Trees in Hungary that are older than the current border of the country were tragically cut down across a small city, leaving the streets nearly unrecognizable.
Local news from Hungary doesn't often get international attention, but one story on Reddit gained over 3,000 upvotes. The caption accompanying the post reads, "Dombóvár, a small city in Hungary cut down its 100-year-old chestnut trees."
The original poster shared several photos that show the before-and-after of two streets in the town. In the older photos, beautiful lush trees line the block, shading the homes and forging a cute suburban neighborhood. You can also see green grass at the base of the trees along the sidewalks.
The "after" photos show the same streets with all the large trees removed, giving the neighborhood an entirely different personality and casting stark light over everything. Not only that, but the previously green grass is also dried up and brown.
The dead grass is a reminder of the importance of trees for neighborhoods. Data have proved that trees are good for your health, provide shade, capture pollution from the environment, and keep areas significantly cooler.
A study out of Los Angeles found that having more trees, along with other cooling methods, can even cut heat-related visits to the emergency room. Wired reported that "planting more trees and deploying more reflective surfaces — something as simple as painting roofs white — could lower temperatures so dramatically, it'd cut the number of heat-related ER visits by up to 66 percent."
Trees — especially old trees — are great at capturing and breaking down the gasses that contribute to the warming of the planet. They use carbon to create food and grow, and microbes in their bark may help break down methane as well.
The reason given, translated in the comments from an article about the topic was that the trees were "rotten," and there is indeed a disease that exists affecting chestnut trees called chestnut blight. That said, the original poster and many others in the comments expressed doubt that this could be true for all of the area's trees when they recently looked so healthy, with no ability to save any of them or even replant new trees.
This post sparked a lot of discussion, with many people upset for the residents.
"Look how nice it would've been to walk through that neighbourhood with the trees being there," one person said. "Now it just looks desolate."
Another wrote: "I could understand if this was done because of some kind of chestnut blight, but that does not seem to be the case. That sucks."
"I imagine practically speaking those trees provided lots of shade to the sidewalks and houses," someone else commented.
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
