Eucalyptus Trees and Quality of Life

Driving from Ojai to Thousand Oaks, I noticed workers on the north side of the Ventura Freeway were lopping off the tops of the giant row of eucalyptus trees south of the Rose offramp.

I wept!

Removing these gigantic eucalyptus trees is a metaphor for what we as humans are doing on this planet in the name of progress.

In a book by Neal Donald Walsch, “Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 2,” God says, “Most people do not see that they are destroying their Earth--the very planet that gives them life--because their actions seek only to enhance their quality of life. Amazingly, they are not farsighted enough to observe that short-term gains can produce long-term losses, and often do--and will.”

God goes on to say in a later chapter in reference to overproducing crops and over-fertilizing our soil--eucalyptus trees can be included in this summation--”This is just an example of the many ways you are damaging and depleting your mother, the Earth, the giver of all life, out of a complete disregard for her needs and natural processes.

“You are concerned about little on your planet except the satisfying of you own passions, the meeting of you own immediate (and mostly bloated) needs, and quenching the endless human desire for bigger, better, more. Yet you might do well as a species to ask, ‘When is enough enough?’ ”

At the risk of sounding preachy, my sense is that these things need to be said over and over in order to maintain sustainable life and beauty, reminding ourselves always of our delicate and limited resources.

KALE STARBIRD, Ojai