To Be or not to Be: The immortality of Plants and the Future of our Planet

Dream life is life, and in a dream scenario our planet is taken over by immortal plants, and the world has become a more harmonious place to live.

People are always looking for breakthroughs in reversing the aging process in humans, but only plants and trees are immortal because they can clone. In the material world, finding the key to immortality is not the key to our survival, improving the health of humans is.  Potentiating the immortality of plants and trees is a moral and ethical commitment by all governments and politicians. Not unlike the metamorphosis of a plant, humans need to transform the surface of our planet if we want to save it.

In Jodorowsky’s film ‘Holy Mountain,’ the characters go on a spiritual journey to find the nine mysterious immortal gods who rule the universe.  The main character, The Alchemist, is the only enlightened character and he has one disciple, whose tattoos of a butterfly and a turtle represent rebirth and wisdom, the underlying narrative of the film.  Seven of the main characters embody industrialists and politicians who must turn their vices into virtues through a process of enlightenment.  The enlightened character of the Alchemist transforms human excrement into gold and declares that the tarot will teach us how to create a soul.  The intention of the Alchemist is to raid the Holy Mountain and steal the secret of immortality, but first he and his cohorts must reach enlightenment.

Enlightenment is more important than the quest for immortality, and protecting the planet part of the journey.  Nothing is truly immortal because we could succumb to illness or accidents., but some plants and animals do not age, so perhaps this is really the object of human desire.  Be that as it may, humans oppose everything to do with plant life: We are not in tune with the seasons when plants are more in unison with their surroundings, we cut ourselves off from our roots and repress our heritage.  It is as if the vegetal world is the site of human repression.

In the book ‘The Vegetarian” by Han Kang, the protagonist no longer wants to belong to the human race.  She believes she is metamorphosing into a plant and that she is saving herself-even though she is really approaching death. This could be perceived as being only a magic or supernatural story, but the protagonist questions the possibility or impossibility of rejecting human violence, obtaining innocence, and the difficulty of understanding others, all of which are universal questions.

Kan’s character in ‘The Vegetarian’ desires to become a plant in order to become immortal.  If plants represent immortality, why are we humans so fixated on destroying them?  We could learn much in terms of stem cell research.  Some plants and animals do not age, and their stem cells are the key.

Plants and trees are the answer to immortality and climate change.. Landscape architecture, the science of soil, ecology and civil engineering, are the remedy for some of the damage already done by global warming, among other solutions.  The Oxford based company, Biocarbon Engineering has teamed up with the drone manufacturer Parrot to create a system which plants trees to fight deforestation.  The drone-based system is able to plant trees ten times faster than humans, for 85% less money, and in places humans can’t reach. Biocarbon Engineering has a goal of planting half a trillion trees in the next three decades.

While humans may never reach immortality, we know that our carbon footprint will outlast us.  Tree planting and architectural landscaping play an important role in remission of global warming. Efforts to restore natural forests can help remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  Under the Kyoto Protocol, tree planting and reforestation were activities eligible for financing, but projects have struggled to get off the ground because the protocol’s rules and regulations have restricted the scale and scope of these activities.

A higher carbon price for polluters would encourage polluters to reduce the levels of greenhouse gas they emit, and this would be the most effective way for countries to reduce their emissions.

Until 2013 the oldest living tree was thought to be, Methuselah, a 4,845-year-old bristlecone pine in California’s White Mountains in the Great Basin. But researchers then found an even older one in the area, that is 5,062 years old.

Until climate change came along, trees were essentially immortal in stable environmental conditions.  Living trees are truly a symbol of survival under great adversity.

To a certain extent, we can only hope the dream of the plants taking over our polluted cities comes true. The things we are doing to our planet today have legacy effects for thousands of years to come.