The Lost Oaks of California Ave • Hacker News Board

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#11

Post by run4yourlives » Thu, Sep 17, 2009, 10:08 PM UTC

tjic wrote: post #4

Private owners respect and conserve their resources. Governments (which is to say, politicians with short lifespans in their job) use up resources in a rush to accomplish short term, idiotic goals. You can look at the environmental records of capitalist countries versus centrally managed totalitarian states. ...or you can look at golf courses (which don't "cut down all the trees to keep things tidy") and compare them…

That's disingenuous.

While this act was clearly one of government bureaucracy run amok, to suggest that the same thing doesn't happen on private land is patently absurd.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#12

Post by n8agrin » Thu, Sep 17, 2009, 10:08 PM UTC

They may have suffered from Sudden Oak Death. My limited understanding is that because the disease spreads erratically they prefer to remove infected trees in order to prevent others from becoming infected, and to prevent damage being caused from the dead, weakened tree.

Edit: It appears there is no known cure, only preemptive measures.

http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#13

Post by hristov » Thu, Sep 17, 2009, 10:11 PM UTC

tjic wrote: post #4

Private owners respect and conserve their resources. Governments (which is to say, politicians with short lifespans in their job) use up resources in a rush to accomplish short term, idiotic goals. You can look at the environmental records of capitalist countries versus centrally managed totalitarian states. ...or you can look at golf courses (which don't "cut down all the trees to keep things tidy") and compare them…

Right, golf courses only cut most of the trees because they are in the way of their fairways. And then they poison the water for the entire area by using all kinds of chemicals in order to keep their grass in a ridiculous unnaturally green color and the course free of animals that may disturb the neatness of the grass.

Sorry you cannot make such blanket statements, some times governments do terrible things for the environment and sometimes businesses do the same. People that care about the environment should be vigilant and hold both governments and businesses accountable.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#14

Post by rglovejoy » Thu, Sep 17, 2009, 10:12 PM UTC

Something I don't understand: cities and counties in California are said to be broke, so how is it that the Palo Alto public works department is able to send out a work crew to cut down these oak trees? Is Palo Alto running a surplus that they need to spend before its fiscal year is over?

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#15

Post by shykes » Thu, Sep 17, 2009, 10:13 PM UTC

tjic wrote: post #4

Private owners respect and conserve their resources. Governments (which is to say, politicians with short lifespans in their job) use up resources in a rush to accomplish short term, idiotic goals. You can look at the environmental records of capitalist countries versus centrally managed totalitarian states. ...or you can look at golf courses (which don't "cut down all the trees to keep things tidy") and compare them…

   > Private owners respect and conserve their resources

Except when they don't. Blanket statements like that aren't very helpful.

   > politicians [...] use up resources in a rush
   > to accomplish short term, idiotic goals.

Except when they don't. Or when the goals are decided by the private owners who bought them lunch.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#16

Post by mr_luc » Thu, Sep 17, 2009, 10:14 PM UTC

hedgehog wrote: post #9

I like Cal Ave partly because it's about as close as you can get in this area to my favorite neighborhood in Seattle (15th Ave). A photo I took yesterday while they were taking the last one down: http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg Quote from the notice they sent out: "The City of Palo Alto Public Works Department ... shall be replacing most of the street trees on Cal Ave ... most of the existing trees are Holl…

That picture looks ... AWFUL.

It looks like the bad parts of the meat-packing-plant town in rural Minnesota where I grew up. No, strike that -- it looks much, much worse.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#17

Post by supahfly_remix » Thu, Sep 17, 2009, 10:16 PM UTC

It might be sacrilegious to ask, but what does this have to do with hacking (other than say, hacking down of oak trees).

The fact that it's ranked so highly just goes to show the amount of ass kissing going on here.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#18

Post by ecq » Thu, Sep 17, 2009, 10:19 PM UTC

absolutely terrible.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#19

Post by philwelch » Thu, Sep 17, 2009, 10:25 PM UTC

hedgehog wrote: post #9

I like Cal Ave partly because it's about as close as you can get in this area to my favorite neighborhood in Seattle (15th Ave). A photo I took yesterday while they were taking the last one down: http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg Quote from the notice they sent out: "The City of Palo Alto Public Works Department ... shall be replacing most of the street trees on Cal Ave ... most of the existing trees are Holl…

That's a terrible before-and-after picture (comparing your link to the picture in pg's article). The before picture was beautiful--the after picture quite frankly looks as stark and depressing as an average eastern Washington farm town. Longer, though.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#20

Post by jfarmer » Thu, Sep 17, 2009, 10:26 PM UTC

rglovejoy wrote: post #14

Something I don't understand: cities and counties in California are said to be broke, so how is it that the Palo Alto public works department is able to send out a work crew to cut down these oak trees? Is Palo Alto running a surplus that they need to spend before its fiscal year is over?

They've been doing road work up and down College Ave all year, too, so presumably they have money for something.