'For the first time, I don’t feel like I’m just living in New York — I feel like an integral part of it.' imontheradio writes
The writer standing in Forest Park, Queens. Photo: DeSean McClinton-Holland This week, the United Nations released a new climate-change report warning us that we are locked into a much hotter future. The report calls this a “code red for humanity,” with global temperatures likely to increase by 1.5 degrees within the next two decades, causing even more extreme weather events.
It can be hard to love nature in New York. When I moved here seven years ago, I realized that many New Yorkers are … disconnected from the natural world, to put it kindly. Like the time my father-in-law, a Queens native, sent the family group chat a photo of “a chicken in the Bronx!” and everyone was awed. It was not a chicken. It was a night heron — which looks nothing like a chicken.
Then, last year, I read Braiding Sweetgrass, a book of ecological essays by Native American botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer. In it, she writes that it is not enough to simply appreciate nature or to weep over environmental destruction. “We have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair.
I was astonished to learn how impactful fighting for trees really is. According to this New York City tree map, one London plane tree near me saves 2,500 kilowatt hours with its shade, intercepts 6,100 gallons of stormwater , and removes four pounds of pollutants and a whopping 10,500 tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year.
The job’s perks include a sick NYC Parks hat and some free tools. The hat and a certificate allow me to work undisturbed, though nobody has ever questioned me. I go to Forest Park early in the morning about once a week, and work for around three hours. Thanks to training by Stein and two veteran Parks gardeners, Irena and Mike, I know how to identify and remove several aggressive invasives, including porcelain berry and bittersweet vines.
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