As many as one in six U.S. tree species is threatened with extinction | Hacker News Reader

As many as one in six U.S. tree species is threatened with extinction

washingtonpost.com

22 pointsmyshpa3 comments

I find this appeal to find something other than a “doom” view bizarre. It’s a catastrophe. Do people expect to find some version of this story that ends with “but we can solve this with a minimally impactful solution that doesn’t cost you or your community anything”?

Maybe you don’t care about trees and animals. Global economic degrowth is gonna happen anyway as ports flood and countries lack the resources to tackle the project of rebuilding the backbone of the current global economic system. Source: https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-climate-change-is-disrupt...

So look at this story as another alarm bell. You and your family are going to be directly impacted by global warming. Asking for a happier story doesn’t change anything. It’s time to grow up and accept we put off dealing with this and it blew up in our faces.

We can either willingly engage in economic degrowth with some say in how it happens or we have a global recession/depression and all the chaos and social upheaval that comes with it. It’s bad, lots of people are going to lose their jobs and communities are going to collapse. That’s gonna happen regardless. Pretending it’s not doesn’t do anything.

I’m probably going to lose my job in that scenario but that’s the price of humanity being selfish and putting the problem off. At least with some extreme action now we can tell future generations “we tried something after waiting too long”.

fine article but once again.. problematic public communications IMHO. The history of "Arbor Day", public parks, zoning hearings, personal choices of where to live and what to plant .. all say that many but not all adult humans have long term personal relationships with trees around them. Yet journalism "rings the alarm" at a time of heaping crisis. This pushes sensitive people (lots of readers here) to "doom" view..

The writer may believe it when they write "most people ignore trees" but it is at least bi-model right? Lots of people care deeply about trees and in fact are doing something about it.

There has to be a better way to address the subject meaningfully, and not just a litany of dire situations.

> The writer may believe it when they write "most people ignore trees" but it is at least bi-model right?

I grew up relatively poor, and I can tell you that most Americans I have met generally feel deep anxiety about their economic condition, and that trend is accelerating. There are not emotional resources enough in their minds for things that don’t affect their immediate survival and happiness.

The problem is not people liking trees, they do. The problem is, if you were to ask most people if they would exchange 1/6 of earth’s tree diversity for a couple thousand dollars, their response would be “where do I sign?” I love nature and mourn for everything that has been lost, but I am convinced there’s no way we will be able to address the problems we face without first addressing the economic tragedy of most of the people around us.

Sorry for the rant, but I have also tried/wanted to address problems with collective action and come to the conclusion that it’s not going to be possible until we’ve better addressed the most immediate needs of the people we live with.

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