This summer has proven a punishing reminder that climate change isn’t a far-off scenario, but one that’s happening right in front of our eyes. Unrelenting heat, though, doesn’t just affect humans. In Massachusetts there lives a an 85-foot northern red oak tree, a sprawling member of the 4,000 acre Harvard Forest — an outdoor research lab owned and operated by the university. This tree, one of the most senior members of an area known as Prospect Hill, was one of the few remaining after 186 miles-per-hour winds decimated much of the sector in 1938. And while it withstood the wind…

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