Category: Business

It is amazing what one sees on the road!

This is an account of an Amazon delivery driver!

This story was originally published on The Dodo and I thought it would make a brilliant share with you all. Here it is!

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Amazon Delivery Driver Spots The Weirdest-Looking ‘Dog’ Trotting Toward His Truck

“This is so funny, what the heck” 😂
By Caitlin Jill Anders

Published on the 24th August, 2023

An Amazon delivery driver named Erik was out delivering packages as usual when he noticed someone furry walking in front of his truck. He figured it was a dog coming to say hi, which happens to him a lot on his route. He was getting excited to greet the dog and see if he’d ever met this one before — then suddenly realized he wasn’t a dog at all.

When the animal made it to the door of his truck, Erik realized the friendly neighbor was actually a goat.

Erik and the goat stood watching each other for a few seconds, both assessing the situation. Then, the goat decided Erik was friendly and climbed on the truck, greeting Erik just like a dog would. Erik couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

“This is so funny, what the heck,” Erik said in a video about the encounter.

The goat jumped up onto Erik to say hi and even stuck his little tongue out. He was wearing a collar and a leash, which made Erik think this kind of thing probably happens a lot.

A TikTok user who has goats commented, “[T]hat bell means he’s the problem goat.”

Luckily, using the leash, Erik was able to lead the friendly goat back to where he came from. He was glad it didn’t turn into a neighborhood-dog-who-wouldn’t-leave-his-truck, which has happened to him before.

Erik didn’t expect to see a goat during his shift that day, but now he hopes it’ll happen again.

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There were three videos inserted in the original, all from TikTok, but I chose not to include them. If you want to watch them then please go here.

However, it is a delightful story!

Koko’s last hunt

Jesse Anderson’s dog.

Back in mid-May I received an email from Jess. It said:

Paul, as of about two years ago I’ve been writing my life story.  I wanted my kids and grandkids to know what it was like when I was a kid.  Some of my best memories are times spent with my dogs.  This is one story I wrote about Koko’s last hunt. 

It was a lovely story and I have no idea why I have left it so long before publishing it. But here it is!

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Koko

By Jesse Anderson

When I was just a young boy, I was gifted a puppy that was a Chesapeake/setter cross.  Because of his chocolate color, we called him Koko.  Koko was my constant companion thru everything I did as a kid.  When I was old enough to hunt, he was my bird dog, and a good one he was.

My family was a very poor one.  Our house was about 750 square feet, and there were eight of us living in it.  There were four boys in the same bed, and there was still room for Koko.  

It just got too crowded in that little house, so in my junior year I went to the old barn and took over one of the calf sheds, turning it into my very own bedroom.  It would be my very first one!  I made a bunk, covered it with straw, swept the dirt floor and put an old rug on it, then hung some of my paintings on the walls.  It was far from perfect, but Koko and I thought it was incredible.  He slept, with me, inside my sleeping bag on the straw.  No one was allowed inside unless they were invited.

With six kids and a disabled father, it took a lot to keep things going.  We all worked in the fields, even at a very young age.  When hunting seasons started, it was my que to get out there and put as much game in the freezer as I could.  My mother had worked for a meat packing company, and when they bought new equipment, they gave us the old freezer.  I tried my best to keep it full.

Koko and I were tied at the hip.  When we hunted, even with others, he was always aware to my presence.  Anytime a bird was shot, it was always brought back to me.  I could control him with nothing more than a hand signal.  Some of the best times I had, as a kid, were out in the field with that dog.  He was my very best friend.

As he grew older his hips started going bad.  One morning I got my shotgun out and headed for the car.  He could hardly get up, whimpering as he tried.  I decided to leave him behind, thinking it would be the best for him.  I was very wrong.

For the entire day he sat in front of the window, waiting for my return.  When I got home, I walked into the house with my days harvest, only to be met at the door by Koko.  He stood very still, staring me right in the eyes, for a long time.  Then he just turned and walked away.  He said everything he wanted to say.  I just felt terrible.  I had let my best friend down.  After that, if I knew his hips were bad that day, and some were worse than others, I would sneak out the back bedroom window before I left.

