[madaxe_again]

People would complain that they drop needles, that birds hang out in them and crap on their cars and sing loudly in the mornings, that they block their light, that they are scared they will blow over in a storm.

No, people want tarmac, concrete, astroturf and air conditioning.

I see this everywhere I go. Nature as an inconvenience, something to be opposed and complained about. Just watched them hack down and mulch a 500+ year old chestnut here because it dropped fruit on the road and someone complained. Never mind that the chestnut had been by that road for longer than modern France has existed. I’m sure they can plant a laurel bush and nature will heal.

[SturgeonsLaw]

The world is bigger than suburban America, there are a lot of places where greenery is a core part of the (yes, even urban) landscape

[madaxe_again]

Indeed. I’ve seen this attitude everywhere from Uruguay to Uzbekistan to Ulaanbaatar to Ulm - and the people who want to remove nature inevitably win, as it’s a lot easier to destroy than to create.

Where I live most of the time in very rural Portugal, people are utterly mystified by our desire to protect nature in our land - “but it’s good firewood!”, “animals live there!” (Wild animals == food/fear), “why do you want to live in a dirty forest?”, “how can you bear to live next to a river? Aren’t you scared?”, and on it goes.

Of course there exist people who care about the environment, and prefer greenery to sterility - but they are the minority, always have been, always will be.

[thfuran]

That's far from a universally held position in suburban America.