Great civilisations are built when old men plant trees they will never see grow

Photography - Beth Moon

September 2023

By Sam Peters, Planted Co-Founder

There is an ancient Chinese proverb which says ‘great civilisations are built when old men plant trees they will never see grow’.

The point is we should all care about what we leave behind us. After all, we are nothing but custodians of this beautiful planet we now know for absolute certainty, we are in danger of destroying irrevocably.

Wildfires rage in Southern Europe and beyond for the second summer running. Record heat levels are being recorded across the world yet again. Global extremes are the new normal and still we carry on as if everything will just sort itself out in the end. Newsflash, it won’t.

For as long as we in the west fail to acknowledge it is us driving demand for the endless extraction of raw materials and destruction of precious resources from the planet, in turn fuelling economies like China and India to burn carbon on an epic scale to produce stuff we don’t even need, there is no hope.

 The linear economic which prizes ‘growth’ – measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) entirely based on our consumption of goods – needs to be confined to be history books and a new measure of economic success, based on preservation of natural resources and circular systems, needs instituting.

To achieve this, we must all think globally and act locally.

And yes that will require shifts in our behaviour and changes to our lifestyle. Many of them will be hugely beneficial; cycling and walking more, travelling by train and not plane, spending more time in nature.

Because while many of us are conned into believing we can change the world by buying organic cheese or £11 bottles of shampoo made without chemical inputs, the truth is along a we keep getting on planes to travel to places which are already too hot to ‘enjoy’ and consuming far less ‘stuff’, we are really in very serious trouble.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, predicted 40 degrees centigrade in the UK would hit in 2022. That was meant to happen in 20 years time even according to some of the most pessimistic models.

The national media – of which I used to be part – will not tell you the whole picture because they are funded by billionaire landowners who have no commercial interest in changing the status quo.

The world is heating up because there is more carbon in the atmosphere than at any point in human history and its there because we’ve burnt it. Fact.

Britain was at the vanguard of industrialising the burning of carbon and deforesting our woodlands and forests for landowners to hunt, play sport or simply exert their power over nature and in doing so demonstrate nature.

Millions of oak trees were cut down in the 1700 and 1800s to built the fleet of Royal Naval vessels which ensured ‘Britons never, ever would be slaves’. And if that is deemed a ‘woke’ position, or whatever the latest polarising and pigeon holing tag dreamed up by the commercially conflicted right wing media deems to label, it is also simply the truth. And it should hurt.

But it absolutely should not stop Britain leading the way to a brighter, better, healthier future which does not attack attempts to provide a liveable future for our children. If we are facing 40 degree summers now, what the hell does it look like in 30 years time? The truth is, no-one really knows.

But despite the knowledge we now have, the madness continues. Still we board the flights, still we burn fires, still we cut down the trees.

Old men in my village strim, mow and destroy habitats on the obsessive alter of tidiness and it’s starting to seriously grip my shit. As I write, I am watching a recent arrival in my village, who has spent the last few weeks ripping out and 10 metre hedge which had acted as a haven for birds and other wildlife just so he could get a bit more light in his garden, eying up another ancient tree he’s no doubt determined to destroy.

Culture in countries is set from the top and as long as every generation takes personal responsibility for the climate emergency and associated biodiversity decline, our children’s futures – both financial and physical - are in serious peril.

We need to design and embrace new economic systems based on valuing nature when it is alive not dead and we need to all – men and women old and young – need to plants tree we will never see grow.

Ends