Nature notes – low carbon symbiosis in action

This photograph shows a group of people waiting for a bus on an excessively sunny day in May in Budapest.

Note the two species: homo insapiens in a queue of cars going into town, hot and cross and frustrated; and homo moderately sapiens sheltering in the shade of a tree near the bus stop.

The low carbon symbiosis is elegant. Homo moderately sapiens plants a tree on the pavement and supports it by protecting and watering it. The tree provides shade for bus-users at a lower carbon intensity and with more effect than a metal and glass bus shelter. This is without intent, and the beneficiaries of the share are not even aware that the service is being provided by a tree.

There is a chance here for bus-shelter entrepreneur JC Decaux. To replace his metal and glass constructs with trees and bushes and ivy. Advertising executives will take lessons in topiary. Hieroglyphs of moss and lichen will sell perfumes and distant journeys. Tendrils of purple vetch will describe the curves of exotic women. Urchins with penknives will carve our favourite logos into the bark. Jingles will be birdsong.

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