Our Green Heart
The Soul and Science of Forests
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
In this inspiring culmination of Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s life’s work as a botanist, biochemist, biologist and poet of the global forest, she delivers a challenge to us all to dig deeper into the science of forests and the ways they will save us from climate breakdown—and then do our part to plant and protect them.
As the last child in Ireland to receive a full Druidic education, Diana Beresford-Kroeger has brought an unusual and ancient holistic attitude to the science of trees, which has led her to many fresh insights into how closely we are tied to one another and to the natural world. Her influential message is to pay rapt attention to trees, because they are the green heart of the living world. Forests are our lungs, our medicine, our oxygen and the renewal of our soil. Planting the right trees in the right places, protecting the last virgin forests and working to create new ones is our best means to ensure a future for our children and grandchildren on this burning earth.
Each of the essays gathered in Our Green Heart show us a slice of the natural world through Diana’s unique lens, illuminating the way our health, individually and as a species, is tied to the health of the forest—a tie we ignore at our peril. She maps the science that still needs to be done—there is so much we don’t know about the ways trees and forests work—but also, eloquently, shows us the path to survival that her own science has revealed, the “bioplan” or blueprint for the connectivity of life in nature. If we realize that even the flowerpot on our doorstep is a natural habitat, and plant it according to its bioplan, we will be aiding and abetting life rather than destroying it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The ethereal latest from botanist Beresford-Kroeger (after The Sweetness of a Simple Life) explores the interdependence of plants and humans. The two share complementary biological processes, she contends, noting that at the molecular level, chlorophyll is nearly identical to the hemoglobin found in human blood except that the former "is designed to produce oxygen" while the latter is designed to "grab" it. Highlighting the benefits various plants provide, she explains that Irish moss contains antibiotic properties that made it a popular prescription among ancient Druidic physicians and that redwood trees "release a highly volatile aerosol called taxodione" that's been found to reduce the risk of developing tumors in men. Beresford-Kroeger brings an overtly spiritual perspective that may alienate more secular readers ("Forests hold a form of divinity. They are the Holy Orders of our solar system"), but her discussions weave together botany, physics, and personal reflections with aplomb. For instance, she emphasizes the unsung wisdom of traditional cultural knowledge by recounting how a Celtic storyteller at a funeral she once attended spoke about a man who was able to be in two places simultaneously and describing how photons are capable of "bilocation" before proceeding to discuss how plants turn photons into energy. Readers willing to accept a dash of the mystical with their science will be entranced.
