“High”-perion
This weekend, I learned that the tallest tree in the world is a coast redwood named Hyperion. He stands a towering 379.1 feet (115.55 meters) tall! The location in a remote region of Redwood National Park is kept secret out of fear tourists would damage the forest’s ecosystem. And what kind of forest is an old-growth redwood forest? Remember the Ewoks? The forested planet of Endor was certainly my favorite setting in the Star Wars trilogy, with it’s huge and majestic trees. You don’t need a spaceship to get there, though. It’s all right here on Earth…for now.
In the 1970’s, only 15% of the Californian redwood forest’s original range remained in it’s pristine old growth state, thanks to logging and development. Today, a shocking 4%* of old growth forest all that remains! And the logging continues!
Sometimes it’s hard to visualize a figure like 4%. Here are some examples that illustrate the magnitude of what has happened to our redwood forest:
- The estimated 2007 US population is 303,111,027. If there were 4% remaining, that would be only 12,124,441. That would be like only the populations of New York City and Los Angeles remaining!
- There are 30 Major League Baseball teams, each with a 25-man active roster. That’s 750 players. If only 4% remained, the league would consist of: The Boston Red Sox, and the 5-man starting rotation of the Colorado Rockies.
- That Grande (16 oz.) cup of Starbucks coffee you rely on every morning? Well, sorry, but you’re getting just 2 teaspoons now! Drink up.
- During the daytime, you can expect to catch a subway in New York City approximately once every 5 minutes. Uh oh…if there’s only 4% of trains remaining, you’re going to have to wait 2 hours for the next train!
- Eggs now come in cartons of 1/2 egg.
- The phrase 24/7/365 now only applies from January 1st through 14th. Sorry, you’re going to have to call Dell next year to get your laptop fixed.
- Good golly, the average adult penis size is less than a quarter of an inch!
Well, that was shocking, wasn’t it? Then it should be equally shocking that so much old-growth redwood forest has disappeared! And what about that drop from 15% remaining to 4% remaining since the 70’s? That happened during my lifetime! Some of these trees are over 2,000 years old!
That’s right, any portion of redwood forest replanted today would take another 2,000 years to return to the pristine state we see in the present remaining forest!
I want to go to the redwood forest myself to experience it in person. I want our ancestors 57 generations from now to be able to experience the same thing, to see grand redwood forests planted today, and hopefully somehow still have rich biological diversity in their world, though it slips away from us each passing day.
* - I found these figures online, but I’m not sure how recent they are. They refer to old growth redwood forests (you know, with thousands-year-old trees and their original ecosystem intact), but an even smaller portion is protected park land. According to Jeff of Humboldt Forest Defense, California environmentalists are reporting less than 2% remain! Anyhow, this is far too small a number. It wouldn’t take more than a very localized disaster to wipe out what remains!
See also:
Hyperion (tree) - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), the world’s tallest tree
Save-the-Redwoods League
2007 IUCN Red List
Sequoia - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Lorax - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tags: trees