Trees-saver Fires Up Seniors Audience, Tries to Drink Monsanto ‘Poison’
by Steed Dropout
Aug. 31, 2016
Request to burn these cuttings in the meeting room was denied.
Photo by Ted Friedman
“No…no…Jack, don’t do it,” the audience at Redwood Gardens (seniors) community room shouted, Sunday, after TreeSpirit founder, Jack Gesheidt tried to drink Monsanto ‘poison.’
Geschiedt also tried to set a fire, but he couldn’t get away with that either.
Geschiedt, famous for nude tree-saving media events throughout Northern California, is also an award-winning photographer.
Gesheidt’s Monsanto poison stunt followed a Monsanto TV ad claiming to save the planet from nature. “Hey, if it’s [Monsanto products] so good for us, maybe we should be drinking it,” Gesheidt mocked.
In the forest setting of Redwood Gardens, Gesheidt brought his tree-saving message to seniors and other Berkeleyans seeking info on controversies surrounding nearby clear-cutting.
Gesheidt’s message was clear: stop blaming Eucalypti for forest fires. That’s why he wanted to start a fire.
U.C. Berkeley has destroyed hundreds of Strawberry Canyon Eucalypti over a 25-year period without re-foresting.
He also claimed that killing trees— especially without re-foresting— might be worse than forest fires, and showed how at-risk homes (like Redwood Gardens) could protect themselves without killing trees.
Seventy-five showed up to hear the popular photographer and motivational speaker, who played the audience like a Borscht-Belt comic, who referred often to his Jewish roots.
He invited his audience to disagree with him and some did. Afterwards, he said the crowd was more engaged than most, “but I expected this in Berkeley.”
Geschiedt has amazed Berkeley before, staging an elaborate nude-in last year at a Eucalyptus grove on campus, which wowed media.
Redwood residents later hosted Geschiedt at a local restaurant, where he could get a vegan meal. “He gave us so much, it’s the least we could do,” said a host.
EVENT PHOTOS GALLERY
Photo by Ted Friedman
Photo by Ted Friedman
Photo by Ted Friedman
Photo by Ted Friedman
Photo by Ted Friedman
See hundreds of Berkeley Reporter’s photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/berkboy/
