| <div class="ck-content"><h4>I wrote a poem?</h4><p>Here's something I wrote last week. It might be a poem. </p><p><strong>A Tree's Plea </strong></p><p>(or, Steven Found His Life's Purpose)</p><p>You've killed almost all of us, with your buildings and roads and factories and parking lots and <i>toilet paper</i>.</p><p>What's left of us survive in small patches of living planet, surrounded by all the dead things you manufacture.</p><p>Still, somehow, that isn't enough for you humans.</p><p>You introduce and unleash other species to attack us in our refuges: poisoning us, climbing our trunks and smothering us, killing our children and friends.</p><p>We don't want to die. We certainly don't want to be driven to extinction. </p><p>So we would be most grateful if there were some among you who would kill as many of these attackers as possible.</p><p>It'd give those of us who are left a chance at life.</p><p>Thank you,<br>Tree</p><h4>The vast chasm between knowledge and wisdom</h4><p>First, may I suggest the following definition of wisdom?</p><blockquote><p>Wisdom is the extent to which you abide by the moral consequences of your knowledge, first and foremost the price paid by others for the acquisition of that knowledge.</p></blockquote><p>We, humans, <i>know</i> so much now. We <i>know</i> the fundamental mechanisms for organic life (the discovery of evolution by natural selection). We uncovered the programming language of life (DNA). No other form of life that we know of has done anything like this. Our knowledge is immense.</p><p>But what about our <i><strong>wisdom</strong></i> in general and specifically regarding what to do with all this knowledge?</p><p>Miniscule. Microscopic. Perhaps even nano-level wisdom, folks. </p><p>It's really worth stopping for a moment to consider. Check out the image below: “Cellular landscape cross-section through a eukaryotic cell, by Evan Ingersoll & Gael McGill”</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/022/299/390/large/gael-mcgill-cellularlandscape-digizyme.jpg?1574883833" alt="REPLACE" width="400" height="500"></div><p>“Created for Cell Signaling Technology, Inc., and inspired by the stunning art of David Goodsell, this 3D rendering of a eukaryotic cell is modeled using X-ray, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and cryo-electron microscopy datasets for all of its molecular actors. It is an attempt to recapitulate the myriad pathways involved in signal transduction, protein synthesis, endocytosis, vesicular transport, cell-cell adhesion, apoptosis, and other processes. Although dilute in its concentration relative to a real cell, this rendering is also an attempt to visualize the great complexity and beauty of the cell’s molecular choreography. ”</p><p>That is amazing. Well, several things are amazing.</p><p>It's amazing that humans can develop the understanding, and build the machinery, to allow us to see this and make it available to us to marvel at.</p><p>It's also amazing that we do not seem capable of absorbing the fact there is a price to be paid for such knowledge acquisition, mostly by non-humans (for example: a multitude of factories are needed to build and run this machinery, all of which was only possible through the destruction of vast areas of teeming life on our planet).</p><p>Finally and most amazing to me, humans do not draw the appropriate, compelling moral conclusions from this knowledge. But I think I understand why. Human knowledge grows exponentially with each passing year, but wisdom must be re-learned, re-taught from scratch, with each new generation. </p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1l4nWcn88DyhBTOwGviOwHnUO5DGBMtqW&sz=w300-h300"></div><p>So what's a person to do? We can't just give up. We have to start instilling wisdom in humans<i> as early as possible in their lives</i>. If you have (or spend time with) children, my suggestions are:</p><ul><li>Take them into the natural world, away from humans, as much as you can. Make sure they are comfortable in the dirt, near non-human life, immersed in the environment we evolved in over billions of years.</li><li>Make sure they know how their bodies work, how the natural world works, how to be a citizen. (an education that broadens and deepens over time)</li><li>Keep them away from screens as much and for as long as possible.</li></ul><p>Easy-peasy. </p><h4>Billionaires really, truly suck</h4><p>In one of my darker moments, I came up with this idea for a t-shirt:</p><p>Killing our children.<br>Living like kings.<br>Billionaires suck.