I went into the Army shortly after I graduated from High School.  After basic, I came home, bringing one of the recruits from Guam with me.  He got to see this wonderful dog in action.  Again, I had to leave, this time being stationed in Alabama.  A year later the Army thought I should be in Germany.  I, once again, came home on leave.  By this time, old Koko was completely deaf, couldn’t smell a skunk, and his eyes were failing.  It really hurts me to see my dogs get old.  That’s the only real fault they have.

I decided that I had to take him out for the last big hunt. I owed him that much after all the years we had together. I had to pick him up and put him in the car, but he knew we were going hunting, and the look on his face was incredible!  Don’t tell me that a dog can’t smile.  That smile said it all!

When we got into the field, he knew he couldn’t hear, and after every ten or twelve steps, he would look at me to see if he was doing what I wanted.  A big rooster pheasant flew up and I shot it.  Koko didn’t even hear the shot.  When he looked up to get directions, I guided him right to the bird.  You have never seen a happier dog in your life.  He laid that bird at my feet and looked me right in the eye and had the hugest smile on his face.  I knelt down to him and cried such happy tears, hugging him the entire time.  I was so happy that I was able to bring such joy into that old man’s life.

That would be the last time I would see him.  Germany kept me for another year and a half, and his age caught up to him.  I was notified thru the mail that he had died.  The vision that has stuck with me my entire life, and now I’m 76, is the look on that old dog’s face the day we had his last hunt.  It could not have been planned better.   JESS

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What a beautiful account of Koko.

Jesse is just a couple of years younger than me so I resonate with him. I still miss Pharaoh, my German-Shepherd, and he died in 2017. Dogs are incredible companions.

Jesse has his own website that is here. I share with you a little bit about Jesse from his website.

Born in Nampa, Idaho, Jesse Anderson has been doing artwork most of his life.  There wasn’t a time, as a youngster, that he wasn’t sitting and drawing whatever his fancy was at the moment.  He was given his first set of oil paints at age 11. In High School he was encouraged by his art teacher, Dorothy Long, to pursue art as far as he could go and they stayed in touch for the next 40 years.  After high school, Jess went directly into the U.S. Army.  Upon learning of his art abilities, Uncle Sam saw fit to put him in charge of the Battalion Training-Aids Department  (aka, the art department).  Following his discharge in 1968, he enrolled in Boise State College in hopes of getting a degree in Commercial Art.  The College would only allow ONE art class the first year, and it was beginning drawing.  This was not what he was looking for as the next step in his art career so he dropped out.   Before leaving college, he met Cheryl, his wife of over 50 years.  With Cheryl working as a bookkeeper to keep the bills paid, he enrolled in the “Advertising Art School” in Portland, Oregon where he graduated top of his class.   He started his own commercial art business and his dream of making a living as a full time artist was in motion.

Perfect!

Dr Renée Lertzman speaking a great deal of sense

She was at TED19 giving this talk.

It is under 14 minutes in length so, please, watch it until the end. You will be pleased you did!

It’s normal to feel anxious or overwhelmed by climate change, says psychologist Renée Lertzman. Can we turn those feelings into something productive? In an affirming talk, Lertzman discusses the emotional effects of climate change and offers insights on how psychology can help us discover both the creativity and resilience needed to act on environmental issues.

Dr. Renée Lertzman is a researcher, educator and engagement strategist who uses psychological insights to unlock action on global climate and environmental crises.

Why you should listen

Dr. Renée Lertzman is a pioneer and leader at the intersection of psychology, climate and environment. She applies psychosocial insights to drive engagement and action on ecological issues. 

Lertzman translates psychology and social science best practices into tools, resources and guidance that unleash the potential for creativity and courage. She guides companies and organizations in strengthening engagement campaigns and boosting their ability to connect with stakeholders to inspire action, ingenuity and resilience in facing one of the biggest challenges of our time.

Her website is here: https://reneelertzman.com

This is a very positive talk and the recommendation that Dr. Lertzman provides is simply music to our ears!

Journalism.

A start to a fascinating programme on BBC Radio 4.

