Category: Health

A small step

Fabulous news from The President’s Office re the Keystone XL pipeline.

On the 27th October, I introduced an article about the pipeline, thus,

“Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth.  Do the right thing because it is right.  These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.”

The above is attributed to W. Clement Stone, a businessman, philanthropist and author who died in 2002, aged 100.  It seemed an appropriate quotation with which to introduce a recent article by Bill McKibben, on the Grist blog, about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

A short time ago (Thursday) I received the following from Bill McKibben, 350.org.

Dear Friends,

Um, we won. You won.

Not completely. The President didn’t outright reject the Keystone XL pipeline permit. My particular fantasy — that he would invite the 1253 people arrested on his doorstep in August inside the gates for a victory picnic by the vegetable garden — didn’t materialize.

But a few minutes ago the President sent the pipeline back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project. The president explicitly noted climate change, along with the pipeline route, as one of the factors that a new review would need to assess. There’s no way, with an honest review, that a pipeline that helps speed the tapping of the world’s second-largest pool of carbon can pass environmental muster.

And he has made clear that the environmental assessment won’t be carried out by cronies of the pipeline company — that it will be an expert and independent assessment. We will watch that process like hawks, making sure that it doesn’t succumb to more cronyism. Perhaps this effort will go some tiny way towards cleaning up the Washington culture of corporate dominance that came so dramatically to light here in emails and lobbyist disclosure forms.

It’s important to understand how unlikely this victory is. Six months ago, almost no one outside the pipeline route even knew about Keystone XL. One month ago, a secret poll of “energy insiders” by the National Journal found that “virtually all” expected easy approval of the pipeline by year’s end. As late as last week the CBC reported that Transcanada was moving huge quantities of pipe across the border and seizing land by eminent domain, certain that its permit would be granted. A done deal has come spectacularly undone.

Our movement spoke loudly about climate change and the President responded. There have been few even partial victories about global warming in recent years so that makes this an important day. We need to let the president and oil companies know that we’re ready to take action should they try to push this pipeline through in a couple of years. There’s a pledge to take bold action against the pipeline up on our site, and I’ll be keeping your names an emails safely stored away so that you’ll be the first to know about anything we need to do down the road.

Please sign the pledge here.

The President deserves thanks for making this call — it’s not easy in the face of the fossil fuel industry and its endless reserves of cash. The deepest thanks, however, go to you: to indigenous peoples who began the fight, to the folks in Nebraska who rallied so fiercely, to the scientists who explained the stakes, to the environmental groups who joined with passionate common purpose, to the campuses that lit up with activity, to the faith leaders that raised a moral cry, to the labor leaders who recognized where our economic future lies, to the Occupy movement that helped galvanize revulsion at insider dealing, and most of all to the people in every state and province who built the movement that made this decision inevitable.

Our fight, of course, is barely begun. Some in our movement will say that this decision is just politics as usual: that the President wants us off the streets — and off his front lawn — until after the election, at which point the administration can approve the pipeline, alienating its supporters without electoral consequence. The president should know that If this pipeline proposal somehow reemerges from the review process we will use every tool at our disposal to keep it from ever being built; if there’s a lesson of the last few months, both in our work and in the Occupy encampments around the world, it’s that sometimes we have to put our bodies on the line.

In the meantime, since federal action will be in abeyance for a long stretch, we need to figure out how best to support our Canadian brothers and sisters, who are effectively battling against proposed pipelines west from the tar sands to the Pacific. And we need to broaden our work to take on all the forms of ‘extreme energy’ now coming to the fore: mountaintop removal coal mining, deepsea oil drilling, fracking for gas and oil. We’ll keep sending you updates; you keep letting us know what we need to do next.

Last week, scientists announced that the planet had poured a record amount of CO2 into the atmosphere last year; that’s a sign of how desperate our battle is. But we take courage from today’s White House announcement; it gives us some clues about how to fight going forward.

And I simply can’t say thank you enough. I know, because of my own weariness, how hard so many of you have worked. It was good work, done in the right spirit, and it has secured an unlikely victory. You are the cause of that victory; you upended enormous odds.

I’m going to bed tired tonight. But I’ll get up in the morning ready for the next battle, more confident because I know you’re part of this fight too.

Onwards,

Bill McKibben for the 350.org Team

P.S. Victories need to be shared. Let’s make this one fly all over the web: share it on Twitter here and share it on Facebook here.

