Plant a tree and fight global warming (7/17/2019)

I wish it was so easy!

Boy, it is getting warmer on this blue marble floating in space. During the women’s soccer (or football) championships in France, they were complaining about record temperatures in Europe, and by this weekend, our temperatures are going to reach close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37.8 Celsius. As I write this (July 17, 2019), there was a news flash that Miami recorded the warmest low temperature early in the morning (84 Fahrenheit or 28.9 C). 

Thank goodness, nature is still able to cope with these extremes in our area. Where we live we have had approximately 6 inches (150 mm) more rain than average by this time of the year. At least there should be enough water in the deeper layers of the soil for at least the trees and other deeper rooting plants, but I may have to supplement the shallow rooted plants. 

Our ferns underneath the dogwood in our yard.  These ferns were dug up (saved) by my wife at a construction site she was permitting.  These ferns would have been destroyed if she had not dug them up. Now they are protected by our gargoyle and thanking us for our effort.  This is an example of plants that need supplemental watering because they don't root very deeply.

One way plants deal with the excessive heat is through evaporative cooling. Plants sweat, just as we do. Except with plants, we call it evapotranspiration. With us, sweating is an active thing, or at least with me it is. I actually get really wet when it is hot outside, and that is a great way of cooling, albeit somewhat embarrassing in public at times. Plants do not get wet, but they open their stomata (small mouth like openings) on their leaves and water evaporates though it, thus cooling the warming leaves. Most plant leaves are also very thin and small, which keeps them close to the air temperature prevents them from heating up in the direct sun light (like your car) and burning up. Pine needles are very good at this, which is why they grow throughout the southeast US. However, different plants have different ways of doing this. Some of you may have heard of quaking aspen; leaves from these trees start to shake (or quake) when the get too hot and they cool down that way. Cacti in the desert have a lot of water in their flesh that helps them in heating up very slowly. Moreover, the spines of cacti serve as suntan lotion and absorb radiation. The saguaro cacti also have fins that serve as cooling fins on the sides that are not hit by the sun. 

These are what we biologists call some of the different strategies that plants use to deal with heat stress. However, plants can only adapt or strategize that much! Eventually it gets too hot! In the tropics, some plants have adapted to that as well. They drop their leaves and go dormant, just like our trees do in winter when it gets too cold. However, there has to be enough water in the soil and they have to have stored enough energy to grow back when the temperatures get more hospitable, otherwise, they die. They usually grow back in the rainy season. Finally, here we have not even talked about how increased temperatures may also cause an increase in pests and diseases. You get the message. 

So, what is going to happen to the natural world or plants in our times of climate change? Alternatively, am I allowed to call it global warming, which is what it is? I frame this question this way, remembering that every time I mentioned global warming 10 or even 5 years ago in my workshops, I had students either rolling their eyes writing terrible reviews of my classes. There were at least one or two students that complained how I was “pushing my liberal agenda.” So I changed my tune and called it climate change and the complaints lessened over time. Guess what? Nowadays, I can talk about global warming again! 

For someone like me, who grows bonsai, life becomes more challenging. We use a much more porous growth medium that does not hold water. This means that we may need to water two times per day. Then those small pots can warm up very quickly and cook the roots, or at least give a leg up to mold and diseases. As you can see, it can be a challenge. 

For nature, it is another thing. I am only briefly going to write about plants and forest today and actually, we are not completely sure, but we can make a very solid educated guess. Plants in the northern hemisphere that live on the southern margins are going to have a challenge. What I mean is that they are already being challenged by the heat and cannot handle it much hotter. They will eventually disappear from the heat. This could be because they can no longer produce any viable seed, or because they simply die from heat stress. Somehow, nature will need to replace them and the problem is that native plants cannot move north fast enough to fill in the spots that have been opened up. These spots are often filled by invasive alien species. It is expected that invasive alien species will be able to take over larger tracks of land. The problem is these plants are often not very nutritious for local wildlife and insects. 

So what can we do about global warming, that is in addition to being political active and voting? The New York Times published an article not so long ago where they estimated that the planet has room for about 2.5 billion acres of forest that can be planted. While this will help in removing some carbon and reducing global warming somewhat, it is not enough. Can you imagine planting a forest of this size? So what can we do? Well, we can plant trees around our homes. If you are a loyal reader, you know I have been on a crusade against folks who cut trees around their home as soon as they move into our neighborhood. Trees are so much more efficient in fixing carbon than lawn. In addition, they modify the climate around your home. There is another interesting article about all this in a recent New York Times. So yes, in addition to growing my miniature trees, I also grow large trees in my small yard, although this makes it often difficult for me to find it difficult to find a sunny spot for my miniature trees.

