Tree Hearses Continue to Roll

My new outlook on climate change.

Pecan orchard with sunrise, fog, and frost. Photo by Silas Ray-Burns.

Recovery Is No Longer Possible

AT MY LOCAL county commission meeting last month, our emergency management director reported that 250,000 cubic yards of tree debris have been removed from roadsides of Tattnall County, Georgia, where I live. This is cleanup from Hurricane Helene, which landed on the Gulf Coast of Florida the evening of Sept. 26, 2024 as a Category 4 cyclone and reached my farm later that night.

Toombs, the next county over, has surpassed 1,000,000 cubic yards of debris.

Let me translate: This is a million cubic yards of living, breathing trees, now turned into logs, branches, limbs, and leaves. This is a spectacular loss.

Important to remember, too, that this is a tiny minuscule insignificant fraction of trees we lost in Helene. The cleanup is of trees in yards and along roadsides. The forests will be full of downed trees for years and years to come.

Everything Changed

I have witnessed many hurricanes and tornadoes in my lifetime. I’ve seen forest fires. I’ve lived through a lifetime of logging. I have never seen, however, my landscape altered so intensely as it was the night of Sept. 26.

That night I stood at my bedroom window listening to the wind screaming as tornadoes bounced around our flatwoods farm. Trees beloved to me went down that night. Entire forests I loved went down. Some forests were damaged so extensively that the landowners chose to fell the standing trees and start over.

Recovery Is Not Possible

I want to say that we still recovering, but the truth is that there will be no recovery. “Recovery” is an idea that is no longer possible. (Not unless we remove all humans from Planet Earth and leave it alone for a few thousand years.)

Therefore, in the present reality of climate chaos, we need to reconsider our use of the word “recover” and words similar—restore, repair, rebuild. In medical usage, the word “recover” means “to get beyond,” to return to normal, to the way things were. A needle that is wildly bouncing settles back to 0.

With the climate crisis, there is no resting state. There is only the next disaster sending the needle careening. There is no normal to which we can return.

That is a gut-wrenching sentence to write.

I write it as a person who, in the past few months, has survived three hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and a strange winter storm that dropped an unheard-of amount of snow on my subtropical farm.

The earth never had localized normal. Your cabin in the Big Woods might have been destroyed by storm; the woods around the cabin might have been destroyed. That was bad luck. But the bigger system recovered and guided the local places to recovery. You could rebuild your cabin.

When I say “there is no normal to which we can return,” I mean a generalized normal. Not a stasis, but a normal. This general normal would be the state of the pre-industrial earth, before fossil fuels, when climatic fluctuations were less volatile and when, definitely, resilience was built into the system.

Pre-industrially, a return to normal would have been possible.

On our dirt road a happy stream was dammed decades ago to create a small pond. Twice this fall the dam has washed out, destroying the road, and twice the dam has been rebuilt. Is the washout the desire of the stream to return to its pre-industrial meander through the woods?

SoCal

After the Southern California fires last month, over 18,000 homes and structures were destroyed or damaged. Always the talk is of “rebuilding.”

But the fires will continue. And worsen.

The windstorms will continue. And worsen.

The droughts will continue. And worsen.

A locality is only as resilient as the system to which it belongs, and systems-wise, there is no recovery possible.

Coming First

I always thought that our biggest threat in global warming was food insecurity. As a gardener and small-holding farmer, I saw firsthand how food-growing is becoming increasingly difficult—

• different and more virulent pests,

• not enough rain,

• way too much rain,

• an alarming lack of pollinators.

However, I had an epiphany as fire fumed through LA, home after home collapsing to char and rubble. When Helene hit the south, thousands of homes were destroyed. Tens of thousands of roofs were damaged. Even now, lots of roofs are covered with tarps, awaiting roofers or adjusters or financers.

Hitting us first is housing insecurity.

I’m of course passionate about helping to figure this out. What can we do about housing insecurity? Is there a way to retrofit existing homes with hurricane straps? Are tin roofs more stormproof than shingle roofs?

