Trent Preszler

Professor of Practice

Trent Preszler is a professor of practice and director of the Thoreau Planetary Solutions Initiative at Cornell University. He recently published a book, Evergreen: The Trees That Shaped America, about the natural history of the tree and its future in America.

Preszler says:

“Christmas trees have always been symbols of resilience, but today they’re on the front lines of climate change.

“Recent heat waves in the Pacific Northwest were so extreme that they killed millions of Christmas tree seedlings and left whole generations of firs brown and brittle – damage we won’t fully realize until a decade from now when those trees would have reached the size of a typical fresh-cut Christmas tree. Farmers now gamble against drought, heat domes, shifting invasive pests, and increasingly volatile weather, all of which can erase years of work in a single week.

“The irony is that evergreens evolved over millions of years to withstand ice ages and volcanic winters, but they’re not built for the speed of human-driven warming and the deadly trifecta of drought, heat, and disease. Their struggle is a warning that the climate story is no longer abstract, but is happening in our fields, our forests, and even our holiday traditions.”