“I think like a scientist and my interest in stunted trees probably goes back to my upbringing. I had a difficult childhood with a father who insisted that he was right about everything all the time.

And in my early years as a scientist, I was trying to find some system that would not argue back to me. I loved working with organisms that were themselves repressed by nature. It's a wonderful thing to stand like Gulliver on top of an entire ecosystem that's only three inches tall. And ask yourself, am I any happier than it? And I wasn't. And I found that tremendously thrilling to have a different perspective.”

What can thousand-year-old trees teach us about living sustainably? If we want to be sustained by this planet indefinitely, we need to stop trying to suck it dry.

Doug Larson is an award winning scientist, author, and Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Guelph. He is an expert on deforestation and regularly contributes to The Guardian and other publications. His books include Cliff Ecology: Pattern and Process in Cliff Ecosystems, The Urban Cliff Revolution: New Findings on the Origins and Evolution of Human Habitats, Storyteller Guitar, and The Dogma At My Homework.

https://experts.uoguelph.ca/doug-larson
https://volumesdirect.com/products/the-dogma-ate-my-homework
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cliff-ecology/7502E52B487789BEA2CACC4553AA663B

https://www.amazon.com/Urban-Cliff-Revolution-Evolution-Habitats/dp/1550419927
https://www.amazon.com/Storyteller-Guitar-Doug-Larson-ebook/dp/B00B9VZQXU

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Image courtesy of Doug Larson