What do you know about this? Please comment if you can help us in this endeavor to make our homes more safe.

Where To Turn

1. Alex Steffen writes consistently and passionately about what to do personally to survive the climate crisis. A lot of what he talks about is where to live. Start with this post, Ruggedize Your Life.

2. I highly recommend Patrick Mazza’s The Raven Substack. Start with this post, The Lunacy of Rebuilding in Disaster-Prone Areas.

3. This commentary by Anna Marie, How We Build Climate Resilience, reminds us that resilience has to built in community with others and that we all need to get involved with a resilience hub now.

Meanwhile

FEMA continues to roll through the south, attempting to clean up. Those double-trailer vehicles ease down the roadways, gathering debris. For some reason they are usually black, and we call them tree hearses.

I am mourning the trees I personally loved and lost. I am grieving the lost forests.

I look at trees still standing and I think, You are a survivor. Be proud. You survived.

Lost trees at Cedar Grove Church, Tattnall County, Georgia.

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Radical Sustainability

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Legendary Trees

With this issue of Trackless Wild I am beginning a new section, a tree portrait. This week is my favorite tree in all the world, a swamp chestnut oak in front of my home. I was told that it was brought from Pennsylvania in the apron of a settler woman, last name Pearson, who had come to live there. Since swamp chestnut oaks are native to my place, the coastal plains of Georgia, most likely it was dug up in a bottomland forest or floodplain and replanted. Possibly it was already growing when the Pearsons arrived, although the ecosystem of the farm would have been longleaf pine uplands.

The tree has not been cored, and won’t be, so I don’t know its exact age. Our house was built in 1850, and if the tree was planted when the house was built, the tree is 175 years old. Since life expectancy is 300 years, the tree is in its prime.

Every year the swamp chestnut oak drops a supply of massive acorns—most almost an inch wide—and in mast years it drops hundreds of pounds. These acorns attract deer and wild creatures of all kinds. We’ve also gathered them to feed our own hogs.

Praise to the swamp chestnut oak of Red Earth Farm, Tattnall County, Georgia, still standing, taking in our carbon dioxide and giving us oxygen.

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Advisor to the President

As a writer with more than 40 years of experience in expressing important messages in meaningful and life-giving ways, and as a scholar of communication, I have appointed myself Advisor to the President in the area of messaging. I will be assisting the president and his press secretary in saying what needs to be said, keeping honesty and love of the American people foremost in my mind.

What Pres. Trump posted on Truth Social 12:19 AM EST 01/30/25—

The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!

My Rewrite—

I have just received news that an unspeakable tragedy has befallen the American people, a collision of a military helicopter and a regional jet arriving to DC from Wichita, Kansas. A search and rescue is underway, and my staff at the White House will be updating us with news as we receive it. My deepest sympathy goes out to all with loved ones on these aircraft. I have cancelled the meetings scheduled for me tomorrow in order to be available. Please know that, once we are beyond immediate needs, we will launch an investigation into the causes of this accident. The accidental death of even one human is a tragedy to me and my administration, and we will do everything in our power to promote the safety of the American people. Be well, and, as ever, I’m thinking of you.

Note: Journaling the Way Forward

If you are enrolled in my current Sunday Sessions, Journaling the Way Forward, please remember that we won’t be having a session tonight. This week we are off.

Journaling the Garden

Sunday Sessions starting in March will focus on spring and gardens. This 6-week series of journaling sessions is called Journaling the Garden. I’m bringing in guest journalers, including the inimitable Clare Walker Leslie. Also Madeleine Jubilee Saito herself will be coming on to teach us how to do a Wisdom Quadrant, an amazing form she created. More guest teachers will be announced soon! These sessions are BY DONATION, meaning you get to choose what you want to pay. You can find more information at Nature Journaling School | Journaling the Garden.

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Farm Update

The barn, which was damaged during Hurricane Helene, now has a new board-and-batten front. Lumber came from downed trees milled by Mr. Red DeLoach at his small sawmill near Glennville, Georgia. My partner Raven did the work.

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Coming Next Week

what you need to know about Lyme disease