Many months after Christmas, there were still many
traces of a massive slaughter that had taken place in Bucharest around what is essentially
a celebration of life – Christ’s birth.
Undoubtedly, the same happened in other capitals
of the ‘civilised world’, although I
bet they are better at covering up such crime scenes.
Every one or two little streets or every 400-500
meters on a large boulevard, there was such a tree corpse to be found, lying obscenely near
garbage bins.
The images are just saddneing, not shocking.
There was no blood, no stench of death, and surely no mourners around them. Nobody
cared.
And how should anyone care, in a city immune to
caring about the cohorts of beggars, stray dogs, lousy political leaders and so
on?
Generally speaking, we’re not used to caring
about anything else, but our senseless worries and hedonist aspirations in
Bucharest. Maybe it’s the same everywhere else.
There’s no way that I could claim to be better than
others for having decorated a plastic made-in-China Christmas tree…
What I feel the urge to confess is that the photoholic I simply
couldn’t pass by these slain trees and not take pics of them.
Far from being a hysteric ecologist, I can’t
help feeling the noose of progress tightening around my neck as I watch them.
Like any slaughters of such scale (including the
industrial killing animals for human consumption) this is another token of the
progressive world we live in.
I wonder if for people living some 100-150 years
ago – before this tradition became a
worldwide commercial success – it made any sense to cut so many trees.
Just for fun. Just for the sake of making
Christmas more enjoyable. It’s but a sacrifice on the altar of a ‘Christmas spirit’ which has nothing to
do with Christ.
Like almost everything else during the
contemporary consumerist Winter Holidays Season that hasn’t got anything to do with Him.
Well, I’d rather refrain from invoking religious
reasons for taking action against the killling of trees for Christmas.
Sadly enough, they are present in many Othodox churches,
along other so-called churches, shopping malls, public institutions, big and
small firms, and homes.
It’s just that – be it from an ecological or
just ethical perspective – I dislike this waste of tree life. Why should so
many trees be chopped?
Who can correctly anticipate the volume of sales
and guaranteee that there won’t be millions of trees cut worlwide, but remain unsold
for Christmas?
Is there any environmentally friendly and
economically sound solution for disposing of these trees and possibly turning them
into something useful?
Indeed, big trees from city squares can be turned into something useful. But
what about the countless little ones like those noticed by me throughout Bucharest?
They aren’t good for furniture, probably not for
fuel either, nor for making paper. So what could be done with them?
As long as we were forced to use ecological
light bulbs, why shouldn’t sellers and buyers be compelled to trade exclusively
trees grown in Christmas tree farms?
I’d make cutting Christmas trees from forests
(irrespective of who owns the forest), selling and buying them a serious crime,
punishable by severe fines and/or imprisonment.
If the price of farmed Christmas trees skyrocketed,
would that be a problem? More tree farms would mean more competition.
Such a restriction will be a boost for those manufacturing
ecological Christmas trees, as I’d also forbdid unrecyclable plastic trees. Would
anyone agree with me?
|
3 comments:
Hi Bogdan, beautiful miniature impression, with those pictures of Chrismas trees in the beloved Bucharest,thanks! :-D
I think the trees are not completely wasted, since they do their CO2 work when growing every minute of the day. And in the end they are burned, and this energy is (hopefully) used to generate electricity.
Jan
Hello Jan,
Indeed, these trees look beautiful even when they are lying murdered on the streets...
Maybe you are right to presume that in your country (The Netherlands) these dead trees are collected after Christmas and burnt to generate electricity.
However, my presumption is that this doesn't happen in Romania. When taken from the streets, their most probable destination is a... landfill :-(
Whatever happens after these trees are thrown out of people's homes, my questions are the following...
Is it worth cutting them, anyway?
Can't we celebrate Christmas (or the so-called 'Winter Holidays' - in case of the secular) without killing these trees?
Yeah I feel the same. This tradition doesn't seem too durable :-) I also had these thoughts many times seeing the trees on the street here. (not in march anymore though! :-))
Indeed it must hurt the ecosystem, they use the soil and are then destroyed.
Your reusable plastic tree seems a much better solution :-) We seperate plastic household garbage here too now, so it could even be recycled in plastic again. Doubt if enough people take the effort of sorting out their plastic here though. Nice (symbolic?) government initiative nevertheless.
Hope you are fine, maybe see you in your great country again!
Post a Comment