 

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Three very thought-provoking films

Over the last week we have watched all three 0ne-hour films made by the BBC, aired in 2011,  under the title of the heading of this post, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.  The films are available on the website Top Documentary Films, the direct link is here.  As that website explains,

A series of films about how humans have been colonized by the machines they have built. Although we don’t realize it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers. It claims that computers have failed to liberate us and instead have distorted and simplified our view of the world around us.

1. Love and Power. This is the story of the dream that rose up in the 1990s that computers could create a new kind of stable world. They would bring about a new kind global capitalism free of all risk and without the boom and bust of the past. They would also abolish political power and create a new kind of democracy through the Internet where millions of individuals would be connected as nodes in cybernetic systems – without hierarchy.

2. The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts. This is the story of how our modern scientific idea of nature, the self-regulating ecosystem, is actually a machine fantasy. It has little to do with the real complexity of nature. It is based on cybernetic ideas that were projected on to nature in the 1950s by ambitious scientists. A static machine theory of order that sees humans, and everything else on the planet, as components – cogs – in a system.

3. The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey. This episode looks at why we humans find this machine vision so beguiling. The film argues it is because all political dreams of changing the world for the better seem to have failed – so we have retreated into machine-fantasies that say we have no control over our actions because they excuse our failure.

Adam Curtis is a documentary film maker, whose work includes The Power of Nightmares,The Century of the Self, The Mayfair Set, Pandora’s Box, The Trap and The Living Dead.

As was eluded, the three films are deeply thought-provoking.  There is a ‘taster’ to the first film on YouTube, as below,

Adam Curtis, the film maker, has a blog site under the BBC Blogs umbrella.  The entry on that blog-site by Adam in connection with these films is here, and makes interesting reading.  It also includes a longer trailer than the one from YouTube, above.

Finally, there are comprehensive writings on all three films on the WikiPedia website here.  To give you a taste, here’s what was written about the third film,

The Monkey In The Machine and the Machine in the Monkey

This programme looked into the selfish gene theory which holds that humans are machines controlled by genes which was invented by William Hamilton. Adam Curtis also covered the source of ethnic conflict that was created by Belgian colonialism’s artificial creation of a racial divide and the ensuing slaughter that occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is a source of raw materialfor computers and cell phones.

William Hamilton went to Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while the Second Congo War was raging. He went there to collect Chimpanzee faeces to test his theory that HIV was due to a medical mistake. Unfortunately he caught malaria, for which he took aspirin, which caused a haemorrhage and he died. However his selfish gene theory lived on.

In 1960 Congo had become independent from Belgium, but governance promptly collapsed, and towns became battle grounds as soldiers fought for control of the mines. America and the Belgians organised a coup and the elected leader was assassinated, creating chaos. The Western mining operations were largely unaffected however.

Bill Hamilton was a solitary man, and he saw everything through the lens of Darwin’s theory of evolution. When he wanted to know why some ants and humans gave up their life for others, he went to Waterloo station and stared at humans for hours, and looked for patterns. In 1963 he realised that most of the behaviours of humans was due to genes, and looking at the humans from the genes’ point of view. Humans were machines that were only important for carrying genes, and that it made sense for a gene to sacrifice a human if it meant that another copy of the gene elsewhere would prosper.

In the 1930s Armand Denis made films that told the world about Africa. However, his documentary gave fanciful stories about Rwanda’s Tutsis being a noble ruling elite originally from Egypt, whereas the Hutus were a peasant race. In reality they were racially the same and the Belgian rulers had ruthlessly exploited the myth. But when it came to create independence, liberal Belgians felt guilty, and decided that the Hutus should overthrow the Tutsi rule. This led to a blood bath, as the Tutsis were then seen as aliens and were slaughtered.

So, all in all, this is a great personal recommendation and, it goes without saying, those of you that do watch the films and want to comment, would love to hear from you.

Who am I?

An intriguing examination of how we build our sense of self.

Note: This article goes back to 2007, part of a programme that I was involved in back then.  However, re-reading the article shows it to be timeless, so trust you find it interesting.  There is a fascinating test, still online, details provided at the end of the article – but if you can’t wait, it’s here.

Finding the self.

What is Self?

Edited by Fiona Kerr from original text by Dorothy Miell

So what is self and how do we study its development? As we grow older we become aware of differences between ourselves and others, for example: what I look like; my gender; what makes me happy or sad. A sense of self is not achieved in a single step; we don’t emerge from our mother’s womb as fully formed adults. As our bodies grow and change we also learn more and more about ourselves. How we describe ourselves to others changes as we get older. This process is not necessarily constant – some aspects of self may stay the same for many years, others may change rapidly.

