By Frank Matheis
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, a single biblical passage has shaped humanity’s self-image for centuries. Genesis 1:26–28, often cited as divine authorization to “subdue” the Earth and “have dominion” over its creatures, has long been interpreted as a heavenly license for human supremacy.
Under the banner of dominion, humans cast themselves as separate from, and superior to, the rest of creation. We cleared forests, poisoned rivers, destabilized the climate, and drove species to extinction. The consequences are now unfolding at planetary scale. Climate scientists warn that if global temperatures rise 4°C above pre-industrial levels, a scenario still possible under current emissions, we will enter a profoundly altered world. The large rainforests on the planet could collapse. Agriculture across the tropics could fail under relentless heat stress. Vast regions may become uninhabitable, driving the mass migration of billions. Biodiversity would plunge. A 4°C planet is not simply hotter, it is dangerously unstable, perhaps irreversibly so on human timescales.
If the ancient mandate ever implied dominion, it was dominion with responsibility. Our misreading now collides with scientific reality. Domination is no longer a theological debate, it is a planetary threat.
Ancient and Indigenous cultures, by contrast, understood what we are only beginning to relearn. In hunter-gatherer societies, humans were not separate from nature but embedded within it. Trees were viewed as kin: beings with memory, agency, and moral standing. They were providers of food, medicine, shelter, and rain. Long before modern science mapped fungal networks or uncovered the cooling influence of forests, these cultures recognized that trees communicate, shape weather, and anchor ecosystems. Their rituals enforced ecological ethics: take only what you need, never harm a mother tree, allow the land to regenerate.
Long before science revealed forests as ecological engines, ancient cultures understood them as the living backbone of existence, a wisdom modern society has nearly forgotten.
At a time of accelerating deforestation and spiraling climate disruption, this ancient insight reads less like mythology and more like a survival manual. The question practically asks itself: who is the true savage, the people who lived with the forest, or the ones who destroy it?
Humans often imagine ourselves as the indispensable apex of creation, yet the planet tells a different story. If all nine billion of us vanished tomorrow, along with our cities, machines, and noise, Earth would heal. Forests would reclaim abandoned landscapes, wildlife would return, and rivers would run clear again.
The planet does not need us, but humanity needs trees. We cannot survive without them. They are the planet’s lungs, architects, and ancient engineers. Some have lived longer than civilizations. California’s bristlecone pines exceed 4,800 years, older than the Pyramids. Entire clonal colonies such as Pando, the great quaking aspen in Utah, are estimated at more than 10,000 years old and rank among the oldest living organisms on Earth. Trees have also reached extraordinary heights. Hyperion, the world’s tallest known tree, stands nearly 380 feet (116 meters), taller than the Statue of Liberty. Fossil records suggest prehistoric conifers may have grown even higher.
Today, Earth holds an estimated three trillion trees. We continue to remove about ten billion of them each year for cattle, soy, palm oil, mining, logging, roads, and the relentless sprawl of consumption. With each fallen tree, habitat shrinks, soils weaken, water cycles falter, and the climate edges closer to collapse. Deforestation and habitat destruction now form a dangerous self-reinforcing loop that no society has meaningfully reversed. We lose approximately 24.7 million acres a year, an area the size of Maine or Portugal.
Imagine, then, a world without trees. If they vanished in an instant, atmospheric CO₂ would surge, pushing global warming into runaway acceleration. Rainfall patterns would collapse as the forest “water pump” shut down, turning vast regions into deserts. Soil would erode, farmland would vanish, and dust storms would scour continents. Forests, home to 80 percent of terrestrial biodiversity, would leave behind silent, empty landscapes. Human food systems would falter under the combined pressures of heat, drought, and ecological breakdown. Oxygen levels would hold steady for a time thanks to marine phytoplankton, but the air would become hotter, dirtier, and increasingly unbreathable. Within decades, Earth would become largely uninhabitable for humans.
Trees are ancient giants, planetary engineers, and ecological elders. Their disappearance would trigger a chain reaction no technology could halt. Unless we confront deforestation, habitat loss, and a culture of consumption that devours the very foundations of life, we may be accelerating toward that future. Without trees, Earth becomes a place where humans, and most life as we know it, cannot survive.
Saving the planet begins with the oldest, simplest, and most powerful act humans can still perform: protect the forests that remain and restore the ones we have lost. Every sapling in the ground, every ancient grove defended, and every forest allowed to regenerate is a vote for a livable future.
Our fate is inseparable from the forests. Plant trees. Defend forests. Restore what we have taken. Do it now, while there is still time, because without trees there is no stable climate, no biodiversity, no food security, and ultimately, no us.
Frank Matheis, Writer
Writer/Photographer Frank Matheis contributes the arts column “In Other Words” and the artivism column “Eco-Activism” to the Inspiration Art Group International. His current book project is titled “Rooted in Wonder – My Journey from Earth Child to Naturalist” with Jenny Richards. He is the co-author of the book ‘Sweet Bitter Blues’ with National Heritage Fellow Phil Wiggins (University Press of Mississippi, 2020). He is a retired contributing writer to Living Blues magazine (Center for Southern Culture Studies) and the former publisher/editor of thecountryblues.com. Frank was formerly an award-winning radio producer.