PLANT OF THE WEEK ...TEA BERRY

Plants that bring man beauty and food get the most attention. Add in tasty tea with well-known medicinal benefits and we have a fine leafy friend.

Evergreen with beautiful flowers, fruit it can warm Winter thoughts.

Gaultheria procumbens is a native to Eastern North America. Natives from Newfoundland to Alabama knew and used the plant well. To grow it and taste it can bring us back to a reconnect with this blessed area of our Planet.

High population in the Northeast is not a new or senseless phenomenon.  As the Natives moved inland thanks to warming climate they made sensible decisions. Hopefully we will learn from their success.

Of relevance in the Northeast North America is not necessarily applicable when
planning in other areas. Central planning using cut and paste boilerplate government financed non intelligent irrelevance is the new norm. Climate, soil
type, availability of water and photovoltaic energy affects all creatures. Stacks of paper and legal decisions have taken the driver seat in accommodating
the most effective species ever, Humans.

Paul Driessen writes: Incompetence, stupidity, diversion, blame shifting,
and false solutions to imaginary problems “Superstorm” Sandy killed more than
100 people, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, and left millions
without food, water, electricity, sanitation or shelter for days or even weeks.
Our thoughts and prayers remain focused on its victims, many of whom are still
grieving as they struggle with the storm’s wintry aftermath and try to rebuild
their lives.

Unfortunately, too many politicians continue to use the storm to advance agendas, deflect blame for incompetence and mistakes, and obfuscate and magnify future risks from building and development projects that they have designed, promoted, permitted and profited from.

Sandy was “unprecedented,” the result of “weather on steroids,” various “experts” insist. “It’s global warming, stupid,” intoned Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
“Anyone who says there is not a change in weather patterns is denying reality,”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared. We must protect the great NY
metropolis from rising oceans, said the Washington Post. This storm
should “compel all elected leaders to take immediate action” on climate change,
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pronounced.

Unfortunately for the politicians and spin-meisters, the facts do not support this obscene posturing.

North America’s northeastern coast has been battered by hurricanes and other major storms throughout history. A 1775 hurricane killed 4,000 people in
Newfoundland; an 1873 monster left 600 dead in Nova Scotia; others pummeled Canada’s Maritime Provinces in 1866, 1886, 1893,1939, 1959, 1963 and 2003.

Manhattan got pounded in 1667 and by the Great Storm of 1693. They were followed by more behemoths in 1788, 1821, 1893, 1944, 1954 and 1992. Other “confluences of severe weather events” brought killer storms like the four-day Great Blizzard of 1888. The 1893 storm largely eradicated Hog Island, and the 1938 “Long Island Express” hit LI as a category 3 hurricane with wind gusts up to 180 mph.

Experts say such winds today would rip windows from skyscrapers and cause a deadly blizzard of flying glass, masonry, chairs, desks and other debris from high-rise offices and apartments. People would seek safety in subway tunnels, where they would drown as the tunnels flood.

Sandy was merely the latest “confluence” (tropical storm, northeaster and full-moon high tide) to blast the New York-New Jersey area. It was never a matter of if, but only of when, such a storm would hit.

People, planners and politicians should have been better prepared. Instead, we are feted with statements designed to dodge responsibility and culpability, by trying to blame global warming. The reality is, even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose to 391 ppm (0.0391%) today, average global temperatures have not changed in 16 years, and sea levels are rising no faster than in 1900. Even with Hurricane Sandy, November 2012 marked the quietest long-term hurricane period since the Civil War, with only one major hurricane strike on the US mainland in seven years. This is global warming and unprecedented weather on steroids

Most outrageous of all, though, was how ill-prepared the region was for another
major storm – and how many political decisions had virtually ensured that any
repeat of the 1893, 1938, 1944 and other storms would bring devastation far
worse than would likely have occurred in the absence of those decisions.

As succinct and accurate a summary would be hard to imagine but the lesson should be used and applied to local efforts. Along long Island Sound for example real planning could ensue. The fact that the storm contained very little available moisture but a wind direction sequence that created the tallest surge physically possible in the East West oriented water body. It is irrefutable physical evidence that “planning” adopted over the last 50 years was based on a false premise. Numerous Coastal Plans especially for Flood Protection have to be re-written. For years a prime driving force the Storm Surge Elevation has been wrong.

Post World War II planning in the United States has been carried out by the new “profession” called Planning and Professional Engineers both are dominated by political interests and lawyers. “Working the system” is now a phrase proudly flouted rather than a low-class activity below professional standards. Communist government planning and Monarchical as well as Tyrannical methods of planning frequently use dramatic events to seize properties and rights from landowners. The New York City region has been dominated by following the outright racist Robert Moses legacy. An organization called the Regional Plan Association is a good example. Founded by Moses devotees it has nothing to do with the historical or physical realities that F.L. Olmsted used during his planning process. Touting the thousands of pages of regulations and findings put forward by politically
driven government silos such as the EPA and the NRCS population centers all
over the country are contributing to the scam that planning is fair and balanced except for evil developers and greedy corporations.

Extreme weather planning has parameters that can be viable only at the very local level. Drought conditions and heavy participation spells need to be included first not last in real planning. From Sydney to London, from Paris to Hanoi, from Madrid to Buenos Aires, Empires relied on local input for land use. The Romans used a base plan for communities that relied on water delivery and soil type. As onerous and faulty as the rulers were, many of the cities and villages planned by them exist and thrive centuries later.  The opposite is true in many Soviet centers and costly contrived areas in the United States plopped down in the most recent Century.  Add in China’s explosive recent metropolitan growth that has erased thousand plus year old communities and placed large vulnerable structures in air and water clogged lowlands the neglect of real planning is evidenced worldwide.

As you sit back and sip the beneficial tea yield from Gaultheria procumbens relate to what you may do to correct the situation. Insist that your local municipal efforts include input by Landscape Architects first not last. To honor the dead and the severely affected by the mistakes of the recent past is not enough. Know and understand that reason, intelligence and real science such as Horticulture will only prevail at the local venue effectively if the only profession that includes them is reestablished as the primary planning profession. Anger and understanding of the flaws in the process in its current state is not enough. Provide input by action to protect your property and the future.

Tea Berry may have started in North America as did true Democracy, but it can thrive worldwide when effectively planned.