Wetlands Protect Coastal Communities

The impact of the hurricane would have been reduced if Louisiana had not lost so many of its coastal wetlands. A map summarizing wetland loss in Louisiana from 1932-2000 is posted on the web site of the National Wetlands Research Center (NWRC) (http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/). Note the particularly heavy loss south, southwest, and southeast of New Orleans.

The ocean is strong, but natural coastal systems are good at cushioning the impact of massive amounts of rushing water.

Marshes and dunes are not preferred for permanent human habitation, however, so we destroy them and build walls to prevent flooding. It works well, by and large, but Mother Nature can do wonders.

Arguing that New Orleans would have been spared if the Corps of Engineers got the money to bolster dikes misses the point: Living in flood zones is risky. Choosing to take that risk means accepting the consequences. Low-probability events are not no-probability events.

(Earthquakes, tsunamis, unprecedented cold snaps and dry spells, tornados, et cetera... You could say Living is risky.)

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The Elusive Subja Seed

Why am I so captivated by the idea of drinking tasteless, slippery, crunchy-kerneled seeds? Because subja seeds sound like fun. I first learned of them by browsing The Indian Spice Kitchen , where Monisha Bharadwaj describes them, but Osimum basilicum seeds seem impossible to find. I made a special trip to Seattle's Uwajimaya to track them down, but came up empty. I stopped at Market Spice at Pike Street, where they hadn't heard of them (but they suggested another shop down the street). I went into Souk, where the gentleman understood what I was looking for only after I described it; he knew the seeds by a different name, which he couldn't remember, and said his sister gets them at a shop (the name not in his memory) on Roosevelt Avenue. But I was out of time in the city and couldn't follow up. (But before I took more than a few steps out Souk's door, the proprietor called me back in, because he had asked his arriving friend what those seeds were called. Tukmaria, ...

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Nemo on Knox

Inside for the morning, we watched a kind neighbor snowthrow the mountain at the end of the driveway. That still left plenty for me. Nemo dropped an unprecedented single-storm snowfall, I'd say, at least for our 13 years here. Blowing and drifting make an estimate unwise, but I can't resist stating 25 inches.* I've seen taller piles once or twice, but this time we went from near-bare ground to waist-deep drifts overnight. It's hard to get shovel leverage with snow that high. 2+ days digging and there's still no route to the compost pile, or out the back door, for that matter. The weather station recorded only one gust above 30 mph, so no blizzard here, but it was nonetheless breezy. Sustained winds in the teens. 2/8 2118 29mph 44deg 2/8 2310 29 36 2/9 0249 28 37 2/9 0909 30 348 The weather station reported -3.1 temperature and -35 wind chill for 2pm on the 9th. Seems that has to be a glitch, but it was definitely cold and windy out there. Kept birds fed an...

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