How Do You Mourn a 250-Year-Old Giant?
We need to stop thinking of trees as objects that belong to us and come to understand them as long-lived ecosystems temporarily under our protection. We have borrowed them from the past, and we owe them to the future... Margaret Renkl
This has become even more important as carbon sequestering forests are being cleared, burned, and otherwise destroyed around the world. Also, very crucial is the biological activity under trees in the root systems and the restorative and habitat production that goes on in rotting wood when trees fall naturally to the forest floor.
ReplyDeleteNo one can deny the importance of trees. I guess for the same reason, why do we value animals over trees? Why do we value the lives of certain animals over others? They are all living organisms. I've never understood why it's okay to subject mice to such awful experiments, while no one would think of doing the same to perhaps a monkey.
ReplyDeleteHumans have had this issue of "borrowing" organisms from our environment, and using them for our own benefit since the beginning of time. It's a the point now where it's caused and is causing serious environmental issues that affect the planet and our overall health. I've never understood how people can be so okay with cutting down history. Trees are the longest-living life forms that we know of. They deserve to be protected more.
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking about the root causes of some of the most pressing problems in Bioethics today. This New York Times article seemed to address at least one largely ignored "silent spring" root cause:
ReplyDeleteA ‘Crossroads’ for Humanity: Earth’s Biodiversity Is Still Collapsing
Countries have made insufficient progress on international goals designed to halt a catastrophic slide, a new report found.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/climate/biodiversity-united-nations-report.html
By Catrin Einhorn
Published Sept. 15, 2020Updated Oct. 14, 2021
The world is failing to address a catastrophic biodiversity collapse that not only threatens to wipe out beloved species and invaluable genetic diversity, but endangers humanity’s food supply, health and security, according to a sweeping United Nations report issued on Tuesday.
When governments act to protect and restore nature, the authors found, it works. But despite commitments made 10 years ago, nations have not come close to meeting the scale of the crisis, which continues to worsen because of unsustainable farming, overfishing, burning of fossil fuels and other activities.
“Humanity stands at a crossroads,” the report said.
It comes as the devastating consequences that can result from an unhealthy relationship with nature are on full display: A pandemic that very likely jumped from bats has upended life worldwide, and wildfires, worsened by climate change and land management policies, are ravaging the American West.
“These things are a sign of what is to come,” said David Cooper, an author of the report and the deputy executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, the global treaty underlying the assessment. “These things will only get worse if we don’t change course.”...
(Click the link at the top of the page to read the entire article.)