The Danger of Letting Hippies Do Your Protesting For You

If there is one thing that drives me nuts it's that tree-huggers are often regarded as new-age, artsy-fartsy hippie throw-backs who don't understand anything about economic development and local tax revenue.  And then you see a video like this one -- about the Angel Oak tree just outside Charleston, SC -- that only reaffirms what so many people think about tree advocates.

It's not the nudity I object to -- in fact, I think that's a great idea to generate publicity -- but the fact that the shock-value part of the message is diluted when most of the people in the video look like they would be right at home in a nudist colony.  It would have been so much more compelling if some of the lawyers in downtown Charleston and a few folks who live South of Broad had shown up in their Brooks Brothers and Talbot suits to strip down for the photograph.

But these people are too concerned about their professions and their public image to make a statement, even though most probably support saving the land around the Angel Oak from development.  So, it's up to people who have less to lose in the way of public perception that end up having to be the tree advocates on the front line.  There is going to be a higher percentage of these new-age arty types in that crowd, which only reinforces the stereotype that tree advocates are on the fringes of society rather than squarely in the middle.

The Angel Oak is truly one of the great natural wonders of the world and one of the first grand trees I was ever exposed to, being a native of Charleston.  To put a 600-unit apartment complex near this tree is akin to building a Post Properties Community next to Stonehenge.  You just don't do it.

If the area around the tree is not spared commercial development, the life span of this already 1500 year old tree will be shortened so that the tree will die in a matter of years, maybe decades if we're lucky, says Dr. Jean Everett, PhD, Department of Biology at my alma mater, the College of Charleston. She writes in her March 2009 paper, Final Report on the Effects of Developing Angel Oak Village on the Angel Oak, that:

"Development of the Angel Oak Village would cause too many environmental changes, all of which would have a negative impact on the Angel Oak.  If the project is completed, the cumulative result will be intolerable degradation of the environment around the tree.  Death may take years, or decades, but in my opinion, is certain to be considerably accelerated by the development."

Is is really worth the extra tax revenue to kill something that's been around 1500 years?  I was hoping to show this tree to my grandkids some day.  But if the only people who are brave enough to make a bold statement about this tree are those who are easily dismissed as being on the fringes of society, I'll have an apartment complex to show my grandchildren instead.