If We Should Live Up in the Trees

The Flaneur now approaches a topic he has been avoiding...

The Daily Californian is a somewhat contemptible free tabloid associated with the University of California Berkeley. I peruse it over breakfast for bits of local information and to gauge current student thinking. On a day in the Fall of 2006, I read in the Daily Cal that neighbors of the south-eastern sector of the University were astir over plans to renovate Memorial stadium. UC intended to cut down a grove of esteemed oak trees to make an ancillary building for "advanced" athletic training. Academic marketers say "advanced" when their counterparts in commercial marketing would say "extreme."
That afternoon I set out to see the oaks in question whose lives were threatened. There were no specifics on their precise location, so I walked up through the beer-stained streets of fraternity row toward the stadium entrance. From the front entrance area, I scanned a stand of eucalyptus on the hill above but could not determine where the oaks could be.
No reason not to, I entered and surveyed the shabby old spectacle of the stadium for the first time. In its emptiness, it was a nice aerial perch for sky-watching. One couldn't help but feel the precariousness of this giant concrete bowl built as it was on a sheer hillside. And that was before it was well-documented to be on top of the seismic fault most likely to deliver the next big quake.
Now they want to make it bigger and better for the late-Roman Empire-esque society that flocks here in droves pricey tickets in hand to watch the war-surrogate sport of choice. They are hard to miss, the overweight sports enthusiasts in chauvinistic colors streaming through in their rudeness leaving mounds of waste in their wake. The general, or head football coach, that brought them victories now demands this tribute. To off-set the costs of this latest massive building project the University would add a steady schedule of events at the stadium, such as rock concerts too large for the nearby Greek theater. The template for this, one assumes, would the Paul McCartney concert which was held there some years ago. That was when UC assured the neighborhood they had easily managed traffic plans and were confident sound levels would be reasonable. The results were something to the contrary with little or no apology. This eat-our-dust trope is fairly constant in UC's behavior.

I found out soon afterward, that the imperiled oaks were much closer to home. They were part of the delightful peaceful landscaping along Piedmont Avenue as it travels along the University's shoulders. On the hillside just beyond the I-House, they sweep the eye into the curves of their admirable branches. It is as if a patch of the old coastal live-oak forest had been spared for the edification and health of all who come by it. Like the stadium itself, it had been dedicated to WWI veterans and had been named Memorial Grove. As the controversy surrounding it grew, information came out that had also been burial ground for Native Americans and thus sacred another time over.
By the time I arrived there, developments surrounding this example of the disheartening march of "progress" had again made the news. A number of young folks with more allegiance to the earth than to the mad parade of consumption decided to occupy the trees. They were not content to wait like the Mayor and the risk-assessing home-owners, for law suits to optimistically prevent the destruction of the grove. They knew they only way to thwart the arboricidal tendencies of the suits that make the decisions at this pompous self-important corporation called a school, was to physically guard the trees against them.
Does the charge of arboricide sound harsh? Please bear in mind this wanton attack on the aesthetically pleasing oak grove is just one example of UCs coming chain saw massacre. They intend to denude most of the wooded hills behind campus, cutting thousands and thousands of mature trees. The stated aim is to rid the place of non-native eucalyptus and other trees and to replace them with California native plants which are more fire-resistant. Theoretically all well and good, except what would such a massive disruption mean for all the wildlife living in those trees? Moreover how can anyone predict what the immediate ecological effects will be? What if we have extended drought following the deforestation? Or if el Nino washes away the attempts at replanting? And all the while the air-cleaning and carbon absorption of those trees formerly standing will be lost. It may also be taken for granted that development in the form of additional buildings and facilities will accompany this clear cut.
Once again we see the drift between what arrogant authorities in government do and the will of the people, not to mention the good of the environment. This arrogance of power, it is no secret, has gone totalitarian under the current unitary presidency. For the profit of an ever-tightening greedy elite any dirty deed is done expeditiously. UC is now green-washing British Petroleum blood money, competing to develop the next generation of nuclear weapons, and advertising its brilliant human-rights negating law Professor Yoo's close ties to the White House to raise funds. A Blackwater-esque private security firm has now been installed by Homeland Security at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab where they sit with jaundiced eyes looking over UC's shoulder at the rest of town.
Over time I have begun to wonder if the prolonged campaign of aggressive persuasion short of organ failure that UC has steadily escalated against the tree-sitters, hasn't been the brain child of the illustrious Dr. Yoo.

Much more of this dilemma will follow in later entires to this journal.