There may also be big differences to how you feel and how you want others to think you are. This may colour your choices in self-description.

A sense of self is also a cultural construction – in some societies individual uniqueness and self-expression is seen as vulgar and uncivilised. In Open2.net’s “Who Am I?” test we will be examining self in a Western sense, the gradual formation of becoming a self-aware individual. We’ll be grouping the results in age groups, so you can see how the self-descriptions change as people get older. Although self development is most significant in childhood, we’ve decided to keep the results going to see how things change into adulthood (if at all!).

I exist!

A child’s first step to self-understanding is the recognition that she or he exists. As an infant explores the world and interacts with caregivers, she becomes aware that she has power – she is an agent of change within her own environment. She is able to cause things to happen and control objects. This awareness is known as “self-as-subject”, “I” or the “existential self”:

There are thought to be four elements to the existential self:

  1. an awareness of one’s own agency (i.e. one’s power to act) in life events,
  2. an awareness of the uniqueness of one’s own experience, of one’s distinctiveness from other people,
  3. an awareness of the continuity of one’s identity,
  4. an awareness of one’s own awareness, the element of reflexiveness.

For example, if a child closes his or her eyes, the world goes dark. If a toy is touched, it moves. The interaction with the world is physical, external and, in developmental terms, it helps the child differentiate between self and other.

What Makes Me?

At around a child’s second birthday, many children recognise themselves in a mirror or in a photograph. In Western cultures, from the age of 18 months to 3 years of age, infants start to display self-awareness through the use of the word “me” or “mine”. This self-sense isn’t a passive, self-reflective discovery, but is often the result of effort, particularly in rivalry with others. It arises from striving in the face of obstacles.

These are the second steps in establishing a full sense of self, the acquisition and elaboration as “self-as-object” or “me”, now often referred to as the “categorical self”. This aspect of self concerns the qualities that define oneself as a person, e.g. gender, name and relationships with others. Once a child has gained a certain level of self-awareness (of the existential self) he or she begins to place herself (or is placed by others) into a set of categories. This aspect of self is the most influenced by social factors, since it is made up of social roles (such as being a student, a sister, a friend) and characteristics that come from a comparison with others (such as trustworthiness, shyness or sporting ability). Social context is an important feature in self-development.

Self-Esteem

Measuring self-esteem is difficult. We might feel good about ourselves in one aspect of our lives, but not so good in others. One way of measuring self-esteem in children is to ask questions about how they feel in the different aspects of their life, such as: scholastic competence; athletic competence; social acceptance; behavioural conduct; physical appearance.

How we feel about ourselves overall may bear little or no relationship to how we feel about ourselves in these different areas. It’s the importance we place on our areas of achievement or failure that leads to an overall level of self-esteem. A child who is anxious to succeed at sport would have a high level of self-esteem if she did well at sport, but low self-esteem if her performance in sport was poor, even if the child was good academically or socially. The match between our aspirations and performance is one important factor in determining self-esteem. Another factor which might influence a child’s overall feeling of self-esteem is the regard in which they are held by “significant others”, people whose opinion the child values, such as parents, teachers and peers.

Gender identity

Children by the age of about two are able to correctly label themselves as a boy or a girl. But it is not until later that they understand that gender is a stable concept, e.g. that boys cannot become mothers. Being able to identify themselves in terms of gender helps children develop a sense of categorical self and helps define appropriate behaviour for boys and girls. Children develop their gender roles in part through imitation of models, so parents’ reactions to the behaviour of children are an important influence on children’s developing sense of gender identity. Parents who try to raise their children in a non-sexist way have encountered difficulties, as other influences such as the media and society itself can counter their attempts.

If children are shown individual differences between people, that different people believe different things, they can see that contradictory beliefs and behaviours can co-exist, that the rules for their family may not be true of the family next door, but both are valid.

Describing self changes as we grow older

A child uses comparison with others to see how he or she fits into different categories. In order to evaluate if he or she is short, tall, clever or shy, a child either has to compare themselves physically with others, or consider their evaluation by others.

This contrast between self and others helps the child to develop an increasingly complex understanding about self. Children’s self-descriptions change as they become more able to evaluate themselves and develop a sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Children seem to think about themselves in different ways as they get older. Younger children seem to focus more on physical features, activities and behaviours, whereas older children mention more psychological characteristics. So, by the age of about 18, individuals are able to describe themselves in terms of the world of emotions, attitudes, secrets and wishes. Self-reflection is focused inwards, on their inner, private world.

