Taking Wildness in Hand

With the current craze of ecological preservation that has recently swept our planet, I feel as though we neglect to put emphasis on all of the shrubbery and vegetation that is affected from global warming. I have constantly been plagued with images of helpless polar bears that struggle to stay afloat on melting ice rafts and other affected animals in their suffering habitats, but in Michelle Nijhuis's article "Taking wildness in hand..." she enlightens her audience on other very important aspects of this issue that really caught my attention: Trees.

The Torreya taxifolia was once a tree that could be found in abundance, and according to her article, was "plentiful enough to be cut for Christmas trees, its rot-resistant wood perfect for fence posts. But at some point in the middle of the last century—no one is quite sure when—the trees began to die." During her travels to different parts of the United States, Nijhuis made several visits back to the Florida park where she found these trees, and the few that remained had grown sickly. With thinning needles that were sparse; they had grown only a few feet tall with trunks no thicker than a small wrist. These once festive looking trees had developed some time of tree disease due to increase in deer and groundhogs in their environment.

After reading that portion of the article, I found it really upsetting to move onto the rest. I realized that their are so many other factors that contribute to the environmental problem our planet is currently facing. There are so many plants and trees that have been found to have medicinal properties and unique characteristics, and what is this particular tree is no different. As the result of human development we have forced nature to adapt to our ways, causing some very unfortunate affects. This article has made me realized that global warming and the related crisis is not limited to harsh temperatures melting ice-caps and drowning wildlife. There is so much more at stake, that we as a society don't even realize. We, as part of nature, are all tied together and the faster we take responsibility for the actions of ourselves and our ancestors to sooner we can take initiative to fix it. We need to wake up and smell the sweet scent of pine and taste the salty spay of the ocean waters and realize that we may be the last generation to have that oppurtunity.