by Mickey Z.
Each fall, even the most nature-oblivious humans can't help but notice-and
likely marvel-as the leaves turn. Here in New York City, many folks will go
as far as driving up north to New England solely to witness the spectacular
shades of ginger, auburn, gold, and crimson. This annual phase of nature
presages both the colder weather and the shopping day countdown that lurk in
our not so distant future"
Speaking of rampant holiday season consumerism, as you try to remember where
you parked your SUV in that crowded shopping mall parking lot, gaze upward.
Take a good long look at the leaves that have changed color and are now
breaking from the trees and wafting slowly downward to finish their life's
mission...on the friggin' pavement. Imagine the shock those nutrient laden
leaves experience when they land not on sodden, inviting soil but instead on
the unforgiving, oil stained asphalt we all know and loathe.
Central Park, NYC
More than two million acres of parks, farms, and open space are destroyed
each year in the name of a little something called sprawl. During the
twentieth century, an area equal to all the arable land in Ohio, Indiana,
and Pennsylvania was paved in the United States. This swath of terra firma
requires maintenance costing over $200 million a day and the surreptitious
cost of our car culture totals nearly $500 billion a year in the U.S. alone
(much of that going to the sustentation of waging perpetual war to keep the
world safe for petroleum).
Besides the global warming, greenhouse effect,
unchecked militarism, and other sinister side effects of a society beholden
to the internal combustion engine, all that concrete severely impinges upon
those multi-hued falling leaves-which are, by design, supposed to be
introduced to microorganisms in the soil where they should theoretically
land. Since we humans have seen fit to pave the planet, the rhythms of the
natural world are habitually and imprudently ignored.
Here's how the USDA Forest Service explains the aforementioned leaf-falling
phenomenon:
"Needles and leaves that fall are not wasted. They decompose and
restock the soil with nutrients and make up part of the spongy humus layer
of the forest floor that absorbs and holds rainfall. Fallen leaves also
become food for numerous soil organisms vital to the forest ecosystem".
Too many of today's humans ultimately view leaves in search of soil
organisms as a nuisance-something to raked and bagged and lugged away as
quickly as possible. To leave leaves in front of your house is to risk the
scorn of neighbors. Ironically, dealing with the leaves we don't like can
take us away from making a trip up north to see the leaves we like as they
change shade.
We drive there, of course, in the cars and sport utility
vehicles that necessitate the highways, parking lots, off ramps, and roads
that-by definition-devastate entire eco-systems and leave leaves no place to
land except our three-car-wide driveways. Human hubris aside, this vicious
cycle impacts more than just our leisure time.
Here's the USDA Forest Service again:
"It could well be that the forest
could no more survive without its annual replenishment from leaves than the
individual tree could survive without shedding these leaves."
I wonder if it's too late to turn over a new leaf...
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