From the seeds to the sun | Giorgio Vacchiano | TEDx BustoArsizio

Un viaggio che parte dalle foreste e da un piccolo seme e arriva alle stelle che ne regolano i cicli.
Scientific research on forests leads us to discover that all the things are connected to them: a newtork of relationships runs through the ecosystems and affect its dynamics, even at a distance of thousand of kilometres. A fascinating phenomenon, that passes through wood, roots, air and fire: whether we are aware of it or not, we are an integra part of these relationships. We might be little, but we are not insignificant, we are one with the planet and with the rest of the mankind. We are connected, all the way from the seed to the Sun.

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I love nature since I was a child.

My memories go back

to when I looked at the world from above,

from my dad's backpack,
during summer excursions in the mountains,

and then up from my
meter-and-something height,

as soon as I learned to walk

and understand what a path was.

My father, a nature photographer,

taught me to observe and ask questions.

The butterfly resting on my hand,

the male ibexes struggling
in the autumn mist,

the minerals shining in the sun.

Slowly they became companions
that I found every summer.

On the shore of these alpine lakes

I gave my first kiss,

and many of the imaginary journeys
I did as a teenager

took place in the mountains,
they were set there.

Climbing upwards and discovering new paths

was everytime a new adventure:

but also something
that made me feel at home.

Summer after summer,

looking for shooting stars
in the night sky

and a healthy passion for Star Wars

made me want to learn more
about the universe.

So I bought a book that explained
the stars, the constellations,

and I read about dust nebulae
that created planets and particles

traveling since the origin
of the universe,

about nuclear fusion
at the center of the sun.

Everything increased my sense of wonder.

Huge spaces and times
were at the reach of a simple binocular,

sometimes I could perceive them
with the naked eye,

like when I found
the Andromeda Galaxy in the sky

and I realized that I was looking back

over two million years,

that's how far away that light came from.

Or when I saw the center
of our galaxy, the Milky Way,

and I realized, all in all,

we were practically made
of the same elements.

At school I wasn't very good at physics.

I got by at calculations,

but proving the theorems
was not my cup of tea.

Now, my science professor
had majored in forest science,

a discipline I didn't even know existed.

He explained to me,

this subject could teach
not only to know nature

but also to work with her
for the good of society.

It seemed like a job
in touch with the environment.

Plus, I was fascinated

by the prospect of putting
my feet on the ground,

rather than settling down
for a spectator's role.

So it was decided:

the summer of high school graduation,

I went for Forest Sciences.

During my university years
I kept going to the mountains,

but the focus now shifted to the forest,

which until then I considered a background

or a boring interlude

to overcome as quickly as possible

to reach a little higher.

Now I learned instead
to recognize the trees,

to call them by name,

to know that each one has his tastes

as for light, water and soil to grow;

mostly, I learned that in nature
all things are connected,

even over distances and times
that seem impossible to fill.

And much like our atoms
were forged in the stars' core,

billions of years ago,

forests keep track of events
far away in time and space.

Take the annual growth rings
of the trees, for example:

in the rings we can read
not only the age of the plants,

but also the rain, the heat,
the cold in the past

recorded in the width of each ring.

So if you read today
these natural journals,

we are able to track back

the climate of decades
or hundreds of years ago,

and understand how it is changing.

For example,

almost all the trees on Earth remember

the largest volcanic eruption
recorded in historical times,

the one of Tan Bora volcano
in Indonesia, 1815.

In less than a year
the ash span across the Earth,

dispersed throughout the atmosphere

causing a season so cold and wet

that 1816 ended up being remembered
as the year without summer.

That year the trees grew much less,

and even today we find
the trace of this eruption

in the growth ring of 1816,

suddenly narrower than all the others.

Many other things happened,
in that year without summer:

Napoleon's armies got bogged down
in Waterloo's unexpectedly soaked soil;

in the Swiss countryside,

a group of writer friends

was forced to spend
most of the summer indoors:

among them, a 19 year old Mary Shelley
wrote Frankenstein;

in the skies of northern Europe,
sunsets turned red

because of the volcanic ash

that was still scattered in the air,

as we still see today in Munch's "Howl".

Every time you look at this picture,
from today onwards,

you can feel how connected we are
to everything that happens on the planet.

Even if we do not even notice it,

forests today bind us to the earth

and make life possible.

More than a billion people in the world

depend on forests to drink clean water.

Also, trees retain the soil
with their roots,

intercept the rain with the leaves,

slowly infiltrate the soil
with their humus,

thus decreasing the speed of the flow

and protecting those who live downstream
from landslides and floods.

The carbon absorbed by trees,
thanks to photosynthesis,

is sequestered from the atmosphere
and this helps us fight climate change,

which in absence of forests
would be 30% more intense.

The carbon absorption can then be extended

if we revive the trees in their wood:

the beams of the roofs
of some mountain huts,

show us that wood can store carbon

for tens or hundreds of years

and today wood buildings
are getting a new impetus.

Architects around the world
challenge each other

to build taller and taller
wooden design buildings

thanks to the new opportunities

offered by the MASS Timber from XLAM.

