We did a tonne of tree-search ( 😜 ) and are excited to share what we learned about different tree species around the planet, the past and current threats to Earth's trees (including climate change itself), and the fascinating potential of trees to help us mitigate and adapt to extreme conditions and events that result from climate change.
In this episode of The Climate Fix, our co-hosts discuss the connection between trees and climate change.
We did a tonne of tree-search ( 😜 ) and are excited to share what we learned about different tree species around the planet, the past and current threats to Earth's trees (including climate change itself), and the fascinating potential of trees to help us mitigate and adapt to extreme conditions and events that result from climate change.
After listening to this, you just might feel like hugging a tree.
Show notes
Listen to the sound of forests: https://www.tree.fm/
Learn more
Bark beetle infestations slowing but spreading in Colorado’s forests, aerial survey finds (Link: https://denvergazette.com/news/environment/bark-beetle-infestations-slowing-but-spreading-in-colorado-s-forests-aerial-survey-finds/article_1bf88ba4-7167-11eb-9ed2-afb73e3a7117.html)
Planting Trees Won’t Save the World (Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/opinion/trump-climate-change-trees.html)
The Hidden Life of Trees (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hidden-Life-Trees-International-Communicate/dp/0008218439/ref=sr_1_1?crid=37B7TV3BQXWU7&dchild=1&keywords=hidden+life+of+trees&qid=1616268989&s=books&sprefix=hidden+life+of%2Caps%2C146&sr=1-1)
Ecological Impacts of Emerald Ash Borer in Forests atthe Epicenter of the Invasion in North America (Link: https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/5e6500f6c3eaa920ac914888/603ec1d1e6019d7102a171a1/237f88beda2b6f39e5459a36329cf488/forests-09-00250.pdf)
Timber Wars episode on NPR podcast (https://www.npr.org/podcasts/906829608/timber-wars)
The Miyawaki method for creating forests (link: https://creatingtomorrowsforests.co.uk/blogs/news/the-miyawaki-method-for-creating-forests)
Anthropocine Magazine: How much can planting trees offset a city’s emissions? (link: https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2021/03/how-much-can-planting-trees-actually-offset-a-citys-carbon-emissions/)
Street Trees And Depression | Earth Wise (link: https://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=971714646:971714675)
Making Peace With Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies (full report by UN Environmental Programme) - link: https://wedocs.unep.org/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/34948/MPN.pdf
-> TL;DR: A new UN report urges a radical shift in the way we think about nature (link: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/18/americas/un-report-climate-making-peace-intl/index.html)
Doughnut Economy: https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/
Kate Raworth's TED talk: A healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow (link: https://www.ted.com/talks/kate_raworth_a_healthy_economy_should_be_designed_to_thrive_not_grow?language=en)
Amelia: [00:00:00] Well, I think I think that when we talk about reforestation, one of the things that. We are saying implicitly, but we often don't say explicitly is that actually we need to really protect and sustain the forest that we already have. And in fact the exact opposite is happening and setting aside kind of greenwashing and trying to add for us to the world, which you know, should happen.
We have to think about, well, what can we even keep these for us? That we have right now. And I think we talk. A lot about forests threats or are our conversations about forest threats often focus on land, use, change like agriculture and wildfires. And those get a lot of attention. You know, when you see flames leaping to the sky, we have smoke covering our communities.
That's obviously huge and noticeable, but I think I was also very interested in these quiet. Killers that are also human impacted. Also [00:01:00] climate change impacted, which are invasive for a species and invasive forest pests. And so this past week I went I went on a hike through a forest in the Northeast of the United States.
That's very familiar to me. It's the type of forest I've been hiking for a long time. And as I walked every 50 feet, I saw another Ash tree. Completely stripped of its bark. Looked like a machine had just cut it all away.
Asim: [00:01:29] Can you describe the, what does that look like?
Amelia: [00:01:31] What's funny is at first we thought there was like, A bear or a porcupine climbing trees, really clumsily and pulling down all their bark. Like you would just see sort of like this, a light Brown you know, interior cause the, the Ash trees are this how this dark Brown bar can you see the light Brown interior with the dark Brown?
