Hugh Bollinger / Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Listen to the eucalyptus trees

Turns out, the bastards have something to say about climate change

By Reilly Capps The eucalyptus trees of northern California give the place an elegant, dilapidated charm. They rise high from the ground quickly but then seem to run out of steam, looping back toward the Earth in a graceful swoop. These ones below are from Golden Gate National Recreation Area, just north of San Francisco, where I camp.

And camping on Angel Island, in the nearby San Francisco bay, the eucalyptus trees give off an enchanting scent, and my girlfriend snapped off the leaves to inhale the sweet smell. Along with kangaroos and koala bears, they are Australia, and have been almost since the time the explorer Abel Tasman discovered them in 1642 on the island now named after him. He immediately realized gum could be extracted. It's a great tree there. It grows fast and feeds the pouched mammals that live down under. It's a good plant down there. But it's important to remember that none of us are only what we look like. We each carry around a story. The same can be true of plants. I was running through the Presidio of San Francisco with my friend Carrie when I commented on the giant eucalyptus trees above us. How gorgeous they are! How unlike anything else! "They're a weed," Carrie said. [caption id="attachment_4535" align="alignleft" width="364" caption="Carrie in the Presidio, right after she broke the news that eucalyptus trees are weeds. She looks oddly happy, despite having broken my heart. "]

[/caption] Turns out that, during the Gold Rush in California, entrepreneurs heard stories of these fast-growing trees and figured their wood could be used to build the railroads. The Central Pacific railroad planted over a million. Is was a good idea, if the idea was to lose money. Yes, why test a tree to see if it will work? Why not just plant a million of them and then see what happens? But just like the trees, which rise fast and then seem to wilt, their potential as an economic driver was short-lived. When the trees matured, engineers found that the wood rotted away, and so the wood was worthless as a rail tie. So, so much for that. Plus, they suck up water from the water table. Which isn't a huge problem in wet NorCal, but is in Africa, where the trees were also imported. In many parts of the world, these wretched trees crowd out the natives, threatening biodiversity. And I realize it's odd, but I have negative feelings toward these plants. It's not the trees' fault -- clearly -- that they were snatched up from their native Australia and transplanted here. But in light of the story I now see the trees as menacing, threatening interlopers with no rights and too much moxie. Their striated bark seems to look haggard and bleak rather than elegant. But this happens all the time, doesn't it? If you're an environmentalist who believes that species diversity is important, certain plants take on the role of Voldemort. In my native Colorado, it's the tamarisk, which grows on the banks of the Colorado River and sucks at that river, which is exceptionally bad since the Colorado River is what sates huge sections of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California. So, like settlers going out against the Indians, we organize parties to hack and claw and rip the tamarisk out. No, it would be other way around, wouldn't it? Us Europeans were the invasive species. Let's hope the Navajo don't organize parties to extricate us. Of course, all of this is applicable to the debate over climate change, since the cautionary principle applies both to planting foreign trees in some vague hope that they'll help you build the railroad and to callously pumping out CO2 in the vague hope that everything will eventually be ok, that nearly every scientist on the planet is wrong, and we're not setting ourselves up for a hot and nasty future where trees out of place will be the least of our worries. - RC

World Turtle Day Feeling Good About #5

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Tags: reilly capps RiledUp climate change Australia San Francisco angel island eucalyptus golden gate hatred toward plants invasive species tamarisk tamarisk is evil

Listen to the eucalyptus trees

Turns out, the bastards have something to say about climate change

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