Forests are about the long run, our thoughts are mostly about the short run. We think, “What’s for dinner?” “When’s that bill due?” “Did you make any sales today?” “How’d our stocks do this quarter?” Occasionally we’ll think about retirement, but that’s a long way off, or not, and it’s a looming crisis. Trees’ perspective is for hundreds of years and they’ve been successful at staying around sustaining their organization (yes, organization) for a very long time. It may do us some good to think more like a tree.
Of course, we need to be concerned about both short-term and long-term, but the immediate needs shout so loud from our TVs, cell phones, and due dates there isn’t much time, or energy, left to think about long-term things like our forests, or the health of this beautiful Earth. But now, finally, we must make the time and effort. Our home, Earth, is clearly saying that something is wrong – we give her voice names; mega-forest fires, Katrina, Big Sandy, severe typhoons, tornadoes in November (2013) an Arctic vortex the next November. She wants us to listen. She will be heard! We need to respond with thoughts and plans beyond the most opportunistic ways to make short-term dollar profits from nature.
Scientific studies, largely financed by governments, tell us long-term things to do for the good of Earth, for the good of forests. We need to listen, to think, to insist governments, industries, businesses and individuals do long-range thinking that considers nature’s consciousness and the long-term needs of Earth and all the people, critters and plants on it. Forests are a good place to start to understand the natural world, they respond to environmental changes on a daily basis and over centuries. How things are going are recorded in the tree rings - growth rates, if you want to put it in our economic terms.
We think about what we know and are exposed to every day, our high speed life, family, IT, quests for security, work, the news - it’s hard to take time to know much about forests. They are remote from our daily concerns. But, big thinkers are saying there are four great issues humanity MUST deal with in the 21st century: 1) World population, 2) War and peace, 3) A secure food supply and 4) Sustaining the natural world so people can continue to exist. Numbers one and four, World population and Sustaining the air, the soil, the water, the critters and plants of Earth are issues humanity has not faced before.
Forests are a critical factor in sustaining the natural resources that support us as individuals and our civilization as we know it. Forests clean the air, profoundly affect water, provide habitat for the wild critters, grow wood for building and they are a place where we experience beauty and renew our spirit. Forests were important to people long before we began to gather into cities and they have been more important since we’ve been doing that. Now, it’s time to relearn about forests, maybe more than ever. We need our forests and we need them to be healthy and we need to know how to help them.
If knowledge and interest precede actions, let’s, each of us, gather a little knowledge, develop some interest and take actions that actually help our forests and Earth.
“What we have loved, others will love and we will teach them how” —- Wordsworth
No comments:
Post a Comment