Bowing to Trees on Earth Day

Today is Earth Day, and I’m thinking of trees. We would not be here without them. Yes, trees made life on our land masses possible according to Harriet Rix, the author of The Genius of Trees… How They Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World.

I have always loved trees, but I didn’t know the complete story of how essential they were to human life until I read this book. Trees make soil from rock. Throughout the history of our planet, that has been fundamental.

Rix tells us the story in Chapter 2 called: Trees shaping soil; How trees invented earth in their search for growth. She begins that chapter saying:

Give a tree a lump of rock and some time, and it will make its own habitat. Trees will break rock, digest it to extract phosphorus and other minerals, gradually beat in carbon and nitrogen from the air, enervate and stabilize the resultant soil, and mold themselves a home of deep-rooted stability.

The story began 400 million years ago when continents were just rocky outcrops with fungi, bacteria, and moss to populate their edges. It was the trees that bored into the rock to anchor their roots and slow the torrents of rainwater rushing across the barren landscape. Those roots enabled the soil to build up instead of being washed away. Like silent, patient explorers, trees conquered the interiors of each continent inch by inch, forming the soil, capturing the rain, making a place for their seedlings to grow. This allowed smaller plants to begin populating the continents, too, as life slowly spread everywhere. Without the work of trees, Earth would still be as desolate as a moonscape. Trees created habitat for flora and fauna, and eventually us.

I am working in my city to keep giant, gorgeous trees from being slaughtered needlessly. This newfound knowledge that I owe my very existence to trees has given more emotional power to my work. It hits me deeply when I look at trees being cut down. The tall skeletons of their trunks stand for a short time, devoid of branches, reaching toward the sky. It hurts to see them naked of their green. It hurts even more to watch the chainsaws fell them completely.

Of course, you may already know that trees play an important role in regulating our climate by absorbing carbon dioxide. They are natural carbon-capture machines. They also regulate ground water, cool us in the summer’s heat, keep steep slopes stable, and absorb excess storm water. This Earth Day, I am suggesting a greater, more primal reason why our human love for trees can feel so strong—trees are the mother of the world we live in. Without them, we would not be here. I am in awe of that.

We should be bowing in gratitude to trees, our green, leafy benefactors. Instead, we often take them for granted, so say a quiet thanks to all the trees you have ever known. Not only are they beautiful, but they have given us the gift of life.