Got Tree?

Today, a three year old asked me what environmentalism was, and I told him that it was like keeping his room tidy, restoring things to a better sense of order, cleaning up the messes made by the use of the land, and maintaining that tidiness. The thing is, 'environmentalism' -as we like to call it- is a messy, fiery, grueling process with a definition that is different for every individual. But you can't explain that to a three year old.

As for those of us that aren't three, what is environmentalism? Is it sitting in a hundred year old redwood as loggers look on; buying organics at the grocer's store or choosing energy star products (tax benefits included); maybe it's a bunch of dirty hippies who don't use deodorant (and should) protesting business deregulations that encourage foreign business investments. Either way you slice it, Environmentalism is the study of the use of the world's resources.

For me, that means conserving, reusing, and carefully allocating new resources. But then again, I was raised by recovering hippies who have only just begun to be respectable middle class citizens. Environmentalism has very gritty, dirty images included in my definition; raw sapling trees dripping mud on my hands as I scramble up a riverbank and plant it, tires pressing raw edges against my shoulders as I slip and slide through mud, and the smell of compost in local lunchrooms (believe it or not, someone does actually sort those, and it's usually me).

So whether you're an environmentalist or not, I strongly advise that you plant a tree. Maybe in your back yard, perhaps in that abandoned lot next door, or even in front of your offices to spruce things up in the spring. It doesn't make you an environmentalist, but it does put you on the side of the land, and defines you as a champion for free oxygen (which trees produce for me and you) - Conor