QuoteProject
Tree planting is always a utopian enterprise, it seems to me, a wager on a future the planter doesn't necessarily expect to witness.
Michael Pollan
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Tree planting represents a hopeful investment in a future that may not be seen by those who plant them.

In this quote, Michael Pollan suggests that the act of planting trees is an optimistic endeavor that embodies a belief in a better future, even if the person planting the tree may not live to see it flourish. This reflects the idea that some actions, especially those for the environment, are carried out for the benefit of future generations, emphasizing a commitment to long-term thinking and stewardship of the earth.

Themes

PlantingFutureHopeEnvironmentNature

In practice

Example use cases

During a community event focused on environmental sustainability, this quote can inspire participants to engage in tree planting.

More from Michael Pollan

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Michael PollanRead
You look how much sugar is in a typical supermarket loaf of bread: it's a lot of sugar. It's just become one of those sugar delivery systems in our food economy.
Michael PollanRead
There is nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods, pastries, even drinking soda every now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy that we're eating them every day.
Michael PollanRead
Meat is a mighty contributor to climate change and other environmental problems. The amount of meat we're eating is one of the leading causes of climate change. It's as important as the kind of car you drive - whether you eat meat a lot or how much meat you eat.
Michael PollanRead
[Government] regulation is an imperfect substitute for the accountability, and trust, built into a market in which food producers meet the gaze of eaters and vice versa.
Michael PollanRead
He showed the words “chocolate cake” to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: “celebration.
Michael PollanRead

Similar quotes

There is not the least flower but seems to hold up its head, and to look pleasantly, in the secret sense of the goodness of its Heavenly Maker.
Robert SouthRead
what sets wilderness apart in the modern day is not that it's dangerous (it's almost certainly safer than any town or road) or that it's solitary (you can, so they say, be alone in a crowded room) or full of exotic animals (there are more at the zoo). it's that five miles out in the woods you can't buy anything.
Bill MckibbenRead
And out of darkness came the hands that reach through nature, moulding men.
Alfred Lord TennysonRead
Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval [tropical] forests, ... temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature. No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.
Charles DarwinRead
Animal agriculture makes a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined; it is the number one cause of climate change.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar.
William FaulknerRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.