I was working on the third or fourth draft of my book,
The Journeys of Trees, when a friend pointed out to me what the book is about. It came as a surprise. I was fairly certain I knew what it was about: the future of forests. Thanks to the combined effects of climate change, globalization, and deforestation, the world’s forests are in a state of upheaval unlike any since at least the end of the last ice age. In the book, I abandoned the usual view people take of trees and forests, as reliable and unchanging, nearly geologic in their stillness, and instead cast them as mobile, dynamic collections of creatures — which of course they are, if you take even a moderately long view of things. Slipping out of the usual human scale threw into higher relief what is typical about our time, and what is truly unprecedented. That’s what the book is about. But, as my friend pointed out, maybe that’s not
all the book is about. Maybe, he suggested, it’s also about acceptance...