Sunday Morning

~ Live & Learn

“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Blake said, his voice serious and quiet. “It isn’t just the yew. Have you noticed the Douglas fir by the science building? Or the blue spruce by the auditorium?” I shook my head. He said recent measurements indicated those trees, too, were growing much faster than they should have been. Blake had talked with several people at the U.S. Forest Service about what he was noticing on campus and they told him recent measurements from around the world showed mature evergreens of all species now regularly exceeding previously recorded height records by twenty to thirty feet. “Why?” I asked. Blake settled a little coral impatiens bursting with buds into the soil. “Global warming,” he said. “I think they’re trying to save us.”

~ Jessica Francis Kane, Rules for Visiting 

Photo: 123RF

20 thoughts on “Sunday Morning”

  5. Is it possible, and pardon the blasphemy DK, that it is because the trees are living longer, thus they continue to grow? While it is important to be a good steward of the earth, who is it who can make the claim, with any authority, that we are moving towards or away from what “Mother Nature” would consider an optimum conditions Personally, I believe the “climate change” movement is more about controlling people than it is saving the planet.

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    1. It is possible. And I could be conflating the polluted oceans (that is indisputable) and clear cutting of forests in Amazon and elsewhere (indisputable) with climate change, but even if climate change isn’t real, can’t reducing man made emissions be net positive?

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  6. There’s visual proof of ice caps/shelves melting, there is tracking/evidence of birds and fish moving further north (and perhaps winter mammals, too), and one must also question terrible heat waves if not also how (mine, at least) meteorologists seemingly can’t get a solid fix anymore on weather forecasting. I know that some winds and events are cyclical, and who knows, maybe thousands of species would’ve disappeared forever anyway, but to me, the verdict is in. Go, trees!

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  7. Odd… I recently noticed that a maple tree in our front yard here in coastal Maine has grown hugely this summer – not only much taller, but broader and with a much denser leaf growth. The reason I realized this had happened is because our flagpole and flag are now totally obliterated from view. And this happened quite suddenly.
    Would not the very accelerated growth weaken the structural support of the tree? And why would they try to save us, given how humans are the worst WMD’s of trees? This essay is very intriguing. I hope it is something given serious consideration.

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