candles in a fire, shooting over fire breaks.
If we just stopped and thought about it, the people who built the avenues in Southern Australian with English trees had a point. There is a whole country where gum trees can roam. In our streets, a canopy of leaves in summer, as you find all over Melbourne, is a unique and beautiful thing.
Now if we could just put the awful power lines underground, as is now required, we could save $100Million a year in tree trimming. This has been done in Perth where the council, State Government and electricity suppliers are removing all those dead trees we call telegraph/telephone/electricity and now Optus and NBN poles. That would make our cities so much nicer for everyone, especially on the hot summer days. Yes, we do expect councils to water the trees on a few days of the year when it is needed. It is their job.
31
To put in in Pseudo chemistry CO2+H2O+sunlight => CH2(Plants) + O2
More water, more CO2 means more plants, more crops, more food for us.
Less water, less CO2 means we starve. Even the plants starve.
No water or no CO2 means no plants, the end of life on earth.
How anyone calls CO2 ‘pollution’ is beyond logic. Why is a political and money matter.
Then we Australians have not built a new big dam for 50 years. We are mad. The next drought is coming. Declaring death to the English trees is not a solution. It is simply species racism.
61
In this land of drought and flood we need more dams, and only the warmists are mad. Increasing CO2 appears to be harmless, in fact carbon dioxide is beneficial to all plant life and its mass manufacture at the end of the Holocene has been timely.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01b8d0ccf5cc970c-pi
20
You got sucked in. I’m, like, who emails? Maybe they use facebook like your old man. Pictures of himself when he was young. I mean, how old are they? They’re dead. Poms tell you to email? What a riot. Ever heard of instagram?
02
One of the subtle ways warmists damage our cities is by suggestion, supposed expert opinion. For example many councils and botanists quote an “increased risk of below average rainfall“. That is because Tim Flannery said so, a Flannerism, that “even the rain which falls will not fill our dams”. Are these the same computer models which cannot get anything right? Why would you believe the science opinion of a dead giant wombat specialist? How can he possibly assure us that computer models he does not understand give good reliable results? Why not believe the established facts of 200 years of settlement? An average is an average.
However on the basis of such unfounded, unproven and unlikely predictions by people who have no special qualifications in meteorology or computer modelling or physical science, responsible horticulturalists are planning to remove trees which have proven to survive for over 100 years in good health or assist in their departure by refusing to water them or the rare occasions that is necessary. The doomsayers are doing real damage to our parks and gardens and streetscapes, or perhaps we should adopt primitive aboriginal landscape management techniques and just burn everything down on a regular basis?
20
Guardian makes it sound like a serious coalition of health professionals, doesn’t it?
4 Feb: Guardian: Damian Carrington: Health sector should divest from fossil fuels, medical groups say
Health profession should repeat its leadership on tobacco divestment because of health risks from climate change and air pollution, says Medact and other groups
The health sector should get rid of its fossil fuel investments on moral grounds, as it previously did with its tobacco investments, according to a report by a coalition of medical organisations.
The report cites climate change as “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century” and says air pollution from fossil fuels also causes millions of premature deaths a year. The organisations argue that the health sector, and in particular the £18bn Wellcome Trust, should not be helping to fund the harm they exist to tackle…
The Trust was unable to give the Guardian examples of its engagement with fossil fuel companies. Its endowment, worth £18bn in total, has £450m invested in Shell, BP, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton alone. But the Trust was unable to tell the Guardian the value of its total fossil fuel holdings…
Alistair Wardrope, student doctor and co-author of the new report, said: “People worldwide are already dying as a result of the health impacts of fossil fuels, but tomorrow’s doctors will have to cope with the full extent of climate change’s health cost. We have a responsibility to our future patients to ensure that health organisations are not funding the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/04/health-sector-should-divest-from-fossil-fuels-medical-groups-say
more like CAGW activists, if u check out the sponsors of the report, such as The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, The Climate & Health Council, Healthy Planet, Medsin, Medact, etc:
20 pages: PDF: UnhealthyInvestments.uk: Fossil Fuel Investment & the UK health community
http://www.unhealthyinvestments.uk/uploads/1/3/1/5/13150249/unhealthy_investments_final.pdf
00
this is what happens when science is not driving policy:
3 Feb: Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg: Republicans finally admitted climate change is real: so what will they do about it?