Yesterday morning (Oregon time) had me listening to a new series on BBC Sounds. It was Frontlines of Journalism. Here is what the Beeb had to say about it:

Released On: 27 Feb 2023

Available for over a year

In the spring of 2023, twenty years after the Americans, the British and their allies invaded to overthrow Saddam Hussein, BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen was reporting from Iraq for the BBC. He described the invasion as ‘a catastrophe’. Taking you to some of the most difficult stories Jeremy and other journalists have covered; in this episode – why impartiality is not about trying to get perfect balance, the truth lying somewhere in the middle.  Often it does not.   Jeremy speaks with: journalist Rana Rahimpour who was born in Iran but left when she was 25 to work for the BBC; former BBC bureau chief Milton Nkosi, who grew up under apartheid in Soweto, South Africa; journalist and environmentalist George Monbiot, and CNN’s Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour.

Presenter: Jeremy Bowen Producer: Georgia Catt Assistant Producer: Sam Peach Additional research: Rob Byrne Series mixing: Jackie Margerum Series Editor: Philip Sellars.

But in wanting to present a little more to you readers, I did some research on the topic and came across this article published by the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford. I cannot see a warning about not sharing this with you.

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Impartiality is still key for news audiences. Here’s how to rethink it for the digital age

Our research shows people still value the ideal of impartial news. A new report offer suggestions to adapt it to a challenging environment.

Election posters of Germany’s top candidates for chancellor.
September 16, 2021. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Nic Newman

Tuesday 19 October 2021

Most people agree that news organisations and journalists should reflect all sides of an issue and not push a particular agenda – at least when asked about it in surveys. Our 2021 Digital News Report finds this to be true across countries and age groups. 

However, many people feel that the media often fail to live up to this ideal. Our surveys consistently show that committed partisans believe that traditional media coverage is unfair, especially in countries where debates about politics or social justice have become deeply polarised. In recent years we’ve also seen an increase in opinion-led television formats such as Fox News/MSNBC in the United States, GB News in the UK and CNews in France, while many traditional print publications have focussed on distinctive and robust opinion as a way of standing out online.

Together with the growth of partisan websites, YouTubers and podcasters, audiences now have access to a wider range of views than ever before. Against this background, some have questioned traditional approaches to impartiality that try to represent all points of view within a single broadcast or publication. Other critics go further – arguing that impartiality has given extreme or unrepresentative views undue prominence, through its focus on balance, helping to legitimise climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers amongst others.

This all raises the question: how relevant is impartial and objective journalism to audiences today? The Reuters Institute commissioned market research company JV Consulting to carry out qualitative research in four countries – Brazil, Germany, the UK, and the US – with different news markets, traditions of public broadcasting, and systems of media regulation. They conducted a series of focus groups and in-depth interviews on our behalf in February and March 2021 with politically and ethnically diverse groups of older and younger people interested in and engaged with news (52 people in total).

These are some of the key findings of the report:

  • Engaged audiences in the four countries researched still care about impartiality and say it helps define news, even if some consider it an impossible ideal. They want journalists to focus on facts, objectivity and fairness, and to steer clear of opinions and bias in reporting, leaving them to decide for themselves how they feel about the news. Alongside accuracy, impartiality is a foundational value of news that underpins audiences’ trust.
  • People recognise the risk of giving exposure to extreme views or one side in the name of balance. However, evidence from this group of engaged users is that they are even more concerned about the suppression and silencing of viewpoints. There are particular misgivings about this in Brazil and Germany, where twentieth century history frames some people’s views.
  • Most participants recognise that there were some topics (e.g., science stories, natural disasters, and questions of social justice) where there were not always two or more sides to represent. Here, many felt there should be more latitude for journalists to present just one perspective or an established point of view. There are also expectations that journalists will show greater empathy and connection in their reporting than perhaps traditional interpretations of impartiality have allowed in the past.
  • Across countries, newer digital formats such as social media are perceived as carrying more risk of bias along with the growth of more informal and entertaining broadcast formats such as chat shows and podcasts. Impartiality is more vulnerable in these contexts, as well as when the news is emotive or controversial, because journalists’ personal views risk slipping out in the impulse to engage, although the subject and intention have a bearing on how audiences feel about this.
  • Younger people, who have grown up using more informal and digital sources, tend to have different expectations of impartiality, often looking for journalism that aligns with their values. But overall, their underlying attitudes and desires are remarkably similar to older people’s.
  • Different countries’ news traditions shape people’s experiences and expectations. Audiences in the US cannot envisage a world without partisan news outlets, but in the UK and Germany, with their public service traditions, most audiences still laud the upholding of impartiality.
  • Respondents also delineate between news reporting (where impartiality is expected) and opinion/commentary (where people expect that views are argued for). Importantly, many told us that they often find it difficult to distinguish between the two, especially online. Interviewees like news and they like opinion, but want them very clearly separated. 

