Building clocks and growing oaks

Most weekday mornings I have just enough time to hear one segment of NPR's Morning Edition on my way to the carpool lot. Yesterday, it was Steve Inskeep's interview with Danny Hillis, a scientist and computer engineer who is building a 10,000 year clock. This multi-million dollar monument, funded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, is designed to build a link with our descendants, hundreds of generations into the future.

During the interview, Hillis recounted a story that he says inspired the project. As a forester, I was surprised that I had never heard about the forest managers who had foreseen and prepared over the span of 400 years for the eventual replacement the oak beams at New College, Oxford. Presumably, Mr. Hillis heard the story from Stewart Brand, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and co-chair with Hillis of the LongNow Foundation, who had included it in his 1994 book and 1997 BBC series, How Buildings Learn.


The story can be further traced to anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1904 - 1980). It has been repeated by many sources including British Prime Minister David Cameron in an address last October. Yet apparently, the story is a fabrication. New College archivist Jennifer Thorp wrote a 2008 paper debunking the story and was quoted in the Guardian refuting the Prime Minister's remarks.

The story's pertinence to forestry is not that particular trees had been planted and set aside for a particular use. Rather, it is that trees of sufficient size and grade were made available to fulfill a need that could not have been accurately forecast. Beyond that, trees should continue to be available through the maintenance of a diverse and healthy forest resource.

Those who planted the oaks hundreds of years ago did not know exactly when or how they might be used. Neither did the foresters who planted their replacements. They just had a sense of duty toward future generations and were willing to take actions from which they would not personally benefit. It shows a faith in the future and an ability to plan for the unknown; sort of like building a 10,000 year clock.