LEOPOLD LOVES TREES; i don't.

"The only conclusion I have ever reached is that I love all trees, but I am in love with pines" (Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac. 70.)

I am in an environmental ethics class and I am reading this book about Leopold's views of nature.
I give credit to the man for being so charismatic about a subject. He uses the name of a plant as a proper noun. And the extensive knowledge Leopold has on the history of inhumane treatment of plants is amazing. I don't know how he found the time to research all of the stuff he talks about. It is interesting though.

However, when I came across the above mentioned quote, I realized that Leopold has never seen a palo verde tree. If he had his statement would have been more like "The only conclusion I have ever reached is that I love all trees (with the obvious exception of palo verde trees{which shouldn't even be considered a tree in the first place}), but I am in love with pines."


Isn't this thing just an eye sore? And here they put them everywhere. They must be cheep because whenever they redo a road or put in a new shopping complex, they always litter it with tons of Palos.






I for one love all trees that perform the task that they were made for; shading my car in the 116 degree heat. The Palo Verde tree doesn't accomplish this task, so therefor, is useless to me. It might as well not even be in existence. It is ugly, messy and doesn't provide any circumference of shade big enough to shade anyone or anything.

It might appear that this is giving a little shade to the red car, however, it is just deceiving you. No question about it. I park under one everyday thinking, "I can see the shade on the pavement so it has got to shade my car" WRONG!!!



I was just googling to find out what it even means and I got this as a hit:

How do you slowly kill a Palo Verde tree?

This person wants Palo Verde to suffer. It's like they wanted to higher a hit man to slowly pull Palo Verde's teeth, then poke it with scalding hot pokers, only to finish Palo Verde off with a dose of poison that would make it spill all of it's secrets before finally killing over. Leopold would hate this . . . we would never get along, Leopold and I.

And just to let you all know, Palo's name means green wood. How original!

Stupid thing, doesn't it know that it's trunk is supposed to be brown...?






It's just like how I do not and will not ever feel remorse for killing a cockroach. However, I do deem it inhumane to kill cats {however much I wish we didn't have two living in our house} or stuff pigs into tight cages just to fatten them up. I guess I can have some extremest feelings but I am not a true environmentalist, and never will be.

I might one day claim to be green but I never want to be in the same category as Palo here.