Why Do We Labor in Carbon Removal?
An exploration of vocation and aesthetics through J. R. R. Tolkien’s short story, "Leaf by Niggle".
This is a summary of episode #386 of the Reversing Climate Change podcast. You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, wherever else you listen to podcasts, or right below this paragraph is the full show.
🔹 Quick Takeaways
Vocation is a calling, not a job—it answers who is calling as much as what you are called to do.
Niggle’s art is not self-generated; it reflects a transcendent reality that exists beyond him.
Most lives are divided between Parrish-work and Niggle-work—practical service and contemplative creation.
Justice alone would condemn Niggle; mercy understands him.
Intent matters more than outcome—especially when outcomes dissolve over time.
Interruption is not the enemy of vocation; it is part of its test.
Legacy is fragile—even the museum burns—but that does not invalidate the work.
True creativity is participatory, not proprietary.
Redemption involves role reversal—we become what we lacked in life.
Spiritual maturity is a prerequisite for civilizational maturity.
Art, policy, and climate work all fail without mercy at their core.
Even if nothing remains, the work is still worth doing.
📝 Why the Tree Was Never His
Leaf by Niggle is often misread as a simple Christian morality tale: selfish artist learns to care about others. But Tolkien is doing something subtler… and much more demanding.
Niggle’s failure is real. He resents interruption. He prioritizes beauty over service. He is small, fussy, and incomplete. Justice sees all of this clearly. But mercy sees something else: that Niggle’s attention, however flawed, was oriented toward something true. His tree was not a fantasy or an indulgence. It was a partial glimpse of a reality that existed before him and would exist after him.
That distinction matters. Niggle is not creating beauty and vocation; he is responding to it.
The tragedy of his life is not that he failed to finish the painting, but that he believed it was something which could be finished.
🌿 Mercy as a Condition of Meaningful Work
Tolkien stages the moral trial not as a courtroom drama but as a metaphysical diagnosis. Justice catalogs Niggle’s selfishness accurately. Mercy does not deny it, but insists that intention, sacrifice, and responsiveness matter more than efficiency or outcome.
Niggle goes on the bike ride to fetch a doctor for Parrish’s wife knowing it may cost him his life’s work. He helps even when he suspects the help will prove unnecessary. He loses time for nothing. This is not strategic altruism. It is obedience to a call that interrupts his desires.
And that is precisely why mercy prevails.
🛠️ After Death, the Work Continues — Differently
In the afterlife, Niggle does not paint. He builds. Parish, the practical man, wanders and contemplates. Each grows into what they lacked. The tree, finally whole, reveals that Niggle’s work was never about possession or completion—only participation.
Even the single saved leaf, briefly admired by worldly men and then lost to fire, matters. Not because it endured, but because it testified.
This is the quiet radicalism of Tolkien’s vision: meaning does not require permanence.
The museum burns. Civilizations fall. Policies fail. What matters is whether the work aligned with something real—something larger than the worker.
🌌 Why This Still Matters Now
This episode lands as vocational because it refuses the modern lie that value is measured by scale, efficiency, or durability. Climate policy, carbon removal, art, and care all suffer when stripped of their spiritual dimension; when they become merely instrumental.
Niggle’s tree will outlast him whether he paints it or not. His calling was simply to notice it, to serve it imperfectly, and to offer what he could.
That is not escapism.
It is realism about finitude.
The episode closes where it began: with gratitude, humility, and the invitation to listen for what is calling you—even if the leaf is small, the interruption costly, and the museum destined to burn.
That, Tolkien suggests, is still enough.
