In my smallish town there is a road that runs along a small local college campus. Both sides of this 2 lane road were lined with large oaks that were starting to deteriorate. The city wanted to cut down the oaks and widen the road to accommodate increasing traffic.
A year of (mainly non-resident) student protests resulted in the oaks on the campus being saved. The city changed the expansion plans, cut down the trees on the other side of the road and replanted after expansion on the side away from the remaining trees was complete.
The new oaks are healthy, rapidly growing and attractive. The old oaks on the college campus continue to deteriorate and are about 1/3 dead. The student protestors are long gone, the scaled back expansion is still not able to handle the traffic, and the city residents are stuck with a half-completed half vigorous/half dying landscape.
Emotional attachment to a tree? Plant some and encourage the community to redirect their emotions to the new trees. Make a ceremony celebrating the start of new opportunities.
I hardly consider myself a scumbag, but trees are a renewable resource.
It’s a 64 year old tree with no historical significance. It is a genetic wonder as it is a hybrid of two oak varieties. Supposedly this is the only known natural mutation of this kind but we have 1000’s of oaks in our community and I just can’t see spending a million dollars on it.