Recently Roger Cohen wrote “The Great Unravelling” and this came to mind as I watched three 100-year-old, healthy, trees being converted to sawdust. Cohen mentioned the “broken” men, victims of public beheading, and by implication, their suffering in the years of confinement — progressive removal of all elements of their personhood — so what we saw, in their final moments, were mere shells of what they had been. Whatever form, death must have represented an end to suffering.

Though very different, there are similarities.

Growing up in Belfast 70 years ago, I worked for CMP clearing power lines. Using crosscut saws and axes, first cutting down the tree, then when it fell with a certain splendor, delimbing and sawing it into logs.

Now two men, and bucket lift and chipper, first strip the tree of its branches, leaving a lonely spike, then reducing that to logs before feeding the smaller portions into the chipper, loading the larger trunks onto the truck. In the 1930s, two days for a crew, now two men in a few hours. Efficient, yes. But what cost?

As the victims of beheading were deprived of personhood, and the trees of “treehood,” are we now, gradually, being ourselves deprived? Depersonalized?

In Belfast our telephone number was “161,” with a live operator. We gathered around the radio, then talked about Walter Winchell and Edward R. Murrow. There were no cell phones, or complicated phone systems to separate us from direct contact with fellow humans.

More seriously, no “technology” for our elderly who are existing (not “living”) longer in inadequate surroundings. For what reason?

Medicine has changed remarkably in past decades, from profession, to technical job. Patients have become commodities to be managed, not “persons.” Existence is extended, “life” overlooked. Many cannot afford to die at home, and when in nursing homes are often inadequately cared for, suffering in isolation, devoid of personhood. Can a cost be assigned?

It may be too much to relate this to the crisis of our changing climate, but I wonder if our loss of connection with humans in Africa, Asia, Texas, California and many other places, allows us to deny, or not think, about what is happening outside our personal sphere. If we DID think of them, we must also think of food, clothing, shelter, and education. The cost — unimaginable. Far easier to not think of them, but if we slip and do, then we regard them as somehow not people like ourselves. Too disturbing to realize the pathetic children we see on TV today with no source of clean water are possibly the terrorists of ten to fifteen years from now. The cost?

Increasingly the media sees the reality of the changing climate, and there are numerous organizations devoted to it (NRCM, Sierra Club, Environment Maine, Citizens Climate Lobby, 350.org are a few).

Deniers remain, motivated by greed, as the coal and oil industries, or by ignorance, concentrating on the short view (turbines will spoil the mountain scene), avoiding the longer view (how the mountains will look after more years of changing climate).

This past spring Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, wrote “Averting Climate Catastrophe,” urging aggressive action. AAAS published “What We Know,” a synopsis of the 2,500-page U.N. report, described by Marina Schauffler, as “a sound bite crying for our attention.” In September, the World Meteorological Association reported carbon dioxide has risen “at a record shattering pace last year.” Noting “The cost of global warming in Maine,” Gina Hamilton, writing in The Times Record, concludes “Dealing with global climate change needs to be more than an environmental issue. It is a severe economic threat, one that we all share, regardless of where we live.”

Mark Bittman, of the NYT, last April, and again in September dealt with these issues. He ignites public opinion in “The Aliens Have Landed,” and generates hope in “Let’s Reject the Inevitable.” Bittman says we must confront the fossil fuel industry, fight plutocracy, and quotes Naomi Klein, in her book, “This Changes Everything,” who claims solutions are there, citing Germany, which used “bold national policies, encouraging small players like municipalities and co-ops.” Klein adds we need “ a robust social movement… willing to revive…long term public planning and saying no to powerful corporations.”

We can accomplish that, Bittman says, creating ”the Marshall Plan levels of response,” and a pro-democracy climate movement.

It’s worth trying…

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Dr. Richard K. Jennings lives in Brunswick.