Just completely missing. If you looked closer, you'd see this went all the way up the trunk all the way to the top. [00:02:00] And you would often see on top of the snow, it was mostly snowy at this time. Pieces of bark. Fall into the ground sometimes covering the ground surrounding the tree with like inches of a bark almost as if the tree had been like freshly mulched or something.
Right. But actually what had happened was this had just all fallen off of the tree.
Asim: [00:02:24] Sounds
Amelia: [00:02:25] Yeah, it was it was quite, I think it really was jarring to see, you could see how these Ash trees fit into the forest and every one of them was dying.
Asim: [00:02:39] What was killing them?
Amelia: [00:02:41] right. So that brings us to this Asian pest, the Emerald Ash borer. It's native to Asia. It was first discovered in North America in 2002. And it's since spread across the United States and parts of Canada in Asia to secondary pest. So that means that it kills weak and [00:03:00] unhealthy Ash trees.
Usually after another threat has come through not, it's not really a significant threat to healthy Ash trees. And. In Asia their Ash trees are believed to be resilient because they have really high tannin concentrations and other defense mechanisms. And so what happens is they have larva which chew tunnels under the Ash bark, and they're searching for a safe place to stay warm during the winter.
But these tunnels destroy the structures that transport nutrients around the tree, through the tree circulatory system And our result in the bark kind of falling off like this. So this is just one specific test, but.
Tim: [00:03:41] And I'll it reminds me of my time spent in Colorado. I lived in the state of Colorado, which is largely in the Rocky mountain range in the Western United States and lived there from 2014 to. Oh, no, [00:04:00] sorry. 20 2008 to 2014, before I moved to California and the pine beetle became a huge infestation there.
And even to like, when I was there, I was even volunteering to go out in the forests and pick up all the dead trees that had been killed by these pine beetles, stack them in a place for either burning or for another. Treatment methodology that they have, where they basically leave those stacks of trees that still have the beetles in them, in the sun to, to bake basically, and to create a conditions where they won't survive.
And they even put plastic over them for a while to, to kill them. And there's many different things. Like pheromones and adios different, like high-pitch audio that they're using to try to mitigate this. And so since it's been a while, since I lived there, I checked back in and read an article this morning, actually from the den Denver [00:05:00] Gazette.
And they just did which they do yearly. They do a fly over of all the forests to see is the damage increasing and is it. Increasing at a faster, slower rate compared to recent years. And they found that the, the damage in terms of number of acres being affected by these beetles is definitely increasing, but it might be increasing a little bit more slowly.
And one of the things that. I think that article and another one that I listened to this morning mentioned is that, you know, these insects get a lot of attention because they're new. They're really easy to identify and kind of point to as a, as a obvious factor in the big problem. But, and I should say there is the.
Climate change aspect that not [00:06:00] only is maybe giving a better climate for these insects to, to live in, in general, but is creating the tree. Like the drought, for example, is weakening the tree. So they are more susceptible to any insect or any disease. And. That as Amelia was kind of pointing to is like a less, is a more silent and less is more in the background.
And although we do know that we're in a drought, oftentimes it's such an, a sustained thing and a little less obvious than a bunch of beetles, boring holes or making trees
Amelia: [00:06:38] Yeah, Marquetta I think you a LinkedIn article about the way about like the way that invasive species are becoming more of a threat because of climate change that I was really interested in.
Marketa: [00:06:50] Yes. So I read an article about the fact that as the climate warms and as the winters are much milder. Because obviously, you [00:07:00] know, just like we talked about last week about the Texas winter storm, you know, that is an extreme that happens.
Maybe like once every 10 years it may start happening more often, but generally it doesn't really happen every single year. And that is the point with climate change, you know, because most of the time you will get much mild Winters, and that is causing some of the insect to survive even during the winter.
And that's why it can then really spread across the entire forest and kill the entire forest or not kill, but like really the damage. Significantly. So this is something that is happening in Europe as well. And I'm not sure if pine beetle is actually the same thing as bark beetle. I think it's very similar.
