Uncertainty stops everyone, say industrialists. As happened in Bologna, the bulldozers that cut down trees to make a motocross track reduce it. Cortina docet. According to what was reported online, <<the construction of the new bobsleigh track in Cortina d’Ampezzo, necessary for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, has led to the felling of many trees. Sources report that 560 larches and 260 plants of other species were felled, for about 2 hectares of deforestation. Some sources indicate that the felling would have been about 2000 trees>>. The fact is that the many activities involved in the motocross and bobsleigh tracks raise the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the measure par excellence of the quantitative growth of the economy, of the regrettably poorly distributed well-being and indifferent to the well-being of all living species. If the services provided by trees are not measurable or, better yet, we avoid doing so, then it is good to cut them down. We earn money that confers prestige. What and how much does Nature lose? Sparrows are an example of the many reasons why trees are essential. These birds tend to nest among the branches or in holes in trees, which are also a safe refuge in adverse weather conditions and provide the sparrows with nourishment – in addition to seeds and fruits, larvae and insects harmful to agriculture. GDP is not interested in this; it is unrelated to the fact that there are 247 million fewer house sparrows in Europe than in 1980. Yet, the uncertainty about the trend of GDP that so worries its supporters should spark discussion on this totem of quantitative growth and other economic metrics that, going against Nature, increase the unpredictability regarding the economy’s health.

It is comfortable to live in the lair of certainty, but strong gusts of wind of uncertainty turn it upside down. Sooner or later, one will be forced to abandon it to begin an exciting journey, as happened to Talpa in the story The Wind in the Willows by the British writer Kenneth Grahame. Outside the Temple of Datacracy built by the GDP that rejects the intrinsic values of Nature, one will breathe a different air. One will not find oneself bound to perfect and inflexible measures dictated by the Dataists, the interpreters of the divine law of data. These are the priests and guardians of the Temple, something similar to the Theocracy that Plato spoke of. One will not hide in the adjacent Temple of Ideocracy guarded by the Dogmatists who adhere to universal, timeless, authentic and indubitable principles. Given these characteristics, they are static, while reality is dynamic. The poets who have written about the beauty, symbolism and meaning of trees that represent the cycle of life, the ability to resist adversity, memory, the passage of time and the succession of generations will enter the vision of the future.

Laws are not enough to prevent deplorable events like those mentioned here. Culture must intervene in depth. The new generations of students and researchers in the economic field would benefit greatly from a few trips to the world of poetry to meet, in the case of Bologna, Giovanni Pascoli and Giosuè Carducci, who taught at the Alma Mater. The poet from San Mauro di Romagna (now San Mauro Pascoli) wrote verses intimately in tune with Nature. In the collections Myricae and Canti di Castelvecchio, the trees and shrubs symbolize memory, family and the quiet life of the countryside. “Not everyone likes shrubs and humble tamarisks” evokes the IV Eclogue of Virgil, who described the Italian landscape with its trees in the Georgics. Giosuè Carducci depicted the pomegranate as a tree to which the child held out his hand, a symbol of life and love that is now withered. Who benefits from dried-up Nature? This question takes us beyond the economic field littered with numbers and metrics. Individual and social well-being, the impact of the human footprint on the environment, creativity, invention, and innovation, which are difficult to quantify, become visible. Ultimately, a holistic vision of the economy to heal rather than consume Nature and, consequently, ourselves.