As the world watches my country burn I can see it is drizzling through the large double-glazed windows. This is a real blessing and I have already given profuse thanks to the Gods. My small home town is a wildfire waiting to happen. These fires are just another layer of misery, further crushing those of us with a profound social and environmental conscience. There are occasions when riding my bike, blogging and my silly parody-memes are the only respite from deep despair.
I’ve been reaching out across the world to find solace. I don’t know why I’m going so far afield - there are many fellow Aussies feeling the same despair. Maybe I just want to feel soldarity with the entire human race because we are all on the edge of extinction. In my reaching out I found a blog by a woman living in California. One of her posts about the giant redwoods included a video. As I read the words and listened to the song I started crying. It inspired me to go in search of David Milarch.
Arborist David Milarch is on a quest to save California's coastal redwoods, some of the world's oldest and largest living things in the world. Milarch’s gift is to harvest their genetics and help them migrate to other areas by cloning and replanting them.
‘It’s my job when I walk through there [the forest] to yell out to those trees, to hold those trees, and say I’m here to do everything in my power on Earth to bring all the human beings and all the help that I can to put this back. To put back every single tree that was cut down and killed. And I’m going to do it.' (1)
After a near-death experience (it was actually a real death but he was revived) David Milarch set out on a quest to save the Californian redwoods.
‘….today only 5 percent of the original old-growth coast redwood forest remains along a 450-mile strip of coast. And as the planet warms up, the specific conditions required by the redwoods change; their future doesn't look so great’.
It’s difficult not to see the parallels between Milarch’s own revival and his mission to bring the redwoods back from the brink.
When I cheered loudly at the seminal line in the Years and Years series: ‘tear the world down’, I’ll admit I was thinking more about the cities than how that might affect nature itself. Yet deep in my being I know this is what must happen – what is indeed happening. Humanity has gone too far. It has to be stopped. For those of us on the planet now, and even more so in the near future, it’s going to be one hell of a ride.
Each and every one of us must find solace where we can. For me that’s nature, art, making a difference in peoples’ lives and beautiful songs I can cry to.
https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/man-cloning-old-growth-redwoods-and-planting-them-safe-places-video.html?fbclid=IwAR3WjOscJu5Jg_XeQmVFiKK-Ak6ynr052DA-ltrBAKW73HEmwUkUZaEH1U0
David Milarch's Archangel Ancient Tree Archive https://www.ancienttreearchive.org
I loved reading this post. One of the few good things about this internet is finding like-minded, kind-hearted people who want to save our earth. I'm not a fan of humans very much, but I am a supporter of our one and only planet. There are nearly eight billion humans on earth these days. It's a number hard to actually fathom. I heard the term "inevitable extinction" in reference to humans the other day. It did not fill with me fear, but rather hope. If we could all disappear in a painless moment...gone... it would be fine with me. Did you ever read the book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman? It's a very good read. Thank you for stopping by The New Dharma Bums. We're all in this together, and it's good to virtually meet a new friend.
ReplyDeleteThanks Robin and welcome. Yes, although I am a member of Extinction Rebellion I really think extinction is inevitable - from the position that there are cycles of creation and destruction and humans are simply part of that.
ReplyDeleteI saw that video too from Robin's blog. Beautiful
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