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Knotweed picking in springtime New York

Something to look forward to next spring!
From culinate.com

My friend Leda and I are partners in crime. We conspire to pick noxious weeds in a public park, which, technically, is against the law. I checked. The fine in New York City is $1,000 for removing plants from a park, although writing a ticket for picking an invasive plant like Japanese knotweed should make any self-respecting park ranger blush. When I weigh the tart, zesty taste of knotweed shoots against the threat of a hefty citation, the scales tip heavily in favor of the knotweed.

In the spring, Japanese knotweed sends up thick green spears mottled with red, like asparagus on steroids with a sunburn. Exactly when it muscles its way up through the earth depends on where you live. In New York City, the knotweed picking is best in April, so harvest earlier if you live farther south, later if farther north.

Knotweed stalks at prime harvest time.

Before it starts to branch, knotweed is very tender; after branching, the stems are so tough that you have to peel them to eat them. That’s too much work for me, so I harvest early. Knotweed grows fast; within a few days, it’s gone from tender to tough, so when I see the first spears poke up, I don’t dawdle.

Some people think knotweed is bamboo, because of its tall, woody, jointed stems. It’s not closely related, but it’s just as invasive; by the end of summer, knotweed can be six to eight feet tall. The tall, dead stalks from the previous year’s growth make excellent markers for new growth in the spring, with the young shoots poking up around the old stalks.

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Since there are so many things you can make with knotweed, you’ll have no trouble using as much as you harvest. And if you clean and freeze the stems when you get home, you can cook with it at your leisure; it keeps for months in the freezer. Knotweed wine is one of my favorite home brews; it takes less time to finish fermenting than many other wines and tastes like a good sauterne with a tawny gold color. Knotweed can be substituted for rhubarb in pies, jams, and jellies; it combines well with strawberries, blueberries, and apples. And, yes, you can use knotweed as a vegetable; it’s tart and crunchy in stir-fries and lemony delicious under hollandaise. My favorite way to eat knotweed is in a creamy soup. Nothing like turning environmental activism into lunch.

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Oil Industry Backs Protests of Emissions Bill

an article on protests in response to the pending Cap and Trade Bill.
Uh, what’s wrong with this picture?

This was the first of a series of about 20 rallies planned for Southern and oil-producing states to organize resistance to proposed legislation that would set a limit on emissions of heat-trapping gases, requiring many companies to buy emission permits. Participants described the system as an energy tax that would undermine the economy of Houston, the nation’s energy capital.

and a few paragraphs down:

“It’s just a sense of outrage and disappointment with the bill passed by the House,” said James T. Hackett, chief executive of Anadarko Petroleum, who attended the rally. He defended, as an environmental measure, the use of buses financed by oil companies and Energy Citizens to carry employees to the rally. “If we all drove in cars, it wouldn’t look good,” he said.

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More Fake Letters to Congress on Energy Bill

…from an article in the NY Times today about a pro-oil, anti Cap n Trade Bill rally in Houston :

A public relations company hired by a pro-coal industry group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, recently sent at least 58 fake letters opposing new climate laws to members of Congress. The letters, forged by the public relations company Bonner & Associates, purported to be from groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Hispanic organizations.

Bonner & Associates has acknowledged the forgeries, blaming them on a temporary employee who was subsequently fired. The coal coalition has apologized for the fake letters and said it was cooperating with an investigation of the matter by a Congressional committee.

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Reviving the Lost Art of Naming the World

From today’s NY Times: Reviving the Lost Art of Naming the World, an article on what the decline of taxonomy means for us as narrative beings.

The past few decades have seen a stream of studies that show that sorting and naming the natural world is a universal, deep-seated and fundamental human activity, one we cannot afford to lose because it is essential to understanding the living world, and our place in it.

image from the book “Kunstformen der Natur,” by Ernst Haeckel, 1900.
image from the book “Kunstformen der Natur,” by Ernst Haeckel, 1900.
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“We will pay for this one way or another”

Today’s NY Times article “Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security:”

“We will pay for this one way or another,” Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a retired Marine and the former head of the Central Command, wrote recently in a report he prepared as a member of a military advisory board on energy and climate at CNA, a private group that does research for the Navy. “We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind.

“Or we will pay the price later in military terms,” he warned. “And that will involve human lives.”

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Letter to Gov about climate catastrophe

Dear  President Obama,

I just finished reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s article in June 29 2009 issue of The New Yorker called “The Catastrophist,” a profile of climatologist James Hansen.

I have thought many times about how to compose any kind of letter that would at least have meaning to me, if not to the administration, but time has run out for pondering.

I am an artist and animator, and I work with issues of climate change (http://www.o-matic.com).
I have had more conversations than I care to remember about how it’s almost too late, how it is too late,  how it is futile and hopeless because of big business and lobby resistance. But time has also run out for conversations, and people like me need to DEMAND a message from you and a commitment to action.

Respectfully: What is the plan? When do you declare, as I believe is appropriate, an impending state of emergency? When does government step in and help save humans and other beings from a change so drastic, we will all suffer greatly? Health care, bank bonuses, better education, none of it will matter if we don’t make some serious changes in the way we manage the planet – from fuel production to consumption.

I know this is not the most eloquent letter, but I need to hear from you. I am frightened for myself, my friends, for people I know in vulnerable places, and for all the children I know whose lives will soon be altered beyond comprehension.

Sincerely,
Marina Zurkow
Brooklyn NY

(sent to TheWhiteHouse.gov web site)

I wrote  and sent this letter last night out of complete exasperation. I’ve been feeling a murky disappointment about the murky attention being paid to climate change, and everyone says “be patient; Obama’s Admin’s hands are full.” I really hope that if you’re reading this, you’ll consider writing too.  A mediocre “cap and trade” bill got passed by the House (and even this has faced enormous resistance by both libertarians and big business) . We are at the end of the hourglass (some experts think time’s up already), and I have gone from helpless despair, to trying to exercise conviction that my small actions will make difference, to realizing it’s only pressure on government to legislate  fuel change, energy innovation and radical shifts in global behaviors. Pundits  opine that scientists don’t understand the way politics work when they state that we have a small window of time in which to slow down or somewhat restabilize the PPM of CO2 in the climate IF we shut down ALL coal plants;  but Hansen “argues that while the laws of geophysics are immutable, those of society are ours to determine.”

If you have any suggestions on how to effectively(?) reach others in gov with individual letters, please post.

Info on the Cap and Trade Bill which will go to the Senate in the fall (if we’re lucky):
Cap and Trade Bill breakdown
Archive of NYT articles on Cap and Trade
The Economist critique of Cap and Trade Bill
Job-loss critique of Cap and Trade Bill