UC Berkeley want to cut down some 200 year old coastal oak trees in order to win a national championship in football. Supporters of killing these trees believe a better football team will attract better students. (congrats to MITs football team in winning a game this season against framingham state 21-14).
Hopefully UCal will win before the low lands of Berkeley flood. (will Markos' new home be beach front?)
http://www.usatoday.com/...
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. — The effects of global warming are being felt around the world and unless international efforts are launched within the next 10 years, species will disappear and the Earth will be a vastly less habitable planet by the end of the century, according to NASA scientist James E. Hansen.
"Global warming is already starting, and there's going to be more of it. I think there is still time to deal with global warming, but we need to act soon. Humans now control global climate, for better or worse," Hansen said Tuesday at an annual gathering of meteorologists.
http://www.usatoday.com/...
BERKELEY, Calif. — On a campus where protest seems like a rite of passage — free speech, wars, apartheid, nuclear arms, laboratory animal abuse — the latest spectacle of civil disobedience has drawn an unlikely cast of sympathizers.
Siding with a band of free-spirited tree sitters blocking the University of California's plans to renovate its football stadium are some decidedly establishment types: the city of Berkeley, homeowners in an adjacent, upscale neighborhood and fans of the resurgent Cal Bears worried they'll lose a free hillside view of games.
Four lawsuits have been filed charging that the university did a flawed environmental impact report, but it's the tree sitters who have brought national attention to what otherwise would be a local land-use battle.
They occupy six of 42 mature trees — including one towering redwood — that the university wants gone to make way for a $125 million athletic training facility next to the stadium. Most of the 42 are live oaks, a native, once-abundant species here before urbanization.
42! While that is an meaningful number, don't believe it. They will kill more than 42 trees.
$125 million dollars could be spent to study how Humans control global climate. Why spend so much money to win at football?
Plans call for planting three saplings around the stadium for each tree cut down.
...
The sitters, most of whom aren't students, are skeptical of the replanting promise. "It's not good enough. This grove is already a whole ecosystem," says Jessica Welsh, 20. "If you kill it, you can't make another one."
anyone think 3 saplings will absorb anywhere near the CO2 of 1 old tree? these UCal people need to study. Earth is Melting!
and Jessica is a Walsh, not a Welsh!
the foxes are quite wily in the grove. (i never saw a fox up close till i moved in to the grove. they are beautiful animals)!
The Hayward earthquake fault, one of California's most dangerous, runs directly beneath the football field. The university wants to move coaches and athletes who work and train in the stadium to the new, safer facility.
"We care a great deal about the natural environment," says Marie Felde, a university spokeswoman. "We believe the safety of people in the stadium overrode the trees."
so its safe to have people train 50 feet from a fault line? the safety of the planets' future seems not to be a concern.
Zachary Running Wolf — a Blackfoot Indian, self-described flower child and losing Berkeley mayoral candidate last November — also got a ticket and only "reclaimed" his tree this week. Welsh and he will fight their tickets.
we have alotta tickets in our group and one person in jail.
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/...
Ariel DeHaviland, 25, was booked on suspicion of trespassing and for violating an order to leave campus and stay away for seven days, said UCPD Capt. Guillermo Beckford.
Section 626.6 of the California Penal Code allows campus police, acting on the orders of the chancellor or a designated subordinate, to arrest anyone who is "committing any act likely to interfere with the peaceful conduct of the activities of the campus or facility, or has entered the campus or facility for the purpose of committing any such act."
If convicted, he could face a maxium of a $500 fine and six months in County Jail.
Section 626.6 of the California Penal Code? Are all those 6s a sign?
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The pro-trees plan has the most famous landscape architect.
http://www.cp.berkeley.edu/...
The Olmsted plan envisioned a picturesque park-like campus, stemming from Olmsted's belief that the natural order of landscapes serve a moral purpose in society and would be well-regarded by the Trustees. The plan included a major east-west axis aligned with the Golden Gate and campus grounds framed by the north and south forks of Strawberry Creek. Olmsted introduced adaptable tree species to 'forest' the open land. Incorporated as an essential component of the overall plan was the creation of an adjacent upscale neighborhood to support and uplift the institution of higher learning. Another integral design element was Piedmont Way, Olmsted's first landscaped boulevard that became a model for several of his residential projects around the country.
So they want to completely alter Olmsted's design. Can you imagine people ripping up trees in Central Park NYC or the Emerald Necklace in Boston to build a gym for elite athletes?