Long post: The Heartbeat of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben

If you enjoyed The Hidden Life of Trees, this is nothing like it. This book is almost a journal of a forester processing a philosophy of life with trees, but without any sort of philosophical framework to support the meanderings. If you enjoyed the conservationist agenda at the end of Hidden, you will love this. I, however, found there to be inconsistencies, equivocations of terms, lacks of distinctions, and general exploration in a field with which the writer is not familiar. By no means are all of his ideas and conclusions false or worthless, but the path left me unsatisfied and with many questions.

Essentially, this is a work of postmodern science; it is a compilation of rejection rather than building upon a knowledge base—for the most part. Throughout, amazing nuggets about trees that mirror the grandeur of Hidden Life are buried amongst the explicit rejection of systems, religion, philosophy, definitions, etc. and propagating an agenda. In that regard, this work is an excellent glimpse into the “conservative” scientific worldview. But I was more interested in the trees. Incidentally, everything that Wohlleben really desires for man and nature exists in the reality of the Kingdom of God.

At one point, Wohlleben rejects a dictionary definition of a term that he is trying to discuss in its negative connotation simply because one of the words in the definition is a synonym to another word that he was trying to avoid. What? This is part of the actual science of language—how words overlap and create a semantic range that actually helps lead to precision. However, he redefines key terms like “survival of the fittest” to fit his purposes.

So many sweeping assumptions touch many of his arguments but particularly the lengthy discussions related to climate change—as is always the case with that topic. So many hasty generalizations (all foresters are motivated by the money available in logging (except Wohlleben, of course)), so many false dichotomies. 

When he (or anyone) is talking about conservationism, what is the end goal? He speaks about how most of Europe and large portions of North America have been deforested as part of the agricultural movement—and speaks about this negatively. So, what does he propose? Should all that land be returned to forest? But then he is not always in favor of artificial plantings. Is there a way to make him happy on issues like this? He speaks of how forests were “originally.” What does that mean? Does that just mean what the forests looked like in most recent recorded history? Can anyone know how the forests lived from “day one”?

Humans are pretty much always the bad guy, but when animals or plants engage in the same practice, it is “natural processes.” And, again, there is a no-win. If humans intervene in the plant kingdom, we do it wrong, but if we leave it, we should have intervened at point x.

In discussing the remarkable fact that trees demonstrate sentience, including seeing, feeling (perhaps even pain), decision-making, etc., the conclusion, then, is to place them on level with animal, even humans. Can’t it be true that trees have a level of sentience, that animals have another level, and that humans have a different level yet? It is this kind of equivocation that muddies the waters and creates ethical conundrums that don’t need to exist.