OpenLearn, part of The Open University, have designed a test to illustrate how people of different ages define themselves. Once you take the test, you can then compare yourself to the database of other people who have taken the test to see how you compare with others in your age group, how you compare with people from other age groups and how people differ according to gender. Alternatively you can view the database without taking the test first. Try taking the test with a child and see how your results compare. So why not take the test to find out “Who Am I?”

That test link is here.

References
MIELL, D. (1995) ‘Developing a Sense of Self’
BARNES, P. (ed.) Personal, Social and Emotional Development of Children, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers

The above article was published by the BBC as part of their Child of our Time series, unfortunately no longer available online.

The results of the Who Am I test based on 53,345 entries as at October 30th, 2011, show overwhelmingly that both sexes at all ages describe their relationships and inner emotions as more important than their physical or character descriptions. For men from the age of 16-19 until 61+ their description of their relationships scores more important than their inner self but the margin is slight. For women over the same age span the situation is reversed; inner emotions score marginally higher than relationships.

What is very revealing is that for both sexes across the whole of their adult life, their physical and character identities are significantly less important than their social and emotional selves.

Surfin’ USA, bulldog style

Have a great week-end, wherever you are!

Surf Dog Tillman sets an example!

(Ron Davis is the owner of this 6 year old English Bulldog Tillman living in Oxnard California.)

The Keystone XL pipeline

“Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth.  Do the right thing because it is right.  These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.”

The above is attributed to W. Clement Stone, a businessman, philanthropist and author who died in 2002, aged 100.  It seemed an appropriate quotation with which to introduce a recent article by Bill McKibben, on the Grist blog, about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Bill McKibben

Keystone pipeline’s last defense: Cold, hard cash

What do you do if you’ve lost an argument?

Say you really really want to build a big pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta so that you can sell your bitumen to the world

But 20 of the nation’s top scientists have written to the president to say it’s a terrible idea — and the planet’s leading climatologist says burning the tar sands would be “game over for the climate.” And nine recent winners of the Nobel Peace Prize have condemned the plan. And Robert Redford has just made a video explaining why the plan is an attack on the nation’s heartland. Then, if you’re a poor forlorn oil industry feeling unloved and under assault, what do you do?

There’s really only one answer: Flash your wad.

As we get to the final chapters of the Keystone pipeline saga (the president has said he’ll make his decision by year’s end), money’s the only argument these guys have left.

They managed to buy a favorable environmental review from the U.S. State Department, which helpfully outsourced the job to a company that was a “major client” of TransCanada, the pipeline builder.

And yesterday, they proposed a $100 million “performance bond” to the state of Nebraska, whose Republican governor and senator have come out against the pipeline. The money is apparently designed to pay for damage to the Ogallala Aquifer if the pipeline starts to leak.

Meanwhile, when 33 Democratic representatives sent a letter to the White House demanding a rejection of the plan, lobbyists for TransCanada rounded up their own list of lawmakers from the president’s party to issue a rejoinder. But they only found 22. And what do you know — they included nine of the top 10 Democratic recipients of oil money in the House. On average the signatories received over 4.25 times more oil money than the average House Democrat in the 112th Congress. That would be 325 percent more. That would be how the game is played.

The other side — that is, scientists, Nobelists, and the kind of average people who went to jail in record numbers this summer to block the plan — doesn’t have that kind of money. We’ve had to figure out other currencies to work in: spirit, passion, creativity. We’ve spent our bodies, putting them on the line. The odds are still against us, but the odds are changing; we’re on a roll as we head toward Nov. 6, when we’ll ring the White House with people, exactly one year before the election. (You can sign up here.)

But every once in a while we get to play the money game too! While TransCanada was out there setting the $100 million price on the Ogallala Aquifer, this news story rolled across my screen. It described a big Democratic giver, Barbarina Heyerdahl. She gave 120 grand to Obama and the Democratic National Committee over the last three years, not to mention knocking on doors for the 2008 campaign. But she said Keystone is a bridge too far, that “she won’t be writing any more checks to Obama if he approves the carbon conduit that’s become the focus of the climate-change movement. ‘It’s a baseline issue,’ she says.”

I have no doubt that, even with Heyerdahl and other donors accounted for, the oil industry has all the money they need to win this fight. The Koch brothers are the third and fourth richest men in America, and they filed papers in Canada declaring their “direct and substantial” interest in the project. If money’s the only thing that matters, they’ll carry the day.

But if money’s the only thing that matters, we’re done for anyway. So we’ll keep using science and art and courage. And we’ll hope that Barack Obama hasn’t sold his soul. We’re going to find out in the next few weeks.

