Lives on Earth

trees

  • Size Matters

    Small things are difficult to see. The smallest things are difficult even to imagine. We are missing life at its smallest, overlooking living things that came before us and make us possible. We need to look inside the box more… Continue reading

  • Peter Wohlleben’s “The Hidden Life of Trees”

    Until recently I was quite sure that a broad difference between animals and plants was that animals, because they are mobile, readily interact with each other (flocking, pursuing, etc.) while plants, anchored to the ground, don’t do so because they… Continue reading

  • Hope Jahren’s ‘Lab Girl’ and the Dramatic Life of Plants

    People admire plants, but we don’t easily relate to them. We don’t sympathize with a plant’s struggles, nor do we particularly identify with any one plant the way we might empathize with our pet dog or cat. Compare the range… Continue reading

  • No Pain, No Sympathy

    Which living things merit our sympathy? Our pets? Certainly. What about human embryos? And plants? Is it consciousness or complexity or being human or the capacity for pain that makes an individual life worth our empathy? The debate over animal… Continue reading

  • Plants as Aliens

    Plants are so familiar to us that we don’t notice or appreciate some of their characteristics. We see them mostly according to how we use them—for food and beauty. For a fresher perspective, I’ll describe plants as strangers from another… Continue reading

  • My Million-Year-Old Back Yard

    Our back yard is filled with ancient plants and animals. It’s a mysterious garden of life forms that have mutated and evolved seemingly beyond recognition over eons. In imagining their origins I look into a Past that, like a god,… Continue reading