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It’s been a lousy couple of weeks for Seattle trees.

The Seattle Times reports an absolute tree massacre in West Seattle where someone cut more than 150 maple trees in a publicly owned greenbelt on a steep slope. You’d think even the most sheltered, idiotic, knuckle-dragging Seattleite would know the consequences of clear-cutting a steep slope in slide prone areas, but someone apparently valued their view more than their lives or the lives of their neighbors, or the public good these greenbelts provide.

It’s not yet clear who cut the trees, condoned it, or paid for it, but it’s a fair working assumption that it was someone who would gain from it. The timber wasn’t harvested—left on the ground. So it’s also fair to assume that bringing the trees down was the main goal. The city needs to throw the book—and hand a huge bill for the loss of the trees and the restoration of the greenbelt—at whoever did this, but it’s often difficult to prove, the Times points out. Still, no expense should be spared to root these perps out. With property crimes like this, I often lament that the pillory is no longer in our punishment tool kit—in this case a pillory made of clear-cut maple.

More tree publicity was generated last week by the so called #ManInTree—the guy who climbed an 80-foot Sequoia that stands in the middle of the street between downtown’s Macy’s and the Securities Building. He spent 25 hours up there, built a nest, tossed cones and apples at passersby. I happened to be there when he was up there and the police and fire departments had responded and tried to talk him down. He responded by barking obscenities like “faggot” over and over again.

The bearded dude became a kind of minor social media sensation. He finally came down, and now is in King County jail. He did nearly $8,000 damage to the tree by stripping branches off its top. The real question is, why isn’t this guy getting the mental health treatment he clearly needs?

But for some people, it has also raised the question about why such a tree is in downtown Seattle. The tree needs some help: arborists have determined it’s not healthy because it needs more soil for its roots. I hope the attention encourages the city to help the tree rather than taking it down. This anachronistic reminder of nature in such an unexpected spot provides great pleasure. Both the tree and #ManInTree need help.

Lastly, the recent late winter windstorm did a lot of damage—some beautiful trees fell down all over the city, plus the terrible fatality of a young father in Seward Park. The Times ran a story suggesting that the city parks department should have closed city parks in advance of the storm. But as Cliff Mass points out on his blog, the chances of such accidents are extremely small and that safety can be virtually assured if people use common sense. Avoiding being in heavily wooded areas near the water where there are big trees is one thing, though even then the chances of being crushed are very small.

Mass suggests the city could create a hazards app: “[B]efore closing parks, perhaps Seattle should develop a Seattle Environmental Hazard app for smartphones. It will know exactly where you are from GPS and warn you if there is a threat from strong winds, icy conditions, flooded roadways, and much more.  And in the future, you could get earthquake warnings from the UW’s earthquake warning system run by Professor John Vidale, or warning about potential landslide.”

It’s a great idea, and as Mass points out, some of this data is already collected, it is a matter of dissemination. Maybe we also need some kind of community refresher course on how to live with trees: why not to cut them, vandalize them, and how to live safely with them.