Bill McKibben is founder of 350.org and Schumann Distinguished Professor at Middlebury College in Vermont. He also serves on Grist’s Board of Directors.

Bill’s website may be found here.  Also, please PLEASE watch the video made by Robert Redford.  Only 3 mins 25 seconds long, the ink to the video is here.

Finally, a YouTube video from Tars and Action.

“All that’s necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke

Transfiguration

A return to the beautiful writings of Irishman, John O’Donohue

Last week, I published a Post about John O’Donuhue‘s book Anam Cara, entitled Soul friend, the meaning of anam cara in Gaelic.  There were a number of lovely responses, both as comments to the Post, and as emails sent to me.  I thought I would share another essay with you.  First, some reflections about transfiguration or, perhaps a better word for today’s challenging times is ‘change’.

I have made no secret of my belief that we are in a period of great change, perhaps greater than mankind has faced before.  Possibly that is slightly hyperbolic, but looked at from the perspective of the extinction of homo sapiens then perhaps it is no exaggeration.  The vast majority of people, who stop and reflect, sense that on several fronts it is change or die!

A classic behavioural attribute of modern man is to see ‘change’ as something that others should do, rather than change coming from within.  From time to time, I have quoted this,

For today, I am in charge of my life.

Today, I choose my thoughts,

Today, I choose my attitudes,

Today, I choose my actions and behaviours,

With these, I create my life and my destiny.

Much, much easier to say, and write, than to undertake.  But it does underscore the obvious – change flows from our journey inwards.  Let’s turn to John O’Donohue’s inspirational words about this subject.

From the John O’Donohue website

Spirituality of transfiguration

Spirituality is the art of transfiguration. We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined programme or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practise a new art of attention to our inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence. A dramatic example of this kind of transfiguration is the one all parents know. You watch your children carefully, but one day they surprise you; you still recognise them, but your knowledge of them is insufficient. You have to start listening to them all over again.

It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness rather than with the idea of will. Too often people try to change their lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their life into proper shape. The intellect identifies the goal of the programme, and the will accordingly forces the life into that shape. This way of approaching the sacredness of one’s own presence is externalistic and violent. It brings you falsely outside your own self and you can spend years lost in the wilderness of your own mechanical, spiritual programmes. You can perish in a famine of your own making.

If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and naturally home to your self. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has a map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of your self. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more importantly it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey. There are no general principles for this art of being. Yet the signature of this unique journey is inscribed deeply in each soul. If you attend to your self and seek to come into your own presence, you will find exactly the right rhythm for your life. The senses are generous pathways which can bring you home.

A renewal, indeed a complete transfiguration of your life, can come through attention to your senses. Your senses are the guides to take you deep into the inner world of your heart. The greatest philosophers admit that to a large degree all knowledge comes through the senses. The senses are our bridge to the world. Human skin is porous; the world flows through you. Your senses are large pores which let the world in. Through attunement to the wisdom of your senses, you will never become an exile in your own life, an outsider lost in an external spiritual place which your will and intellect have constructed.

John O’Donohue Anam Ćara

 (c) John O’Donohue. All rights reserved. Used by permission. http://www.johnodonohue.com

Please just read those words from John again.  Re-read the last paragraph.  Then go one paragraph up and read that again, “Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has a map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of your self.  If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more importantly it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.”

Each of us taking us to where we need to go, and one by one, each of us taking our world to where it needs to go.

A dog called Loopy

A powerful lesson in patience and trust.

The brown dog with her head nestled against my chest is Loopy.  Like Phoebe, the black dog looking at the camera, they are dogs that Jean originally had rescued in Mexico.

Here’s Loopy’s story.

Loopy and Phoebe

When I first met Jean in December 2007 in San Carlos, Mexico, it was immediately clear that she was an animal lover extraordinaire! There were 13 dogs and 6 cats in her home and many other dogs in a fenced off compound not so far away from the house.

Abandoned and stray dogs in that part of Mexico were numerous, there was no humane society and no real care or interest from the Mexicans for these dogs.  So many years ago, Jean decided to run her own unofficial dog rescue society, supported by more than a few Americans who had winter homes in San Carlos.  Over the years, Jeannie and her team must have rescued and found homes for well over 50 dogs.

In my introduction to the post last Tuesday, Please Help a George, I wrote about how long it had taken for Loopy to bond with me, but Jean’s experience of Loopy goes way back before I entered their lives.

