“If we can listen we shall hear.” Henry David Thoreau, January 26, 1841
Before I get started, I have to tell you there are two stories in here and I can’t swear they’re even related. The first thing I want to say is that after I submitted my very last story, “Do The Right Thing”, I instinctively decided I was going to skip a week, a very big deal for me. We’ll get there in a little while, but after being comfortable with the aforementioned skip, I came across an incredible article. I knew it had to find a place on my forever, empty page.
Scientists at Israel’s Tel Aviv University discovered that plants can “scream” ultrasonic sounds when they are in distress and drought is one of the culprits. These sounds are out of the range of the human ear, but researchers had believed that they could be heard by other insects or animals. “This is the first demonstration ever of an animal responding to sounds produced by a plant,” Yossi Yovel, a neuroecologist.
Theoretically, our behavior is based upon knowledge, with a healthy dose of instinct. Man, we just love outer space and its allure has always been intoxicating, always getting the headlines. There is so much we don’t understand about this world we share. In some ways, it is like we really don’t want to know too much. Look at how we are fighting as to whether our activities impact the world? The trees are screaming and we are cutting them down. Who will hear them?
Everyday, I invariably come across some interesting little bit of science, something I knew nothing about until that moment. There is so much we don’t know about this place where we live. I don’t even know if there’d be a number to quantify everything that goes on here in one fraction of a second. I am talking everything, everywhere! This place of ours is so incredibly, intricately connected. I am not even going to go off into the cosmos with this one, because there is no need. Science is proving what indigenous people have known forever. We are part of the circle of life, not the ones who stand on her throat. She is not easily angered, but she sure can hold a grudge! She CAN hear the trees screaming.
That story really got me going. The damage being done is a silent chorus of destruction. I use the word “silent” on purpose, because it is deafening, even though we can’t hear it. Even the screams of the children are muted by the media. Everything is connected to everything all the time and that is the damn truth!
Now, if you have been kind enough to get this far in the story, I suspect you’re wondering what got me going on this little tear in the first place. To me, this story was about knowledge, responsibility and action and breakdown. The more we learn about life on this planet, the more we should understand the need to take care of it, rather than it taking care of us. We don’t even understand we are just visitors, part of an endless history.
When we do damage to this place, even in the name of progress, it echoes deep into the confines of this planet and all her inhabitants. Yes, I am probably being a bit extreme, borderline melodramatic, but we have barely started learning. We always love to think that virtually everything is here to serve our needs and we have never given a shit about price or consequence. We are discovering brand new facts that are millions and millions of years old.
So, here we are with vast swaths of this country, thinking climate change is bullshit and the role of science is being negated to nothing more than lousy magic tricks. The screaming tree story got me going on the fact that we have been far more destructive than we even think we know. The future will be written by our inaction to screaming trees everywhere you look. Animals have disappeared at a rate of 30 to 120 times that of any other point in the last 66 million years.
I guess taking a week off from writing and the above story are much more related than when I started out. I needed a break, because it was starting to feel like a job. For a long time, I was afraid that if I didn’t write all the time, I would stop, making it more habit than desire. Truthfully, sometimes I would look at a story of mine and think to myself, “Pretty Good” or “Who Wrote This?’ After all this time, I certainly don’t take it for granted.
Felt like time to fill the tank. Park my fingers and let my mind run in neutral. We are all on the bow of the Titanic, but somehow still hoping for a happy ending. In many ways, our vanity is blinding, a mirage painted by the billionaires, holding a deck of marked cards behind their backs, just in case.
During this time off, I really had time to think about being honest or full of shit. I also want to be read as well. Many scientists believe we are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction event caused by ourselves. Based on population numbers required to maintain genetic viability; it is estimated that as many as 30 percent of plant and animal species may become extinct within the next 100 years. Habitat destruction is the leading cause of species extinction today.
Why the hell would you want to read a story from me each week, which refers to extinction as something other than a distant concept? The all out effort to discredit science is because of its message, not its methodology. I think on some level, many don’t believe we have the power to change the world. It was always thought to be the work of the Gods, not man.
Right now, we are in the Holocene Epoch in current geologic time. It’s primary characteristic is the global changes caused by human activity. Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, it doesn’t seem like anyone wants to do anything at all about it. Imagine the world coming together, making decisions based on what is best for most? This isn’t even lousy science fiction, it’s worse.
Now, we are back at the beginning, my favorite destination in the circle of words. The idea of the trees actually screaming got me into thinking about how much pain our environment and all its inhabitants must be in right now.
If you take the time to listen, you can hear. I needed to stop writing, so I could listen and then write about it.
LISTEN TO IT HERE:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/17641114-when-trees-scream