Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Ecological Gardening, Marjorie Harris and James Hansen



Hello everyone,

Here in London, Ontario, we had a pleasant day.  Temperature in the low 20's celcius.   No heat wave of the sort in British Columbia and in the U.S. where some areas are having temperatures in the 40's celcius ... which is beyond ridiculous into scary.

And I happened to take off my bookshelf a copy of Marjorie Harris' book Ecological Gardening: Your Path to a Healthy Garden (revised and updated 1996 from its 1991 first edition).

Seventeen, or perhaps even 22 years ago, Harris put a section about xeriscaping in her book - gardening for drought.  And included this quotation by James Hansen, (then) Director of NASA's Goddard space center:

"As the greenhouse effect increases we will see hydrological extremes. Some areas, especially mid-continental regions, will have more frequent and extreme drought."

Harris is a garden designer and writer, and a proponent of organic gardening.  She's Canadian!  She's just started posting some new garden videos (done for the Globe and Mail newspaper) on her website  www.marjorieharris.com 

Harris is always ahead of the trend, or, more accurately, she knows when a trend isn't a good idea and tells us something useful instead.  She obviously knew who James Hansen was well before many environmentally savvy people (me included!) had any inkling who he was, and before his name began to really be associated with climate change - global warming.

Hansen's recent book, Storms of My Grandchildren, is in the London Public Library.  I've mentioned him before too: http://savingtheworldinmysparetime.blogspot.ca/search?q=James+Hansen

Thanks Marjorie Harris and James Hansen.  Even if you are talking about things that scare me.

Sincerely, and with best regards,

Why's Woman


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