Racism 101 (7/15/2019)

I was born in the darkest of Africa. No, not South Africa as many always want to guess since I am white, so South Africa is a good guess. However, I was born in what was called the Belgium Congo, in those days. In my young years, my family moved to the Caribbean. I will not bore you with my life’s story, but never in my early life did I encounter obvious racism in real life. Yes, my parents would make fun how folks on the island would exhibit status, by putting a TV antenna on their roof while obviously not having electricity at a time that battery powered TVs were not yet invented, or having a refrigerator on the front porch and not having electricity. Sadly, these disadvantaged people were mostly black folks, but again, to me that was more making light of the need to exhibit some form status and trying to keep up with the Joneses, than a form implicit racism. We had black families over and I was partially raised by Rosa our black housekeeper. 

This photograph of a mask was taken at an exhibition of Congo masks at the museum in Richmond, this past January.   It supposedly comes from the region I was born in.   Boy I would not feel comfortable going back there if our xenophobic leader would tell me to go back there.  Moreover, read the book: How dare the sun rise, by Sandra Uwiringiyimana which is partially set in that area as well and in the US, and you will also understand what the result can be of tribalism and racism 

The first time that I consciously encountered racism was during my first visit to the U.S. The passenger ship that we had taken from the island (Curacao) where we lived, to travel to Europe (Lisbon) had docked in Miami and we were allowed to take excursions. It was 1959, I was almost six years old and all I remember from that outing was taking a “train” ride through an Indian reservation and watching Indians do their thing. Half-naked Indians sitting in front of teepees, cooking above fires, etc. I have no idea whether these Indians were actually living there, or if they were actors and went home after the park or reservation closed for the night. However, I can clearly remember that it hit me as sad and exploitative. Closing my eyes, I am still on that open choo-choo train looking at those indians some 60 years ago. On the other hand, seeing alligators for the first time was kind of exciting, another thing I remember from that day.

Whether it was racism or tourism or a combination of it all, I will never know; however, the next time I noticed real racism was driving through the inner city of Baltimore with friends who we visited during our second visit to the U.S. four years later (1963). Our friends, who were Dutch, had recently emigrated from the island to the U.S. They were somewhat down and negative about the African American folks who moved into and lived in their neighborhood. They told us that when the blacks moved into a neighborhood, it was downhill from there. They were exploring to move out to the suburbs, away from it all. When we came back two years later in 1965, they had done just that and moved out. 

I think it was during my visits to Baltimore that I learned about the divide between black and white. At that time, in 1965, we had just left the Island of Aruba where we had lived for about 9 months. I remember so well that almost every afternoon after school, I would walk with a black classmate (friend) of mine to the harbor in Oranjestad to go fishing, and we would fish for part of the afternoon. If we would not go fishing, we would play soccer (football) or climb in either the mango trees or the tamarind tree in our backyard and eat the fruit. Fruit that was not ripe we would lay on top of the roof for a few days to ripen. We were completely colorblind although I had no idea what that word meant or that that word even existed. My father had a dark room where we printed photographs and that was where I learned the words black and white.

I think the sad part is that the common thread here is that the place I was exposed to racism was in the U.S., the country in which I now live; the country I have become a citizen of. I am sure that there was racism on the islands, in the Netherlands where we went on vacation, but it must have been hidden or more below the surface. Maybe my parents did not associate themselves with those people. Yes, we had the riots in 1969 in Curacao where half the town burned down, but my understanding was that these were more labor related than race; although some tried to relate them to what happened here in the US after the assassination of Martin Luther King around that time. However, I was young and naive and I am sure race played into it. After hearing what happened in the Congo, my parents were scared and we moved to the Netherlands fairly soon after those riots.

Where am I going with this blog post? I am a member of a religious community (the UU) that is mostly white and which has a “Black Lives Matter” banner hanging in front of the church. At home, we have a yard sign that says the same thing. I have written about this issue before <here>, where I wrote about my experience in New Mexico being stopped at immigration checkpoints in a vehicle with Mexican Americans, who were US citizens. I was the only non-citizen and experienced first hand that racial profiling in this country is real, but then in a ridiculous way. 

We have elections coming up where the leader of one party has been called a racist, actually acts like it or at least panders to them. This week he called out four female representatives of color with non white last names and two with non-christian religions and told them to go back to their country. Three of the four were born in the US and one is a naturalized US citizen. He has called neo-nazis good people.

It amazes me that in the 60 years since my first visit to this country there is still so much hate, fear and distrust to go around between the various races in this country. While it seems we made progress, I also see that in the past years we slid back. Maybe people filled with hatred and fear are coming out of the woodwork and dare to express themselves more? Whatever it is, it is going to take time to reverse this trend, but we are going to have to do it. We have to fight it and the people who refuse to call it out like many of the Republicans in congress and the senate who just shrug their shoulders and ignore what the guy at the top is saying.

