From the title of the chapter, I assumed before reading that the chapter was going to about trees and human attitudes/relations to trees. I asked myself: “What do I find valuable and important about trees?” For me, most of the trees I know are in my local park. I appreciate them because they were a source of stress relief, and they provide an important function by taking in carbon dioxide and releasing the oxygen my body needs. However, as I was reading the chapter I began asking myself what kind of trees are the ones in my local park and how long have they been alive? I do not have an answer.
In Chapter 8, McCully does a good job of showing the appreciation people can have for trees beyond any form of utilitarian value. She examines how people such as the elderly man at Bunker Hill can have strong emotional connections with trees and, overall, their surrounding ecological community. She contrasts these emotional connections with the utilitarian attitudes of the early European settlers who value the trees only because of their use for ship building, charcoal, house building, etc. McCully presents the message that trees are significant on their own and should not be judged by a person for the benefit they can bring to him/her. After finishing the reading, I began to think that my appreciation for the trees in my local park were mostly of utilitarian value, and that I needed to learn more about them since I have been around them from when I was 7 years old .
In the end, McCully is examining the strong connections people can have with trees in response to rapid deforestation. When building warships, the Europeans reduced 59,412 large oak trees and 32,820 small oak trees in 1560 to 2,864 large oak trees and 3,032 small oak trees in 1587 (117). The speed of deforestation is astounding and the most unfortunate part is that today, deforestation is likely occurring at an increasing rate. McCully does not present any specific solutions but does state that an “environmental ethic” needs to be taught and “passed down from one generation to the next” (126). The environmental problems New York City is experiencing has been the accumulation of hundreds of years of mistreatment and may not be able to be solved in the lifetime of one generation. McCully is making a key point that the next generation of children must learn how to appreciate nature so they they will understand when they age and gain responsibilities that a fair treatment of nature is part of those responsibilities.
