#11 Know your poison ivy

Post-climate change cataclysm, you’re going to find yourself in places you might never imagine right now. Maybe you’ve been forced to climb to higher elevations to escape rising waters. Maybe you’re scrambling through the bushes looking for something to eat. Maybe you’re trying to outrun wild animals who are just as hungry as you.

When you get back to whatever home you’ve been able to salvage, you won’t be able to pop by the drug store to pick up some calamine lotion, so you’d better learn to identify eastern poison ivy, western poison ivy and pacific poison oak now, so you can avoid it after the cataclysm.

Who has to worry about this? Anyone who

1. Lives in the areas highlighted in the map below; or
2. Thinks they might find themselves fleeing to those areas after the climate change cataclysm.

I took this photo of the treacherous poison oak at a local public garden. Note how it has been carefully trapped in a wire cage. Thus safely enclosed, it can be studied more closely and its identifying features memorized. You can find more images of these dangerous plants here, here and here, courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (don’t try to say your guv’mint ain’t never done nothin for you).

Start tromping around in the woods now and get familiar with poison ivy and poison oak. Trust me, you only have to tangle with the stuff once, and you’ll remember what it looks like forever.