91–97 of 97 posts
"Are trees alive?" is the question to ask yourself. They can seem very un-alive to us humans. But when the wind blows and their leaves move you can see it. They are literally WAVING at you. Think back to when you were 8 on the playground and a friendly kid waved at you. Trees just wanna play. But wait you say, that's just the wind. The tree isn't deciding to move like the 8 year old kid decided to wave his/her arms.…
I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, but moved out to rural NJ in my thirties. I bought a house on a lake with no motorboats, plenty of black bears and raccoons and lots of trees. I now live in the rice fields of East Java, Indonesia, so I guess you can say I love the outdoors. I do question the science or numbers in the study as much as I believe the basic premise to be true, however, correlation does not automati…
As someone who suffers from hay fever being around trees can be weeks of pain for me every year
I'd never use it as an excuse to complain about trees.
See permaculture, food security, urban farming, distributed production, decentralization.
Trees for some zen or aesthetic cause is an elitist and ignorant perspective. Land use in suburban environments is extremely poor. Food sustainability is very poor.
Trees are a good starting point to start researching. But there are much more serious reasons than a warm fuzzy feeling.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing that always gets me is that when I spent summers in canada I experienced not an iota of hayfever, but I get pretty significant symptoms in the UK. I think it's about the only strong draw to emmigration at some point in the future!
I'm the same way. I'm from the US and have never had any allergies ever, though I've spent a lot of time outdoors. I spent a summer in the UK one year, and the whole time I had horrific allergies. I was basically hopped up on Benadryl the whole time.
Moved to New England and I had no idea what is wrong with me. It took me three years to figure out it was tree pollen and not a spring cold... haha
In California now so we will see how it goes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While the study doesn't seem to have taken into account the houses' values, it has taken into account income (as the article states) and area income (the article doesn't state this). I do not know if that's enough to correct for housing costs. But I do assume that accounting for area income should go a long way to counter your example regarding affording houses. That said, of course correlation isn't causation.
Most of us don't buy houses on our income, but on our credit. This speaks to class, not to wealth; someone with good credit, from a background that grants them that status, is more likely to have a job with good benefits, health insurance, a family that can recommend good doctors, etc.. They're also less likely to live in a food desert, more likely to be able to afford fresh fruits and vegetables, etc.. Income speaks…
For your hypothesis that the study results are skewed by white privilege at least the following things would have to be true: 1. Neighboorhoods with more citizens from lower classes would need to be less green than neighboorhoods with less citizens from lower classes. (At least where I live, in Amsterdam, that would presumably not be the case as the Bijlmer, one of the largest and poorest neighboorhoods is very probably the greenest one. As an aside, the amount of trees is sometimes seen as a problem for that neighboorhood due to the combination with high crime rates, as foilage provides cover for people with criminal motives, makes the area darker (less light getting through) and makes it feel less safe when combined with the sight of huge high-rise flats). This only adds to problems for the people living there and the stereotyping by those not living there :/).
2. The correlation between house prices and area income would need to be lower than expected but there would need to be a significant correlation between house prices and class (f.ex. credit score)
Contrary to your statement, I do think there's a large correlation between the first two, but I haven't checked with housing data for Toronto. For one, there's also the option to rent a house so the correlation between income and housing quality will be higher, as people with higher incomes can afford higher rent. If I read this report correctly, around 30% of Toronto apartments are rental ones http://www.trebhome.com/market_news/rental_reports/pdf/renta.... With rental homes, surely there's a large correlation between income and housing cost. Secondly, while I do agree that income and class won't necessarily be correlated at the individual level, I would assume it evens out on the neighboorhood level. Neighboorhoods where people have good credit, income stability, good status, a good job, good medical contacts and access to good food, will surely have a higher average income. And actually, income does seem to matter when buying a house in Canada (http://globalnews.ca/news/985258/to-rent-or-to-buy-8-questio...)
So I am sympathetic to your argument that systemic racism makes it more likely that one lives in bad housing, but don't buy that this will explain the study's results. I do wish they would have worked with housing costs/rent.
You did make me investigate Toronto a bit. It has quite a lot of food deserts http://www.ehatlas.ca/built-environments/food-deserts, and apparently its child poverty rate is quite high. I'm often confounded by how cities and economies are built in that part of the world. In the Netherlands, cities are littered with supermarkets and the overall availability of bikes and scooters makes it even easier to get to one. Credit scores are much less of a thing here, too. Whether you can buy a house is based on income and income stability.
Btw, you do seem to be assuming the american(?) situation to some extent. Canada has universal health insurance and putting patients with deeper pockets in better rooms seems to be an odd explanation then, too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about the evidence of earlier discharge at the same hospital? It wasn't clear how carefully that was evaluated, but surely that would nullify wealth, population density etc since the only difference was the room that people were put in.
First, just to be clear, issue at hand is the title, which states trees CAUSE calmness which CAUSES health. All the research shows is there's a link between trees and health; aka there's a correlation, not causation. Best example I'm aware of of "confounding factor" is that there's an obvious correlation between an increase in people drowning in pools and ice cream consumption rates. Eating ice cream does not cause d…