</p><p>Ever since Ronald Reagan was elected, the rich have worked relentlessly to decimate the middle class and impoverish millions, even billions, in order to line their pockets. The ramifications have been widespread and devastating (just one example: young people can no longer afford - or even <i>find</i> - starter homes, because too many people with too much excess wealth are now speculating and airbnb-ing real estate). So we now have deplorables like Elon Musk (all knowledge, no wisdom) macro-dosing on Ayn Rand, convinced they are the ones who should decide everything.</p><p>You might say that their motto is “With great power (wealth), comes the desire for even more power (wealth), at the expense of everyone else.” </p><p>Not as catchy as “With great power, comes great responsibility” but far more accurate. Or as Dorothy Parker said (for those with a monotheistical bent): “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”</p><p>The pandemic drove home a very depressing point to me: these so-called leaders of society are <i>not</i> going to rise to the occasion, when it comes to the climate and biodiversity crises. If they wouldn't even make a big effort to help their fellow humans (as their wealth, paradoxically, grew enormously), what chance then that they would do the necessary to save non-human life on our planet?</p><p>And, my god, it would be so easy for them to have an immediate, outsized impact. They need do nothing “more” than use 100s of millions of dollars (a tiny fraction of their wealth) to buy (and protect) land so that it could not be developed or destroyed. By doing so they would be seen as planet-saving heroes by our future generations.</p><p>It's not like there aren't wise examples to follow. Tim Sweeney of Fortnite fame, for example. Just search for “tim sweeney land preservation” and you will find lots of inspiring articles like <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article254466338.html">this</a>. And, heck, we can even look back to the 19th century equivalent of a billionaire: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/07/the-french-aristocrat-who-understood-evolution-100-years-before-darwin-and-even-worried-about-climate-change"><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(18,18,18);">Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon</span></a><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(18,18,18);">,</span> who observed, preserved, studied and celebrated deeply non-human life (by creating a 100 acre preserve, teeming with life).</p><p>Instead, whatever humans are left 100 years from now will look back on Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, etc. etc. as evil beings who were ready to sacrifice everyone and everything else for themselves.</p><p>Never forget:</p><p style="text-align:center;"><span class="text-big"><strong>Every single one of you is wiser than these so-called world leaders.</strong></span></p><h4>Final thought </h4><p>(did I just hear a sigh of “what took you so long”?)</p><p>If there is such a thing as “original sin”, I would say that the original sin of homo sapiens is the killing of organic life (trees, for example) in order to store knowledge <i>externally from our brains,</i> and thereby pass it on to future generations, allowing knowledge to outstrip wisdom. </p></div><div class="ck-content"><h4>Receive all my reports on tree rescues!</h4><p>If you'd like to get some good news about restoring native habitats delivered straight to your brain upwards of a few times a week, sign in to <a href="https://rewildearth.net">Rewild Earth</a>, click on your name in top right, then My profile. Under Communication Preferences, switch “Send reports of all events” to ON.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><img src="https://drive.google.com/thumbnail?id=1BeynVqu8taOGrsvi56u0mmDKuNJko22h&sz=w600-h400" alt="REPLACE" width="358" height="138"></div><p>Resources you might find useful:</p><ul><li><a href="https://shop.naisma.org/collections/buckthorn-blaster">Buckthorn Blasters</a>: safe, easy herbicide delivery system from the North American Invasive Species Management Association. Don't start cutting without them!</li><li><a href="https://nc-ipc.weebly.com/nc-invasive-plants.html">NC Invasive Plants list</a>: recently updated by NC-IPC, the NC Invasives Plants Council.</li><li><a href="https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/AG259">Overview of different herbicides</a>: glyposphate, triclopyr and others - which should you use?</li><li>Volunteer for <a href="https://triangleland.org">Triangle Land Conservancy</a>: the biggest land conservancy group in our area. </li><li>Volunteer for <a href="https://ellerbecreek.org">Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association</a> (Durham): a wonderful group working hard to maintain contiguous natural areas along Ellerbe Creek.</li></ul></div> |