A silly slogan

A conversation with a river red gum tree on ‘saving the planet’

When, for a few days, I heard a soft whimpering voice from the sky as I walked on a lonely track along a creek, I worried that I was suffering from psychosis.

The creek was once part of the walking track followed by the Australian Aboriginal Boon Wurrung people for many thousands of years. As I walk, I see a tattered and faded Aboriginal flag flying on a flagpole in a little park. A yellow circle in the centre of a rectangle divided in half horizontally, the upper half black and the lower ochre red, reminding anyone who cared to find out about an ancient culture’s spiritual connection to the land and the sun, the planet and the cosmos. Are the ancient spirits sending me a message?

One day, the voice was louder, ‘Hey mate, I’m talking to you.’ I looked around and saw nothing. ‘Look up, mate.’ I could only see the high canopy of a huge river red gum tree, a common eucalyptus species in these parts. Oh, the tree was talking to me, I realised. ‘What can I do for you?’ I said, struggling to find the right word to address this old, majestic tree; ‘mate’ seemed so ordinary and disrespectful.

‘Could you please remove this plastic banner some idiot has wrapped around my trunk?’ the tree asked, gasping. ‘It’s killing me.’

I removed the banner and looked up. ‘From here I can’t read the writing on the banner,’ the tree said. ‘What does it say?’

‘Save the planet.’

‘Is the planet dying?’ the tree asked anxiously.

‘Not really. The planet has been around for 4.5 billion years and will still be here for another 4.5 billion years, even if its atmosphere heats up by hundreds or even thousands of degrees. A big, rogue asteroid may disturb its orbit a bit if it hits it hard. That’s all.’

‘Why then this silly slogan?’ The tree exclaimed. ‘You should be shouting, Save our species. Better still, save us from our silliness. Your stupid species is indiscriminately destroying the land and water with imperishable plastic and choking the air with noxious carbon. How could you save yourself from your excesses when you print a silly slogan on a plastic banner and leave it around to kill other species?’

My human mind had no answer. I nodded to show my concern.

The tree seemed genuinely angry. It continued, ‘I have been here for more than 200 years and noticed the air becoming warmer. Too much carbon dioxide for us trees to breathe in and not many of us to breathe out oxygen.’

‘Well, the level of carbon dioxide is going up every year. As of 2024, there are about 426 molecules of carbon dioxide in every million molecules of air.’

‘I don’t care about these numbers, but I do care about the number of our species of river red gum trees decreasing dramatically. I give a damn about your species. As you say, mate, the planet, though its atmosphere is a little bit warmer, will still be here for another 4.5 billion years. I’m sure once your self-indulgent and self-destructing species have disappeared forever, the planet will look forward to hosting a truly intelligent life that respects its own kind and the other kinds and its environment.’

Lost for words, I took a sip of water from my reusable water bottle.

‘What’s that green sticker on the bottle?’ the tree asked. ‘It looks like an eucalyptus leaf.’

‘It says, save 2000 plastic bottles by using this reusable bottle and save the planet.’

I heard a loud laugh, and then the tree said, ‘Silly slogans and symbols won’t save human beings; a little respect for the environment and other species may be needed. Where are the blackfellas who had a spiritual connection with the land around this creek?’

© Surendra Verma 2025