Tree Surgery

‘HOW are you adapting to climate change?

‘I’d rather be back in Spain’

It’s getting hotter out there, and in an effort to survive we must all adapt our lifestyles.

Tony Blair’s been in the Caribbean, acclimatising himself to the new English summer like the radical he is. Isn’t it time you did the same?

These things cannot be left to chance. The time to act is now.

And signs are that the slowest moving among us are already suffering. We talk not of the old and the infirm, but of trees.

The Independent says that the indigenous tree population is finding the new heat uncomfortable. The paper says that our plants are ‘stressed-out’ and ‘thirsty’.

Tree huggers could lace their watering cans with one part Prozac to 20 parts water, but the signs are that it might already be too late. The only remedy might be to import foreign trees.

Dr Mark Broadway, a man in the upper branches of the Forestry Commission, and an expert in Weapons of Moss Destruction, says that we must plan for the future.

So it’s out with the old oak, beach and yew and in with new almond, walnut and the sweet chestnut.

This sounds like good news for squirrels, but with the weather warming at such a pace, they’ll soon be eaten by the lions and trampled underfoot by the herds of wild buffalo scurrying majestically over the Surrey Downs.’

Posted: 5th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink