Month: August 2017

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Clouds, rain and pools of water

The thirtieth:
Time to remember

Article published in September 2014

2017_Sep

From the window of your house, you can see a pool of water on the ground. After a while, it starts to vanish. Water begins slowly to evaporate and change place. Now it is in the sky. You look above and see a huge and plump cloud, carrying all the water that once was so close to you.

More time goes by, and rain falls in your city. The big cloud disappears and again you see close to your window, a pool of water on the ground ! It seems magic, but this transfer is another cycle of Nature, independent from human action. When we were children, we promptly learned what rain was, because we saw it, we heard it, and we felt its presence. Rain is in the lyrics of songs, in the movies and in poetry.

There are other cycles in Nature, less celebrated but equally important. Nitrogen, a colorless gas, is a component of the air we breathe. In the presence of a lightning bolt, it combines with oxygen, and comes to the ground. It then reacts with other substances and generates nitrates. Plants need nitrates… but they didn’t arrive in a sufficient quantity. Bacteria and fungi start acting: they are capable to generate nitrates and supply the needs of plants to live. Eventually we, human beings, will eat these plants !

In a very simplified fashion, we showed how a gas that we don’t see plays such an important role in our lives. This is a biogeochemical cycle (read “bio-geo-chemical”). It describes how a chemical element (nitrogen, in this case) circulates through living beings (bio), through the environment (geo) and takes part of chemical reactions with other substances. What a demonstration of the fantastic divine creation !

“I put down a tree because...

The vision of a building, an architectural work, was hidden by a tree

When a musician creates a song, he does it for other people to hear. This happens to other artists, too: a painter who creates a canvas, or an architect that designs an awesome façade for a two-story building.

Let us suppose that many trees were planted around this building, some time ago. Recall that trees are living beings and by the moment they were planted, they were seeds, perhaps seedlings. Then, time went by, and after several growing stages their foliage became thick enough to block any view to the architect’s masterpiece.

Two solutions are available at this point. First is branch pruning: when carefully done, it does not kill the trees, and would recover the sight to the building. Another solution is the removal of some trees, replanting them in another location. Their replacement by more suitable species could follow in the original place.

The choice involving what kind of tree should be planted, in any situation, is a very important issue. Let us keep in mind that a pine tree, a palm tree or an apple tree are all trees. Their shapes, height and foliage volume are different, however.

Any adopted solution to keep trees in a location, would require a considerable amount of work. Pruning, trees replanting, or choosing species, are all time consuming activities (very worthy and noble ones, however). Putting trees down, by simply leaving an empty space on the spot, is by its turn an unacceptable, selfish and anti-social attitude.

In times of global warming, we are urged more than ever to redefine priorities. A tree, seen as an oxygen producing unit and a thermal stability element, belongs to the system of nature and is God’s creation. It should therefore keep our attention in first place. An architectural work (human creation), could come right after, in second place. It is up to us, human beings, to act consciously while organizing the space around us.