I mentioned above that Jean had a piece of land in San Carlos that she used as a rescue compound for her dogs.  One morning, back in 2003, as usual she had gone to the compound to attend to her dogs.  Jeannie noticed immediately, cowering in one corner, this young female, brown-haired dog, the dog had been tossed over the fence of the compound.  Jean estimated that she was about a year old, hadn’t yet had any pups.  The dog had very cold eyes, growled aggressively as soon as Jean approached her; clearly deeply traumatised.

Jean set out food and water before the dog, hoping that whatever had traumatised the dog would soon abate.  The dog was named: Loopy!

Despite the fact that Loopy wouldn’t mix with the other dogs in the compound, she was not mean.  But the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and still Loopy would not allow Jean to get close to her.  One could only imagine the degree of cruelty that must have been metered out to Loopy – or, rather, one couldn’t imagine it!

Then, one day, when Jean went to the compound, Loopy was amongst the other dogs.  Loopy cautiously came up to Jean, sniffed her feet and legs and then, miraculously, allowed Jean to gently stroke her head and back.  Loopy’s cold, angry eyes were now soft and brown; Loopy had melted.  For obvious reasons, Loopy would never be available for adoption and soon moved into the main house.

When I became a permanent part of the Mexican household in 2008, Loopy was deeply suspicious of me.  I was given the cold, hard-eyed stare from Loopy and any attempt by me to touch her was returned with growling, fanged teeth.  There were a number of instances where I collected teeth rips across my hands from Loopy.

The aggression towards me lasted a long time, about a year.  But then one day, quite unexpectedly, Loopy decided that I was friend, not some reminder of a demon foe from her past.  She trusted me, first with strokes and cuddles and then with the most passionate and trusting embraces.  I love her so much.

One could wax lyrical about love, patience and trust, but I won’t.  The photograph below says it all.  We really do have so much to learn from dogs!

Loopy and Paul

Rivers of ice

or should that be rivers of tears for our planet!

Our beautiful planet

A chance dip into the BBC News website a few days ago allowed me to come across an article about the vanishing glaciers in the Himalayas.  It just about broke my heart.  Here’s what it said,

Rivers of ice: Vanishing glaciers

Stunning images from high in the Himalayas – showing the extent by which many glaciers have shrunk in the past 80 years or so – have gone on display at the Royal Geographical Society in central London.

Between 2007 and 2010, David Breashears retraced the steps of early photographic pioneers such as Major E O Wheeler, George Mallory and Vittorio Sella – to try to re-take their views of breathtaking glacial vistas.

The mountaineer and photographer is the founder of GlacierWorks – a non-profit organisation that uses art, science and adventure to raise public awareness about the consequences of climate change in the Himalayas.

Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya can be seen at the RGS in London until 11 November 2011. Admission free.

All photos courtesy GlacierWorks and Royal Geographical Society. Map copyright Jay Hart. All images subject to copyright.

Music courtesy KPM Music. Audio slideshow production by Paul Kerley. Publication date 11 October 2011.

Then follows a 3:59 film made by David Breashears that is so beautiful as well as so upsetting.  I don’t have a way of linking to the film directly but it’s easy to watch, just click here and be very moved.

David Breashears has his own website, from where one can learn that,

David Breashears is an accomplished filmmaker, adventurer, author, mountaineer, and professional speaker. Since 1978, he has combined his skills in climbing and filmmaking to complete more than forty film projects.

In 1983, Breashears transmitted the first live television pictures from the summit of Mount Everest, and in 1985 became the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest twice.

In the spring of 1996, Breashears co-directed and co-produced the first IMAX film shot on Mount Everest. When the now infamous blizzard of May 10, 1996 hit Mount Everest, killing eight climbers, Expedition Leader Breashears and his team were in the midst of making this historic film. In the tragedy that soon followed, Breashears and his team stopped filming to provide assistance to the stricken climbers. After returning to Base Camp, Breashears and his team then regrouped and reached the summit of the mountain on May 23, 1996, achieving their goal of becoming the first to record IMAX film images at Earth’s highest point. Breashears has said that if there is a lesson to be learned from the May 1996 tragedy, it is that for him, success that year was not to be found in reaching the summit, it was that everyone on his team returned safely. The film, titled EVEREST, premiered in March 1998.

As was written in that BBC item, David is the founder of GlacierWorks which is full of beautiful, albeit tinged with sadness, images of the glaciers featured in that BBC item.  As the GlacierWorks website explains on the home page,

The Mighty Himalayan Glaciers are Vanishing.

