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If you don’t appreciate history, you won’t be able to predict the future. Seeing ahead clearly requires looking backward.
That’s how “deep time” projects are born. Those who work on behalf of future generations have an expansive sense of time, and they build upon the past.
Take the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which safeguards 10,000 years of agricultural diversity from around the world. It’s “a legacy we can’t leave to chance,” say its creators, who are working to ensure the future of food diversity. Likewise, the Long Now Foundation created a library preserving 1,500 world languages for posterity.
Some of these efforts, like the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, may even help to save the Earth itself. The project takes a futuristic approach to reviving massive old trees, the vast majority of which were felled more than a century ago. These are the coastal redwoods best equipped to sequester carbon and fight accelerating climate change. “We’re looking for the biggest, oldest trees with the strongest immune systems who can survive in current climate conditions,” says project founder David Milarch.
Using cloning techniques to propagate saplings from the basal roots of stumps once thought to be dead, arborists are creating redwood “super groves” in locales that didn’t originally host these trees. As California’s coastal region grows hotter and less foggy, making it harder for the redwoods to thrive, new trees with a 3,000-year lifespan are being planted in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, England, and Wales, where conditions are now more conducive.
Milarch sees the past and the future. He appreciates what the stumps once were and what the saplings might become. The “assisted migration” process requires lots of patience and an expansive view: It will take centuries for the redwoods to grow to their full potential. But it’s worth the work and the wait because they could help ensure that life on the planet continues for millennia to come.
No crystal ball is needed to see what tomorrow will bring. All you have to do is take the very long view. —Ephrat Livni
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Lululemon’s next target is mindfulness for men. The brand built on premium women’s yoga pants wants to attract male customers. So far the company’s marketing to men has focused on the technical advantages of the clothes, such as materials with “anti-stink technology.” But as Marc Bain writes, Lululemon also sees an opportunity to build on the notion of mindfulness and serve the growing number of men doing yoga.
Madagascar has become a business-outsourcing hotspot. The French-speaking country off East Africa’s coast now boasts over 230 companies involved in BPO—business processing and outsourcing—up from just a handful in 2005, thanks largely to fast internet speeds. Reporting from the capital Antananarivo, Emilie Filou shows how the sector is a game changer for the low-wage nation, with workers involved in everything from customer-service calls to collating football statistics for the Francophone market.
The case for giving kids free rein over their screens. Philosophy professor Jordan Shapiro understands why parents are worried about what technology is doing to their children, but believes adults should embrace their kids’ love of digital devices. In her review of Shapiro’s recent book, The New Childhood, Jenny Anderson lays out the arguments for doing away with screen-time limits and embracing technology—the better to teach kids healthy habits in the digital world as they prepare for an uncertain future.
Amazon stands for nothing, and that almost makes it beautiful. Amazon became the planet’s most valuable public company for the first time in its existence earlier this week. Yet, as Matt Quinn writes, the company has never offered up any sort of ethos to the world, unlike Facebook (connect the world), Google (don’t be evil), and Apple (think different). Not putting on airs has almost made it pure, in a way, but someday Amazon might need to stand for something other than just being Amazon.
Parenting can be an unexpected cure for “millennial burnout.” Before having a child, Jessanne Collins was, like a lot of millennials, accustomed to work-life and life-life blurring. Leisure could induce guilt, while working constantly felt right. Upon becoming a mother, she found life became simpler. She started skipping work-related events, taking Instagram with a grain of salt, and living life rather than trying to optimize it.
Five things elsewhere that made us smarter
Beauty is making scientists rethink evolution. Charles Darwin drew ridicule for proposing that animals can appreciate beauty for its own sake, and that the preferences of “capricious” females can shape an entire species. For the New York Times magazine (paywall), Ferris Jabr profiles biologists who today argue that an animal’s innate sense of beauty can not only become an engine of evolution, but also lead to aesthetic extremes that actually make survival in the wild harder.
How US government cartographers inadvertently created a house of horrors in Africa. For years, a family living in Pretoria, South Africa, received alarming visits from police commandos and private investigators convinced that illegal activities were taking place in their ordinary home. For Gizmodo, Kashmir Hill shows how digital databases made it appear more than a million devices were connecting from the house, tracing the problem back to an obscure agency within the US defense department.
The experience conundrum. Physics has a major blind spot. Scientists describe reality by measuring the material world, missing a major aspect of existence—lived experience. And because everyone is inside experience, no one can objectively or accurately model the universe outside of this “box,” argue astrophysicist Adam Frank, theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson in Aeon. “It’s tempting to think science gives a God’s-eye view of reality. But we forget the place of human experience at our peril,” they write.
The town that regretfully became a vital hub of America’s consumer economy. Elmwood, Illinois (population 2,200) had high hopes when it started a process in the early 2000s that would see it become North America’s largest inland port and a logistics hub for Walmart, Ikea, and nearly every other big name in retail. But as Alexander Sammon writes for the New Republic, Elmwood is now plagued by temp agencies, endless warehouses, and overwhelming truck traffic.
On the trail of the world’s most daring egg smuggler. The illegal wildlife trade is among the world’s most lucrative black markets, but it extends well beyond elephant ivory and rhino horns. For Outside magazine, Joshua Hammer profiles a smuggler known for nabbing the eggs of protected falcons, demand for which has been fueled by the spread of falcon-racing in the Middle East. Tools of the trade include climbing equipment, mobile incubators, and helicopters.
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, yoga pants, and burnout cures to hi@qz.com. Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Weekend Brief was edited by Steve Mollman and Kira Bindrim.