Ubiquitous Seaweed Poses Vexing Concerns

           

In her new book Seaweed Chronicles: A World at the Water’s Edge, Susan Hand Shetterly elevates ordinary seaweed to the exalted place in nature that it deserves. Shetterly portrays seaweed as a wild untamed force of nature—elusive in its scope and one of the most overlooked species of life on this planet.
        Our everyday interactions with seaweed are largely unconscious. We eat it, slather it on our bodies, spray our vegetable gardens with it, and use it to make  In her beer. Seaweed contributes more than half of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere. 
       Seaweeds are not plants, in a strict sense, they are algae. Seaweeds have no leaves, stems, or roots. Their fossilized remains date back millions of years. The ancient Romans used seaweed to treat skin ailments and it has been a staple of the Japanese diet for hundreds of years.

            More than a primer on seaweed, Shetterly weaves personal stories of people who forage, farm, and process seaweed—individuals who serve as the ultimate caretakers of the marine algae.

            One couple, Linette and Shep Erhart, who built one of the most successful seaweed processing companies on the coast of Maine, began by foraging seaweed for their own consumption. Before they knew it, their kitchen-table endeavor had morphed into a successful international enterprise. A few years ago the Erharts recognized that if they were to remain competitive, they were going to have to take direction from the fishing industry and begin farming their seaweed crop.

            One of the impediments encountered by the seaweed industry involves ownership. Is the right to catch fish the same as the right to cut seaweed? Seaweed is historically an indigenous, foraged crop but like other endemic species, it is currently threatened by climate change. The Fukishema nuclear accident in 2011 generated widespread fear about the safety of Japan’s seaweed and Atlantic hurricanes have taken a toll on the industry. At the same time, demand for the product has increased exponentially.

            Complicating the issues of ownership and the effects of climate change, seaweed provides a habitat for numerous species of wildlife. Sea otters depend on giant kelp for survival, as do sea urchins.

            “It’s a life-sustaining relationship,” writes Shetterly, “kept in balance by the otters: the sea urchins feed on the kelps; the otters feed on the urchins, preventing the kelps from being overgrazed and the underwater forests from becoming decimated.”

            That balance once thrived in South Western Alaska but now it is defunct. One prominent marine biologist attributes the depletion of baleen whales to the demise of the seaweed, otters, and sea urchins.

            Seaweed Chronicles is a well-written, thoughtful book that celebrates the benefits of seaweed in nature’s diverse chain of command.

Trees Answer Life's Most Provocative Questions

Sunday May 13, 2018
San Antonio Express News

From Tolkien’s Ents in “Lord of the Rings” and Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree,” to the Whomping Willow of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, trees have forever captivated the human imagination. In David George Haskell’s new nature book, The Songs of Trees, he merges a contemplative style with scientific method and concludes that man’s anthropomorphic ruminations about trees aren’t completely misguided. 

Haskell examines the lives of a dozen trees located in diverse environments from the Amazon jungle to the boreal Canadian forests and beyond. Through lyrical prose he interprets the trees’ physiognomy in a framework that we humans can understand.

The first composition is performed by a colossal ceibo tree near the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve in western Ecuador. The ceibo illustrates the immense diversity present in the Amazon jungle. When it rains, as it does every few hours, the drops encounter various objects—leaves, wings of bats, soft moss bellies, epiphyte cups—that contribute their distinct melodies. From microbes to mammals, the ceibo supports thousands of species of life. The Amazon is a tightly woven canticle of extraordinary strength. Its long-term survival is threatened by mankind’s voracious appetite for resource consumption.

Over 3,000 miles from the ceibo in the Canadian boreal forest, tinkling sounds from the crown of a monstrous balsam fir signals the presence of chickadees rummaging its cones for sustenance. Avian memories are preserved both in the chickadees’ minds and in their social network. The balsam fir manifests memory, as well, in its ability to generate genetic diversity.

