Today, in the mail, I received an advertising leaflet from a business called Treesafe about removing and pruning trees.
I have a no junkmail sign on my letter box, but it got beyond that because it was addressed to the homeowner and our specific address.
Before I criticize some of the text in the advertising material I appreciate that businesses are out there to make a profit and they will spread information to enable them to do that. Weather that information is accurate or not. Currently I'm not aware of any laws that say that advertising has to be fully truthful.
“While we are in your area we are able to offer you a Massive Saving on the normal price to prune or remove those dangerous trees. Too close to the house or power lines? Don't put up with storm damage, power loss or blocked guttering this season.”
Trees are not dangerous. They are no more dangerous than anything else in life. Like people, motor cars aeroplanes or lightning. We dont refer to those things as dangerous, because, generally they are not. Yes, in some situations, those things can be dangerous, but generally they are not. So we don't remove or prune them. You can't prune or remove lightning.
But I can understand why they have used the term dangerous, when referring to trees. It's trying to get some emotive reaction from people who may not realize how, non dangerous, trees are.
The reality is that removing trees is more likely to cause other trees to fall down, because trees create a natural windbreak.
Then there's also the issue of global warming. According to the consensus of science, removing trees is going to create more severe weather, particularly wind, which could have the effect of causing the remaining of the trees to be more susceptible to falling.
If a large tree is very close to the house it's root system could interfere with the houses foundations. However that's not an excuse to remove or pune the tree. There are other methods of stopping tree root damage.
Considering the number of large trees that are in Forestdale, overall, very few have caused damage to built infrastructure. Yet many of them are very close to that infrastructure which includes houses. It could be possible that if more large trees were closer to houses that the windbreak effect could make everything safer. Large trees definitely reduce the reliance on energy for cooling.
The proximity of large trees to power lines has a similar rebuttal. The power companies do not ask that property owners removed trees that could fall on street power lines. Therefore why would it be necessary to do so within a property.
In the few times I refer to the news,it appears to me that there is more storm damage and power loss in suburbs other than Forestdale. Perhaps our big trees are protecting us, from the incidents of such things.
The idea of removing trees for the purpose of reducing blocked guttering is akin to removing all the minor problems of people, like shedding hair and skin, by removing people.
Considering the major benefit of trees, converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, the little bit of inconvenience of blocked guttering, falls into insignificance.
If you were considering removing large trees in Forestdale because of this avertisement by treesafe, I hope I have changed your mind. If I havent I would be interested in knowing why.
I am amused that they have the name Treesafe when trees are not particularly safe from them.
Again, I fully respect the profit motive of any business.