It is important to recognise that not all news organisations are committed to impartiality: indeed, some make a virtue of creating news and opinion with a clear point of view. But most will want to take note of audience desires for a range of views to be represented and to see clearer labelling of news and opinion. For news organisations that are committed to impartiality, the report highlights the increased dangers in areas where journalism is more informal or accessed in distributed environments. Public media like the BBC have already embarked on updated training and issued new guidelines on these issues. Audiences have also sent a clear signal in this report that they would like much greater transparency over why certain perspectives are included or excluded, however difficult this may be in practice.

Finally, the report notes that given the importance of social media, search and other access points, technology platforms such as Facebook, Google and Apple, will also need to develop clearer guidelines on impartiality – as their own trust levels will depend on fair implementation of policies around inclusion and exclusion, whether by algorithm or human intervention.

Download the full report

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Now this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but when one thinks of the enormous amount of news and information one gathers from the television, the radio, the press and a wide variety of online sources then thinking a little more about the truth of what we are being told is crucial to us making wise decisions. including voting where appropriate.

People still value the ideal of impartial news; there is no question about that!

His first working dog.

I have permission from Jason to republish his post.

When I receive notice that there has been a new follower of Learning from Dogs I go across to their blog site and leave a ‘thank you’ note..

So it was with Jason who, I assume, is a relatively new member of the WordPress club. He has published a blog Life Journeys and Passions. The first post is How I met my first working dog.

As soon as I read it I contacted Jason and asked his permission to share it with you all.

Here it is!

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How I met my first working dog.

April 6th, 2023

Hello, my name is Jason. For as long as I can remember, I have loved dogs. Dogs have been a big part of my life while growing up. They have also been a big part of having a family with kids. 

I am super lucky, because over the last couple of years, I have had the job of my dreams. I get to work with a dog every day. This dog has become my best friend, she has become my work partner, and she has become a very important part of my family.

I am excited to share my stories about this big, floppy eared, wrinkly faced, hard working Bloodhound. Would it surprise any of you that the job that Sophie and I do every day is to help find people that have gone missing?

Her nose, second to none in the dog world, has helped the community where we work to find people in many aspects. We have found criminals that have ran away from law enforcement, we have found missing children that ran away from home, and we have helped look for people that for any number of circumstances were in danger if they weren’t found in a timely manner.

This is Sophie!

I hope to be able to entertain you with stories of this wonderful dog. She’s got a stubborn streak both while working and while at home. She has made life interesting to be sure, and more entertaining and loving than I deserve in a friend and partner. I want to share my story of how I met her. 

Unfortunately, her story wasn’t one without a few struggles of her own. She had to deal with some struggles before I was able to be lucky enough to have her stumble head first into my life. Maybe in some ways though, her and I were better off having to work through some of the repercussions of moving away from multiple families. Maybe because of what she went through, it opened my eyes to the opportunity to train with her in more than just search and rescue type work. 

It’s been a long road from the time that I got her. Trying to help her get through her anxiety and stress that led to her sometimes biting people, dog aggression, and sometimes just not wanting to listen to me at all.

The dog that I live with now is still a working machine. She loves the hunt more than anything else. So much so that if we go too many days without it, she starts destroying my house. Instead of the biting and hating other dogs, she now gets to live with my family of a wife and two children. She has grown to love and co-exist with a stubborn Rottweiler that constantly gives her a run for her money.

I still wonder how I had the opportunity to have a dog that was born and raised in Massachusetts. At least for the first two years of her life.

Her story started with a hound handler that had many years, and many hounds during his time of working with dogs. Sophie was still really young when her handler had an unfortunate thing happen to him. He injured his back to where he was no longer able to run with a hound the same way he had in the past.

With her age, abilities, and ultimately what she was bred for, her first owner decided that he still wanted the world to have the opportunity to have Sophie provide her assistance to a community somewhere.

Across the United States in the state of Utah was a small police department that had been in contact with the organization that Sophie’s handler was part of. The police chief with this department had attended a seminar where this organization presented the abilities and benefits of a hound working for a local police department.

