David T. Lange was one of my earliest readers, and a staunch supporter of the conclusion that pollution from ozone derived from fossil fuels and excess reactive nitrogen is killing trees - as well as people and other life forms on our planet. He had his own blog on the subject, WindSpiritKeeper, where he posted wonderful photographs, and gritty videos, documenting the damage - so obvious to us and yet so invisible to almost everyone else.
Aspen ~ DT Lange
I never had the fortune to meet David in real life, but we corresponded via email, and comments on each other's sites. I followed him in his travels as he sought solace in nature, from Santa Barbara to Arizona to Portland, Oregon, where he died in a hospital last November 9, from cardiac arrest and organ failure. His lungs had troubled him for years.
Tomorrow would have been his birthday. I will remember him as a sensitive, caring, perceptive and wry fellow traveler, who felt all the pain of our dying biosphere but still marveled at its lingering beauty. He walked cautiously the precarious line between integrity and condemnation, morality and respect, bitterness and compassion.
I can give no better tribute than to link to one of his last posts - A Rambling Letter of Confession to Extinct Children in a Dying Climatehere - and also, to say that as soon as I found out from his wife today that he had passed, a song I haven't thought of for a long time came immediately to mind. It is one I have always loved, only now I think of it as Green Leaves...because of him, in his search for peace, from the mountains to the sea. Goodbye my friend. The earth was a better place for your presence.
