Invariably growth for growth’s sake threatens the health of our world. In human terms this may be likened to the development of a cancer in the body. In that case cellular overgrowth occurs in one part of the body with great detriment to our health and well-being. When possible we choose to contain or restrict this out of control growth, for if left unchecked there comes a tipping point where life is leaving us and death is taking us. Is this an appropriate metaphor for the life sustaining vs. life eroding conditions confronting our disappearing oaks, honeybees, and people? The arrival of these super bugs may help us to understand what is happening on a much larger scale. The river of life is drying up, leaving less than enough to sustain a healthy world! The imbalance is evidenced in much of our world. Decline and dying is overwhelming life and living in so many ways. Clearly, the suffering and dying oaks are a tree canary of sorts. In fact, there are canaries and red flags almost everywhere if we are willing to look: coral, ice caps, honeybees, and rising seas. The aspen are dying, not quaking, and our oaks are leaving us. It is hard to believe. How many of life’s precious functions and forms are at the edge and frightfully close to sliding into darkness? It’s hard to know. Trees are dying while weeds are thriving. Honeybees can’t be found, but yellow jackets are stinging their way across America. Inner city youth see contenders, not playmates, and the slaughter is on. Living is not such a good thing for over two thousand American children a year who commit suicide instead. Does anyone really feel good anymore? Or has the imbalance and decline that is so obvious in our world also begun to creep into our homes and our bodies, leaving us aching and looking for pharmaceutical relief? How many living Earth systems can fail before it all goes over the edge?
Understanding that the living Earth systems are breaking down compels us to ask, “What can be done?” The biggest challenge for us today is seeing, rather than turning a blind eye. Seeing will allow us to come down on the beneficial side of life. Continuing to not see will only add to the hand of the reaper with further decay and decline. Seeing compels us to view the world from wherever we are. For instance, as an arborist I can choose to see trees as sticks in the ground from which I make a living, or I can see these woody beings as leafy friends. “Friends?” you say, “A tree is just a tree. How can it be a friend? This term is reserved for more special and warm-blooded relationships!”
The difference in how we see the world that looks back at us can make all the difference. As sticks in the ground, we just remove the trees to build a house. As ‘leafy friends’ we find a way to build our house among the trees.
Trees, along with the woodlands and forests to which they belong, are one of the most significant carbon busters in this alarming time of global warming. They provide us with precious oxygen and wood with which to build and heat, and they provide a general cloak of comfort over the land. In return they ask only for a place to be. Do you have friends like this? Yes, they are friends indeed! And might we not also benefit by considering all significant life systems as friends and kin to the human family? If we begin to see them in this way it will be much more difficult to disregard their legitimate place in our world.
Regardless of what we do or where we are now, there is a living world that needs our participation. If we listen to the world around us the cues will be obvious: the ‘needing meaningful time’ child, the finch upon an empty feeder, the dogwood tree with wilted leaves in the back yard, the lonely senior citizen right next door. Clearly we can’t take the living world for granted. Perhaps the vigor that underlies the multitude of life forms on this Earth is being suppressed. Dynamic and healthy life is not so available now. The tipping point may have been reached. Life’s fragility equals our loss.
Not seeing has allowed humankind to separate ourselves from the world to which we belong. Admittedly, we see the Earth as important, but we don’t feel intimately involved in it. The consequences have been huge and can be noted in different ways.
So many of our behaviors and the attitudes that support them illustrate that not seeing this intimate and interdependent connection has allowed our technologies to out-distance our conscience. The consequence has been that if we think we need something from this world we feel justified in taking it. The implications are clear to this arborist: if we continue on this way we have a very short horizon before us.
To lengthen our horizons we may need to re-look at some common beliefs that may not be to our benefit regarding the challenges before us; for instance, the belief that science will reveal the causes and set forth a solution. Maybe, and maybe not. Focusing on the small underlying organisms involved in this myriad of losses may keep us in catch-up mode, while the living world collapses around us. Much of the credit for MRSA is given to the misuse of anti-bacterials, particularly antibiotics. But this doesn’t explain why a life supporting bacteria or organism has not consumed or fended off this bad guy. We certainly can’t explain away the invading reaper of our oaks as a bacterium strengthened by overuse of antibiotics. Very few anti-bacterial agents have ever been used in the plant kingdom.
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