Human beings exchange information mainly through sound and vision. We depend on air and photons to communicate (air is necessary to transport the vibrations that make up sound). Other animals also rely on other forms of communication that use scent and magnetic fields... this, to us, is proof that humans and animals are sentient beings that think and feel.

Well, it has been discovered that plants also communicate with each other, have intelligence, and pass information intergenerational, just like we humans do. In a forest, they are dependent on each other and exchange information through carbon, nitrogen and other chemicals. In a way, it is EXACTLY like we do, but we are so bent on a human-nature separation that we do not easily understand that such a separation is an illusion: plants are also sentient beings, as is planet Earth itself. This shows, beyond any possibility of doubt, that we live in a world of systems which, if disturbed too much, has affects human beings, animals and plants.

For more than two thousand of years we have been influenced by the Aristotelian (and Judeo-Christian) idea that human being exist to dominate the Earth. But scientific research is increasingly showing this is a foolishness that is going to kills us all well within our lifetimes. It's not because as human beings we need a lot of resources, it's because we consume and produce WAY more than we need, and rampant Capitalism (with its disparities and constant desire for huge profit margins) is destroying this natural system, killing us all in the process.

This Ted Talk is only 18 minutes long, but take some time to hear a good entertaining talk by an important researcher on the study of how trees communicate with each other. She even shows some rather simple ways in which we can regenerate our forests completely. This is science, tried and proven, knowledge generated through collaborations and experimentation, not some pseudo-science or new age pseudo-philosophy. Give the Ted talk 18 minutes of your time and it will change the way you see the world in which you, and all the people you've ever heard of and known, live.

"A forest is much more than what you see," says ecologist Suzanne Simard. Her 30 years of research in Canadian forests have led to an astounding discovery - trees talk, often and over vast distances. Learn more about the harmonious yet complicated social lives of trees and prepare to see the natural world with new eyes.