It has been almost two years since message number 7 from Fluff, the female cottonwood tree that lives very near our house along the ditch in Tulsa. When my wife and I go walking along the ditch, I usually say hi to Fluff. (She gets this name from the fluffy seeds she produces in the spring.) But until just recently, she has had no new messages for me. I will let her speak now.
“Hi, Stan. Thanks for remembering me. I have been keeping an eye, or a phytochrome in my case, on your world news. It has been, from your viewpoint, pretty horrific.
“But not from mine.
“Stan, you used to write in your books and blogs about the future effects of global warming. This year, it has become apparent that the future is now. There have been heat waves and wildfires all over the northern hemisphere. Alternating with those, there have been catastrophic floods, including in places that seldom get them, such as the American Southwest desert. Hurricanes are normal, but you have been getting much more powerful ones. One after another, temperature and drought and flood records have been broken. And already, insurance companies are refusing to provide coverage for new homes in California and Florida.
“I wouldn’t want to be one of you humans right now. Your survival depends on your economy, which depends on the stability of conditions. To use the insurance example above, home buyers cannot get mortgages unless they have flood and fire insurance in the danger zones, which are now as big as whole states. The economic effects are that only very rich people, who do not need mortgages, can buy property, and rent it out at exorbitant rates to middle-class workers who have no choice but to pay them. Hurricanes disturb trade routes, industry, and everything else.
“And many of my fellow plants are suffering too. That is, the rare ones who grow only in a narrow range of conditions. But us cottonwoods can grow in almost any disturbance that you humans cause—in our case, anywhere that has enough water. Us cottonwoods can grow anyplace except a desert. We can even grow along rivers in deserts.
“From where I stand, I can look at the ditch, which you dignify by calling a creek. It is lined with big limestone boulders, trucked in decades ago. In between the boulders there is soil that has eroded from other places, and garbage that has piled up. My seedlings grow abundantly in such places—I see them every day with a feeling of matronly satisfaction. If it gets hot enough to endanger the health of you humans, my seedlings and I just transpire more water vapor to cool our leaves off. Our wood is very light, which means it consists of xylem pipes that conduct a lot of water. And we can tolerate cold conditions far beyond any that occur in Tulsa. Even the extra carbon dioxide that you put into the air—we can such that carbon right out of the air and turn it into new growth and, later, new seeds. When you Tulsans had the big blackout in June, your streets were crowded, because everyone was driving around so they could use their car or big truck air conditioning. The vehicles were pouring carbon into the air, which was good for me but not for you.
“Because my seedlings grow so fast, we can take almost immediate advantage of any disruptions you cause, whether it is fire, or soil erosion, or pollution. Your self-inflicted bad luck is our good fortune. And then, when we get old, and the wind blows, we fall over on your houses and destroy your roofs—I can see, from where I stand, several examples from the recent windstorm.
“So I will just stand here and photosynthesize, storing up for next spring’s crop of seeds, while you humans continue to deny the truth to yourselves. You humans—even you, Stan—find solace in alcohol from the liquor store just around the corner from me.”
Fluff the Cottonwood, Tulsa, Oklahoma, September, 2023
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