The rate of recession is unprecedented, accelerating and, without some remedy to the problem of climate change, unstoppable. GlacierWorks is a non-profit organization that uses art, science, and adventure to raise awareness about the consequences of climate change in the Greater Himalaya.

Read that first sentence again, “The rate of recession is unprecedented, accelerating and, without some remedy to the problem of climate change, unstoppable.” [my emphasis]

There are a number of videos on YouTube if you search for David Breashears, none up to the beauty of the slide show in the BBC item so don’t miss that at all.  However, the following is also worth watching,

OK, a change of topic but one that connects with the underlying message about the disappearing glaciers.  This was an article in the American The Nation newspaper written by Naomi Klein, following her speech to the demonstrators at Occupy Wall Street.  The article really should be read in full but I wanted to highlight just the following words from Naomi,

The point is, today everyone can see that the system is deeply unjust and careening out of control. Unfettered greed has trashed the global economy. And it is trashing the natural world as well. We are overfishing our oceans, polluting our water with fracking and deepwater drilling, turning to the dirtiest forms of energy on the planet, like the Alberta tar sands. And the atmosphere cannot absorb the amount of carbon we are putting into it, creating dangerous warming. The new normal is serial disasters: economic and ecological.

We all know, or at least sense, that the world is upside down: we act as if there is no end to what is actually finite—fossil fuels and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions. And we act as if there are strict and immovable limits to what is actually bountiful—the financial resources to build the kind of society we need.

The task of our time is to turn this around: to challenge this false scarcity. To insist that we can afford to build a decent, inclusive society—while at the same time, respect the real limits to what the earth can take.

Thanks to Bill Mitchell of Billy Blog for linking me to the Naomi Klein speech.

We can afford to build a decent, inclusive society and we must – not tomorrow but now.  Start with your local community, think about transition.  Some of our grandchildren will be mountaineers – let them see the beautiful rivers of ice.

Common sense

The ways of our carbon-consuming past & present cannot be continued into the future.

In many ways that sub-heading above is not controversial for millions of citizens of Planet Earth.  The challenge is in changing behaviours, ending old habits of energy use, and working towards a truly sustainable relationship with the only planetary home we have!

Some time ago, I wrote about Lester Brown’s book, World on the Edge, quickly following it up with Plan B Movie for Planet Earth.  Since reading Lester’s book, I have subscribed to the Blog/website Earth Policy Institute, Lester Brown is President of EPI.

Like many others, Jean and I are of the view that the Keystone XL Pipeline is not required.  Last week there was an update from EPI about this subject illustrating how the pipeline is not required.  That update is published in full, as follows,

Plan B Updates

OCTOBER 06, 2011

U.S. Gasoline Use Declining: Keystone XL Pipeline Not Needed

Lester R. Brown

As the debate unfolds about whether to build a 1,711-mile pipeline to carry crude oil from the tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas, the focus is on the oil spills and carbon emissions that inevitably come with it. But we need to ask a more fundamental question. Do we really need that oil?

The United States currently consumes more gasoline than the next 16 countries combined. Yes, you read that right. Among them are China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and Brazil. (See data.)

But now this is changing. Not only is the affluence that sustained this extravagant gasoline consumption eroding, but the automobile-centered lifestyle that was considered part of the American birthright is fading as well. U.S. gasoline use has dropped 5 percent in four years.

Four key developments are set to further reduce U.S. gasoline use: a shrinking car fleet, a decline in the miles driven per car, dramatic mandated future gains in new car fuel efficiency, and the shift from gasoline to electricity to power our cars.

The U.S. fleet appears to have peaked at 250 million vehicles in 2008. From 1994 through 2007, new-car sales were in the range of 15–17 million per year. Since then they have totaled 10–13 million per year, and they are unlikely to top 14 million again. Retirees likely will exceed sales of new cars throughout this decade.

The contraction that began when the fleet dropped from 250 million in 2008 to 248 million in 2010 is likely to continue. Sales of new cars are not matching those of earlier years in part because the economic prospect has dimmed and in part because we are still urbanizing. Today 82 percent of us live in urban areas where cars are becoming less essential.

On top of urbanization, we also have a change in the manner in which young people socialize. For teenagers in rural communities a half century ago, getting a driver’s license and something to drive—a car, a pickup, or even a farm truck—was a rite of passage. That’s what everyone did.

This too is changing. Today’s teenagers, most of whom grew up in an urban setting, socialize through smartphones and the Internet. For many of them, a car is of little interest. The number of licensed teenage drivers in this country—the car owners of the future—has dropped from a peak of 12 million in 1978 to 10 million today.