It's like from the same family, maybe it's just like different terminology. But yeah, that's something that's has been happening in mainland Europe. I'm not sure to throw about a UK, but definitely in mainland Europe, you know, it's killed or like significantly damaged, like really large areas of [00:08:00] tree where the trees literally dried up.
And what's, it's really interesting though. I started reading this book, which is called the hidden life of trees and. They were looking at the science behind the, the roots and how they're connected and what they do to one another. And it's really interesting because it seems like the roots and trees in general, they just work almost like a social network.
And there was this scientist who coined it like wood wide web, which I thought it was pretty cool. And that way, you know, it seems like the roots are really helping one another, even if there's like a. Like a damaged or or weak tree, the roots will still continue supporting it and feeding it, you know, and giving it like information about an upcoming dangers send stuff.
So it seems almost like this forest is like a living organisms. Like superorganism that can really inform the other [00:09:00] parts. Maybe just like help. Protect the other parts of the forest so they can get ready. I don't know. I thought it was really fascinating. Like trees are awesome. I love them.
Amelia: [00:09:10] Yeah. And I, I think what that points to is the real thing that we're getting at, which is that it's more than about an individual beetle or an individual tree and how much carbon that tree might sequester or something like that. It's really about ecosystem resilience. And I think this is something you were alluding to as well, Tim, that, you know, it's, it's the.
It's the knockoff effects. It's the gradual weakening of a forest by one thing after another, by drought, like you mentioned by the, by one beetle, by the loss of bee Ash trees, which might support other pollinators and insects, you know that really causes a problem. And one of the things I was when I was researching the Emerald Ash borer, one of the things, you know, I mentioned it's In in Asia, right?
It's a secondary pest. It kills weaker trees. Right. [00:10:00] And in the U S this is still true. The Emerald Ash borer goes straight for weak Ash trees. And one of the ways that they've at least been able to detect it, even if not to contain it is by deliberately doing what's called girdling. So when you cut a kind of circle around the bark of a tree, Kills or weakens the tree again, damaging its circulatory system and the Emerald Ash beetles.
We'll concentrate straight on that unhealthy tree ignoring most of the ashtrays around it, at least for several years, until that tree and the trees very close by can no longer sustain them. Right. So in general, these kinds of pests often just have more effect on On damaged trees and trees that can't sustain one another through the kinds of forest super organisms support networks that you're talking about.
Asim: [00:10:53] So when you're describing it in Asia as a sec, what did you say? Secondary pest. Is [00:11:00] the effect that is having right now because the trees are generally weakening perhaps due to climate change issues and therefore
Amelia: [00:11:09] so no. Yeah. And I don't want to misrepresent it. So in North America and likely in Europe too, once it reaches Europe. Okay. The eventually the Emerald Ash borer kills. I think in the in the place where it was first introduced, it killed 99% of the Ash trees in Michigan they had 99% mortality of green, black, and white Ash.
There were no Ash seeds detected in the soil seed bank. And the only regeneration of Ash trees was from basal sprouting. So this is, these are called Epic Cormack buds. So sometimes if you see a down tree, right, you'll see that it's got like, shoot. Coming out of it. This is a form of regeneration and that was pretty much the only farm that they saw.
And so, and meanwhile new Ash trees forming this way are not able to grow to [00:12:00] reproductive maturity before they're again killed by low levels of, of the Emerald Ash beetle population. So. This isn't in North America. This is not just unhealthy Ash trees. I think it's interesting that it targets them first, but I think this is, I mean, the threat here is what's called functional extinction of the American Ash functional extinction, meaning the population is so reduced that it can no longer play its ecological role.
Even if there are still some individuals of a species left.
Tim: [00:12:32] Yeah, that reminds me of one thing. Reality that was pointed out by a scientist that I was learning from in my research, which is this whole situation we're talking about in relation in the context of trees and climate change. It's very, very complex. You know, there's no one answer to [00:13:00] why is what hap what is happening happening.