This police chief made quick friends with the people of this organization. He was also invited to Massachusetts where he spent some time watching the hounds work. Learning first hand what these amazing dogs can do to help find missing people.

When this organization realized that Sophie needed a new home, they contacted this chief from Utah and told them of a rare opportunity they wanted to offer him. They told him that they had a hound that needed to be re-homed. That she was a couple of years old, and was fully trained in her abilities. All she needed was a handler and a department willing to use her. The chief of police sent his lieutenant to Massachusetts where he spent about a week learning the basics of how Sophie worked. The lieutenant then drove back to Utah to start a bloodhound unit program with this police department.

A couple of years in of getting this program off of the ground, another incident happened. Sophie’s new handler got injured. For month’s it was thought that the lieutenant would be back to work. He was adamant that he wanted to stay with the department until Sophie retired so he could take her with him. He came to the realization though, that he was going to have to leave before Sophie could retire.

It was rumored around the police department that Sophie was just going to retire with the lieutenant even though she had years left available to keep working and providing for the community. One day, the lieutenant announced that he wanted officers to put in letters of interest to be the new hound handler for the department. He told those interested that there was going to be a panel of three officers, all hound handlers from Utah, that would decide who the best candidate would be for Sophie.

I was about two years into my career as a law enforcement officer at this same police department where Sophie worked. When I first started in law enforcement, my goal and biggest dreams were to work with a dog in some capacity. When I heard that they were looking for people that wanted the position, I didn’t think much of it. I was newer, other more experienced officers were putting in for the position, and I didn’t know if I wanted to run a tracking/trailing dog. I had always dreamed of having a dog that helped find drugs or had a more known job as a police officer.

I was called by my lieutenant shortly after the position to be Sophie’s handler opened up. He was aware that I have always wanted to be a K9 handler. He knew that I spent a lot of time working with another officer with the department that has a dog used to find drugs. He told me that he wanted me to put in for the position.

I wrote my letter of interest, then started the process of getting ready to interview. I had a small amount of experience with training a dog that I had previously that had behavior issues. My experience was no more than working with a company that helped with behavioral modification for my dog that had health and anxiety issues.

During the interview, among many questions, I was asked what experience I had working with dogs. I shared the small bit of experience that I had. Among all the other questions that stood out to me was asking if my family was prepared for the time and energy it took to be a police K9 handler. I was able to explain to them that my wife was very aware that having a dog in a working capacity has been a dream of mine even before meeting her. That I probably have no idea how big of a commitment this really was, but if given the opportunity, I would give it my all and put forth all the effort I could to succeed.

Hours after the interview, my lieutenant called me and one other officer that made it to the final interview process. The call was to announce to the two of us who had gotten the position. I expected this other officer, almost a 20 year veteran officer, to get the position. Well, I was pleasantly surprised and shocked that my name was the one called to be Sophie’s next handler!

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I hope you read it completely through because you would agree with me that this is most interesting. Hopefully, Jason will be publishing more posts.

Moore’s Law

In memory of Gordon Moore.

From Wikipedia:

Gordon Earle Moore (January 3, 1929 – March 24, 2023) was an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and emeritus chairman of Intel Corporation.

It was in 1965 that Gordon Moore suggested that every year there would be a doubling of the number of components per integrated circuit. In 1975 he revised his forecast to a doubling every two years; that prediction has become a reliable outcome and became known as Moore’s Law.

Just look at the left-hand scale of that graph above and ponder on the figures. From less than 10,000 in 1971 to more than 10 billion in 2021!

Incredible!

Gordon Earle Moore in 1978. He died on March 24th, 2023 aged 94 years.

What an amazing man!

Keeping dogs from fighting each other.

A video courtesy of Zak George’s Dog Training Revolution.

I was in a bit of a hurry yesterday and looked through my folder of blog posts and came across this video.

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The words that accompanied the video are also presented:

Discover the secrets to successful dog training in a multi-dog household! We delve into the challenges and rewards of training multiple dogs, offering practical tips and expert advice to help you create a harmonious home. From establishing routines and managing individual training sessions to addressing common behavioral issues, we’ve got you covered in this informative and insightful video. I’ll guide you through essential techniques for managing multiple dogs, including establishing boundaries, promoting positive reinforcement, and tailoring training approaches to each dog’s unique personality and needs. Whether you’re a seasoned dog owner or new to multi-dog households, these expert tips will help you transform potential chaos into a well-coordinated, stress-free environment. Don’t miss out on this valuable resource for training multiple dogs effectively and efficiently. Be sure to like, share, and subscribe to our channel for more dog training tips and tricks. We’d love to hear about your own experiences with multi-dog households and training, so leave a comment below to join the conversation!

