PALOOLA: Botanical

While listening to her husband's Great Society speech in 1964, Lady Bird Johnson found her mission. 

The following year, and during a turbulent time of race riots in America, speaking at the National Council of State Garden Clubs, and the American Forestry Association, Lady Bird said “Beauty cannot be set aside for vacations or special occasions. It cannot be for the occasional privilege of those who come long distances to visit nature. It cannot be reserved, “For nice neighborhoods ONLY.” I am quite sure that ugliness—the grey, dreary unchanging world of crowded, deprived neighborhoods—has contributed to riots, to mental ill health, to crime."

Urban life has improved in some aspects since the 60s, but other problems are getting worse. New York City was less segregated in the 1970s than it is today, mainly due to lack of affordable housing. A direct result of gentrification is more urban forests, which done right have the capacity of creating more equal cities, by reducing air and noise pollution. According to the World Resources Institute, wealthy neighbourhoods in San Francisco have 30% tree canopy cover, compared to 7.5% in lower income neighbourhoods.

Unlike the kelp forests of Chile, and South Africa’s Cape Peninsula, which are mostly stable, all of the kelp forests of the northern hemisphere are rapidly declining. Off the coast of California, kelp forests have declined more than 95%, with just a few small isolated patches remaining, mainly because of rising water temperatures

Kelp, called the sequoias of the sea for their capacity to store large amounts of carbon dioxide and increase oxygen levels, are home to nearly 1000 species. These giant towers of seaweed also act as wave breakers, reducing coastal erosion.

Ahead of the November Cop26 leaders summit in Glasgow the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global scientific authority on climate change, issued a report on 10 August stating that some of the changes now are irreversible. Within the next two decades temperatures will rise more than 1.5ºC from pre-industrial levels. This year we have seen unprecedented fires in Greece, Turkey, Siberia, Italy, and California.

Kelp holds the key for cooling our planet.

Guests:

Botany in Music.

We talk to Texas-based music producer Spencer Stephenson about his band Botany. Stephenson was inspired to name his band after his wanderings through Fort Worth’s botanical garden in 2009.

Botany is part abstract hip hop and part psybient—electronic music that combines chill-out and psychedelic elements—and like many psychedelic ambient bands, is named after botanical themes. Do we inhabit nature the way we inhabit the space music creates? Is ambient music a great substitute for sounds of nature when we are urban-bound? How do we translate patterns we see in plant growth to music’s beat? Today, we explore with our guest Spencer Stephenson, his compositions which he hopes are an organic journey of comforts and challenging riffs to explore all the corners of our minds.

Botany in Art

Botany in Safaris: Part II

Botany in Safaris: Part I

Botany in Architecture

The Hawaiian way of living mostly in nature, and in airy homes has attracted thousands of families who have relocated from the Continental US since the pandemic started. Right before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the tourism industry, Mauna Lani, one of the most iconic resorts on the Big Island, had just finished its $200 million, 15-month renovation. It closed soon after and just reopened this past November. Besides being the new/old kid on the block, on this Palo͞ola episode we will discuss what makes Mauna Lani a great example of interplay between indoor and outdoor architecture in Hawaii, with partners from the three firms behind its renovation: Hart Howerton, RIM Architects & Meyer Davis. And with very special guest, Danny Akaka, Hawaiian history guru at Mauna Lani.

Botany in Communication

Botany in Psychology