Right. Because for example, we've talked about the beetles. We've talked about droughts, we've talked about fires and those all play into one another and affect one another. And it's, it's kind of a, I think the destruction, if you will, from, from the general conditions of climate change is an.
Fascinating and kind of sad reflection of the ecosystems that are being destroyed themselves. Right? These are very complex ecosystems and the destruction of them is there for very complex because everything's interconnected. S some examples of that, that I thought were super fascinating were when I was listening to the podcast timber Wars, which focuses on the Pacific Northwest and the old growth forests of redwoods and Douglas firs.
And these are old growth forests have trees [00:14:00] that are up to 2000 years old that have been here since the Roman empire. And a tree like a giant Redwood on the coast of California, Oregon, for example, takes 1500 years to reach maturity. And the canopy starts like 10 stories up. So in decades ago, when we didn't know as much about forests, Scientists and forest, the actual us forest service considered an old growth forest to be a desert, an ecological desert, because there were no animals on the ground because there weren't as many bushes, all the animals were in the bushy, like less younger growth, but that was before they had climbed up into the canopy and discovered a huge ecosystem of animals.
And plants in the canopy that were invisible from the ground [00:15:00] like voles that had lived for generations without even touching the ground. And like, and, and these lichen that existed that they had found on the ground, but mostly existed in the canopy. We're actually. Defending those old growth trees from potential insect infestations, because they were seeing like, Oh, there's this insect that could kill this tree.
And they evolve much more quickly than the tree because the generations of them they'll have multiple generations in a year. Whereas this tree is going to take 2000 years to, to like evolve once. Right. And. The way that the tree was able to defend itself from these insects is the lichen that it grew on it.
And the lichen were evolving as, as fast, if not faster than the insects to, to continue to keep up those defenses.
Marketa: [00:15:57] Reminds me of the method that was [00:16:00] developed by Japanese botanist, Akira Mia. Vocie I'm gonna try a few. I've heard of them, but. But he basically, he created a technique of planting for us really close to one another. So you basically just take all those tiny little seedlings and you place them really close to one another.
And you would think, or like, you know, from my understanding of agriculture, you will think that they will. Not have enough space to grow, but actually they grow, they're proven to grow about 10 times faster because all of those roots and everything, they connect much more quickly. And also them, the tops of the of the baby trees, you know, they also start interconnecting and all of that creates this entire ecosystem much faster.
So this is actually a proven method of reforestation in urban areas. Which I thought was pretty cool. You know, trace are just really amazing. And one thing that we should also mention us same is fun guy, [00:17:00] because if we have a loaner tree, you know, those are also part of the ecosystem and they're usually connected by fungi and the fun guy almost works as a connector.
Between the loaner trees and some perhaps distant forest areas, or like, you know forest areas that you know, some people call them almost like this fiber optic internet cable network, which I thought was so cool. Like if you, if you can think about, if you think about it, you know, we just almost like all the technology that we use mirrors or is mirrored right in the nature.
How amazing is that?
Asim: [00:17:41] I've been starting to research on a casual basis. I don't think I'm really going to take, take this up, but this technique called Korean natural farming.
I'm not too sure. I've mentioned it. Before, it's all about using the bacteria and fungus in your local area. So for [00:18:00] instance, one of the things you would do is you'd go around the area where your farm is and you'd collect bits of fungus.
Like, it's just my Celia, Ms. Lying on the ground. You'd put some cooked rice there, you'd leave it there around the fungus. But two weeks you come back to it. It's got fairy mess of fungus, which you then grow and grow and grow, and you kind of put other things inside it and you finally mix in with your soil and then it then creates this wonderful ecosystem in the soil.
And then that's what provides you all your nutrients for your, for your, for your plants. And it costs you very, very little and it's all about, and they all talk again about the interconnectedness of everything. And it's like, you look after your soil, you look after the ingredients, which creates the connections and everything else is grows.
