Tools of Destruction

Written by Alan Bell

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Forests are the lungs of Earth, they bring the oxygen that ignites the blood with life when we breathe, the oxygen bonds with hydrogen to make water...fire, air and water consolidates Life on Earth.

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Wood is the substance that Civilization feeds on for the making of anything from furniture to ships, guitars to cooking utensils, wagons to spears, bows, arrows, shields, fences, forts and ladders...a question of survival for those who use them.

 

Burning wood kills darkness, keeps winter warm, scares animals, cooks food, fires clay for the potter, melts metal for the blacksmith.

 

Humankind rose to dominance on the firm grain and stability of wood, roof beams, floors, window frames and doors, altars and stairways to the stars.

 

Gallows, stocks, the stake, the rack, torture, punishment,and the sentence of death by the gavel of the Judge, executed by the sanction of wood, down to the coffin that hides the dead.

 

How far the wheel turned on the axle across continents, or the mast which held the sails steady in the driving wind over oceans, or the windmill blades turning the millstone to grind acres of golden wheat for the world to eat?

 

And paper for writing, recording, inventing, brought books, newspapers, magazines and mail to the door of anyone's house on the Woodland row of fences and trees which line the roads. Property is the agent of survival in the State, but breath, water heartbeat and earth safeguards all Life on earth before industrial pollution shifted the balance from Life's favour to the advancement of economic prosperity and the survival of the State.

 

Energy upgraded from fire and wind to coal and oil, both given by trees, in metamorphic state, to feed the furnace, or the carburetor in the hurtling car on the international highway. Electric transmissions via cell phone towers, cable or orbiting satellites replace the pinewood telephone poles that hold the chattering wires above the ground between the cities of the wide world.

 

In spite of progress and the plastic era of production wood remains in demand. The appetite for more, to cut down forests and jungle, to sell and buy the wood threatens the stability and regenerative cycle of the planet itself. Clearing jungles directly cuts down the oxygen required for organic life to exist in perpetuity in space and time. Trees also absorb carbon to filter the air we breathe without care. Rivaling this primal necessity is the imperative of survival within the State...Oxygen contra Money!  In this collision of necessities the need for money has taken precedence over the need for oxygen and the forests are systematically cut down along with the flora and fauna that characterizes our planet with no thought to the future of life on earth.

 

The instruments of destruction are devastatingly efficient. The slashing machete blade, the cold steel saw, the rivening ax, the whine of the chain saw, precedes the thunder of the fallen tree. The loud songs of the jungle makes way for the silent regimented palm groves and the empty open grazing territory cleared for the beef industry.

 

Trees are the only lungs of planet Earth.