Sponsored by PupBox! Get your first PupBox for ONLY $5!!! Use code: ZAK5 at https://pupbox.com

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Needless to say I have no affiliation with PupBox.

Keeping our dogs free from poisons

Just a single image!

The vet practice we use is Lincoln Road Veterinary Clinic, and we have used them for quite a few years. They recently sent out a mailer that contained the following:

Now the ‘CALL US’ has to be the vet in your own location; that’s obvious!

But nonetheless I thought it was worth sharing with you.

Our pets are very special!

The end maybe in sight!

A rather gloomy analysis about the next few years!

One makes decisions all one’s life. But too few of us are making decisions that will prevent our planet from over-heating.

Patrice Ayme wrote a comment in a recent post that said (in part): “However we are tracking to a much higher temperature: + 7 (seven) Celsius in some now temperate parts… imminently. That is going to be catastrophic.”

There is a terrible change going on right now. From the deforestation in the Amazon rainforest to the unseasonable heat in Europe, as reported in the Guardian newspaper: “The result of this advection has been anomalously warm temperatures across large parts of Europe – in particular across France and Spain, where temperatures soared to over 10C above normal. Maximum temperatures widely exceeded 30C in parts of Spain on Thursday, with 35.2C measured at Morón de la Frontera, south-east of Seville.“

One would think that our governments would be pulling together in order to have a co-ordinated global plan. But there’s no sight of that yet. What we do have is a sort of craziness of Governments that causes me to lament over our, as in a global ‘our’, distractions. We are running out of time!

To this end I am republishing in full the latest George Monbiot essay. I hasten to add with Mr Monbiot’s permission.

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The Oligarch’s Oligarch

Published 30th October 2022.

Just as we need to get the money out of politics, we have been gifted a Prime Minister who represents the ultra-rich.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 26th October 2022

Before we decide what needs to change, let’s take stock of what we have lost. I want to begin with what happened last week. I don’t mean the resignation of the prime minister. This is more important.

Almost all the media reported a scripted comment by the newly reinstated home secretary, Suella Braverman, about the “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”. Astonishingly, scarcely any of them reported what she was doing at the time. She was pushing through the House of Commons the most repressive legislation of the modern era.

Under the public order bill, anyone who has protested in the previous five years, or has encouraged other people to protest, can be forced to “submit to … being fitted with, or the installation of, any necessary apparatus” to monitor their movements. In other words, if you attend or support any protest in which “serious disruption to two or more individuals or to an organisation” occurs, you can be forced to wear an electronic tag. “Serious disruption” was redefined by the 2022 Police Act to include noise.

This is just one of a series of astounding measures in the bill, which has been hardly remarked upon in public life as it passes through Britain’s legislature. What we see here is two losses in one moment: the final erasure of the right to protest, and political journalism’s mutation from reporting substance to reporting spectacle. These are just the latest of our losses.

So extreme has inequality become, and so dangerous is the combination of frozen wages, lagging benefits, rising rents and mortgage repayments, soaring bills and food inflation, that millions of people are being pushed towards destitution. Unless something changes, many will soon lose their homes. In the midst of this crisis, we have been gifted a prime minister who owns four luxury “homes”. One of them is an empty flat in Kensington that he reserves for visiting relatives.

While Rishi Sunak was chancellor, the government repeatedly delayed its manifesto promise to ban no-fault evictions. Landlords are ruthlessly exploiting this power to throw their tenants on to the street or use the threat to force them to accept outrageous rent rises and dismal conditions. Had Sunak’s “help to buy” mortgage scheme succeeded (it was a dismal flop), it would have raised house prices, increasing rents and making ownership less accessible: the opposite of its stated aim. But this, as with all such schemes, was surely its true purpose: to inflate the assets of existing owners, the Conservative party’s base.