Lusciously on top of it. And that just sounds because you haven't talked about the beetles that are killing the trees, but then we talk about a light and it's protecting the trees. [00:19:00] And how everything is just connected in that way.
Tim: [00:19:05] I was just gonna connect those dots. And I guess the third dot that of the Pacific Northwest, and I haven't looked into this, but. When researching fungus and my CLM, I did learn that the largest single organism in the world is a mycelium network that is underground in the Pacific Northwest of the UK.
Yes. And that makes it makes me cry. Yes. Like is the presence of that intact my CLL network that spans so much ground. Related to the presence of that, those old core old growth forests, which of course, we've mostly destroyed as humans by now, but before we had destroyed them and those that still exist are literally some of the largest and oldest [00:20:00] living things on earth.
Which is just like a, a mindblowing scale of these trees and this network underneath them, connecting them all. And before I ended off, I'll also just mention some drawing the connection back to Colorado in the Rocky mountains, the Aspen tree. Is another fascinating organism because they connect, they grow in groves.
And when you see a big bunch of Aspen trees in one area, which are beautiful to look at in the fall, because the leaves all turn gold and they're just gorgeous. Those are all connected underground. So. A massive Aspen trees very often considered, you know, have to dig under there and see, but one organism and just like that, my Celio network connects different species of trees.
This species connects itself. [00:21:00] benefits from the
Amelia: [00:21:01] they're walking because of climate change they, the groves are heading slowly northward.
Asim: [00:21:11] So what I'm hearing is, is that, is that these grows or of regions of trees Or getting attacked and dying. But at the same time, if they had a, a bigger network, a bigger network of different biodiversity, different species that my seal network underneath it would protect them from climate change as well. Right. So.
Tim: [00:21:37] Well, I mean, you get back to the land use thing. I think I, this is where my research has left me a little hopeless, at least in terms of North America, I was listening to one expert in land use, say that because of the number of human beings we have. In America, in [00:22:00] particular, we don't have any more space according to this one person to grow trees.
And I saw some of the other research that someone shared on our board that pointed to other areas of the planet that do have space to reforest or a forest. But you know, Agriculture and living space is the real competition for forest space right now. And because we're so heavily dependent on meat as a global society, in terms of our food sources, we're tearing down the Amazon rainforest to make clear, cutting that to make room for cattle.
And in other areas clear, cutting that to make room for Palm forests so we can satisfy the demand for Palm oil in the world. And so it's, we have some, even [00:23:00] if we come to some conclusion of like, what is the solution, what do we need to do as you're alluding to, or heading in the direction of their awesome.
We still have this huge force. Against any progress in that direction, which is money hour
and
industry.
Marketa: [00:23:18] So interesting that you mentioned that because just this morning, I actually read an article on Anthropocene magazine. I seen that talked about the potential to offset carbon emissions of different cities by reforesting. And they found, they just did a research of like thousands of different, you know, CDs of different sizes.
And they did a research on the, how much carbon footprint and carbon emissions could be. Sequester if they reforested those areas and they found out that urban areas that are defined as having 50,000 people or more, they have more potential to offset. They have the potential to offset 82,000 [00:24:00] metric.
Tons of carbon equivalent each year, which accounts for about 1% of total emissions from cities. And that may sound really insignificant, but they said that because there are many smaller cities compared to the really big ones that be used to have a much bigger carbon footprint. So the smaller cities.
Could actually cut their carbon emissions up to 25% through reforesting and not only in areas like in streets and stuff, but also cities have many areas that are just. You know, just land filled with grass or something. Those could be reforested as well. So to potential, even though obviously all of those things that you mentioned just now about cattle, soy coffee, all of that is totally true.
And bear, those are the areas where we're killing some of the entrant forests and that's really bad, but on the other hand, There is definitely a potential to reforest some of these urban areas that could [00:25:00] also help with climate change. Not to mention that obviously, during the super warm summers that we've been experiencing in the past few years.
Including, you know, having more trees in streets and stuff can also really significantly cool them down, which is really important then sometimes it's almost life-saving right. Like some of those cities can get so hard because of the amount of concrete and glass and everything. They just get. So, so hot.