After all, the wood we use every day
in the objects of our house

connects us to the whole earth,

to the air they breathed,

to the water and soil that fed them,

to the hands and the imagination
of those who worked them for us.

Unfortunately, in Italy

when we use wood we also often connect

to environmental or social injustices.

Despite our forests' growth,

almost 80% of the wood we use

comes from abroad,

and a fifth of this

comes from illegally,
or unsustainably cut forests

like in South America or Eastern Europe.

Forests are a delicate ecosystem.

If they are not managed in the right way

they risk being lost,

and with them the quality of life

of those from the forests depends -

water, food, work.

A part of climate migrants,

who today are forced to move
all across the world,

are driven by deforestation

and the effects it has on food security,

access to water and health.

Instead, there are strategies
to increase the use of wood,

in a sustainable way, from our forests,

avoiding long-distance impacts

while guaranteeing the conservation
of their biodiversity

and soil protection function.

For example, it is about choosing
the plants to be cut

in order to leave space and light
to the new plants,

which in the meantime
will have developed from the seeds

that trees around them
have dispersed in the environment

and will ensure which, while growing,

that the forest as a whole
will continue to prosper.

Choosing which plants to cut
and which to leave,

which forests can give us wood
in a sustainable way

and which must instead
be managed and preserved

for their biodiversity

is the task of forest planning,

A task that must set up today

what we want to happen
50 or 100 years from now,

because the slowness
with which forests grow

forces us to connect

with a perception of time
that's radically different from ours.

Looking to the future,

we cannot forget climate change:

today the increase
in temperature and drought

causes waves of mortality
in forests around the world,

and can promote the spread
of very large fires,

as we saw in Italy in the summer of 2017 ,

and cause the drastic reduction

of the area occupied
by some forest species

as we are already observing in the Alps.

Plus, an ever more energetic atmosphere

means a greater probability

that some extreme events will occur,

such as the windstorms that occurred
in Trentino, or in Friuli, in Veneto,

a phenomenon that has
no historical precedent in Italy.

These changes are much faster

than the ability of plants
to evolve and adapt.

But perhaps we can help
the trees to undergo them,

for example by making them grow

so that they resist
a little more in the wind,

or making sure that there is

a young generation of seedlings

ready to bloom in the event
of a natural disaster.

Take, for example, a small beech seed.

Beech is a somewhat special species.

Unlike most plants,
that reproduce each year,

as we would expect from an organism

that is interested in spreading,
colonize the environment around it,

beech instead works intermittently.

In some years it produces
a great deal of seed,

in others little or none.

The extraordinary thing

is that this variability
is punctually synchronized

between tree and tree,
between forest and forest,

even over long distances

like between beech forests of the Alps

and those of the Black Forest in Germany.

With our research team,

we have discovered that this variability

is actually caused
by a very precise climatic sequence:

a fresh and wet summer is needed first

to increase the availability
of nutrients in the soil,

and immediately after a hot and dry one

to push plants and buds

produce flowers instead of leaves.

If the nutrients have accumulated,

the flowering will take place in mass,

and with it the production
of fruits and seeds.

This sequence is also linked
to the cycles of solar activity.

When the sun is more active,

the climate on Earth
is a little more variable,

discontinuous, unpredictable.

Thus, those very different seasons
are much more likely to follow each other,

as in the case of a cold and wet season

and a hot and dry one immediately after.

This phenomenon resonates
on all ecosystems:

first of all on the number
of sprouts and seedlings

that can represent
the future of the forest,

especially if these years
of seeds overproduction

occur immediately after a fire.

From here the forest
can recover much more easily,

and then propagate with ever wider effects

on the number of mammals
that feed on those seeds,

on the parasites they carry -
such as ticks, for example -

or their somewhat unpleasant host,

the bacterium of Lyme disease.

Also, the concentration of pollens

that are produced by those flowers

and that can cause a peak in allergies.

Here, the beech seed cycles

tell us the stories
of the connections that cross nature,

from the seed to the sun,
all the way up to us,

almost reflecting the same bond

operating both between our atoms

and in the core of the stars.

When I took my first steps
in the Piedmontese Alps

I never imagined
I would become a scientist.

Truth be told, I wanted to be a farmer,

as suggested by the original meaning
of my name, Giorgio,

but I looked at the environment
that surrounded me,

I let myself be surprised

by the trees, the butterflies,
the starry skies,

and I understood, all the things
were somehow connected together.

A network of relationships
where I felt at home,

small perhaps, but not insignificant.

Studying forests continues to tell me
the stories of the relationships

that run through ecosystems,
even at a great distance.

A fascinating phenomenon
I can channel to you,

telling here today
about trees and wood, seeds and fires,

and opening a connection

through which each of you

can feel an integral part
of the ecosystem,

recognizing at the same time
its own cause and its effect.

Whether we get it or not,
we belong to these relationships.

And trees and wood, like large connectors,

link our lives to that
of many other people on Earth,

near and far, who have come or will come.

Small but not insignificant.

One with the planet,

networks of relationships with other men,

and that for me is what it means to live.

Thank you.

(Applause)