In a vote last month 15 Republican senators agreed that climate change is caused by human activity. Only three were ready to state how they would tackle it and none suggested a target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions…
Only three of the 15 Republicans came forward with ideas for climate solutions, when asked by the Guardian.
Those three Republicans – Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee – suggested a range of measures from building more nuclear power stations, promoting energy efficiency, and encouraging investment in technological research…
And none of the Republicans backed Barack Obama’s plan to cut carbon pollution from power plants…
His (Lamar Alexander) suggestion was to build 100 new nuclear reactors, to provide emissions-free power, and double government-sponsored research.
Murkowski opposed building more reactors without first establishing a permanent respository for nuclear waste, a spokesman said…
She opposed a carbon tax…
A fourth Republican, John Hoeven of North Dakota, who proposed but eventually voted against one of the climate votes, supported carbon capture technology, a spokesman said…
But there were signs that the Republican wall of denial about climate change was beginning to come down, said Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat who put forward one of the climate change votes in the Senate last month…
***The votes saw virtually the entire Senate – except for a lone hold-out, Mississippi Republican Roger Wicker – vote that climate change was real and not a hoax…
Fifteen Republican senators voted with Democrats that climate change was caused in part by human activity. Five Republican senators voted with Democrats that human activity was the main driver of climate change – which is in line with scientific opinion. Two Republican senators voted with Democrats against a measure seeking to void a US-China deal to cut carbon pollution.
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who also proposed a vote on climate change, said the Republicans were now in disarray on the issue…
“They are all over the place. There is one who says it’s not even happening. There are the others who say the climate is changing, but we have nothing to do with it. There are others who say the climate is changing and we have something to do with it. And then there are others who say the climate is changing and we have a lot to do with it and we should do something about it,” he said.
Whitehouse argued Republicans were now caught between, on one side, powerful corporate interests and the conservative Tea Party wing – which continues to deny the existence of climate change – and on the other, public opinion, which breaks in favour of action on climate change…
“I think the fact that so many felt they needed to vote for the amendments shows that many realise they are being perceived as anti-science and anti-reality and that is not playing that well back home,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Two-thirds of American voters would reject a candidate who denies the existence of human-caused climate change, according to a Stanford University poll released last week…
“They don’t like the EPA rules. They don’t like the cap-and-trade bill,” said Meyer. “They got tired of saying: ‘I am not a scientist’, but it’s not really there yet.”
He went on: “It is like AA. The first step is admitting you have a problem. Those 15 Republicans have now admitted: ‘We have a problem.’ The question is: what are we going to do about it?”
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/02/republicans-climate-change-solutions-senators
00
everyone argues for their own agenda:
3 Feb: Reuters: Nita Bhalla: World has not woken up to water crisis caused by climate change: IPCC head
Water scarcity could lead to conflict between communities and nations as the world is still not fully aware of the water crisis many countries face as a result of climate change, the head of the U.N. panel of climate scientists warned on Tuesday.
Countries such as India are likely to be hit hard by global warming, which will bring more freak weather such as droughts that will lead to serious water shortages and affect agricultural output and food security.
“Unfortunately, the world has not really woken up to the reality of what we are going to face in terms of the crises as far as water is concerned,” IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri told participants at a conference on water security…
More frequent floods and droughts caused by climate change, pollution of rivers and lakes, urbanization, over-extraction of ground water and expanding populations mean that many nations such as India face serious water shortages.
In addition, the demand for more power by countries like India to fuel their economic growth has resulted in a need to harness more water for hydropower dams and nuclear plants…
http://news.yahoo.com/world-not-woken-water-crisis-caused-climate-change-130410305.html
00
Oh the joy!
Nobody noticed Aaron Wood was the councilor!
In his normal Wooden voice he stated “gruff gruff gruff, i want billy goat gruff”
His assistant MS Willow cried by his side as she recounted the total loss of nearly 5 trees in one avenue,trees which had paid £10 pounds to emigrate to the lucky country from England and other such warm exotic climes,only to end up parched and lonely ,uncared for and unloved.
