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The Overhead Wire Daily | Lessons from Redwood Trees

Two everlasting symbols of California are the sequoia and redwood trees. People know the giants from popular culture and national parks but the trees, which are not the same species but related, should also be seen as examples of the ultimate in evolutionary sustainability.

The earliest known sequoia fossil is from over 200 million years ago and the trees have evolved to drink water from the air and regenerate from the stumps of dead trees. The most impressive fact about these trees is that they also use fire to reseed areas underneath their canopies. Unfortunately recent high temperature fires have damaged seeds beyond the ability to germinate but the feat still remains an important result of their evolutionary process.

Jeff why are you talking about these trees? Because we could learn something from them.

With the fires happening in Los Angeles, I immediately thought of redwood and sequoia trees and how they come back after fires. As one tree falls several are likely to rise up in their place. Which makes yesterday’s orders from Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass all the more disheartening.

They have decided to suspend environmental review and allow residents to expedite permitting for reconstruction only if the home or business is rebuilt the same size as it was before. I believe this will exacerbate these problems even more.

The amount of materials and labor needed should be considered over the next few years and if we are going to build, why not use existing footprints to build a bit more than what was there at a much higher standard of sustainability. There will now be a competition for these goods between projects in and outside the fire zones due to a momentous rebuilding effort.

This is the lesson of the trees. After a fire or a felling, grow back stronger and evolution will reward your for it. Become more sustainable. Drink from the air and cleanse it. These trees have survived this long and ultimately were pushed into California about 2 million years ago. I hope five thousand years of humans isn’t their undoing and ours.

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