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São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest

saopaulosecreto.com

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Re: São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest

#101

Post by dyauspitr »

colechristensen wrote: post #94
khalic wrote: post #36

It feels great to see this kind of story. We're all suffering from this (false) idea that we can't do anything, things are too bad, somebody else has done it before, or somebody else will do it. The fact is, humanity is pulled forward by people like this, who find their goal and don't let it go. We need this right now, we're stepping into a pretty dark century, we're probably going to lose millions or billions of peo…

Go plant an oak tree. Not in theory, not a big plan for a monumental effort, just plant an oak tree. They survive for many lives of men and are a cornerstone for feeding the entire ecosystem. If you can't plant one where you're supposed to, plant one where you're not. It takes an afternoon not a lifetime.

Where I am white oak grows by the hundreds of thousands. I see new seedlings ever summer but I would estimate only about 3-5% get past that seedling stage. All that to say that an afternoon of work isn’t enough, if you want to grow a tree you need to follow up on it for atleast a year or more.

Re: São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest

#102

Post by lucasoshiro »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #17

I find the idea of planting trees ironic. It would seem to me the better aim would be identifying the issue as to why native plants are not already reproducing successfully, and then fix it. Plants are quite good at reproducing themselves, even if not in the immediate area.

> It would seem to me the better aim would be identifying the issue as to why native plants are not already reproducing successfully

I live nearby. The issue is: it's located between two lanes of an avenue in a densely populated neighborhood of the largest city in americas. Imagine opening a 100m wide strip of grass in manhattan, you won't expect it to naturally turn into a forest. Same here.

Re: São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest

#104

Post by vouaobrasil »

RGamma wrote: post #39
vouaobrasil wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general direction of society is still immense destruction of the biosphere. That doesn't change because you can make conditions better locally and in the short term, especially when such actions don't go against the general momentum of society. The fact is, there's often conflation with improving individual lives and conditions (the warm fuzzy feeling) with actually doing real good when it comes to our impact on…

Precivilisational lifestyles can only carry a small fraction of our current population. To a significant degree we're locked into this, and have been for thousands of years.

Hence the desire to tear it down.

Re: São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest

#106

Post by lucasoshiro »

philipov wrote: post #105

"View this post on Instagram" No thanks, put into the article.

If you have an account, you can follow his profile and support his work. If you don't have, you can see the images anyway.

If the author simply put the image into the article it would only be sending kudos to Hélio instead of supporting him. Of course a single follow or profile view is not that much, but it helps to spread his work

Re: São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest

#107

Post by rayiner »

embedding-shape wrote: post #98
rayiner wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people like the clean, subdued aesthetic. If they wanted "color" that's what they'd build. It's not for taggers to decide how much or little "color" a city should have.

> Lots of people like the clean, subdued aesthetic And lots of people feels like it's a oppressive aesthetic. Not sure I've ever heard the concrete jungles of a city called "clean and subdued aesthetic", so cheers for this new perspective! The very same counter-culture that likes to color things, is also partly about breaking the rules, so here we are :)

> And lots of people feels like it's an oppressive aesthetic.

And when they’re in charge they can decorate however they want. They don’t get to impose their aesthetic preferences on public spaces without consent.

> Not sure I've ever heard the concrete jungles of a city called "clean and subdued aesthetic"

“Clean City” is literally the name of São Paulo’s anti-visual pollution law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa

> The very same counter-culture that likes to color things, is also partly about breaking the rules

Of course they hate the rules. The rules are there to protect normal people from them.

Re: São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest

#108

Post by rayiner »

gverrilla wrote: post #83
rayiner wrote: post #72

Ugh, graffiti is really a crime against the built environment: https://offloadmedia.feverup.com/saopaulosecreto.com/wp-cont... . I've never been, but I remember they had a big push some years ago to ban outdoor advertising to reduce "visual pollution." Sao Paulo looks so clean and beautiful from Google Street View--it makes the ugliness of the graffiti really stand out. I can't comprehend the nasty mind that decides…

There's a movie that might provide you some understanding. Pixo [0]. 0: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3135326/

Residents don’t seem to like it: https://toxicnews.org/2017/05/16/translations-of-sao-paulos-...

“Pixo, present in most buildings found in deprived areas of São Paulo, was considered to be a major form of visual pollution by the participants: ‘visual pollution is a visual intervention that shouldn’t be there…like pixo, graffiti not so much, but pixo I think it is horrible.’”

People deserve to be free from such ugliness in their environment.

Re: São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest

#109

Post by embedding-shape »

rayiner wrote: post #107
embedding-shape wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lots of people like the clean, subdued aesthetic And lots of people feels like it's a oppressive aesthetic. Not sure I've ever heard the concrete jungles of a city called "clean and subdued aesthetic", so cheers for this new perspective! The very same counter-culture that likes to color things, is also partly about breaking the rules, so here we are :)

> And lots of people feels like it's an oppressive aesthetic. And when they’re in charge they can decorate however they want. They don’t get to impose their aesthetic preferences on public spaces without consent. > Not sure I've ever heard the concrete jungles of a city called "clean and subdued aesthetic" “Clean City” is literally the name of São Paulo’s anti-visual pollution law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidad…

Fitting page :)

> The implementation of the law was controversial. The advertising industry took it worst. Many of the graffiti images which had brought the city an international reputation for artistic innovation were destroyed and others badly damaged, including the officially approved 680-meter-long mural painted by the grafiteiros Os Gêmeos, Nunca and Nina along the 23 de Maio expressway. At the same time the artists' work was being celebrated in the Street Art exhibition at Tate Modern Gallery in London, with large-scale works by Os Gêmeos and Nunca decorating the Tate Modern's external walls. This international recognition of the significance of the artists' work led to a re-evaluation in São Paulo of the importance of street art and the impact of the law. Following a public debate on the subject of what constituted art a registry of street art in São Paulo meriting protection was established by the city.

I'm glad to hear they managed to find a good balance between forbidding advertisement (which the intent of the law seems to be about, not more general "anti-visual pollution") and keeping celebrated artist's artwork around instead of destroying it.

Re: São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest

#110

Post by tverbeure »

embedding-shape wrote: post #38
thelastgallon wrote: post #10

There are a few one man army like this. Dashrath Manjhi is best known for carving a 110-metre-long (360 ft), 9.1-metre-wide (30 ft), and 7.7-metre-deep (25 ft) path through a ridge of hills using only a hammer and a chisel, because his wife fell and died from injuries due to the ridge blocking easy access to a nearby hospital on time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi

> path through a ridge of hills using only a hammer and a chisel I know you put the numbers and everything, but I didn't quite grasp just what a monumentous task this was until I saw the image of the "path through a ridge": https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Link_between_Ghivra_... It is absolutely bananas (and wonderful!) what a single human can achieve with love, passion and determination.

It has Google Streetview! https://maps.app.goo.gl/5bNdpnHTEjehj1kV8
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