From: shannon stoney (sstoney@pdq.net)
Date: 04/16/02-11:30:39 AM Z
It's hard to top Bob's and Jack's odes to trees, but I wanted to add
one thing. The initial comment was that the media were somehow more
relevant to our lives than, say, trees. But the truth is that the
media could all disappear from the face of the earth, and human life
would go on, perhaps more merrily. However, if all the trees were
gone, human life would not continue for very long at all, and if it
did, it would be a sorry life. The earth would become a desert
fairly quickly. In addition to making oxygen for us to breathe
(something that smaller plants do also), trees hold the soil and
prevent flooding downstream. (Many people die every year from floods
caused by clearcutting, sometimes miles away upstream.) They
moderate and cool excessive heat, cut cold winds, and they cause rain
to fall and then sink deeply into the soil.
I saw a poster once that estimated the economic value of a 30' maple,
in terms of its warming and cooling and aerating functions. I can't
remember the exact amount, but it was in the tens of thousands of
dollars.
So, if human life is the measure, trees are way more important than the media.
Even the media could not exist without trees. The New York Times is
printed on tree bodies. And the people who do the tv and radio news
are totally dependent on trees for life, whether they know it or not.
Ronald REagan must not have looked very closely at a redwood. I have
never seen one, but I read a great book about a tree called Luna, a
redwood that was evidently quite unique, so much so that it was not
cut for a long time, although surrounded by clearcuts. Luna was not
especially useable as timber, so she survived. A tree sitter lived
in her for two years, and then she was protected somehow from ever
being cut. When you read this book, you get the feeling that that
tree was an INDIVIDUAL. I know a lot of trees in Tennessee
individually, and I can say that they are all different even if they
are the same species. I haven't named them, but that doesn't mean
they don't have spirits that grieve when they are cut down or
injured. (I have cut a tree or two myself, Judy, that was encroaching
on my vegetable garden, small trees. I always apologize and I have
planted a lot of replacement trees in other places. Trees do
sometimes have to be harvested, because they are in a place where we
need soil and light or if we need them for firewood or building
material. But it seems really, really wasteful to cut down ancient
trees to make patio furniture or newspapers.)
For another view of the spirit of trees, see The Lord of the Rings
about the Ents, tree spirits that can move around and in fact end up
saving the world as soldiers in the battle against Evil.
Thank goodness our prints are on cotton!
--shannon
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