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Quebec town recognizes trees as living beings with rights

cbc.ca

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Re: Quebec town recognizes trees as living beings with rights

#21

Post by MisterTea »

neonihil wrote: post #5

Finally! 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 tr…

> 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.

Recently there was an article posted here that claimed trees do have some ability to control the weather. The claim is trees simultaneously release water vapor into the atmosphere influencing rains.

Re: Quebec town recognizes trees as living beings with rights

#24

Post by jimbokun »

> "We know corporations have legal personhood and rights and they are definitely not living," she said in a phone interview. "So if some nonliving things can have legal personhood, what's stopping living beings from equally getting legal personhood?"

Let’s take one dumb idea and use it to justify another dumb idea!

Re: Quebec town recognizes trees as living beings with rights

#27

Post by boomboomsubban »

enraged_camel wrote: post #13
kgwxd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is definitely not to protect trees.

Oh yeah? What is it then? Please enlighten us.

Cynically, to make a documentary and get articles written. None of the rules they mention seem that extreme, they're just wording it in an unusual way.

Re: Quebec town recognizes trees as living beings with rights

#28

Post by jimbokun »

I-M-S wrote: post #14

This will be weaponized by NIMBYs to further limit construction of housing and infrastructure, leading to a situation in which trees have more human rights than people.

It already says in the article they won’t be building anymore housing because they are forbidding cutting down trees to clear land to build, and they’re already out of open lots to build on.

This is 100% NIMBYs finding new ways to protect their property values.

Re: Quebec town recognizes trees as living beings with rights

#29

Post by tsimionescu »

nemomarx wrote: post #12
tsimionescu wrote: post #9

Such a weird idea. Do they recognize the right of cockroaches to life as well - as they are much more clearly living beings with some realistic chance of being sentient and feeling pain? What about tomatoes or roses or other plants? 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 liv…

We kinda draw arbitrary lines? I mean we do animal rights and animal welfare, so what really is the difference between a mouse and a tarantula in those terms

Well, I don't think we recognize a general right to life for animals, even for those protected under the law. Euthanizing a cat or a dog is allowed virtually everywhere, unlike a human, for example. We certainly don't recognize any right to bodily integrity for animals, as even cats and dogs are routinely sterilized.

Generally, we instead have animal welfare laws that protect various animals to various extents for various reasons, based on human interest in said animals (e.g. You can sterilize any cat you find, unless it's owned by someone else, but you can never shoot a cat; you can shoot many wild animals within certain limits, but you can't sterilize them outside very special circumstances).

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