Welcome to my brain, or on mortality (7/1/2019)

I sometimes feel the pressure of having to write and keeping my readers somehow updated with my thinking and my feelings. The problem is that at times, I just sit there and have very little to say. But then I am reminded of that article or blog I read once that said, even if you do not have to say anything keep writing, because practice makes perfect; moreover, who knows, something profound may come pouring out (so there may be hope). I wrote about that or about writing in general before <here>, <here>, <here> and <here>.

I have been in a funk since all the things that happened in May. Yes, I am slowly digging myself out of the hole, but hitting another landmark birthday recently (on that same day, my birthday, my father-in-law had a heart attack, he is OK), and now having a horrible backache with the pain shooting down my legs and actually numbing my toes does not really help either. You heard the saying “two steps forward, one step back,” or is it “one step forward, two steps back?” I just hope it is the former, not the latter. Interesting fact here the “f” in former stands for first (now get your mind out of the gutter) and the “l” in latter stands for last of the two choices. I had to look this up and here I learned something today.

However, the pain in my back was so bad that I actually begged my wife to kill me. Thank goodness, we do not own a weapon that could easily accomplish such a task. Moreover, while I would be out of my misery, her misery would just begin after a mercy killing like that. But all the sudden I realize that here we have hit a number of issues in this short essay including euthanasia, writing, gun control, sickness, depression; I could really be off to the races with any of these subjects. I could even combine them. I guess that is why the advice was to just start writing and see where you end up.

Sitting at the doctor’s office with this wonderful back of mine, I was confronted with my mortality. There were only three other folks in the waiting room. On one side of me was a young woman, who I overheard, thanks to my newly acquired hearing aids (a sign of old age and lots of rock music), was telling the receptionist that she was born in 1997. A quick calculation told me that she must be 22 or 23, a fresh young green leaf (she did not look ill). Across from me was an older couple, much older than I am, the woman of the couple could hardly walk in, complaining that she was burning up and very sick. She looked like a leaf ready to fall off the tree. This past week I am not sure where I was in the season of leaf development.

One wonders so now and then: at what stage of life are you, and from what angle will the wind blow and how hard will it blow and can you hang on?

Also in the waiting room, I was threatened with a 2013 article in BizNews that had the following headline: “Retire at 55 and live to 80; work till you’re 65 and die at 67. Startling new data shows how work pounds older bodies.” I guess, I already (for the first time in all these years) admitted to being old in this post. Actually, I just turned 66 and if you are a regular reader, you know that I am not retired. Does this mean I have less than a year to live? I hope not. However, if these posts stop all the sudden, you know what happened to me: my time was up. 

Honestly, my mortality does not keep me awake at night. What keeps me up lately are my back and things I am working on at work, like course design. But, death is not one of them. I know it is going to end one of these days, and hopefully I have at least 20 more years. I would like to leave a legacy, with my teaching, my thinking, my writing, and maybe with some of my photographs (sorry, I am not wealthy). I know that I cannot take anything with me; moreover, when I am dead, I am dead. I do not believe in an afterlife, a heaven or a hell. I believe that we better create our heaven here on earth, and leave a livable heavenly earth behind for our children and grandchildren, something a lot of folks seem to forget. One thing is for sure, the earth's environment might be ruined if we don't do anything about it quickly. We cannot just sit, lean back any longer, take a wait and see attitude, wondering what will happen.

Reading the book "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer, I came to an interesting passage comparing the Judeo-Christian "Eve" and the Native American "Skywoman." Both are seen as the founding mothers of their respective religions. While Skywoman was sent to plant it and tend to it, creating a wonderful environment for her descendants. Eve, on the other hand, was sent in exile from the Garden of Eden for eating from the forbidden fruit, the fruit of knowledge. I never looked at it that way, I always thought of it more like the attitude of Francis Bacon and man's dominance over the natural world. Instead, according to Kimmerer, for Judeo-Christians it is more like who gives a crap about this world, I want to go back to the Garden of Eden or maybe that's called heaven. Who cares if we fuck up this world, this is exile country, we don’t belong here. An interesting view on religion and environmentalism, isn’t it?

Oh well, here we are back to one of the subjects dear to my heart: protecting the world, the environment, for that 22 or 23 year old "green leaf" in the doctor's office, so she can enjoy it for another 60 years, and for her children after that. But at times it is so hard to see that we are making any headway (two steps back). Having a president who claims we have the best climate and best environment in the world, knowing all too well that the air quality has deteriorated over the past two years thanks to his policies and the EPA turning back environmental regulations.

All I can say my friends is: welcome to my brain (if you ever want to send me a hat to protect it: size extra-large) and my often non-linear way of thinking. This is how I sometimes connect the dots, especially when it is somewhat clouded by muscle relaxants, my mortality and the mortality of others around me.  If you wonder about the time you wasted on reading this blog, don't worry, the next one will be more on subject.