companies really have got to be okay with stagnant profits. what is wrong with earning the same amount every year? why does it always have to be more? it’s not sustainable. there are only so many people on the planet you can profit from 😭
This is the thing. If there are only so many people they can profit from, and they demand to see profits go up every year, they will have to steal more out of the pockets of the little people each year, either by paying less, or by charging more. And that is the problem. Because that is exactly what is happening. And the rich get richer. And the poor are getting so poor that it is coming to a crisis point. They seem to have forgotten what happens at the crisis point though: people who have nothing to lose, will rise up and fight.
So Universal Pictures may have just intentionally over-pruned all of the city owned trees in front of their LA corporate office in an effort to fuck with the WGA/SAG-AFTRA picketers during what is predicted to be the hottest week of the year so far:
Can’t believe in the year 2023 we have to say: do not consume borax. It will not provide a “parasite cleanse”, it does not combat the “evil fluoride” in your water, and it is not a super mineral. It will damage your organs. Also, it’s not rated for human consumption so frankly, who knows what it’s cross-contaminated with (my personal bet would be arsenic).
You love to see it. (Not the destruction of trees, obvs, but shitheads meeting their oncoming comeuppance at the hands of trees.)
Okay, as someone with their doctorate in plant health (specifically trees and landscape plants), I’m frothing at the mouth livid.
Pollarding is a type of pruning done where you remove the upper branches of a tree with the intent of forcing it to grow more branches. Historically, it was used to produce fodder for livestock and wood for fencing, crafting, etc. but now is more of an aesthetic choice - it creates dense shade and reduces the risk of heavy branches becoming safety concerns later.
However, that pruning is something that occurs in January - March, when the tree is dormant. Not in the peak of summer, when there’s a heat wave expected. By doing it during dormancy, the tree has already stored all of the nutrients and sugars the leaves held in the roots and trunk, ready for use in spring.
By pruning these trees now, they’ve severely damaged them, if not outright sentenced them to death. Leaves provide a tremendous amount of shade to the trunk, actively cool the area through respiration (pulling water through the tree and into the air around it), and provide sugars and nutrients necessary for growth through photosynthesis. These trees now have to work overtime to compensate and re-grow and entire canopy of leaves with reduced resources.
These trees are in what are sometimes affectionately known as “hell strips” - there’s a concrete sidewalk on one side, asphalt on the other, and they get hot. Not just upwardly hot, but they heat the soil underneath them as well. The root zone of these trees don’t get a lot of water to begin with (concrete and asphalt don’t let water in well) and it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of soil around the tree to begin with.
Trees in hell strips already have the heat and restricted root zones working against them - you can’t have healthy trees if you don’t have room for roots. Now these have to compensate and draw resources to push out new growth.
In addition, all of those pruning cuts are open wounds - places where infections and insects can enter into the tree. Usually mature trees can manage minor infections or infestations with no issue. But these trees are now extra susceptible because their immune response is weakened - all the extra energy available is going to new growth, not fighting off infections.
So there’s a bunch of factors here that have put these trees at a disadvantage: the removal of most photosynthetic plant material, an increase in surrounding temperature, a restricted root zone, the potential for increased infection, and a heat wave expected in the next week. These trees are going to struggle the rest of their lives because of the decision to prune these trees like this now - all over a desire to break a strike so the studios don’t have to pay their actors and writers and editors fairly.
I hope they get the book thrown at them with tree law. And then some.
also “ough life-saving essential medical equipment uses so much plastic” in this country you can purchase an artificial ballsack for your pickup truck
“ough watching a show uses so much electricity” on road sides there are giant electrified billboards that do nothing but show you ads
both statements can be true and bad things, they dont cancel each other out. plus i feel like using a carcinogenic material in medical equipment is a little worse than truck nuts
…pretty sure the reason plastic is used in medical equipment is *because* it’s the safest cheaply-available material
kinda of drama that I didn’t consider could exist are in the tags
“Parent’s rights” is as much of a red flag to me as “Family values”. When you examine what people actually mean by these terms it always boils down to the usual “the family is a system of domination and many parents want even more control and violence within it”.
It is very much like when people say they support “State’s rights” (to slavery), as some in the notes have pointed out.
Sometimes it also means the parental right to keep child marriage legal.
In a world of dirty food courts, I’m one of the rare FEW who returns my tray to the slot above the trash and cleans up all my trash. SHARE THIS POST if you’re attracted to women
i learned that in India, there is a species of giant squirrel that have multicoloured fur, with with varying shades of orange, maroon and purple. Their bodies measure 36in from head to tail – double the size of their grey relatives – and they can leap 20ft between trees (x)
Some more pictures of these funky dudes cause they’re so pretty
Oh, and they’re very cleverly called Indian giant squirrels or Malabar giant squirrels
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