Locos por la Geología

Once again I bring to my blog the wise words of this author, taken of course from her book «Eating dirt».

Does planting trees work? Can it fulfill its many promises? It’s a question of waiting around for a few hundred years to find out, since that is the basic difference between an ancient forest and a razed field studded with tender seedlings. Time. A primeval woodland is time incarnate. Sunlight made solid. Carbon turned to wood, molecules into cells. An old-growth tree needs centuries to build that bulk, which is why a natural forest stores more carbon than an engineered one. Trees run on cycles that span several human generations. They live in epic chronologies.

Until we learn how to fold up the centuries or to mimic photosynthesis there’s no substitute for patience. Human hands can replace the trees but not necessarily the forest. Tree planting sets the stage, perhaps hastening a revival, but still we must wait. For something happens underneath an established canopy that we can neither replicate nor control.

A great text! don’t you think so? See you next monday. Graciela