Next on the tour is the sabal palm of St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia, a tree that survives hardships that would defeat almost any other species. With rising sea levels, the sabal palm demonstrates the kind of adaptation that humans would be wise to emulate.

An elegy for Tennessee’s green ash tree follows, then the artistry of Japan’s mitsumata, and the impact of Scotland’s hazel tree on modern society.

The American giants, ponderosa pines and redwoods, illustrate the effects of fire and the progression of climate change, while the life cycle of maple trees serves a more practical purpose. 

More lessons in nature follow—Denver’s cottonwoods, Jerusalem’s olive trees, and Manhattan’s pear trees. All possess a distinctive, unique sound, an ensemble of melodious voices contributing to the overall harmony of the collective.

“In all these places,” writes Haskell, “tree songs emerge from relationship. Although tree trunks seemingly stand as detached individuals, their lives subvert this atomistic view. Life is embodied network.” 

Haskell believes that all life on this planet is interconnected and that humans do not exist separately and apart from nature—we are part of nature. Our self-serving actions to reap nature’s bounties are imperiling our planet and interfering with the harmonious balance of biological networks. 

“To listen to trees, nature’s great connectors,” concludes Haskell, “is therefore to learn how to inhabit the relationships that give life its source, substance, and beauty.”

Magic, secrets, and high-stakes conspiracy proliferate in a military mortuary

San Antonio Express News

March 18, 2018 

Jim “Zig” Zigarowski is an artist, a sculptor of sorts. As a mortician at Dover AFB in Delaware, he models mangled, dead soldiers’ faces into facades of innocence and tranquility. When a military plane from Alaska crashes en route to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Zig feels compelled to handle the postmortem on the first body recovered from the site, that of Nola Brown, whose name he recognizes as a former classmate of his deceased daughter. But when he examines her corpse he realizes the dead woman isn’t Nola. Adding to the mystery, the passenger manifest contains names of magicians who died decades ago.

Zig searches for Nola’s personal effects and finds her charred boots, a wristwatch, a few burned pieces of uniform and a folded portrait on canvas. He is struck by the items that aren’t there — no dog tags, no phone, no wallet. Convinced the real Nola Brown is alive and fearful that she is a victim of foul play, Zig sets out to find her. He discovers that Nola is an artist-in-residence for the Army and travels the world painting portraits of fellow soldiers in distress.

Nola also harbors a hideous secret, so vile that it can threaten the life of anyone who encounters it. Soon, Zig is awash in a government conspiracy that revolves around magicians Harry Houdini and Horatio Green Cooke, who stood at Abraham Lincoln’s deathbed. He must confront Nola’s terrible secret and face his own annihilation.

The Escape Artist marks Meltzer’s 20-year anniversary of his first thriller, The Tenth Justice, and his evolution as a writer is notable. Frequently praised for his quirky, memorable characters, in this novel he dissects them from the skin to the soul, methodically exfoliating each raw layer until he exposes their vital force. Nola attracts trouble, and Zig jumps headlong into the middle of it. Nola is his ticket to the past — a time when life was simpler and relationships were easier to manage. Like a magician, she slips in and out, up, down, around corners, through barriers, and eludes anyone who attempts to hold on to her.

“Zig could live with the maneuverings,” Meltzer writes. “Indeed, he had to respect her for a smart play like that. No, for Zig, the real pain came from what it showed him about himself.”

Meltzer has been remarkably busy the past 20 years. In addition to a dozen cutting-edge thrillers, he has written a series of award-winning children’s books under the title “Ordinary People Change the World,” and hosted two programs on the History Channel. He also helped find the missing American flag that firefighters raised at ground zero, making national news on the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

It was a USO trip to the Middle East six years ago that fueled The Escape Artist.

“Looking back,” writes Meltzer in the acknowledgments, “it seems clear I was in the midst of my own crisis, examining my life and my place in this world. The point is, I believe every book is born from a need, and it was this book that helped me realize the difference between being alive and actually living.”

The Escape Artist By Brad Meltzer Grand Central Publishing, $28