"It's very much like graffitiing except less likely to piss people off."

April 27, 2020 6:12 PM

Oakland's Stealth Arborist

Last fall, two very different approaches to addressing climate change unfolded in the Bay Area. One Atmosphere commissioned a 60-by-30-foot mural of climate activist Greta Thunberg for San Francisco’s Union Square. Painted on the side of an eight-story building, the fiery teenager looks determined and unbowed, gazing down at pedestrians and traffic with eyes the size of windscreens. Per the sponsoring organization, a rendering of the Swedish teen as big as Washington’s face on Mount Rushmore is an effective way to honor and amplify a message of environmental stewardship for a warming planet. Meanwhile, across the bay, Tony Santoro’s Guide to Illegal Tree-Planting debuted. The 23-minute video—released the week before the mural’s reveal—is the work of a tattooed, foulmouthed Chicago transplant who for the past few years has been quietly greening up Oakland.

Tony Santoro is the online alias of West Oakland resident Joey Santore, whose YouTube channel Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t is a rebuff to conventional nature documentaries. (He also produces a podcast of the same name.) In his videos, Santore offers observations and advice on how to cultivate habitats in neglected urban areas, his narration veering from erudition (“Over here you got some coast live oaks, Quercus agrifolia”) to irreverence (“Grew these bastards from seed”).

Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't previously on MeFi: Goddamn biogenic, silica-based, uh... mud.

posted by Lexica (23 comments total)

Tony Santoro is currently one of my very favorite things on the tubes.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 6:19 PM on April 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

More on Joey Santoro on dis here She-kawgo TV station show
posted by NoMich at 6:32 PM on April 27, 2020

I like the part where he said, "...after the molecular phylogenetics and what the shit."

Actually, very entertaining run down of the California Bio-system and native planting.

I'm a fan now.
posted by Increase at 7:34 PM on April 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

My dude got in mention of molecular phylogenetics, ultramafic serpentine, plate tectonics... I could listen to him all day.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 7:43 PM on April 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Back when it was reasonable and legal for me to take bart and bike to my not-essential work, this was my ride. So my life has been directly improved by this guy's crimes.
posted by aubilenon at 7:44 PM on April 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

His channel in general is hilarious and I could listen to him swear about plants all day.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 7:55 PM on April 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

be like the case of lice in a kindergarten class that you wish you could be... you just gotta keep doing it
posted by aniola at 7:56 PM on April 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

He has super inspired me to start greening up my locale. Bit trickier here but heritage perennials for the win...
posted by some chick at 8:19 PM on April 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I live about 50 miles south. I was looking up power augers, and places to buy baby oak trees.

“I want to inspire people to look at the world differently,” he says. “We don’t value plants, we don’t value habitat, often we don’t value each other. This shit’s connected.”

Exactly.
posted by dfm500 at 8:44 PM on April 27, 2020 [13 favorites]

Now I want to put down some mulch and plant things in the tree pit outside my building, except, you know, pandemic.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:19 PM on April 27, 2020

HERO.

Also: Subscribed.
posted by gwint at 10:15 PM on April 27, 2020

Related: London’s Trees Are Saving the City Billions -- Shady trees mean less air conditioning and increased worker productivity in the summer months. (Feargus O'Sullivan for Citylab)

London’s leafy streets and gardens have long been prized for their beauty — and more recently their ability to counteract carbon emissions and improve air quality. But the value of urban trees can also be measured with money. A new report from Britain’s Office of National Statistics estimates tree cover saved the capital more than 5 billion pounds ($6.56 billion) from 2014 to 2018 through air cooling alone. Additionally, by keeping summer temperatures bearable for workers, trees prevented productivity losses of almost 11 billion pounds.

The estimates underline just how vital the role trees play is in making cities comfortable and functional in a warming world — particularly in London. An unusually long, hot summer in 2018 pushed cost savings estimates to their highest level to date.

Part of the study’s purpose is to promote planting trees and maintaining green spaces, according to Hazel Trenbirth, a member of the ONS' Natural Capital team, which looks at cost savings of greenery across the U.K.

posted by filthy light thief at 10:56 PM on April 27, 2020

There's also a Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't Podcast: An antidote to the nausea caused by life in modern society via explorations of botany and ecology and the use of colorful language.
posted by peeedro at 11:13 PM on April 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Tony is awesome!!! I really dislike the over-professionalizing of landscape professions as in the end people forget why they started - Tony is a real breath of fresh air, that mix of botany/ecology/profanity - maybe it's profology. Thanks for posting this Lexica.
posted by unearthed at 11:27 PM on April 27, 2020 [6 favorites]

Hmm, pine seedlings are only a couple bucks a piece.

My city has the goal to increase urban tree coverage from 12 to 20% and one of the ways they do this is by handing out $50 tree coupons (IE: one nursery tree) at this time of the year. The process is kind of convoluted this go around because of the pandemic but I'm excited to get a second espaliered tree to pair up with the other one on the southern exposure of my shop.

And the larches I planted 12 years ago when we bought our house are finally getting tall enough to provide significant summer shade (they shed their needles it the winter) to our house.
posted by Mitheral at 11:48 PM on April 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

im delighted to learn that his shtick is only half shtick. Love watching his videos towards the end of the day. He speaks with a profundity, anger, truth telling, and fervor that the left rarely acknowledges.
posted by rebent at 8:18 AM on April 28, 2020

Yeah I live in Oakland and I love this guy, one of the best things on the internet.

The comparison in the article really sums up the bay area. A big expensive mural production by a household name graffiti artist to make a feel-good mural in heart of the finance district vs. DIY criminal botanists running around with seeds at night. Town business, as they say here.
posted by bradbane at 9:41 AM on April 28, 2020 [4 favorites]

As someone with a Botany degree, this is the kind of presentation that would have got me all fired up when I was in university. Just the idea that we're going around looking at all these cool plants in industrial areas is great.

In the 1980's, the Whole Earth Catalog/Whole Earth Review people talked a lot about the importance of local knowledge and what that means for your commitment to citizenship and the future of communities (or bioregions, if you're into it). Like knowing where your food and water comes from, where weather comes from, the history of native people in the region, the basic plants and animals that inhabit the region, the histories of shorelines and railroads... Santore's videos really exemplify this approach, which I appreciate. Thanks for this!
posted by sneebler at 5:21 PM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Tony Santoro is currently one of my very favorite things on the tubes.

Same! It's a toss-up between Crime Pays... and Bon Appetit, but I watch each and every video without hesitation.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:49 PM on April 28, 2020

This kicks a lot of ass, I've subscribed and I might buy a sweatshirt
posted by zdravo at 10:01 PM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Oh my God I love this man!!!
posted by WalkerWestridge at 2:17 PM on April 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have loved Tony ever since I stumbled across him searching for centimeter finger tattoos.
posted by EinAtlanta at 8:56 PM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

I dunno... I find his shtick gets old pretty quick. His vids turned up in my feed for a couple years, but I rarely watch anymore, as the persona gets tiresome, particularly as the videos have gotten longer and longer. Kind of reminds me of youtuber AvE (a different flavor of North American white guy with a cultivated yt persona), whose vids are more relevant to my personal and professional interests, but I've generally stopped watching because there are many others that offer quality info and amusement with less nonsense. I'm guessing the novelty is a click getter, so it's staying.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:50 AM on May 3, 2020