Question

How can we compare human life to the life of a tree

Answer 1

Thoughts about the three main similarities between humans and trees:

American Hardwood trees are like humans in three distinct and profound ways:

Both are mostly waterBoth have a peak life span of approximately 80 yearsBoth are completely unique

Let’s talk about items #2 and #3.  While humans can live longer than 80 years, trees can also.  However, past this peak life span,  trees and humans are both vulnerable to disease and injury, generally declining in health.

A symbiotic relationship exists between trees and humans.  Humans breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, while trees breathe in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen.  During a tree’s life span it has been absorbing carbon diligently and when it passes its peak and declines in health it begins to leach its stored carbon back into the atmosphere.  While it seems counterintuitive, proper sustainable management of the forest begins with the extraction of the trees closest to their peak life.  In harvesting those beautiful, healthy mature trees when they have basically stored all of the carbon they will store in life, you not only allow for sunlight to get to the forest floor, thereby encouraging fresh growth, but you capture the carbon in that tree forever, even as the tree is transformed into various wood products.  The only way the stored carbon in hardwood products will ever be released is through fire.