That's exactly, as you said, even last time, you know, sometimes it's not even possible to have your dog world barefoot, like you literally have to pick them up.
Tim: [00:25:35] Yeah, that's really awesome. Cause heat waves are one of the biggest threats to human life. And yeah. When you think about we usually think about these big open spaces where trees could be grown and we ignore these urban areas that they could exist as well, which reminds me of the science behind the mental health.
[00:26:00] Benefits of being near trees and how especially during the pandemic, it's been critical for people to spend time in nature and within trees and those who haven't had that access have you know, suffered a little bit more to the, to the extent that there's even a. A website called tree.fm, where you can just tune into forests from the internet to
get your of a foresty, stay for your mental
Marketa: [00:26:28] I've been using calm app for Like, it definitely had an impact on me during COVID and during this entire pandemic, obviously being stuck in London, you know, London, ACE, quite like it has some green areas, but obviously during lockdown, you know, you're going to be allowed to go there.
So. My options in terms of going out to nature versus so limited. And I could definitely feel it on my mental health and, [00:27:00] you know, just overall, just wellbeing. You know, I just really so wanted to go to a forest and just go for a walk, you know, just to clear my mind and everything.
Asim: [00:27:09] I think what I'm. Getting from this conversation, which is really interesting for me was, and I do, I do really see forests and, and life and nature in that other way. But I just been thinking of trees in this commoditized way of carbon. It's just, you know, they were just this thing and you grow them and you suck carbon out of the atmosphere and that's it.
And you put them down and that's that purpose, but you know, they have this mental health. Benefit. They have this interconnectedness with, with, with loads of other species and plants and animal life, and they protect themselves, the protect others. They protect us. there's all these other benefits, think of.
And even those of us who care about the climate, I even, I have fallen into the trap of just treating them out as a commodity.
Marketa: [00:27:57] Which comes back to the recent UN [00:28:00] report that talks about the fact that we should rethink as human species. You know, we should, we should definitely rethink natural capital because at the moment, if we. If he gained profit, for example, as a nation, you know, as if a nation gained some profits from say fishing industry, even if they overfish their own area, which is obviously bad for the entire ecosystem, you know, it is still considered as growth and that is wrong if you think about it, because from the natural perspective and definitely from the climate change perspective, we need to consider.
Climate change and natural capital S part of this entire equation, because we cannot think of profit as just something that will get us some money. We also need to think about ways, how it will damage or hopefully not damage the natural ecosystem around us, [00:29:00] because then that's when it comes to finite limits on the planet.
You know, at the moment we're just using way too much compared to what is. Available on the planet we're using, I think about 1.7, you know, we're, we're acting as if we, we were living or had resources of 0.1 0.7, planets planet earth. But yeah, we just need to rethink that and, and change how change the policies actually, you know, it just comes back to how we think about natural capital.
So forests. Wolter clean water, clean air, all of that needs to be accounted into. Okay. If you, if I want to have a business in this area, where are my limits in terms of damaging nature, compared to where my limits, you know, where, where do I want to get in terms of growth? And I think that that's.
That's where, you know, the circular economy and the entire concept of, I'm not sure if you guys heard of donut economies by Kate Raworth, but that's a [00:30:00] really fascinating concept that takes all of those things into account. And if anyone is interested in finding out more about that, there's a really great Ted talk by Kate Raworth about doughnut economics.
It's called that, and it's just really liberally and such a great concept. I really hope that people and cities and countries will accept that and implement it in the future.
Amelia: [00:30:24] and what is Jonetta economics?
Marketa: [00:30:27] So donut economics is this concept. It's like an economical model that takes into consideration the finite limits of planet. Of cities of people. So it accounts even for like happiness, it accounts for climate change, it accounts for various types of resources. And all of that shows you in that model.
