Photo by James Emery
I hate poison ivy, and have no idea what its purpose is besides to make me itch. In fact, the thought of it makes me itch. Every time I am exposed, my rash gets worse. National Public Radio noted in one of their radio segments that poison ivy is growing faster and more virulent due to the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and forest disruption. Another wonder due to Climate Change.
Host Michele Norris interviewed Dr. Lewis Ziska, plant physiologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s agricultural research service as to the effects Climate Change has had on this pain in the butt plant. When asked the question, why is this plant growing larger and spreading, he stated:
“One of the things that we think is occurring is that as carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere – carbon dioxide, as everyone knows, is a basic greenhouse gas, but it’s also plant food. And plants take that carbon, and they convert it into sugars and carbohydrates and so forth.
But not all plants respond the same way to that resource, and we think that vines, particularly vines like poison ivy or kudzu or other noxious weeds, seem to show a much stronger response to the change in CO2 than other plant species. So on average, the poison ivy plant of, say, 1901, can grow up to 50 to 60 percent larger as of 2010 just from the change in CO2 alone, all other things being equal.
And as a result of that change, we see not only more growth but also a more virulent form of the oil within poison ivy. The oil is called urushiol, and it’s that oil that causes that causes that rash to occur on your skin when you come into contact with it.”
The thought of poison ivy becoming my neighbor makes me want to run and grab my Tecnu product keeping it safely beside me.
I am not done yet. Worse yet, Lewis stated that due to forest disruption, more poison ivy is thriving. Poison ivy usually lives on the fringe of forests since it needs sunlight. In addition, work done at Duke University showed that when you give CO2 to certain plants in a deforestation situation, poison ivy was the best responder. Figures, right?
So what about the oils? Has this become more toxic?
“What we see is that as the toxicity of the oil goes up, then yes, it means that more people would be more vulnerable to getting a rash. But also as the plant grows more and spreads more, then the chances of coming into contact with it also increase, as well,” stated Lewis.
In the Duke study, it states
“Furthermore, high-CO2 plants produce a more allergenic form of urushiol. Our results indicate that Toxicodendron taxa will become more abundant and more “toxic” in the future, potentially affecting global forest dynamics and human health.”
How to get rid of the oils?
Lewis stated with soap and water very soon after exposure. This does not work for me and I prefer Tecnu. Some commentors suggested beer or milk. I have used dirt to stop the itching. Don’t ask me why it worked. Want some home remedies, see here.
Readers, have you noticed more poison ivy in your neighborhood?
Do you have any favorite remedies?
Tip via Diane of the Big Green Purse. Thanks, Diane!
Smitty says
July 28, 2010 at 3:31 amApparently you haven’t been reading your Euell Gibbons. In one of his books, maybe Stalking The Healthful Herbs, he described curing oneself of Poison Ivy sensitivity, and since my memory of exactly what he wrote is incomplete after all these years, I will simply describe what I did, which I do remember well and which I have been recommending to all who will listen for nearly 40 years now.
Just to be sure of the context, I am not one of the “naturally immune” at all, not even close. Until the Spring that I am about to describe, I suffered from Poison Ivy very badly, to the point of serious illness including respiratory distress – to the point where I was ready to jump at any idea that might offer relief.
During the summer and fall, one year which might have been 1970, I located several clumps of poison ivy, growing mainly on wooden electric poles. Keeping an eye open for the plant was already an established habit, so it was just a matter of focussing upon exactly where the plants were located.
The point is to know where they will be coming up, very early in the Spring. When they came up, I gathered a few very small sprouts and ate them. Visiting the same plants a few days later, I was able to get new sprouts just slightly more developed, and ate them. Maybe about the third time, I stopped cutting the entire sprout, but waited until some well-formed leaves were available; and so on for several more visits, each time attempting to get leaves in a slightly “older” state of development. This was continued until I was eating several completely mature leaves – at which time I already knew the process had worked, since I should definitely have been suffering by then, if ever.
The result can be stated in just a few words: never again have I had the slightest reaction to poison ivy.
Green Talk says
July 28, 2010 at 6:59 pmSmitty!!!! OMG, you ate poison ivy??? You did not break out at all from eating it? Anna
Smitty says
July 28, 2010 at 7:40 pmI referred you to Euell Gibbons, because of course you have no reason to believe what I say. Do your reading.
