That we know of. That aside - what are the odds of something like this happening in the first place? How often do people nap under these trees? How often do the seed pods fall off? It could be quite astronomical odds indeed of something like this happening, but the fact remains that it has happened, now. You seem to be all about “personal responsibility” - how about the government take personal responsibility for the dangerous-ass trees they planted in a public park?
Do eucalyptus trees drop bowling-ball sized seed pods? No. You might want to watch out for any koalas that sneak in though. They’re vicious little bastards, when they’re not sleeping (which is most of the time).
From the article (speaking of which, have you read the article yet?), the park services already have policies specifically requiring the removal of exotic species that create safety hazards, and mandating the installation of warning signs. You seem to keep missing this point. The government already agrees that there should be steps taken to prevent the public from being harmed when visiting a public park, and they failed to follow their own policies in this case. Seems pretty open and shut, really.
I’m usually pretty meh on offering documentaries to cover broad issues like tort reform and I’m doubtful that the suggestion would ever get followed up on, but it’s a great perspective and not cloyingly pandery, leading, and faux-“neutral” like a lot of documentaries that come out these days.
It’s also an easier introduction to the problem without the requisite back-and-forth and nuh-uhs that these ideological narratives get people looped into.
I’m not sure @PhasmaFelis has found an argument to refute in the post referred to.
Presumably because they spent all their funding on trees with deadly seed pods.
In reality of course, parks have teams of arborists (tree surgeons) who go around regularly pruning trees to prevent similar situations from occuring as well as keep trees healthy and parks looking attractive. It would be a simple task indeed to add ‘remove immature pinecones from the crazy death tree while they are still too small to kill’ to their list of duties. Parks will generally have detailed records of what species are planted where.
Reductio ad absurdum, and non causa pro causa. The non-nativeness of the tree is not the source of the danger - the massive pine cones are. It is however an obstruction to an individual being able to predict the danger presented. Coconut palms are well-known to present a danger to people below, but this doesn’t prevent them causing one or two deaths a year (some of which are caused by monkeys throwing them, to be fair). However there is no need to remove the eucalypts because they aren’t more dangerous than the background level of danger presented by trees.
If I go hiking on state land and am struck by a stray bullet fired from some informal firing range, I have nobody to blame but myself?
See, this is what I’m talking about. You can’t rebut the actual argument (“Dangerous plants should not be deliberately planted in urban parks”) so you keep trying to turn it into a different argument that you can win. You’re cherry-picking the least appealing suggestions (telescope) and pretending that they’re the only ones anyone has offered. You’re pretending that this is about removing foreign plants when it’s obviously about removing dangerous plants, with additional priority for dangerous plants that the locals don’t know well enough to treat carefully.
I’ve been in your position before. It’s not really about trees and head injuries anymore; you feel like we’re attacking you personally, and so you can’t back down, you have to find some way to win this fight. It’s just the internet. Have a beer and chill out.
