Trees are fantastic creatures.
(I'd happily go as far as calling them Beings, but I'm afraid it would sound like some kind of a new age esoteric bullshit, even so I'm borderline convinced they are sentient.)
The important thing that fascinates me is how Tree actually work. They are generally perceived as growing from the soil to the atmosphere. However, the opposite is true. About 98% of the material of a tree is originated from the air, namely the carbon extracted from the CO2 content of the air. Trees are literally growing from the air, and piercing down into the soil to get water to run their Calvin cycles to extract the carbon and produce the ATP.
Knowing this, I'd be more than surprised if Trees - or plants in general - haven't had any methods to control their food source: the atmosphere. I believe they do. And by destroying them, we are limiting this control. Looking from this angle, there is very little surprise in the onset of weather extremes.
I summary, I'm very happy with this legislation. I hope this a first step in many that is actually going to help us taming the climate of our planet again. With more trees. Because trees are awesome.
Note that I'm all for the protection of trees - for pretty obvious environmental, esthetic, and human usage reasons. I just don't think recognizing trees as having their own rights as living beings makes any sense whatsoever.
It’s unclear whether the reporter failed to describe the real impact of this or whether it actually has no teeth.
Regarding tree rights, I do think cities cut down trees too lightly. For example, the city where I live recently rehabbed a large park and cut down a mature tree to make a new path, where it could have easily made the path a few meters away. (Of course the tree may have been diseased, but it seemed quite healthy.) I’m not sure my argument would be that trees have rights so much as that trees take a long time to grow, and a replacement tree is not as good as a mature one for a long long time.
Let’s take one dumb idea and use it to justify another dumb idea!
It’s eco-dystopian science fiction (by a Canadian no less) but I wonder if the people in that future would’ve supported something like this now. I imagine probably.
If this is an attempt to demonstrate the stupidity of that law, great. If it's an honest attempt to build more stupid laws on top of that already stupid law, these people are awful.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Please stop with the politics on HN.
