"To illustrate her points, Odell tells a poignant story of a famous tree where she currently lives in Oakland, CA. It is the last living old-growth redwood, a type of redwood tree that used to grow much larger than the ones which exist today.
For a moment, she reflects on the centuries of history that tree has stood and watched over the city. Then, she reflects on exactly how it's still standing today:
It's not as tall as the old-growths were on average, and its branches are gnarled and twisted. It was also located on the side of a hill, in a place that would be difficult to chop it down. The features of that particular tree were considered useless by loggers. As a consequence of its 'uselessness', it managed to be the last-surviving old-growth redwood.
This true story is similar to an old Taoist tale "The Useless Tree".
Odell suggests that this tree teaches two lessons: the first, resistance. Through the usefulness of being useless to its enemies (the loggers who wanted to chop it down). When we think of the word 'useless', it often translates to 'good-for-nothing'. Sure, the tree wasn't able to be chopped down and turned into lumber, but on the other hand, this ensured its survival.
The second lesson is: "To look at the tree is to look at something that began growing in the midst of a very different, even unrecognizable world: one where human inhabitants preserved the local balance of life rather than destroying it, where the shape of the coastline was not yet changed, where there were grizzly bears, California condors, and Coho salmon (all of which disappeared from the East Bay in the nineteenth century)."
Her analysis of our situation encompasses destruction towards the environment and destruction towards ourselves - both perpetuated by capitalism and imperialism. Humans and nature suffer at its hands."