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It's not a "tree fail" to remove some trees if it means a substantial conversion of passenger car to bus and bike use which reduces CO2 consumption. If the bik

It's not a "tree fail" to remove some trees if it means a substantial conversion of passenger car to bus and bike use which reduces CO2 consumption. If the bike lane causes one person to give up their car and commute by bike, that's worth hundreds of trees per year. The same is true for solar. There are a lot of cases where cutting down a few trees for a solar array means a substantial increase in CO2 offset, more than the cut down trees would have provided. I wish uninformed people would stop trying to "gotcha" environmental progress. Believe it or not, the people planning these things are much more educated in the subject than a bunch of software engineers and "entrepreneurs"

dudeinjapan 3y ago
Try telling that to the trees.
Tanoc 3y ago
The planning might be very detailed and considerate, but the execution is often botched. The people doing the surveys and consultations are not the people who end up doing construction. Because of pressure the people doing construction often have a "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" approach to non-structural things like flora. If I had a dollar for the amount of times I've seen mudslides or embankments that eroded away because the workers on site chopped down unnecessary amounts of trees to store equipment closer, I'd be able to buy a movie ticket. Which, y'know, it's only like fourteen dollars. But that's still too many times.
oooyay 3y ago
> If the bike lane causes one person to give up their car and commute by bike, that's worth hundreds of trees per year. Where they did this is by my house, so I think I can speak to this a bit. It was not good planning, not that you can only have one or the other. Trees are also huge fighters of climate change heat casualties. The tree coverage keeps the ground and, specifically, the asphalt cooler: https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/06/07/a-major-investment-in-east-portland-road-safety-will-deprive-a-heat-island-of-570-trees/ https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/06/07/a-major-investment-in-... Without the trees "heat islands" have developed and surprise, surprise they're in places where people have less money to throw at making the city to keep both a priority in their neighborhoods. The lack of tree coverage is also necessitating the purchase of cooling systems which many people can't afford (and yes, in Portland we do have people dying in their homes from high heat) - so the trees being missing necessitates subsidizing AC units for folks, which is a tangible cost now associated with lack of tree coverage vs proper tree coverage. > I wish uninformed people would stop trying to "gotcha" environmental progress. Believe it or not, the people planning these things are much more educated in the subject than a bunch of software engineers and "entrepreneurs" Not to "gotcha" you or anyone else, but it was the city planners themselves who came out with this mea culpa and did a study on the heat islands. Our government is very unique and not very cohesive so it is actually reasonable to investigate whether PBOT and the people who contract tree coverage in the city actually talked.
shiroiuma 3y ago
Instead of chopping down trees to build a bike lane, they should simply take lanes away from the road and make those into protected bike lanes. This has multiple benefits: 1) leave the trees alone, and keep the street looking nice, 2) not waste more space on vehicles, 3) make biking safer, 4) discourage people from using cars by making it more inconvenient for them. The other thing they can do is to restrict parking: replace parking lots with parks (and more trees) and more buildings.
- bluescrn 3y ago
  Waging war on cars is waging war on the economy. The economy is our life support system. Aggressively pushing bikes as the only future of transport is kind of ableist. Fine for healthy young people, in flat areas, on dry days. But not for the elderly, disabled, or unfit. And public transport options need to be safe and comfortable. That doesn't fit with currently-trendy soft on crime policies.
  - defrost 3y ago
    That's what was said about the horse and buggy. Evolution's an actual thing, you know, both for living forms and for technology. The circulation of resources, goods, and energy is our life support - the economic assumption that growth is unlimited and GDP is a good metric is just a fad of the last century or two.
    - dukeyukey 3y ago
      To be fair the last century has seen near-inmmeasurable improvements in the human condition.
  - lozenge 3y ago
    Nobody's trying to ban cars. The elderly, disabled or unfit would actually find it easier to drive with less traffic and bikes having better separation from the road.
  - fhars 3y ago
    Defending cars is waging war on humanity. There, I can play that game, too.
stevage 3y ago
Trees have many benefits besides CO2 sequestration.

dudeinjapan 3y ago

Try telling that to the trees.

Tanoc 3y ago

The planning might be very detailed and considerate, but the execution is often botched. The people doing the surveys and consultations are not the people who end up doing construction. Because of pressure the people doing construction often have a "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" approach to non-structural things like flora. If I had a dollar for the amount of times I've seen mudslides or embankments that eroded away because the workers on site chopped down unnecessary amounts of trees to store equipment closer, I'd be able to buy a movie ticket. Which, y'know, it's only like fourteen dollars. But that's still too many times.

oooyay 3y ago

> If the bike lane causes one person to give up their car and commute by bike, that's worth hundreds of trees per year. Where they did this is by my house, so I think I can speak to this a bit. It was not good planning, not that you can only have one or the other. Trees are also huge fighters of climate change heat casualties. The tree coverage keeps the ground and, specifically, the asphalt cooler: https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/06/07/a-major-investment-in-east-portland-road-safety-will-deprive-a-heat-island-of-570-trees/ https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/06/07/a-major-investment-in-... Without the trees "heat islands" have developed and surprise, surprise they're in places where people have less money to throw at making the city to keep both a priority in their neighborhoods. The lack of tree coverage is also necessitating the purchase of cooling systems which many people can't afford (and yes, in Portland we do have people dying in their homes from high heat) - so the trees being missing necessitates subsidizing AC units for folks, which is a tangible cost now associated with lack of tree coverage vs proper tree coverage. > I wish uninformed people would stop trying to "gotcha" environmental progress. Believe it or not, the people planning these things are much more educated in the subject than a bunch of software engineers and "entrepreneurs" Not to "gotcha" you or anyone else, but it was the city planners themselves who came out with this mea culpa and did a study on the heat islands. Our government is very unique and not very cohesive so it is actually reasonable to investigate whether PBOT and the people who contract tree coverage in the city actually talked.

shiroiuma 3y ago

Instead of chopping down trees to build a bike lane, they should simply take lanes away from the road and make those into protected bike lanes. This has multiple benefits: 1) leave the trees alone, and keep the street looking nice, 2) not waste more space on vehicles, 3) make biking safer, 4) discourage people from using cars by making it more inconvenient for them. The other thing they can do is to restrict parking: replace parking lots with parks (and more trees) and more buildings.

bluescrn 3y ago
Waging war on cars is waging war on the economy. The economy is our life support system. Aggressively pushing bikes as the only future of transport is kind of ableist. Fine for healthy young people, in flat areas, on dry days. But not for the elderly, disabled, or unfit. And public transport options need to be safe and comfortable. That doesn't fit with currently-trendy soft on crime policies.
- defrost 3y ago
  That's what was said about the horse and buggy. Evolution's an actual thing, you know, both for living forms and for technology. The circulation of resources, goods, and energy is our life support - the economic assumption that growth is unlimited and GDP is a good metric is just a fad of the last century or two.
  - dukeyukey 3y ago
    To be fair the last century has seen near-inmmeasurable improvements in the human condition.
- lozenge 3y ago
  Nobody's trying to ban cars. The elderly, disabled or unfit would actually find it easier to drive with less traffic and bikes having better separation from the road.
- fhars 3y ago
  Defending cars is waging war on humanity. There, I can play that game, too.

stevage 3y ago

Trees have many benefits besides CO2 sequestration.