In an unprecedented action, a red oak in Farmsalot, New Hampshire filed a health complaint with the FCC about human interference with its healthy growth.
“I don’t have enough trouble with them (arborists) pushing me around already, and now they’re cooking my genes.” the tree said in an unusual interview with Bob Wulkowicz, who has always been known as somewhat of a tree-hunger.
The complaint cited a new study from the Netherlands searching for abnormalities not explained by viruses or bacteria:
Study finds Wi-Fi makes trees sick - Digital Lifestyle - Macworld UK
Radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harmful to trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark, according to a recent study in the Netherlands.
All deciduous trees in the Western world are affected, according to the study by a group of institutions, including the TU Delft University and Wageningen University. The city of Alphen aan den Rijn ordered the study five years ago after officials found unexplained abnormalities on trees that couldn't be ascribed to a virus or bacterial infection.
Additional testing found the disease to occur throughout the Western world. In the Netherlands, about 70 percent of all trees in urban areas show the same symptoms, compared with only 10 percent five years ago. Trees in densely forested areas are hardly affected.
Besides the electromagnetic fields created by mobile-phone networks and wireless LANs, ultrafine particles emitted by cars and trucks may also be to blame. These particles are so small they are able to enter the organisms.
The study exposed 20 ash trees to various radiation sources for a period of three months. Trees placed closest to the Wi-Fi radio demonstrated a "lead-like shine" on their leaves that was caused by the dying of the upper and lower epidermis of the leaves. This would eventually result in the death of parts of the leaves. The study also found that Wi-Fi radiation could inhibit the growth of corn cobs.
The researchers urged that further studies were needed to confirm the current results and determine long-term effects of wireless radiation on trees.
Taken in part from the interview, the dialogue between Bob Wulkowicz and the Red Oak is presented here:
BW: “Just what was happening that led you to file this complaint?”
RO: “Well, it’s been growing over the past 10 years. We’ve all been getting increasingly lethargic and underachieving. First we thought it was them arborists, more and more of them climbing all over us, some lazy ones with spikes, some hanging out from cranes, and just generally getting more pushy. They’ve got all these ideas about how we grow and what they should do to help, but nobody ever asked us. We agree we haven’t been much interested in talking with humans, but it’s really been difficult lately to do what we’re supposed to do with all this flapdoodle about "them helping us."
So I’ve been elected spokestree, and filed an FCC complaint hoping that people will now focus a little on us, really on us, and throw away some of their clichés and other biases.”
BW: “That’s a pretty tall order. First you’ve got to prove they’re hurting you, then you’ve got to show them how to change. The trouble is, all of that has to be filtered through the academics with their studies and reports confirming the scientific validity of everything they touch. That seems to operate independently of practical issues and revolves around microfussing over a number of popular factoids.
Even then, a lot generally gets distorted and garbled when it’s passed down to the practitioners, so they still end up with lumpy and confused instructions on how to improve the health of trees.”
RO: “Yeah, I know. It’s a birch. In deciding to move this forward, all of us trees debated for a long time whether not we should let humans know we could communicate and take care of ourselves.
Forest trees said, ‘ Leaf it alone. There’s more of us than them and we’ll outlive em.’
Urban trees said, "No, we gotta tell em. The mortality rate of newly planted trees is grotesque. We get planted in tiny pits and the cities stink us up every which way they can. And add to that, the stupid routine maintenance programs that prune us every three years whether or not we need it. Humph.”
BW: “Okay, you make some good points there, but we're only doing this to improve you all and make it nicer for us to share our environment. We know what you need, and a chainsaw is the best way to make you healthier—or prettier. We’re very good at taking things off or scrunching new stuff, so you really should accept us as the decision-makers. We are indeed the moral majority and you all should keep to your place.
RO: “Whoa. Hold on buddy, where the hell do you get off? You ought to remember you used to be living in us until fairly recently. If I look back over the 400 million years we’ve been making wood, you evolved those dumb opposable thumbs and accelerated the process of being pains in the ash. So we’ll now use your own laws to bring back a little equity and keeping you suckers in place.”