If you're using just about, you know, as much as is available or if you're using too much, and then you can just compare it and see where you need to perhaps step back a little [00:31:00] bit
Tim: [00:31:00] Yeah, the visualization of the economics is a circle kind of looks like a donut. And kind of when you look at. Her presentation of it. It makes a lot of sense visually as well, where, you know, if we expand to beyond the ring than were going beyond our limits. And yeah, I just, I wanted to also mention kind of building off of that.
The, when we talk about climate change at a high level, we always. Mention or hear words like adaptation and mitigation. And I think we need to think about trees, not just as a commodity so that we can apply it. Our understanding of it build our understanding of it holistically and understand and realize or recognize that they [00:32:00] help with the adaptation.
Efforts, they help with the mitigation efforts through a sequence duration and an adaptation. Since, know, if we take the trees away more mudslides happen. If we leave the trees there, fewer mudslides happen. And just with all these wildfires happening, you know, they're new solutions with them.
Planting more lush trees in certain areas to build firewalls, for example. So it's a delicate balance, I think, between seeing them as a commodity and something that we can use for our own good, whether it's to protect us or to make money off of them. But also when designing that use, understanding that.
And just like keeping in mind this interconnectedness in this ecosystem that they create and the biodiversity and how much, how many dependencies thousands, if not millions of dependencies
that, are created by the planting of one organism.
Amelia: [00:32:59] When we, [00:33:00] when we talk about this sort of, for example, when we're talking about economic models or we're thinking about trees as a commodity, I think one of the things that these models often assume, and any kind of understanding of anything as a commodity is a way of quantification, right?
And it's a way of assuming that we know a lot more than we do about the value of something and in particular, the value of a tree. Right. And so to say, like, Well, this is what it should cost to cut down the tree, I think is a huge amount of presumption on our part that we know the cost of cutting down a tree.
And I think one of the things I was struck by when I was reading about the ecological impacts of the Emerald Ash borer and the loss of Ash trees is how much the impacts that we've that have and written about in scientific articles are really first-order impacts. How there we don't, we don't know all of the knockoff effects.
Right. We just see those [00:34:00] first things. But just to give you a sense of like what some of those are, right. Increased. So one of the big problems with animal dashboard is that it kills trees very rapidly. So you get these huge gaps, canopy gaps, right? Which increased sunlight to the forest floor. Now, many native plant species increase their toxicity in response to increase some way.
And so what that means is it causes the native species that feed on those plants to have slower growth more and mortality. Right. And that's, again, that's just the things we noticed. Right? Another thing that happens is it tends to be that invasive species are extremely good at taking advantage of gaps in the canopy.
Right? And so one of the concerns is this sort of envisioned meltdown where invasive Woody shrubs come in and are able to better take advantage of that light than the native shrubs and thereby. In the longterm alter the forest succession [00:35:00] patterns by out competing native species. And then there are all these effects that we can just measure, but we don't quite know what they mean.
Right. It affects soil pH it affects mineral concentration. It affects soil moisture. And what does that mean for all these other species? You know, What do we know? Right. We can identify 45 species that feed exclusively on Ash trees, but that's just the ones that we know about. And I think that's what we're really playing with here.
Asim: [00:35:31] I'm going back to the whole message of the interconnected. So these forests and, and I think there's something there. I think there's something in the fact that, that I, I think that they're protecting each other, they're supporting each other. The defending against invaders is more adaptation.
And so I don't know what the solution is, but I do think that, that I personally am going to walk away from this, from this conversation, thinking about forest, more holistically, thinking about planting trees, more holistically thinking [00:36:00] about, about the biodiversity and the environment of, of, of, of a tree.
and for conversation for me
is, thinking I'm not going to think about trees
in a co as a
commodity anymore.
Marketa: [00:36:10] Yeah, that's a good And I think that it's also
really reassuring that, you know, the UN and various governments all around the world, like definitely in the U S and the UK, you know, from what I've heard, they're looking at reforestation as a solution to climate change. You know, there are definitely conversations.
Around this topic. So I think that that's, that's a positive sign, you know, that things will improve, you know, and I once, um, all of these nations catch up, you know, then we will see positive changes in other areas of the world.
Tim: [00:36:45] Go hug a tree.