Читать книгу Like a Tree - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 26

Once upon a time, like Easter Island, most of Earth was covered with forests. Almost half of the United States, threequarters of Canada, almost all of Europe, and much of the rest of the world were forested. Most of the deforestation occurred in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East prior to this century. The United States was logged extensively. Most old growth forests, particularly in the East, were clearcut by 1920. Now old growth trees and forests are being cut at an accelerated rate in the tropical rain forests and boreal rain forests. Deforestation is a major contributor to global warming. Al Gore, in his 2009 book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, wrote that 20 percent of carbon emission is due to deforestation—more than the amount produced by all of the world's cars and trucks combined.

Easter Island is an extreme example of deforestation. People object to the idea that the islanders created their own downfall. Surely, they wouldn't be so foolish as to cut down all their trees, when the consequences would have been so obvious to them? Jared Diamond comments that this question nags everyone who has wondered how it happened, including himself. He writes: “I have often asked myself, ‘What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?’ Like modern loggers, did he shout ‘Jobs, not trees!’? Or: ‘Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we'll find a substitute for wood’? Or: ‘We don't have proof that there aren't palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research, your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fearmongering’?” (Collapse, 2005, p. 114).

This imagined conversation echoes the rationalization to justify cutting down ancient trees by logging companies with profit as the sole motivation, and by the men hired to do the job. In developing countries, once the most valuable trees are efficiently harvested, the trees that are still standing are likely to be taken down for firewood or charcoal. On seeing the effects of deforestation when there is poverty, it is easy to see what happened on Easter Island: the trees became extinct, due to the deforestation that was done when the island was prosperous and then, later, when anything that could burn was used for fuel. Until one day, there was no tree left standing.

Like Easter Island, there is nowhere to go if we use up what sustains us on planet Earth. If we continue to pollute the water, use up resources, cut down the trees and the rain forests, destroy the ozone layer, turn fertile land into deserts, continue to create larger, more sprawling, more numerous and unmanageable cities—accelerating all of this through wars and the collateral damage that conflict causes to children and women, and trees, Jared Diamond's description of what happened to the people and trees that once inhabited Easter Island foretells what could happen to Earth.