Tree Thinking with Robert Moor

Can you imagine being a tree? Robert Moor has spent years trying—climbing into their canopies, studying their biology and learning to see trees in ways most of us don’t. He considers himself a “tree person.” Moor believes that when you spend a lot of time in trees, time slows down—and branching and pruning can become life lessons. He’s interested not just in how trees grow, but in what they might teach us about ourselves. In his book In Trees, he says his goal isn’t to anthropomorphize trees but to “arborize” humanity. Moor has taken his obsession with trees to unusual places: climbing to the tops of giant sequoias; traveling to Tokyo to meet master bonsai artists; becoming a “tree sitter” to protest an oil pipeline. He’s fascinated by “family trees” and Darwin’s Tree of Life, and by our own evolutionary history in the trees of Africa. He traveled to Ethiopia to see Lucy, the famous 3-million-year-old fossil skeleton, and to Tanzania to sleep in a chimpanzee nest. (It was a miserable experience.) He knows something about living among trees: 13 years ago, he and his husband moved from New York City to a cabin in the woods of British Columbia—and never left. — 00:00:00 Introduction 00:07:20 Climbers and Bonsai Masters 00:22:15 Environmentalism's Shadow History 00:28:45 Sleeping in a Chimpanzee Nest 00:37:20 Tree Sitters and Hope — Website Book: In Trees Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees Bonsai artist Masahiko Kimura Julia Butterfly Hill Tree climber Tim Kovar Wonder Cabinet is hosted by Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson. Find out more about the show at https://wondercabinetproductions.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter.