Green Group discussion

by Peter Wohlleben

Our next 2016 book read. Feel free to join in. Always looking for any contributions or knowledge about trees. I admit to lacking in this topic. I hope to learn a lot.

Thanks, Jimmy.

Looking forward to reading this - I'm going to order it today.

Here's a video by Dr. Suzanne Simard called "Do Trees Communicate?" She's great. I'll be posting many more by her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSGPN...

Ordered the book through inter-library exchange. Should start reading soon!

Here's Dr. Suzanne Simard's TED talk on trees:

https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_sim...

Some interesting information from the Foreword:

A spruce in Sweden is more than 9,500 years old.

Electrical impulses pass through the roots of trees at the rate of one third of an inch per second. This is one of their many means of communication. They also use their sense of smell and taste. I didn't even know they had those senses.

If a giraffe starts eating an African acacia, the tree releases a chemical into the air that signals that a threat is at hand. Other trees "smell" it and produce toxic chemicals.

Insect pests are dealt with differently. Trees can send out a signal to attract predators of that insect pest.

Most astonishing of all: trees are social. They care for each other. Trees can care for the stump of a felled tree for centuries by feeding it sugars and other nutrients to keep it alive. Who knew?

Trees connect with each other through a wide network of soil fungi. Trees need each other. And, by the way, we need them.

On this planet it seems like there are multiple dissimilar communities, perhaps of equal size, all slightly out of phase with each other, that appear to have the same basic instincts but never speak the same language.

He calls the plants we "enslave" in our agriculture system "the saddest plants of all." They seem to have lost the ability to communicate. They are rendered "deaf and dumb." They need "more wildness" so that "they'll be more talkative in the future."

There is some incest in tree breeding. But wind and bees can refresh the local gene pool. When a tree species becomes rare, the few remaining trees can lose their genetic diversity. They then weaken and, after a few centuries, disappear altogether.

Lots of good stuff!
The oldest seed to have sprouted into a tree was a date palm seed found at Masada. 2,000 years had passed and it was still sprouted by botanists. Since dates have male and female trees, this male palm is awaiting the finding of another seed of similar antiquity, which might or might not be a female.
The date and other palms are monocotyledons but most trees other than conifers are dicotyledons.

In Alaska and Siberia, climate change is causing the permafrost to thaw. Trees are losing their footing and tipping in different directions. Scientists call these forests "drunken forests."

I would have to take issue with scientists calling forests that are being destroyed by permafrost thawing as drunken forests. Are scientists calling the villages that are losing their building foundations (melting permafrost) drunken villages? And the roads for people in these areas, are they called drunken roads?

On second thought, I wouldn't call them scientists. If the people in the Arctic areas had a big hand in reshaping the climate up there, it might seem appropriate. But it was technological advances fueled by scientific inventions from the middle latitudes that helped fuel our consumer greed that got all of us here.

Have you seen the modern day equipment for mowing down forest like it was a field of grass? The older methods were slower and at least left the ground in some kind of usable condition. Strip mining the forests from the land destroys the ground so it is unable to immediately come back with healthy ground coverage. The constant misapplication of science leads me to the term, drunken scientists.

Jimmy wrote: "Some interesting information from the Foreword:

A spruce in Sweden is more than 9,500 years old.

Electrical impulses pass through the roots of trees at the rate of one third of an inch per seco..."

This is amazing information and makes me really want to own this book. Thanks for sharing. I am going to a Moth Story Hour tonight and if my name gets picked, I am going to talk about trees! The topic is "Something worth fighting for."

Jimmy wrote: "He calls the plants we "enslave" in our agriculture system "the saddest plants of all." They seem to have lost the ability to communicate. They are rendered "deaf and dumb." They need "more wildnes..."

I just started the book and this struck me the most. I have a tree in my front yard that is by herself....made me feel sad for her.

The way trees live - doing well by helping each other, but not doing as well when by themselves - should be a lesson for humans. But sadly, since the Industrial Revolution, we live more as individuals and less in communities. No wonder we have so many unhappy and anxious people today.

Lynnm wrote: "Jimmy wrote: "He calls the plants we "enslave" in our agriculture system "the saddest plants of all." They seem to have lost the ability to communicate. They are rendered "deaf and dumb." They need..."
Plant a friend for her.

