Can Comics connect people to plants to help solve Earth’s sustainability challenges?
Yes, Because They’re FUN!
Comics are visual. Comics entertain. Comics tell stories. Comics teach.
Plants and Cancer
Environmental and Emotional
Plants play a big part in green therapy – also known as nature therapy, or ecotherapy. Being outside, or even inside, can be calming.
Think of an empty grey warehouse, a treeless street, or a bare room. Plant’s green, form, textures contrast these stark places.
Going through the trauma of cancer brought me to the plants in nature. Are you sad, depressed or stressed? Make plant time your me time.
3-2-1 Moon Trees!
Baby plants in space
A seed is actually a baby plant. Tree seed’s small size belies the potential stature of a grown tree.
Planting seeds from space? Yes. NASA’s Artemis 1 Moon Mission will again orbit seeds from trees on the 6-week lunar mission. Once they return to Earth, they’ll be planted just as the Apollo 14 tree seeds were in 1971. Apollo 14’s Moon Trees grew, and left a living legacy of plants connecting with space.
You can read about Apollo 14’s first generation Moon Trees here.
Want to be an Artemis 1 Moon Tree custodian?
Learn more about Artemis 1’s Moon Tree Program and opportunities here.
Plant Ladies are the Answer
Women are part of Earth’s sustainability solutions.
Plants are great workers that help limit global warming and conserve natural resources. They anchor soil with their roots, do photosynthesis that grabs excess warming carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere, keep places cooler, and so much more.
Women, and so many other people who farm, garden and landscape are also great workers in getting plants growing and thriving to keep the green places on Earth green.
Mother Nature causes Cancer
In earth, wind, fire and water, carcinogens are everywhere
Natural sources of cancer-causing substances exist globally.
Will you get cancer from them? Not necessarily, but not a guarantee either. It can depend on exposure, location and the complexity of the environment.
Plant therapy, pet therapy
Green or furry, they can help us feel better
That green calm of plants is so soothing, right? Scientific research confirms plants may reduce physical and mental stress. Check out the research here. And here.
Yet flora isn’t the only thing that can help heal – it’s fauna too. Pets can also soothe, and be part of humans getting physically and emotionally well. Animal-assisted intervention research evidence is evolving. Learn more here.
Plants and Cancer
Eat your plant based diet. Get cancer anyway.
Whose fault is it anyway?
Those low cal, high nutrient plants we eat to stay healthy and fit...many of us hope they’ll prevent cancer too. But do they?
Cancer causes cells to multiply abnormally. Cancers form throughout body systems. Sometimes cancer formation can be traced to a cause. Sometimes certain habits are linked with less cancer. Sometimes it can be passed along genetically in families. And sometimes, it’s just random, blameless, and goes beyond diet.
Getting past the reason for someone’s cancer is necessary. Moving on to treatment is an important next step.
Manatee Aware, but Plant Blind?
Lovely Sea Cows, Graceful Seagrass
You can’t miss these large, grey, lumbering, and innocent herbivores in the Florida seawaters. Yet seagrass, eaten by manatees, didn’t get attention until the manatees went hungry, lost weight, and died. Marine scientists researched the seagrass environment to see why the seagrass ecosystem was suffering.
Keep seagrass growing to save the manatees. To do this, clean water is the answer.
You can read the research here. Learn how you can help here.
The Botany of Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Many medicines have their origins in plants.
With 1 in 8 American women developing breast cancer in her lifetime, Taxol, a chemical derivative from the Pacific Yew tree (Scientific name Taxus brevifolia), is an important drug in the arsenal of breast cancer chemotherapy treatments.
The Botany of Crossdressing and Circumnavigating
Why have women had to squelch, hide, and delay their scientific skills, talents and discoveries through time?
Frenchwoman Jeanne Baret defied gender expectations in botanical science, and dazzled doubters with an incredible breakthrough accomplishment.
Plant Research: Venus flytraps Snap Shut!
Can Venus flytrap’s fast acting trigger hairs snap shut on larger prey?
Is the Venus flytrap your favorite plant ever?
This Comic explores how “A single touch can provide sufficient mechanical stimulation to trigger Venus flytrap closure”. You can read the research here.