Here is another source: http://www.wwmag.net/pivy.htm
Just a few more words – did you ever hear someone say that for a hangover you should take a shot of whatever you were drinking last night, and that that is called “the hair of the dog”? It was once believed that if a dog bit you and the bite became infected, you should put some of that dog’s hair in the wound. Surely that would not cure an infection – but going back to face that dog again might very well have been good therapy, emotionally. I think it arose from the (once widespread) knowledge that the way to treat an allergy is to administer the allergen. Granted, this practice can be dangerous, hence it is called the “kill or cure” treatment.
Example: 2 people react rather unfortunately to wasp sting. Both choose to try to overcome their sensitivity by deliberately exposing themselves to multiple wasp stings. Result: One is never again bothered by oversensitivity to wasp sting, and the other lands in the hospital in anaphylactic shock.
There’s a case where you probably shouldn’t administer the allergen, but the point remains, that for some substances, it works.
Eating nettles works too, by the way. I have that from Euell Gibbons, too.
Do your reading. You will find that some people had their doubts about Mr. Gibbons. That’s what always happens to anyone who gets out of step. The herd gets really uncomfortable if somebody gets out of step and does not appear to suffer for it, and sometimes the herd will destroy that individual or at least discredit him, then everybody feels better and all secure again. Look what happened to the Hippies…
Anna@Green Talk says
July 28, 2010 at 11:02 pmSmitty, what does nettles do? Anna
Smitty says
July 28, 2010 at 11:26 pm…I keep telling you, do your reading. Nettles are also known as Stinging Nettles. They have hairs which have small amounts of strange toxins, which may not be toxins at all – choline, histamine, serotonin. The stinging can be pretty uncomfortable, especially if you walk through a lot of them with bare legs.
But if you eat them, in salad or as a cooked green, or make tea, along with the vitamins and good nutrition you would expect from any green, you can receive a long list of beneficial effects, and if you get enough of the serotonin… – but I ‘m not going to say any more because I want you to do your own reading.
Anna@Green Talk says
July 29, 2010 at 11:02 pmSmitty, but I love your comments. I could talk to you all day. You know so much! Anna
Smitty says
July 30, 2010 at 8:32 amLet’s have the conversation that your title begs for: going Green for real, by which I mean going totally organic.
The parallel I like to use is the matter of humans and diabetes. Did you ever hear of a person who ate a completely natural diet becoming diabetic? [ I should hasten to add that as far as I know there may be a small number of people who will become diabetic no matter what they eat or don’t eat. But my point is that a great amount of our national epidemic is caused more by our diet than anything else, and if we cleaned up our diet we would get rid of a lot of diabetes.
The same is true of any number of other ailments.
Just as we have not been prepared by our evolution to deal with sucrose (which does not occur in nature), and among those who consume it a certain number will become unwell, either becoming diabetic or something else, the same thing happens to plants if they are given high-powered fertilizers that their evolution has not prepared them for. The industry will shout about the bigger flowers or bigger tomatoes or whatever, but when you come right down to it, the healthier and tastier tomato will come from the naturally grown plant.
Here again I will say to all: do your reading. There is a lot of it. The list of human ailments that can be directly linked to eating unnatural chemicals, whether because they have been used to grow the food, or whether they have been added to the food during processing, is a very long list.
We are killing ourselves. Here we are, the most advanced (supposedly) and most prosperous (definitely) society ever to live upon this earth, and we are killing ourselves with what we eat. We are allowing the people who sell us our food to sell us substandard, non-nutritious, poisonous stuff that is not really food at all, and to lie outrageously to us while they are doing it, and do we punish them and denounce them and dispossess them of the land that they have stolen from real farmers by one crooked corruption after another over the years? No. We reward them. Why? Partly because our poisoned brains aren’t working as they should, partly because of the dumbing-down, and partly because we are fed a steady diet of lies.
Okay, do you want to have this conversation?
Anna@Green Talk says
July 31, 2010 at 12:33 amSmitty, well said. Why do you think so many kids are being diagnosed with juvenile diabetes? Anna
Living Simply says
July 18, 2011 at 11:47 amInteresting article, Anna. In grad school my dissertation project looked at the effects of predicted climate change on the sage-steppe ecosystem near where I live. The long and the short of it is that not only does the increased CO2 in the atmosphere cause a shift in both relative abundance of plants and their physiognomy and physiology, but changes in precipitation and weather extremes has a profound effect. Weeds like poison ivy tend to thrive in disturbed ecosystems, and the excessively rapid climate changes induced by human activity (among other things) act as significant disturbances. I was not aware of the Poison Ivy effect, however. Thanks for posting this.