Editor's Note: Myles Kitagawa's personal blog can be found at mylesk.livejournal.com

According to a recent Pew Charitable Trust survey, 59% of people do not believe that 97% of scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is real. Their perception is that the ratio of scientists who confirm climate change to those who deny it is in the range of 50-50.

At a recent conference convened by the Alberta Ecotrust, speaker Dr. Justina Ray explained this grotesque outcome in her session on The Science Policy Gap. Media stories, Dr. Ray said, depend on conflict, and near-consensus situations contain very little of it. Consequently, if a reporter is going to write a conflict-based story about the science of climate change, he or she must escalate the validity of the 3% of deniers so that a story with an air of controversy might be produced. It follows that a public who relies on this distortion would conclude that the climate change is controversial when this is actually not the case.

Among the people who populate my life, there are a few correspondents who believe that climate change is a hoax - that it is a religion-like tenet held by people who have “drunk the ad hominem kool-aid” handed out by charismatic leaders like Al Gore and David Suzuki. Ad Hominem Kool-Aid is the beverage preferred by people who choose their beliefs based on who says what rather than a careful examination of what they are saying.

In contrast to these members of homo ad hominus, there are the Children of the Enlightenment who are described in the Ted Nordhaus/Michael Shellenberger essay, The Death of Environmentalism this way:  read more... »

As you know, Yard Food Day is a traditional post in honour of the first day that I eat something that is growing in my back yard, and in 2010, it is April 18th.

I've noticed that my chive plant has been growing for a few days now, and so technically, Yard Food Day could've been an omelet with some chives a few days ago, but that didn't happen.

Weedgeekery is shifting. Circa 1995, when Toxics Watch ran its "Lion's Tooth Festival" to celebrate the much maligned dandelion, there were few resources describing the uses of this valuable plant.

 
But today, there seem to be weedgeeks in the mainstream. My lunch recipe today was published in the April 7th, 2010 edition of the Globe & Mail's Food & Wine section: Salad of dandelion greens, pancetta and boiled eggs, a dish served at Montreal's Toque restaurant.

A quick ellipse.

At the 2009 Annual General Assembly of the Canadian Environmental Network, one of the presenters was local permaculture expert, Ron Berezan, who presented on the idea of no-till gardening. To help build up poor backyard soils, the no-till gardener applies layers of newspapers, leaves, and fall garden detritus to the yard to rapidly build up organic matter. I understand the initial layer of newspaper is supposed to suppress weed growth.

Of course, weedgeeks don't suppress their weed growth, so I left the newspaper part out.
The consequence of this omission is that what appeared to be ordinary, young dandelion plants growing atop a layer of leaves actually had 2 or 3 inches of sweet, tender, light-starved mid-ribs growing beneath them. Once picked, these plants resembled a true vegetable, kind of like a thin bok choy.

Notice the length of white underleaf in these plants: 

Compared to these which were growing directly out of the soil: 

My version of the Toque hot dandelion, pancetta and egg salad turned out like this:  read more... »

Today’s weedgeek post is a bit of a cheat because I didn’t make this product, but if I ever adopt brewing as one of my hobbies, this is definitely something I’d attempt as two of its main ingredients are prized crops in the Vacant Lot of Eden.

While riding home from a downtown meeting late last summer, I noticed a burdock growing at the southern approach of the Highlevel Bridge  read more... »

My weed books refer to the white part of the dandelion that connects the root to the leaves as the “crown”, but the term is confusing. Crowns are at the top of things, where the blossom on a dandelion is. As I was picking dandelions this afternoon for both this post and for a side dish to tonight’s Cassoulet-style Chicken dinner, it occurred to me that this part of the dandelion is the dandelion ‘heart’, just like the heart of celery, or the artichoke heart.

So, from now on, I’m calling them “dandelion hearts”.

Pick, trim and clean as many dandelion hearts as you wish to serve. I halve or quarter the larger hearts so that they are all a uniform bite size.
 read more... »