This story first appeared in UC Santa Barbara’s The Current .
Where civilizations rise, forests flee. And where forests founder, civilizations fall.
That is the premise of “A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization” (Patagonia, 2023), a masterpiece by John Perlin, a visiting scholar in UC Santa Barbara’s physics department . Inspired by Perlin’s work, Patagonia Media partnered with the author to release an expanded and redesigned third edition .