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cognitiveinequality:

spaceshipsandpurpledrank:

Twitter thread from Dr Sarah Taber (@SarahTaber_bww) that reads: Hi! Crop scientist here. This "male trees are a capitalist scam" idea worked its way to TikTok from a hustler named Tim Ogren. Spreading this disinfo around is just doing free advertising for him.ALT
Most tree species have both male and female flowers. And/or, every single flower on the tree has both pollen & ovaries. There are no "male vs female trees" for most species. It is impossible to plant only male trees. So this is bullshit right off the bat lol Trees do not respect the human gender binary you could say the reason we have so much pollen is not landscaping, capitalism, or "botanical sexism," it's just that trees are super fuckin queer and you would be right. The biggest pollen offenders tend to be 2 classes of plants: -Pines, oaks, maples, & other shade trees that have both M &F flowers. -Ragweed & other "soft" weeds in untended lots. Not street trees.ALT
Also the idea that all that pollen floats around bc "there aren't enough tree pussies to catch it" is WOW, I love it In a 100% gender-balanced forest you'd still have ~8 bazillion pollen grains for every ovary because pollen is just a lot cheaper to grow than eggs. Pollen is so cheap that trees can afford to make extra. Like, a LOT of extra. Wind pollination is also imprecise! You don't have bees that are gonna carry the pollen to its destination for you. It's a game of numbers. You gotta make clouds of that shit to land any on a seed. That's why there are clouds of pollen in the spring. It's not because of capitalist cityscaping. It's because of nature. That's evolution & plain old math. That's how wind pollination works! You gotta fill the air with pollen! If cities had lots of pollen bc of landscaping decisions, then you'd expect it to be better in rural areas. But it's not! Spring pollen is WORSE in rural areas because there are MORE TREES. More trees, more tree jizz.ALT
The best I can figure with this guy's whole scam is he heard about ginkgoes, which are the ONE (1) common species of urban shade tree where an individual is either male or female. and then he started telling people ALL trees work like that, because he is a scammer. The thing you have to understand about ginkgoes is the female trees aren't just "messy." Mess means flies & rats. Having worked in orchards, people from outside do not understand how the ground in an apple orchard can wind up caked in applesauce. So many flies. Eesh. (if you're thinking "but I picked apples in an orchard once & it was fine" that's because that grove got extra landscaping for the tourists, paid for by agritourism money. that ain't gonna fly with municipal budgets.) So the mess alone is a valid reason, for ginkgoes, to only go with male trees. People talk about "learning from the wisdom of the past." You know what people in the past did? Kept orchards & other very-messy farming practices *outside the city*! Because flies & rats! Urban fruit trees are a terrible proposal. Not a good solution for providing food, and a rat & fly problem waiting to happen. If you have to do urban orchards, do nuts! They're cleaner, make more food value, & more compatible w human density.ALT
The thing about nuts though is every single tree has both male & female flowers & they're wind-pollinated. They make HUGE pollen clouds. So yeah "fix allergy problems by planting female food trees" is junk science. So yeah there's a guy with a "consulting firm" who runs around telling people he can make allergies go away by getting trees to fuck more. He threw in juuuuust enough "blame capitalism" to hijack people's lived experience & carry his scam all over the internet. He's even gotten his biologically illiterate teachings into relatively trusted publications like Atlas Obscura.ALT
The version of plant sex he gives in this article is just…not reality. His story starts w "realizing that almost all the plants around him were male!" Ya no shit dude, most plants have both M & F flowers. That's what you saw. That's plant bio 101! He's also got this lurid account of ginkgo sperm "trying to invade people's cells" and wow that much sexual assault imagery is both incorrect & a really effective scare tactic for tapping people's anxieties to sell his shit ideas. Well played, scam dude. Like, the more I look at his stuff the more it looks like he's tapping into a lot of people's anxieties around sex as much as he is around capitalism. Take it from an ex-mormon, sexual scare tactics just make everything weird LMAO Ogren doesn't just take advantage of people's ignorance about plant sex. He's actively encouraging it so he can make money. He's also taking advantage of people with a real problem, allergies, & selling them fake solutions. Again, to make money.ALT
This dude's shitty ideas used to just crop up every spring. This is the first time I've seen it circulating in August! We're really, really close to his personal marketing bullshit becoming how most people think plants work. That fuckin sucks. In summary, there are a LOT of things we should be more thoughtful about when it comes to urban & household tree plantings. Water efficiency, whether the wood is soft & they'll fall over & crush things, not planting invasive species, how they look, amt of shade, wildlife value. But this whole "male trees bad" schtick is some bullshit because "male trees" barely even exist. Yes there have been changes in pollen abundance over time! And it's because of CLIMATE CHANGE.ALT