Plant Research: Seaweed and the Male Patriarchy
Will centuries old seaweed collections support current ocean research?
This ocean inspired Comic features this research: “Herbaria macroalgae as a proxy for historical upwelling trends in Central California”. You can read the research here.
Plant Research: Peas on the Move
How do peas climb poles?
This Comic features: “Flexible Control of movement in plants”. You can read the research here.
Plant Research: Really Big Trees
What can researching biomass in separate trees tell us?
My latest Comic features: "Laser technology measures biomass in world's largest trees". You can read the research here.
Plant Research: Flower strips in cities
Did flowers in cities attract bee species, and more of them?
Yes! You can read the original journal abstract here.
California Wildfires and Climate Change
Breathtaking, destructive, heartbreaking, disastrous yet crucial to ecosystems – these are the wildfires in California. Now more frequent and intense, wildfires challenge humans with their power and ferocity.
The perfect storm
A lethal combination of California’s natural wildfire season, human carelessness and habits, and drought parched plants sparked widespread, huge wildfires in California.
California Plants on Fire
What’s burning?
DDT’s Silent Spring and California’s Smoky Summer
Human activity can be disastrous to nature.
Pesticide DDT killed not only insects, but caused the plight of songbirds; fossil fuels used to power our lives adds carbon dioxide gas, more global warming, and climate change.
All Citrus Great and Small
Consider pomelos.
Consider kumquats. Does size matter?
Comic plants in the United States
What's round, roly and comes from a state that starts with M?
Antioxidants help fight free radicals, which are enemies of cell damage in humans. The antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin are in cherries and cranberry contain - so eat them to help stay healthy.
Weirdly named places in the United States were the inspiration for this plant Comic connection.
Is there a city near you that deserves Comic attention? Email me at plantlady@plantsgoglobal.com
The names of trees show up all over the US on street names.
What street named after a tree is near you?
Comic Inspiration
I had so much fun drawing cartoony pictures while teaching my high school science students.
Contour agriculture. Atmospheric Ozone. Pyramids of Biomass. Leaf types.
I realized teaching with Comics can show how plants are an answer to Earth’s sustainability challenges. I can use Comics as a genre to awaken people to plants; make them Plant Aware and eradicate Plant Blindness.
Learning Comics Face-to-Face
Moving away from virtual learning, I studied locally here in Los Angeles to take a class with people. The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles offers Making Comics – A Class for both Writers & Artists taught by savvy, talented Comics pro Jim Higgins.
The goal was to produce a 10-page printed mini-comic. COVID-19 came along, and my mini-comic went on line to produce my Webcomic, Mighty Oaks.
Mighty Oaks
Meet Olivia Acorn, plant cartoon heroine. I saw that anthropomorphizing plants and nature – making them human-like, and giving them speaking and acting roles is a way to get plants into people's minds.
Plants Go Global Instagram Posts:
Comics on Postcards: Because I love sending postcards
Avocados are fruits botanically though we don't usually eat them for sweetness.
Amazingly, avocado is defined further as a berry. Really?
Yes, though avocados resemble drupes, fruits with pits like cherries or peaches, their rinds and luscious mesocarp define them as berries.
Cranberries are berries, squishy tart nuggets holding several seeds. Just add sugar and enjoy all that Vitamin C and antioxidants.
#california #massachusetts #bff #cartoons #comics
#ihavethisthingwithplants #socal #green #postcards #womenwhoexplore #visualsoflife #plantcetera #plantwomen
Monstera
Happy Monstera Monday! Thank you, Monstera, for bringing beautiful plant awareness into people’s lives.
It may be Monstera Monday, but Monstera’s high style brings it daily beyond houseplants into fashion, design, any yes, Plants Go Global’s logo.
Plants Go Global is taking on this new cartoon genre to connect plants to people as a natural solution to climate change.
Plant's photosynthesis – water + carbon dioxide = oxygen + food + a greener world
#monsteramonday #monstera #illustratenow #drawing #climatereality #botany #leadonclimate #sequentialartists#hutchowen #jimhuggins63 #popular