Botany of the Mind, 62
My small garden of the “damned” is evolving, to what end I clearly don’t know yet, but life exists within it, especially with the increasing number of butterflies and bees.
When I walk my 14-year old dog Turbo down to the corner and back in the early morning (the distance he walks now getting shorter), it’s both comforting and reassuring to hear the birds chirping. I find that sound more satisfying than ever before. All is still right in our fractured land I’m thinking. See: This is what extinction sounds like.
After a while he turned and looked at the man. His face in the small light streaked with black from the rain like some old world thespian. Can I ask you something? he said.
Yes. Of course.
Are we going to die? (from The Road, by Cormac McCarthy)
What was that odor I first noticed when I came back into the house from the garden. It smelled as though I’d truly “stepped” into something. The stink was terrible. It turned out to be my Tree of Heaven, also called stink weed, tree of hell and, yes, the ghetto palm.
WebMD says that my Ailanthus Altissima, the stink weed, allegedly has been used to treat diarrhea, asthma, cramps, epilepsy—even gonorrhea. But there is no scientific evidence for this, seemingly. In manufacturing, the plant has been used as an insecticide. Quite possibly as well, the chemicals in the bark could have some drying effects and might kill worms and parasites. I’ve also read that it might have some effects against cancer cells. Now that would be something.
Some states consider it an invasive species because of its rapid growth and ability to thrive in “poor” conditions, which may actually prove to be a real asset in a warming climate. The root system of the Tree of Heaven has been said to routinely damage sidewalks, sewer systems and assorted structures. Our global warming cement systems ultimately have no defense against the tree of hell! I suppose I find that good news in some ways.
But my hell-tree is easy to care for, resistant to most all pests and a “perfect option” for gardeners with brown thumbs. Sure it smells but is eco friendly and requires little water. No need to hurry it out the door just yet.
Speaking of water in my part of the country, The Missouri Independent reports that an increasing lack of rain in the Midwest will likely have a serious impact on food production globally. Lack of rain in eastern Missouri could affect transportation along the Mississippi River if water levels go down.
The Midwest produces something like 65% of the nation’s corn and soybeans, high yield corn requiring around 20 to 30 inches of rain yearly in the early growth stage, while soybeans are primarily used as animal feed for dairy and meat cattle along with poultry. China, with more than one-billion people, is the largest consumer of soybeans in the world at the present time.
As an aside, one of the reasons that the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed is to create farmland for more and more soybean production—and alfalfa, and whatever else unthinking humans can conjure up.
The former president of Brazil and world class buffoon, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, was a disaster for the Brazilian environment, but unlike Donald Trump, he can’t run for president again for a period of time. “We could realistically be the last generation to see the Amazon,” says Professor Simon Willcock of Rothamsted Research, who specializes in the interaction between people and nature.
Change is coming probably sooner than we might like or thought would occur. Politicians will sanctimoniously claim that the government isn’t doing enough for the soybean and corn farmers, but the real questions probably won’t be asked. See, Climate Impacts in the Midwest at end of article.
Eating almonds has many health benefits and they’re popular worldwide, but why are we still growing them in California and expanding orchards? They’re water intensive. The gap between water supply and water demand continues to grow, in a state where persistent drought could be California’s future.
The almond farmers would probably tell us to stop picking on them and then tell us to stop eating so much red meat, because cattle production wastes a lot of water. Politicians will sanctimoniously claim that the government isn’t doing enough for the almond, dairy, cattle industry and industrial poultry producers.
Yes the free-to-be-free free-market-libertarians are dastardly socialists when it comes to the assorted subsidies that can’t be totally free but claim to be a well deserved entitlements for the “producers” ... if the politicians want their political campaign contributions contributed in a timely manner. Does it make enough sense?
This is why it was called the Gilded Age after 1865 when businesses and government—which Abraham Lincoln warned us about—figured out the grift, which is with us at the present time and which we still call the market economy, the very best of all possible worlds.
The real questions probably won’t be asked unless we finally make the politicians ask the uncomfortable questions, assuming of course that many of these politicians actually know the right questions to ask or would be willing to ask them, even if they do know what needs to be done.
Of course we’re going to be inconvenienced and most Americans don’t like to be inconvenienced whatsoever. But the natural world we ultimately reside in doesn’t much care what we think about, well, anything, nor who we choose to blame our problems on. See. Vast fossil fuel and farming subsidies causing environmental havoc.
The Animalcules Are Among Us
Assuming you have real grass in your yard—which is not drug addicted, still alive and not turned into an ornamental dead zone—get on your hands and knees, push some of that greensward aside and look at the life below, some of which you can’t see with the naked eye of course, but which is still a thriving community beneath your feet and ever so necessary for your survival.
“Animalcule,” pronounced a-nu-mal-qul, is an archaic term for microscopic organisms, and invented by the 17th century Dutch scientist Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek, sometimes referred to as the father of microbiology.
Karen Bakker, a professor at the University of British Columbia, states that it was Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch fabric merchant with a grade school education, who first built a homemade microscope and through persistence eventually got his research published by the British Royal Society alongside the likes of Sir Isaac Newton. The microscope became a tremendous spark for the scientific revolution.
“The microscope enabled humans to perceive entirely new realms, extending the power of both sight and imagination.”
There is so much more to this story critical for our present age and worth pursuing, especially in light of what we are uncovering today, but suffice it to say at this point that Leeuwenhoek’s homemade microscope started us on a remarkable journey regarding our senses and perhaps even more important today, what occurs to these “senses” when they are not used, not cultivated. They tend to atrophy, waste away and die if not developed.
This is the real problem that we ought to concern ourselves with, unlike the mindless, know-nothing book banning sickness that is occurring, which also conjures up old movies showing Germans tossing books into bonfires in the 1930s, or imaginary fears of the LGBTQIA+ community, or the grade school nonsense of the WOKE threatening “our way of life.”
Imagining Something Else
Today, four crops—wheat, rice, corn, soybeans supply two-thirds of human calories. (Michael J. Coren, The Washington Post)
“Duckweed my boy, duckweed.” You may remember in the 1967 movie, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman is being advised that plastics is the future and the character that Hoffman is playing ought to get in on the proverbial “beginning.” Well, now could it be a plant named duckweed? The article from The Washington Post is entitled, The Plant Protein That Could Push Meat Off the Plate. See: Plant Named Duckweed
Links
Climate Impacts In the Midwest
The Best Way to Raise Cows Sustainably? Set Them Free
Bees Are Sentient: Inside the Stunning Brains
Next: What’s Religion Got To Do With It