“Populists” lol. It’s not like anyone on the political spectrum has any shame. All political entities will abuse every mechanism that is at their disposal that won’t get them in trouble. Maybe the “populists” were the first to take advantage because they are smarter?
Of all the plants, trees by far give me the most pleasure. A suburb with trees is a thousand times better than one without. The shade of a tree is completely transformative. It gives me a fuzzy warm feeling inside.
It’s concerning to me that such an important aesthetic component is so transient and difficult to control. When you build a house, you control every aspect of its design. It’s materials are tough and long lasting. But the trees around the house are prone to dying. They get too old or they get sick or whatever. And when they do, you can’t really replace them. I’ve seen tons of houses where they had great atmosphere but then one of their large trees died and the feeling of the house is totally ruined. I’m not sure if you can order a grown tree and have it implanted but it’s probably really expensive. We need artificial trees that last longer and are easy to replace.
Humans are drawn to vistas. Standing on the top of a hill and looking at the vista is something everyone agrees is beautiful and feels good. I think it might be because our ancestors were tree-dwelling monkeys. The higher in the tree you climb, the better the view, the safer you are from predators. If we are drawn to views then we would likely spend more time high up in the tree. Maybe that’s also why we find trees themselves so appealing. Ancient wiring.
I am fortunate to have a house on a larger plot of land considering it's in a dense urban environment, and on the land are very impressive trees such as an oak, a maple, a few birch, and a black cherry. Regrettably the birch are short lived, and while they still produce leaves they are getting weak and I will need to bring them down in a few years. The cherry still produces leaves and may even flower this year, but its wood is very brittle and it will probably come down this fall. It truly is sad as their loss will definitely impact why I moved into the house.
I was scrolling on Weibo the other day and came across a news story about a killer fungus sweeping across the USA. Several deaths with 60% percent chance of death, they said. Well that was certainly news to me so I googled it. Nothing. Not a single shred of information. I wrote it off as shoddy Chinese journalism.
Yeah when I read the first time about it 2 weeks ago I also found almost nothing on google. Also the Wikipedia article doesn't have the depth it deserves I guess.