Public services are collapsing at breathtaking speed. Headteachers warn that 90% of schools in England could run out of money next year. NHS dentistry is on the verge of extinction. Untold numbers are now living in constant pain and, in some cases, extracting their own teeth. The suspicion that the NHS is being deliberately dismembered, its core services allowed to fail so that we cease to defend it against privatisation, rises ever higher in the mind.

But Sunak appears determined only to hack ever further. Sitting on a family fortune of £730m, he seems unmoved by the plight of people so far removed from him in wealth that they must seem to exist on another planet. He is the oligarch’s oligarch, ever responsive to the demands of big capitaland the three offshore plutocrats who own the country’s biggest newspapers, oblivious of the needs of the 67 million people who live here.

After 12 years of Conservative austerity and chaos, the very rich have taken almost everything. They have even captured virtue. They now appropriate the outward signs of an ethical life while continuing – despite or because of their organic cotton jackets and second homes, their electric cars and pasture-fed meat, their carbon offsets and ayahuasca retreats, philanthropy and holidays in quiet resorts whose palm-thatched cabins mimic the vernacular of the people evicted to make way for them – to grasp the lion’s share of everything.

Corruption is embedded in public life. Fraud is scarcely prosecuted. Organised crime has been so widely facilitated, through the destruction of the state’s capacity to regulate everything from money laundering to waste dumping, that you could almost believe it was deliberate. Our rivers have been reduced to sewers, our soil is washing off the land, the planning system is being dismantled, and hundreds of environmental laws are now under threat. We hurtle towards Earth systems oblivion, while frenetically talking about anything but.

In other words, it’s not just a general election we need, it’s a complete rethink of who we are and where we stand. It’s not just proportional representation we need, but radical devolution to the lowest possible levels at which decisions can be made, accompanied by deliberative, participatory democracy. It’s not just new lobbying laws we require, but a comprehensive programme to get the money out of politics, ending all private political donations, breaking up the billionaire press and demanding full financial transparency for everyone in public life. We should seek not only the repeal of repressive legislation, but – as civil disobedience is the bedrock of democracy – positive rights to protest.

All this now feels far away. Jeremy Corbyn offered some (though by no means all) of these reforms. Keir Starmer offers none. Though Labour MPs voted against the public order bill, his only public comment so far has been to endorse its headline policy: longer sentences for people who glue themselves to roads. But if the Labour party or its future coalition partners can persuade him to agree to just one aspect of this programme, proportional representation, we can start work on the rest, building the political alliances that could transform the life of this nation. Without PR, we’re stuck with a dysfunctional duopoly, in hock to the billionaire press and the millionaires it appoints to govern us. We cannot carry on like this.

http://www.monbiot.com

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So much is really telling but I just want to draw your attention to this sentence: In other words, it’s not just a general election we need, it’s a complete rethink of who we are and where we stand.

It is not just in England and Wales but also in the USA. Indeed, most of the countries in the world.

Here is an excerpt from the latest email from The Economist. It presages the COP27 to be held in Egypt next week.

By burning fossil fuels, humans have altered Earth’s atmosphere, which has consequences for almost everything on the planet. It is reshaping weather systems and coastlines, transforming where crops can be grown, which diseases thrive, and how armies fight . Rising temperatures affect geopolitics, migration, ecosystems and the economy. Over the next century and beyond, climate change—and the responses to it—will remake societies and the world.

And a paragraph later:

This week I wrote about the seven texts I recommend as an introduction to the climate crisis—and explained why each is worth turning to—as a part of our “Economist reads” series. They range from Bill Gates’s assessment of technological solutions to a discussion of international justice by the former UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. One book I find myself recommending over and over again is “What We Know About Climate Change” by Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist at MIT. At 88 pages, it is a blessedly short, readable primer on the science, history and economics of climate change. The climate crisis touches everything. Understanding it, even a little, is essential for anyone who is engaged with the world and its future. This is a good place to start. 

Please follow this advice because it is an excellent place to start.

I wish with all my heart that I am wrong and maybe, just maybe, I am having a ‘down in the dumps’ day. Whatever, my judgement is that we have a few more years at most to find out.

One of the puzzles of this age.

Why society doesn’t worry a whole lot more about the changing climate.

There was an article recently on Treehugger that I read in full.

It was predictable, in a way, and very disturbing. Have a read yourself.

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Why Don’t People Care About Climate Change?

They have other things on their mind, like being hit by a car.

