Reading Lauren Oakes, “Treekeepers: the Race for a Forested Future”, was a bit of a bi-polar experience for me, with periods of amazement and hope, interrupted by depression and hopelessness….To be fair this wasn’t all a result of the book, as there’s no way I could separate out my reading experience from the roller coaster ride of social, political and economic upheaval that characterizes our current ‘Anthro-Trump-pocene’ period…and the ‘reality’ that climate change is taking on a ‘life’ of its own, no longer a simple linear response to our irresponsible Carbon burning, resource consuming, habit. Oakes is a conservation scientist and a science writer. She is also a mother searching for a way out of the impending crisis that awaits us if we continue on failing to act intelligently, respectfully and with enough urgency, that we can avoid the worst outcome of what is definitely bearing down on us. Oakes spent 4 years interviewing ‘experts’, yes that dubious group of would be influencers, whose work is to head off climatic disaster through the use of the conservation, renewal, restoration and expansion of Earth’s reduced and still declining forest base, the natural systems and cycles that have supported life’s development, what role they could play in forestalling what appears to be on our way and even ameliorating the damage already done. What she tells here is the story of an evolving approach to a ‘solution’, one that has been rife with misunderstanding, conflict, misinformation campaigns, innovation and setbacks, a process that is not just redefining the problem and its potential solution, but the processes and ‘mechanics’ of how we might do this. Trees, once presented as a silver bullet, in a simple replacement program, are not and cannot staunch the Carbon ‘bleeding’. They do, however, still remain an important component of a larger program. Continue reading →