The last survey I was allowed to see showed that UO students listed our reputation for environmental studies and activism as a bigger part of their enrollment decision than the ~$120M Duck athletic empire. So with freshman tuition deposits due May 1, this protest couldn’t have come at a better time. Reporter Michael Tobin has an excellent story in the Emerald, here.
Rumor down at the faculty club is that VP for Enrollment Roger Thompson plans to spend a few nights up on the platform, during breaks from his busy recruiting travel schedule.
The platform they were sitting on was made of wood. HAHA
Please tell me you do not assume people who wish to save forests and prevent clear cuts are opposed to the use of wood? Because that would be incredibly stupid. Unless, you know, contrary to all available evidence, the only way to have wood is to clear cut everything, now, everywhere, because, you know, people use wood.
I have it from a reliable source that the platform is built from re-purposed wood salvaged from the wreckage of Hayward Field’s historic East Grandstand. Zero carbon impact. (I mean from the wood, not the new egofice.)
the amount of concrete being used to rebuild Hayward field is generating a lot more CO2 emissions (the process of making concrete is a lot more greenhouse gas intensive than people think) than the amount of CO2 sequestered in Thurston Hills. But, Thurston Hills should not be clear cut both for purposes of human experience in that part of the world but also for the accelerated erosion that would occur in those hills.
Honestly first thing I thought was how foolish they would be if they fell of and broke their backs. Talk about turning into a meme for the wrong reasons.
Mr. Miller, while I am a huge fan of your work, this unkind comment reminds me of the snarky things you said about free-heel skiing in some of your early films, e.g. “Steep and Deep” (1985). You are banned from posting further comments on this blog until you apologize to the tree-sitters and to telemark skiers.
CAL tree sitters were there for quite some time. No broken backs, or anything else. They know what they’re doing.
BTW, the CAL tree sitters weren’t just trying to preserve the trees from destruction for the Memorial Stadium buildout. It was to stop the massive financial boondoggle Turns out they were right. Maybe UOwe needs a few more tree sitters to stop worthless construction projects…
Eye of the beholder – boondoggles are rarely seen as worthless construction projects by the winning contractors…
Minor nitpick — My prior is that those people who are attracted to UO by the athletic empire are less likely to respond to surveys.
Wait. That’s not the Save Collier House campaign?
Think of the carbon stored in that wood.
Ah, the unbearable whiteness of treeing…
For myself, I’ll score it a victory if they can just manage to not kill that tree they’re in. (They’re more vulnerable than they seem.)
Beyond that, how about the improvements to the Belt Line that would prevent hours of pollution from everyone creeping along it at all hours, due to poor planning from our betters in Salem?
There is zero evidence widening (or building) commuter ways reduces net pollution or, in most instances, commute time. All the evidence is that it merely enables and incentivizes a higher volume of auto traffic and longer commutes, that is, a net increase in pollution.
While I think your right
some of us on this blog are scholars (not me of course) and would want to see links to studies that show this:
Okay not going to do that:
Here are some:
https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2017/09/27/traffic-congestion-and-widened-roads/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275116304498
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3141/2568-01
Thanks for the links, Anon! Unfortunately, only the first seems to address the issue at hand, and even that one not particularly well.
One can argue about how we should spend each tax dollar, but the idea that if we keep expanding and expanding the roadways ad infinitum, congestion will continue and continue ad infinitum is absurd.
I probably clock more city bus miles than almost anyone here, and I’m here to tell you that buses, while sometimes convenient, are no substitute for driving. No reasonable person can see the current state of the Beltline as anything other than an utter failure of civic governance.
How about more frequent trains to and from Salem?
How about improvements to single- and low-occupancy vehicle transportation alternatives and/or affordable housing solutions that work to remove vehicles from Belt Line?