BW: “Wait a minute, oaky. That’s anarchy. We’re noble; most of our religions tell us that and we get to do what we want with you. And even if we don’t have fact and science, we'll make it up—you won’t know any better; you’re just trees.”
RO: “Yep. That’s what the forest trees warned us would happen. None of you would listen and just keep the old colonial mentality. You got those stupid two-value logic systems; ‘either/or’ and stuff like that; ‘black or white’. You can’t count past two and get to tree.
I really don’t want to go on with this interview any longer. We’ll let your laws take care of it and it really doesn’t matter how long that takes; we’re pretty good at waiting.”
BW: “Well, back to you, bozo. We don’t need no stinking advice from trees. If you deserved any better, you’d have been us. We is just below the Angels and we is certified. Nuff said. Good luck with the Republicans.”
As can be seen, the interview ended rather abruptly and Wulkowicz had to climb down out of the tree which pointedly wasn’t going anywhere anyway. Walking away from the hundred-year-old tree, Wulkowicz muttered, “Sometimes I wonder why I take up with them, they’re a pretty aloof and arrogant bunch, and it’s awfully hard to ever know what they’re thinking. They’re pretty pigheaded and do what they want.”
Apparently still wanting the last word, the red oak said in a somewhat defiant rustle, “Back to you, Jocko. When the last time you saw a pig in a tree?”
On that rather discordant note, the interview was over and Wulkowicz waddlled back to wherever it is he’s staying in Coventry. Stay tuned for the next chapter in this unraveling controversy twixt man and wood.
(Monsanto is rumored to have already started research on new chemicals to have trees keep their mouths shut. “We'll have it out pretty quick,” said a Monsanto talking-point man, “we'll modify Roundup into an aboreal Botox and anesthetize whatever part is doing the talking. We look forward to the product being a new cash-cow”)
Bob Whoever
Coventry, Oak Park
(BW following full disclosure, I can't remember whenever I saw either a cow or a pig in a tree--well, except for Harvey)
PS: Here's the original site: <url>http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?newsid=3249437</url>
“I don’t have enough trouble with them (arborists) pushing me around already, and now they’re cooking my genes.” the tree said in an unusual interview with Bob Wulkowicz, who has always been known as somewhat of a tree-hunger.
The complaint cited a new study from the Netherlands searching for abnormalities not explained by viruses or bacteria:
Study finds Wi-Fi makes trees sick - Digital Lifestyle - Macworld UK
Radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harmful to trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark, according to a recent study in the Netherlands.
All deciduous trees in the Western world are affected, according to the study by a group of institutions, including the TU Delft University and Wageningen University. The city of Alphen aan den Rijn ordered the study five years ago after officials found unexplained abnormalities on trees that couldn't be ascribed to a virus or bacterial infection.
Additional testing found the disease to occur throughout the Western world. In the Netherlands, about 70 percent of all trees in urban areas show the same symptoms, compared with only 10 percent five years ago. Trees in densely forested areas are hardly affected.
Besides the electromagnetic fields created by mobile-phone networks and wireless LANs, ultrafine particles emitted by cars and trucks may also be to blame. These particles are so small they are able to enter the organisms.
The study exposed 20 ash trees to various radiation sources for a period of three months. Trees placed closest to the Wi-Fi radio demonstrated a "lead-like shine" on their leaves that was caused by the dying of the upper and lower epidermis of the leaves. This would eventually result in the death of parts of the leaves. The study also found that Wi-Fi radiation could inhibit the growth of corn cobs.
The researchers urged that further studies were needed to confirm the current results and determine long-term effects of wireless radiation on trees.
Taken in part from the interview, the dialogue between Bob Wulkowicz and the Red Oak is presented here:
BW: “Just what was happening that led you to file this complaint?”
