> If nobody bought them, they wouldn’t be planted in the first place, so the act of cutting down then disposing of a Christmas tree has no net impact to the ov

> If nobody bought them, they wouldn’t be planted in the first place, so the act of cutting down then disposing of a Christmas tree has no net impact to the overall tree population From a carbon capture perspective, you could argue planting, cutting then burying trees is a net positive - but cutting is killing. From a moral perspective, financially helping an industry based on planting and cutting trees while not using them for shelter (wood is used in housing) or even heat (in a stove or a fireplace) strikes me as barbaric, because it's the purposeless killing of a living creature. Killing and eating animals (if not vegan) or plants (if vegan) is necessary as we can't opt out of food (but maybe there will be a fully synthetic replacement someday) Yet I can opt out of killing trees for ornamental purposes - and this tech may help other people save trees, if they can't opt out of having a live Christmas tree, say for cultural or familial reasons (tradition, etc)