Green thoughts

I've had this post written for a while but kept forgetting to grab the digital camera and download the second photo. Finally remembered last night.

I’m not a hardcore environmentalist who rides a bicycle everywhere or looks for only organic fruits and vegetables to eat, but I do check out a candidates stand on environmental issues when voting and I do recycle as much as possible. We only have one planet and we need to take care of it. I am also concerned about the amount of deforestation that is taking place in the world.

The reason I bring this up is a prime example in my own backyard, so to speak. The corporate complex I work in has been under construction for, oh about a year now. Some of the upgrades have been rerouting and upgrading the sewer system, widening entrances, and putting in a new power sub-station. I know the rent on the building we are in is very pricey for the space we are getting, so in a way, it is nice to see the management company actually put money back into improving the property. My company actually shares a building with the management company, we have half the bottom floor and all of the second, they have the top floor of our building. There are a couple conference rooms in the other half of the first floor.

I digress. The most recent big project which is affecting our ‘campus’ is the creation of a parking structure. It is badly needed. The parking stalls were small, not clearly marked and there were just not enough of them to go around, especially with the amount of SUVs in the parking lot. There were a lot of little trees planted through out the parking lot, which while too small to provide much shade, did provide a touch of green in an other wise ma-made environment. The project is scheduled to take 9 months. They started tearing up the asphalt about two weeks ago. Here is where they currently are on the project.

Our office had windows that face this Eastern parking lot which is being torn up. One day, I stood and watched as the bulldozers worked across the lot. I saw them carrying several buckets full of green groundcover over to a dumpster and pile it in. It was at this point, about a week ago that it occurred to me, “They are going to cut down and throw away all of those little trees in the parking lot, aren’t they?”

This thought made me very sad. What a waste of perfectly healthy trees. We need every leafy bit of green possible to combat the pollution that is created in the valley. These poor defenseless trees may not be very big but they were green, living things. They are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stupid construction project.

So imagine my surprise as I was walking from the overflow parking lot across the campus to my building and saw this sight:

Yes, I am happy to report that I was wrong. The construction company did not chop all these trees down and consign them to the garbage. They were actually placed in wooden planters and I think you can see from the picture, some of them are being replanted along the newly re-topped parking lot to the West of the parking lot they were originally in. This made me so happy that I borrowed a digital camera and took the above pictures for this blog entry.

Ah, it is nice to be wrong once in a while. Especially about the killing of trees. Finally, a reason to smile on my way to work each day.

Breathe easy, plant a tree.