A Tree Grows in Oakland— Winter Dreams for the Anthropocene

“Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses—especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”― Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) 

“This is not our world with trees in it. It's a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.”    ― Richard Powers, The Overstory, (2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction) 

Anthropocene—The current geological age—viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

 As this exhausting year comes to a close and we wrestle with the consequences of Covid-19, climate change, societal inequities, and tribal discord it might be time to take a “time-out” from our divisiveness to consider how all living things—plants, animals and humans, are interconnected and interdependent. 

                                                                                      

In “Jurassic Park” Dr. Malcolm explains the “butterfly effect” as it pertains to “chaos theory” and its unpredictability in complex systems—“a butterfly can flap its wings in Peking, and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine.” 

We do not live in a vacuum. When a coal plant in West Virginia spews mercury, lead and sulfur dioxide into the air its effect on global warming causes sea level rises, drought, and disease as far away as the Marshall Islands in the Pacific atoll.

                               Biodiverse ecosystems are needed to keep humans healthy.

Trees throughout the world are being cut down for agricultural expansion, logging, and urbanization resulting in water shortages, desertification, and mass extinction. Deforestation is forcing disease-carrying wild animals closer to humans, allowing new strains of infectious diseases like the coronavirus to thrive. 

Only about 15% of the world’s forests, which are key to maintaining biodiversity, now remain intact. The United Nations recently reported that one million species might be pushed to extinction in the next few years. (World Resources Institute) 

At last month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland over 100 countries agreed to stop deforestation and 196 countries agreed to cut fossil fuel emissions 45% by the end of this decade—130 countries agreed to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. (Council on Foreign Relations, Nov. 2021)

Will these agreements be honored?

When I walked into my backyard this morning to greet the big 200+ year-old Oak tree looming over the garden I watched it breathe in CO2 and exhale oxygen. Within its branches were birds building nests, butterflies flapping their wings, and squirrels gathering acorns for the winter. I said some words of gratitude to all of them knowing that they were playing their part to keep our planet alive. 

As Ma Shouying, a character in Richard Power’s Overstory, said to his son, 

“You can’t come back to something that is gone.”