At least one tree more important

by phil on Thursday May 6, 2010 12:28 PM
value systems

Maybe trees are more interesting than human beings. At first I was offended by Rusty's seemingly misanthropic suggestion, but since I'm the contrarian par excellence, I contradicted myself, and added, "Well, there is at least one tree that has received more visitors and well-wishers than most human beings. And if that tree were lost, it would be regretted much more than most human beings would."

Can you measure the value of something by how loved it is? Can you measure its value by how much regret the world will feel over its loss? Isn't that bordering on a fame-based ethics? But doesn't that more closely approximate how human value-judgments play out? The death of a president gets a million times more coverage and energy than a random gangland shooting.

Comments

SarahQB said on May 6, 2010 1:29 PM:

You remember Meg Withgott? (you house-sat for them)

She is working on a TED-inspired project documenting the story of trees. 2011 is the UN's Year of the Forest & she's doing stuff to present to them. She's also working with the person that got tree stories on google maps in the bay area.

http://sites.google.com/site/treememories/

@megwith