Big trees open thread

So leave the political decisions up to the ignorant masses, grant an intellectual/financial oligarchy the power to rule, or severely restrict the powers of the government through a written constitution and pray that it is magically followed.

Or think outside the box.

Their morass of propositions and anti-tax fervor are at risk of turning the state into a basket case.

But in some ways, that's good. I can't handle crowds (which is why we avoid Yosemite, for all its beauty, like the plague). In the redwoods area, tourism was way down. Lots of parks and museums shuttered for lack of funds. As California goes, so goes the nation?

I once wrote this little piece back in the day.

Journey of a Single Step

You can see it on the way to Durham on I-85, a lifeless gray oak standing alone amidst a forest of emerald green. If it were framed against a wind-swept dune fronting an impossible sea this oak would have what artists call “stark” beauty. But there is no supportive landscape here; just a solitary arboreal sentinel bearing silent testament to eager time. In a forest brimming with variety and change this old oak is a contradiction, the deadwood serving as a grim reminder of what awaits us all. In the end, the hope, the promise, the energy of the new and vibrant gives way to the pessimism of the old and tired.

Yet, I do not think of decline and decay when I see this oak; rather, I think of the baobab tree. The baobab stores enormous amounts of water in its massive trunk to survive the dry conditions of its native habitats of equatorial Africa, India and Madagascar. It is fire resistant, insect proof and is thought to live thousands of years, although claims of great longevity remain unverified because the baobab's trunk produces no rings. When a baobab dies, it collapses from the inside into a fibrous mass which is soon dispersed by the wind. Thus, the Bushmen of Senegal believe that the baobab does not die but simply disappears.

There is this wonderful story in Indian mythology. A human woman falls in love with the Sun-God who initially returns her love but eventually leaves her. Abandoned, she pines away to die alone of a broken heart. Her cremated ashes, blown by the fickle wind, spawn a tree wherever they touch. So great was her sadness that even in death she could not bear to look upon the Sun; and so these trees bloom only at night; their flowers dropping at the first light of dawn. Today this tree – the night blooming jasmine – is sometimes called The Tree of Sorrow.

No legends follow the old oak out on I-85. It may have been struck by lightning or suffered an attack of burrowing insects or other natural cause. And while its inevitable disappearance will not be as mysterious as the baobab, it is being recycled nonetheless. The surge of life that happens every spring will pass it by. With each passing season its limbs will become a little more brittle; its bark more gnarled; its future more certain. Each year it will be a lighter shade of gray, eventually becoming so clear and pale that light will seem to pass through it altogether.

We are all flowers on the Tree of Sorrow. We reveal our secrets in the dark not knowing our fate with the first light. This is the life we have, our great journey of a single step; replacing each new story, with its telling, with another yet to be told. Legends tell of the great self-devouring snake Ouroboros, encircling the earth with recursive symmetry. Accompanied by the distant sound of Fibonacci strings, we walk under the Baobab, the Oak and the Jasmine, constantly re-creating ourselves with all the other things that begin anew as they end.

..have been shaded out of existence by better-adapted redwoods?

Would the Earth be the wondrous treasure of life that it is today were it not for the climate changes wrought by some of the earliest life forms?

How many trees have been killed by beavers in their quest to survive?

Is a lion 'wrong' to kill one of the last remaining members of a prey species?

The beauty of humanity is that without us there would be neither an 'environmentalist' ethic nor self-loathing organisms. Apparently you believe there is something inherently inferior or unwise about the way that humans have conducted themselves. But it cannot be inherent - only through the unique and subjective process of reasoning available only to humans can such a concept exist.

Otherwise, at what point in the evolution of human beings would we become culpable (individually, or as a species) for our actions with respect to the environment insofar as they violate a universal ethical or aesthetic environmentalist norm? Are other mammals 'wrong' to colonize a new island? How intelligent do they need to be before it becomes immoral?

Is it possible for any other organism to "screw up" the Earth besides humans, according to whatever criteria you have James? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that no other species could possibly "screw up" the earth since they are a part of "nature" and we are not (according to the most enlightened segments of society), which greatly diminishes the impact of the conclusion that humans are the only species that have "screwed up" the earth!

Well thank God for creating humans so this problem could be properly identified! Or is God to blame for creating us to begin with? Or is there a God at all?

PS: Those trees really are amazing. I can't wait to see them in person some day.