RO: “Well, it’s been growing over the past 10 years. We’ve all been getting increasingly lethargic and underachieving. First we thought it was them arborists, more and more of them climbing all over us, some lazy ones with spikes, some hanging out from cranes, and just generally getting more pushy. They’ve got all these ideas about how we grow and what they should do to help, but nobody ever asked us. We agree we haven’t been much interested in talking with humans, but it’s really been difficult lately to do what we’re supposed to do with all this flapdoodle about "them helping us."
So I’ve been elected spokestree, and filed an FCC complaint hoping that people will now focus a little on us, really on us, and throw away some of their clichés and other biases.”
BW: “That’s a pretty tall order. First you’ve got to prove they’re hurting you, then you’ve got to show them how to change. The trouble is, all of that has to be filtered through the academics with their studies and reports confirming the scientific validity of everything they touch. That seems to operate independently of practical issues and revolves around microfussing over a number of popular factoids.
Even then, a lot generally gets distorted and garbled when it’s passed down to the practitioners, so they still end up with lumpy and confused instructions on how to improve the health of trees.”
RO: “Yeah, I know. It’s a birch. In deciding to move this forward, all of us trees debated for a long time whether not we should let humans know we could communicate and take care of ourselves.
Forest trees said, ‘ Leaf it alone. There’s more of us than them and we’ll outlive em.’
Urban trees said, "No, we gotta tell em. The mortality rate of newly planted trees is grotesque. We get planted in tiny pits and the cities stink us up every which way they can. And add to that, the stupid routine maintenance programs that prune us every three years whether or not we need it. Humph.”
BW: “Okay, you make some good points there, but we're only doing this to improve you all and make it nicer for us to share our environment. We know what you need, and a chainsaw is the best way to make you healthier—or prettier. We’re very good at taking things off or scrunching new stuff, so you really should accept us as the decision-makers. We are indeed the moral majority and you all should keep to your place.
RO: “Whoa. Hold on buddy, where the hell do you get off? You ought to remember you used to be living in us until fairly recently. If I look back over the 400 million years we’ve been making wood, you evolved those dumb opposable thumbs and accelerated the process of being pains in the ash. So we’ll now use your own laws to bring back a little equity and keeping you suckers in place.”
BW: “Wait a minute, oaky. That’s anarchy. We’re noble; most of our religions tell us that and we get to do what we want with you. And even if we don’t have fact and science, we'll make it up—you won’t know any better; you’re just trees.”
RO: “Yep. That’s what the forest trees warned us would happen. None of you would listen and just keep the old colonial mentality. You got those stupid two-value logic systems; ‘either/or’ and stuff like that; ‘black or white’. You can’t count past two and get to tree.
I really don’t want to go on with this interview any longer. We’ll let your laws take care of it and it really doesn’t matter how long that takes; we’re pretty good at waiting.”
BW: “Well, back to you, bozo. We don’t need no stinking advice from trees. If you deserved any better, you’d have been us. We is just below the Angels and we is certified. Nuff said. Good luck with the Republicans.”
As can be seen, the interview ended rather abruptly and Wulkowicz had to climb down out of the tree which pointedly wasn’t going anywhere anyway. Walking away from the hundred-year-old tree, Wulkowicz muttered, “Sometimes I wonder why I take up with them, they’re a pretty aloof and arrogant bunch, and it’s awfully hard to ever know what they’re thinking. They’re pretty pigheaded and do what they want.”
Apparently still wanting the last word, the red oak said in a somewhat defiant rustle, “Back to you, Jocko. When the last time you saw a pig in a tree?”
On that rather discordant note, the interview was over and Wulkowicz waddlled back to wherever it is he’s staying in Coventry. Stay tuned for the next chapter in this unraveling controversy twixt man and wood.
(Monsanto is rumored to have already started research on new chemicals to have trees keep their mouths shut. “We'll have it out pretty quick,” said a Monsanto talking-point man, “we'll modify Roundup into an aboreal Botox and anesthetize whatever part is doing the talking. We look forward to the product being a new cash-cow”)
Bob Whoever
Coventry, Oak Park
(BW following full disclosure, I can't remember whenever I saw either a cow or a pig in a tree--well, except for Harvey)
PS: Here's the original site: <url>http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?newsid=3249437</url>