Of course today one would not be allowed to bring any different species to Australia ,verbotten! arrested at the airport for bringing in cans of chinese vegetables (I do watch that great Australian programme, Aussie Airport security, A whole new branch of pythonesque characters emerge).
Anyway ,back to the story, A vandal ,arrested for carving his name on an oak was sentenced to 100 hours of Mann lectures and has promised to turn over a new leaf upon his release.His tearful girlfriend said she would Pine away waiting for him ,whilst his Mothers face was Ashen.
The Aussie expression “get over yerself mate” seems most apposite for Mr Wood.
ps , I wonder if when he walks into the office his boss says “Morning Wood?” If not why not ?
10
Since trees don’t have fingers or computers, and the tree is the one writing back, does this mean that the typists responding are trees? Have we redefined tree here and now humans can be trees too?
00
I wonder how many trees are now going to fall for Nigerian 419 scam emails.
10
Very disappointing!! I did write to a tree, no answer yet, maybe was my insistence on the fact that it will feel better with the increase in CO2 or maybe it’s just this weekend thing…..
10
And Entish, presumably?
00
We really need to be careful here. “Write” to a tree really means “email a tree”. Were you to accidentally “write” a letter and try to send it by mail or hand deliver, the tree might be so shocked at the sight of its dead comrade that it too would succumb to death. We don’t want to accidentally kill any trees here.
10
I couldn’t resist checking the web site and, yes, you can email a tree. And get a response.
Unless they have particularly intelligent and dexterous trees in Melbourne, I suspect a highly paid Council employee has the responsibility for this nonsense.
My leafy email friend is a Platanus (London Plane), located in front of St. Pauls’s Catherdral on the iconic corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets. It has a life expectancy of between 21 and 30 years. I wish I could say the same.
What follows is my arboreal correspondence:
From: Pat Lane [mailto:p_lane@datafast.net.au]
Sent: Saturday, 7 February 2015 1:18 PM
To: Melbourne Urban Forest
Subject: Information about a London Plane, Tree ID 1024921
Dear 1024921,
Melbourne’s trees add much to “the most liveable city’s” beauty.
I’ve heard trees are threatened by climate change.
How’re you?
Pat
Pat Lane
To my great delight, I received this response from tree 1024921, AKA Allison Gibbs.
From: Allison Gibbs [mailto:Allison.Gibbs@melbourne.vic.gov.au] On Behalf Of Melbourne Urban Forest
Sent: Wednesday, 11 February 2015 2:49 PM
To: Pat Lane
Subject: RE: Information about a London Plane, Tree ID 1024921
Hi Pat
I’m wonderful thanks for asking although I must admit I’m a little nervous about climate change.
Let’s hope it rains this afternoon!
Thanks for your email.
Love London Plane, Tree ID 1024921
I couldn’t resist responding
From: Pat Lane [mailto:p_lane@datafast.net.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 11 February 2015 3:35 PM
To: ‘Melbourne Urban Forest’
Subject: RE: Information about a London Plane, Tree ID 1024921
Dear 1024921,
I’m pleased you are well.
As even a tree should know, there is little risk from climate change.
The Earth’s climate has always been changing and will, no doubt, continue to do so. The small amount of warming experienced in the 1990s was comparable to that experienced in the 1940s, prior to the global warming scare. Overall, the Earth has been coming out of an ice age for the past 10,000+ years and as you well know, the period following an ice age is, by definition, warmer.
All of the hype about dangerous anthropogenic global warming is based on computer models that have had no correlation with reality for nearly 20 years.
As there are trillions of dollars on the table, there is a strong tendency among humans to exaggerate, fabricate and otherwise make outrageous claims.
As a tree, you will be aware that you are much better off with a little extra carbon dioxide in the air, and a bit of warming is preferable to an ice age.
I’ll LEAF you alone now and go out on a LIMB and suggest that anyone who’s a global warming alarmist is a bit of a SAP.
If it’s not a personal question, how many rings old are you?
Pat
10
Nicely done, Pat.
I very much doubt that you will get a reply, but I hope you do.
It could branch off into to a deep and meaningful discussion, and be the seed of a long term relationship, rooted in mutual trust.
00