By Lloyd Alter,

Published October 21, 2022

People fear this more than climate change. Halfpoint/ Getty Images

Treehugger was founded by Graham Hill as “a green lifestyle website dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream.” Sustainability is often defined as “meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” and doesn’t seem to be much more mainstream now than it was then. Here we are, 18 years later, and key sustainability issues like climate change are not top of mind for most people, and Treehugger is not the world’s biggest website.

One reason might be because of people’s perception of risk. The Lloyd’s Register Foundation is a charity that “helps to protect life and property at sea, on land, and in the air.” It hired Gallup to do a World Risk Poll in 2020, using 2019 data, and just published its latest 2022 poll with 2021 data, after polling 125,911 people in 121 countries, mostly by telephone. One poll was pre-pandemic, and the other during it.1Chief executive Dr. Ruth Boumphrey compares the two:

“Looking at this first report of the 2021 World Risk Poll, what strikes me most about the findings is what hasn’t changed, as much as what has. People globally still worry about perennial threats such as road crashes, crime, and violence more than any other risks, including Covid-19, and this has important implications for how policymakers work with communities to manage emerging public health challenges in the context of their everyday lives.”

Perhaps the most surprising statistic is that North Americans believe that their greatest daily source of risk is from road-related accidents and injuries at 29%, followed by crime and violence at 11%. Australia and New Zealand put road risk at 33%, weirdly followed by cooking and household accidents at 11%.1

At first, I thought this is terrible; we have been writing about road safety for years, and nothing gets fixed, and yet it is North Americans’ biggest worry! And what’s wrong with Australian kitchens? But when you look at the numbers, you realize that this is a result of rich countries not suffering as much from many of the things other countries worry about, such as Latin America with crime and violence at 43%, Africa worrying about not having money, and North Africa worried about disease.1

Covid-19 was considered a major risk in some parts of the world, but “its impact was moderate overall, and day-to-day risks such as road-related injuries, crime and violence, and economic concerns remained top-of-mind for most people.”

This has been the perennial sustainability story; day-to-day issues and worries have higher priority. Climate change gets its own special section of the risk report and it comes to much the same conclusion. The authors start by noting that “the global risk posed by climate change is widely recognised, and warnings about its effects are increasingly dire. A recent joint statement by more than 200 medical journals called the rapidly warming climate the ‘greatest threat to global public health.'”

But then they dig into the data and find that, while 67% of respondents consider climate change a threat, only 41% deem it serious.1 It varies by education:

“The likelihood of people viewing climate change as a very serious threat to their country was much lower among those with primary education or less (32%) than among those with secondary (47%) or post-secondary (50%) education. More than a quarter of people in the lowest education group (28%) said they ‘don’t know,’ compared to 13% among those with secondary education and 7% with at least some post-secondary education.”

Logically, people who had experienced severe weather events were more likely to consider climate change to be a serious threat, although even then, there is a correlation with education. So university grads in Fort Myers are probably pretty convinced that climate change is a problem right now. The conclusion:

“As in 2019, the 2021 World Risk Poll findings demonstrate the powerful influence of education on global perceptions of climate change. The data highlight the challenge of reaching people who may be vulnerable to risk from extreme weather but have low average education levels, such as agricultural communities in low- and middle-income countries and territories… Spreading awareness of how climate change may directly impact people’s lives may be crucial in broadening local efforts to reduce carbon emissions and build resilience to the effects of rising temperatures.”

Education has always been a problem because, as climate journalist Amy Westervelt noted after the latest IPCC report, there are powerful forces interested in downplaying the importance of climate change. She wrote, “The report made one thing abundantly clear: the technologies and policies necessary to adequately address climate change exist, and the only real obstacles are politics and fossil fuel interests.” Education would have a lot to do with how susceptible people are to their stories.

In many ways, we have seen this movie before, in the Great Recession of 2008. When people are worrying about whether they can heat or they can eat, or apparently whether they will survive crossing the street, then climate change is something they can worry about later.

  1. “2021 Report: A Changed World? Perceptions and Experiences of Risk in the Covid Age.” Lloyd’s Register Foundation, 2022.

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This is the reason why we need leaders, as in country leaders, because only these people are sufficiently committed to plan and to legislate for the most important tasks facing that country. In the case of climate change it requires even more co-ordination across all the countries in the world; we do have a way to go before that is achieved.