Your tax dollars at work…
Guest essay by Eric Worrall h/t JoNova – Did you know that you can email every single tree in the City of Melbourne, Australia – and they’ll write back?
According to Broadsheet Melbourne:
“Some said we were wasting money, but the trees were always going to have individual ID numbers anyway. So it was only logical we’d assign the ID numbers to an email which connects these trees to the community,” says Melbourne city councillor, Arron Wood.
So far the messages have ranged from piss takes to genuine expressions of devotion. So, if you’ve ever used a tree to prop yourself up with on a night out, the world’s most liveable city is now giving you the chance to apologise the morning after.
http://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/entertainment/article/trees-return-your-emails
The trees apparently often tell sad stories if they are asked about their future – experts estimate that 30,000 trees in the Melbourne area will die in the next few decades due to old age, coupled with the effects of worsening droughts caused by climate change.
Critics of tree communication might suggest that the money spent helping the trees to answer their correspondence could be better spent on drought mitigation measures – more irrigation, maybe some silica pellets to help with soil moisture retention. But perhaps it does the trees good to talk through their problems.
As a former resident of Melbourne, there is more than one tree to which I probably owe an apology, thanks to the lamentable lack of after hours facilities in some parts of the city. But I don’t think I will ever get drunk enough to write an email to a tree.
(Anthony) See also:
Melbourne’s trees bombarded with emailed love letters
Guardian Australia emailed a ginkgo maidenhair tree in Fitzroy Gardens, a park near Melbourne’s city centre, which responded: “Dear Oliver, Thank you for your lovely words. I am very well. Enjoy your day. Yours sincerely, Tree 1441724.”
A nearby ficus was also contacted for comment on the scheme but has yet to reply.
This government funded lunacy reminds me of the epic video showing crying and wailing over trees:
I’m an Ent and I approve this message.
You need to understand that the Melbourne City Council is a socialist green arty mob.
This is a crazy scheme. It would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that it is MY taxes at work here.
At work? How about being out on a limb? By the way it also reminds me of that picture of an urbanite busily under cutting a limb with the saw between him and the trunk.
I thought that I would never see,
an email sent to a lonely tree ……
What’s half-way between a groan and a laugh, Tom? Anyhoo… I didn’t see that one coming!
But as you can see,
the money is only coming to me..
I thought it was
I do not think I shall ever see
A sight as good as a lavatory.
Isn’t this the best news we’ve had for a while? All we need to do is email each tree the local historical BOM temperature records and ask them to confirm the temperatures! That way we get a true historical record with no adjustments!!
Berndt Koch!
Yamal pulling mah leg ’bout ‘dese treemometers?
It’s not the first time someone has attempted to obtain money by pretending to be a tree:
I wonder if they get threatening emails for lumberjacks and arsonists.
A line spoken by Spike Milligan in the Goon Show circa 1960 or so seems appropriate:
“I talk to the trees, that’s why they put me away”!
Wish it were so ….
As a Melburnian, I am delighted to know that that the obscene amount of tax extracted from me by The Sherrif of Nottingham is being used on such a critically important project.
Makes sense. Canada Post replies to letters to Santa Claus (postal code H0H 0H0. Seriously).
why not reserve a playground for that kind of nailbiters.
In the best habitable zones of Australia, preferable Melbourne, Sidney, – not Woomera etc!
Plastered with YinYang Gaja murmer Graphities, crowded by Teddy Coala Bears, Teddy Polar Bears, Teddy Penguins, Teddy Salt Water Crocos ….
Sun Flower Fields stretching to the horizon!
Taxpayers OUTsourced at, inklings to sole need, to the OUTback.
A better World. For all them Sustaineabled!
/ As long as there remain taxpayers /
Sounds – weird?
but what about the children.
and their grand childrens’ children.
Will they live on the proteins scratched from their backs when the heavy chemical hygienic industries already backed to no future.
mod: I see [Your] problem.
sentinals!
Youre problem – your problem.
foreign, still practisising.
Anthony – a way to live.
[Do not worry. Life happens, then you misspell. 8<) .mod]
OK with me, OT.
abandon.
Just thinking.
I reckon that if Capt. Cook could have foreseen what was happening in Aus he wouldn’t have bothered landing. So sad.
Attention all tree huggers. We have been remiss. I just learned that cacti need hugs too!!!
Well a government will use any form of propaganda to intensify and maintain its robbery but isn’t this one a little obvious? Send an e-mail to a tree asking him when was the last time a socialist hang from it.
“This is Australia”. And for the last 8 years or so, we have politicians more worried about THEIR positions than anything else. We have, yet another, leadership challenge. This time in within the LNP. A leader does not need to be popular (In polls). They just need to LEAD! Turnbull is favourite…God help Australia!