To Plant A Tree

by

William A. Gralnick

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”

Nelson Henderson, 2nd generation Swan Valley Canada farmer.

I dearly want to write about politics, but if the world goes to hell politics won’t matter much, will it? So, more about climate change.

One of the first science facts taught to children is about trees. Maybe it’s because they do magical things, things that keep us alive. The leaves on trees, in case you’ve forgotten, suck up carbon dioxide, which kills us, from the air, and turns it into oxygen, which sustains us. It’s a neat trick called photosynthesis. One of the things I fear children are not being taught is how many trees it is necessary to sustain the world. Another is how many are left. In my commitment to make climate change a constant reminder to my readers, I’m going to look into these magicians and their current state of being.

In a recent piece on trees and sustaining the earth, Time magazine writer Daniel Lewis asked and answered this: “When is a tree not a tree? We often think of urban trees as simply poles in the ground, islands unto themselves, but they are ecosystems all their own, swarming with vitality. Each sustains life, often in tiny forms: fungi, insects, and other small entities. However, trees’…