Organic farming uses a synthesis of plants in a community that support wildlife. Birds and predator insects eat the insect pests. Trees provide a good perch for birds to inspect the area before flying down to the crop.

The trees also shade some of the ground so you need less water overall.

My next book club at the library, they are reading a silly fiction book. I'm just going to say I didn't read it and share some of the things I learned from this one.

Great pick for this group! I just finished reading it a few weeks ago and loved it. Here is my review:

If you are always looking for metaphors to better understand or describe human behavior, look no further than trees. Well, actually, trees in a forest. For example, we have always known that pests attack weakened trees, but this book explains that weakened trees are those cut off from their community. They lose their ability to defend themselves when they lose their conversational abilities. Does that sound a bit anthropomorphic? Well, it might be, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Trees communicate with each other through their root systems, which enters into a mutualistic association with fungi that acts like our Internet, taking information and nutrients back and forth, a giant redistribution system that ensures well being not only of the species, but the entire forest. It is the forest that provides the appropriate environment where each tree can thrive: “a tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it.” What a beautiful metaphor! What a lesson for humanity!

This is a beautiful book, carefully researched and written over many years. It explores all of the basic questions we all have about trees and a whole bunch that probably never occurred to any of us. Trees get sick, raise their children purposefully, count warm days, have decentralized brains, remember events, feel pain, coordinate spring blooms with their relatives, enter into strategic associations and have emotional lives and needs. Once we recognize these emotional lives and needs, the author posits, it will break down the moral barriers between humans, animals and plants. This will lead us to treat animals and plants much differently because we will not tolerate causing them unnecessary pain.

Just like a true human community, a forest ecosystem achieves “the fullness of life with tens of thousands of species interwoven and interdependent.”

This book, however, does not wax poetic even though all of the conditions are ripe for the author to do so. It is rather quite matter of fact, reminding me of a writing style popular in the 1940’s. The translation could have been improved and I would have enjoyed learning about more forests outside of Europe. Beyond these small complaints the book will truly open your eyes to the tremendous activity happening in a healthy forest

Thank you, Justin!

Great review, Justin, thanks!

Just got my copy from the local library. As an IT geek, I love the reference to the "wood wide web," the interconnected network of tree roots and fungi that turn forests into super-organisms. Wicked cool!


The Wood Wide Web: the world of trees underneath the surface

Nice interview on the book with Wohlleben in Yale Environment 360:

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/are_tree...

Brian wrote: "Just got my copy from the local library. As an IT geek, I love the reference to the "wood wide web," the interconnected network of tree roots and fungi that turn forests into super-organisms. Wicke..."

I got a kick out of that too. :-)

And love the picture!

Fungi are the largest known organisms in the world. Some of the giants kill trees in search of edible tissue. Others work as a team with trees.

This is me looking at a tree after reading this book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuoKN...

Or maybe this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VkrU...

For more thoughts on trees: I attended a talk by this gentleman earlier this year to launch his latest book.
Thomas Pakenham

The Company of Trees: A Year in a Lifetime's Quest

Loved Wohlleben's description of the "drunken forests": great imagery (and I can relate to how they feel these days ;-). Although the underlying cause of the phenomenon is pretty alarming...



Around The Arctic, Frozen Earth Is Thawing And Creating ‘Drunken Forests’

Great visual, Brian!

Jimmy, thank you for drawing my attention to this book. I'll get an electronic copy, because that's not printed on minced trees.
:)
Bob

My kids always complain they can't think of what to give me for Christmas so I've just emailed them. The three of them can share the Kindle price.
:))

I would definitely rather get a book I'd enjoy than something I would not use.

Thanks Clare and Jimmy for the nice comments. Feel free to like the original review :), which would give it a wider audience.

Justin wrote: "Thanks Clare and Jimmy for the nice comments. Feel free to like the original review :), which would give it a wider audience."

I think Justin has a good idea about liking each other's reviews of green books. That helps to get the word out. I also recommend that you all friend each other to keep up with what's going on.

Agreed, Jimmy. Just doing a quick check I see that you and I have about 25 books in common, I am sure that will be the case with others in the group as well.

I've just added The Man Who Climbs Trees

to the bookshelf. Ever wondered how the hidden life of the rainforest canopies are revealed on TV? The hard way!