The Secret Life of Trees

  I've been saying it for years and, if you read my books, you already know what I think about the plant kingdom. The other day I watched an episode of “Through the Wormhole” with Morgan Freeman on the Science Channel that broached the subject of plant intelligence and communication. So science is finally catching up to what I've known for a very long time. I also read an article by a strict vegetarian today that was putting forth the argument that it was somehow immoral to take the life of another animal for food. So I decided I would examine the question here for those of you who might be swayed by such fuzzy logic. Is it immoral to take the life of another creature so that we may live? I personally don’t see how we could avoid it. At least as we exist today. I will get into more on that later.

  First of all plants or the vegetable kingdom predates the animal kingdom by many millions of years. The plant kingdom had to be here for a very long time to produce enough oxygen in what would have been a very poisonous atmosphere for us. Until the oxygen level was high enough, animal life as we know it wasn't possible. And just what is oxygen anyway? Technically, it is a waste product produced by plants during photosynthesis. So what plants exhale as a waste product, we inhale as a life giving substance. So basically we are parasites of plant waste. Not a pleasant thought I know. But let’s look at it a little deeper. Most all plants harvest sunlight directly for food and energy. Without sunlight, they die. It wasn't until enough plants existed on Earth to create an oxygen rich atmosphere that animals were able to emerge - first in the oceans, and then on dry land. Animals could not harvest sunlight directly for food as the plants did. Animals were totally dependent on plants, harvesting them instead, stealing the nutrients and minerals plants created from sunlight. In other words, animals were parasites which probably developed as a way for nature to keep the plant kingdom in check. So the first wave of animals was plant eaters. But they in turn grew numerous and threatened to overwhelm the plant kingdom. So a new sort of animal came about. One who was too lazy to harvest plants for themselves and fed upon plant eaters instead stealing the life giving nutrients and minerals from the thieves who had stolen them from the plants. This kept the plant eaters in check. Humans at first fell into this category. We were meat eaters. We survived by killing and eating plant eaters and even sometimes our fellow meat eaters. We may have been nature’s answer to the meat eaters to keep them from overwhelming the plant eaters.  Sure we were eventually able to sometimes supplement our diet with fruits and nuts we found along the way. But it was meat that kept us alive. It was a very long time before our human ancestors learned to become at least partial plant harvesters themselves.

  We are fond of the idea that in all of evolution, humans are the only creatures that have developed intelligence, feelings, and self-awareness. But is that really true? I and many others, including a growing number of scientists, think not. It has been demonstrated scientifically now that plants do communicate, are self-aware, and conscious of their surroundings. They communicate both through chemicals and pheromones and with sounds that are out of the human range of hearing. Furthermore there is growing evidence that they cooperate with their neighbors at times sending them life giving energy when they are in need. It has been shown that when a caterpillar starts eating a leaf on a plant, the plant is able to send out a pheromone that attracts wasps. A wasp comes in response and stings and eats the caterpillar. So who is using who here? When you really think deeply on the subject, you can see a wide web of symbiotic arrangements going on between the plant and the animal kingdoms. And perhaps even an age old struggle between the forest plants and grasses for space upon the surface of the world – each with its various armies of allies in the animal kingdom.  

  So with all this and much more evidence in mind that plants are living, problem solving, self-aware beings, the question arises – Is it moral to take their lives and eat them in preference to taking the life and eating our fellow members of the animal kingdom? My own observation is that something must give up its life or life potential for us to survive. We cannot harvest sunlight directly or live very long by eating dirt. That is just a fact of where we are in the food chain. Morality has nothing to do with it. So if you choose to only eat plants and their seeds (ignoring the fact that in the process you are probably eating countless billions of microbes who are technically members of the animal kingdom) you are still taking lives. As I said, something has to give up its life for you to be here. In nature’s grand scheme of things, it makes very little difference which kingdom you feed upon. All nature is concerned with is maintaining the balance.

  Now if you choose to eat plants over animals because you think it is healthier – then in today’s world I might agree with you there. With the growth hormones and antibiotics we inject into our meat supply that is then transmitted to you by eating it, you could make a very strong case against eating meat. But with the increasing use of pesticides and genetic modifications of our plants and vegetables that we consume, the risks to your health are beginning to even out.

  Now I don’t know how many of you ever watched the sci-fi series called “Farscape” on TV. But if you did, you know there was a character on there that was neither strictly animal or plant but a combination of both. She was able to feed directly on sunlight. And in fact she suffered when she was unable to do so. I would put forward that to escape the niche we’re in of feeding on other living organisms, it would be a very worthy goal for our genetic engineers in the future to modify the human genome in such a way as to enable us to also do as the plants do and harvest the life giving starlight directly through our skin. Would we still be human in such a case? Who knows? But I suspect in the future, if we survive the next few years, such choices will come up and need to be considered long and hard.

  So, in conclusion, making the choice to become a vegetarian for moral reasons is pretty ludicrous at best. And the health benefits are dwindling as we speak. So eat up my friends. Right now you don’t have much choice. Just be aware of the fact that life sacrifices for life. And give thanks that such sacrifices are made on a daily basis to enable you to be here at least for a little while longer. Give thanks and try not to dwell on it too much the next time you’re taking that big bite of yogurt, or pork chop, or spinach.