A Valentine's Day Tribute to Earth's Trees

Dear Fellow Earthlings,

At first glance there would seem to be little in common between two books -- among the many books -- I have read during the past 3 years:

the fiction work The Overstory by Richard Powers,

and

the non-fiction endeavor Value(s) by Mark Carney.

Powers' work is a tapestry of interrelationships between trees and humans, while Carney's provides a description of what values -- both monetary and otherwise -- entail.

Let's start with trees.

Since the very beginning, trees have been a part of human life. Eventually, some humans found themselves living in treeless polar and/or desert regions. Even these people, however, were breathing -- and continue to breathe -- oxygen released by trees thousands of miles away. The largest of all plants living on Earth's land masses, trees provide entire ecosystems with homes, food, protection from sunlight, and rich sensory information/stimulation/pleasure.

When trees form forests, they act together with one another to function as lungs for Earth as they separate the oxygen and carbon atoms from carbon dioxide, sending oxygen into Earth's atmosphere and storing carbon in their wood.

Unable to amble about as animals do, trees do move: They wave in the wind, they grow toward the heavens, and they push outward and downward into the surface of the earth immediately beneath and around them. They use both light chemical signals to conduct photosynthesis -- and chemical signals to communicate with each other, and with other living creatures through olfactory, taste, visual, tactile, and auditory means.

Importantly, what trees do not do is destroy or pollute!

And now let's assess the value(s) of trees:

In the past, trees provided life saving height as our ancestors fled from predators -- and homes for those people to sleep as well.

Nowadays -- many millennia after we came down from out of the trees -- they are no less valuable. They continue to release oxygen; sequester carbon; slow down soil erosion; form windbreaks; provide paper and other wood products; mitigate temperature fluctuations; and produce fruits, berries, nuts, coffee, syrups, to name but a few of the benefits we humans and many of our fellow living creatures derive from them.

Finally they are lovely! On this Valentine's Day, I write it down -- and I say it loudly and clearly: I LOVE TREES!

Steve Walker

Earthsaver and Jingles Creator

© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.