Cities are also being redesigned for people. Among other things, this means cities are becoming pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly, with ready access to public transit.

Many cities are building a cycling infrastructure of bicycle trails, dedicated bike lanes, and bike racks for parking. Bike-sharing programs are showing up, too. In Washington, D.C., the Capital Bikeshare program that began in 2010 has expanded to 116 stations with 1,100 bicycles. Within the first year, some 16,000 riders signed up for annual membership in the program. Denver and Chicago have similar bike share programs. And New York City is about to launch a huge program of its own.

The second reason that gasoline use is falling is the decline in miles driven per car. This is partly in response to economic uncertainty and the high price of gasoline. When gas costs nearly $4 a gallon, people think twice before jumping in a car and using a gallon of gasoline to pick up a half-gallon of milk.

A third trend that is reducing gasoline use is the rising fuel efficiency of the U.S. automobile fleet. New cars sold in 2008 averaged 27 miles per gallon. But in early 2009, President Obama raised the average fuel efficiency standard so that those sold in 2016 will get 36 miles per gallon. Additional standards announced in 2011 mean that new cars sold in 2025 will use less than half as much gasoline as the 2008 models.

The game changer in reducing gasoline use is going to come as drivers shift from gasoline to electrically powered vehicles, including plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars. General Motors recently introduced the Chevrolet Volt, designed to run largely on electricity, and Nissan unveiled the Leaf, an all-electric vehicle. Beyond these, Toyota is accepting orders for the plug-in version of its Prius hybrid, the pacesetter in fuel efficiency. It will be followed by a steady flow of new plug-in hybrid and all-electric car models coming to market.

Although these electrically powered vehicles are typically more costly to buy, the day-to-day cost of operating them is extraordinarily low. An analysis by Professor Michael McElroy at Harvard indicates that running a car on wind-generated electricity could cost less than the equivalent of 80-cent-a-gallon gasoline.

With the auto fleet shrinking, with the average car being driven less, with the fuel use of new cars to be cut in half by 2025, and with electricity starting to replace gasoline as a fuel, why do we need to build a pipeline to bring crude oil from Canada’s tar sands to oil refineries in Texas? The answer is we don’t.

Lester R. Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of World on the Edge.

Copyright © 2011 Earth Policy Institute

There’s a footnote that I would like to add from the Center for Biological Diversity (great website!) that came out in a recent newsletter.

Here it is,

Lawsuit Seeks to Halt Work on Controversial Keystone XL Pipeline

Keystone Pipeline

The hotly contested Keystone XL pipeline hasn’t been approved for construction, but federal officials don’t seem to care; they’ve allowed the pipeline company to mow down 100 miles of native prairie grasslands in Nebraska to clear the way — before any public hearings were held on whether Keystone XL should move forward at all.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth filed a lawsuit in federal court in Omaha Wednesday to halt that work. Specifically, we’re challenging decisions by the State Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow work to begin before a decision’s been made on the pipeline or the public hearings, which look like little more than a sham at this point.

If approved, TransCanada’s 1,700-mile pipeline would carry up to 35 million gallons of oil a day from tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas. Not only will this project add fuel to the global climate crisis, but the pipeline will cut across Nebraska’s legendary Sandhills, hundreds of rivers and streams, and the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides drinking water for millions of people. TransCanada’s existing pipeline, called Keystone 1, has reportedly leaked 14 times since it started operating in June 2010.

Please will there be some common sense over this?

Please Help a George

A canine charitable opportunity that deserves wide support.

The details that follow strike a chord with me, strike a chord in a big way.  When I first came to live with Jean back in 2008 it was clear that this wasn’t going to be a normal relationship.  Why?  Because, at that time Jean had 12 dogs living with her in San Carlos, Mexico and my arrival, together with my Shepherd dog, Pharaoh (see home page for a picture of him), took that number to 13.  Jean’s dogs were all Mexican rescues; she also ran her own local humane society in San Carlos and over the years had found homes for literally dozens of dogs.

One of those Mexican rescues was a dog called Loopy, who had been terribly treated by local Mexicans.  The consequence when I arrived, a stranger in the middle of Loopy’s life with Jean, was that Loopy was very aggressive towards me; my hands have small scars to bear witness to the number of nips Loopy launched in my direction.

It took over a year before I was able to just let my hand ‘accidentally’ brush her side.  Slowly Loopy’s trust in me built up until now I can press my face to her face and cuddle her for ages.  (To underline the love that Loopy bestows on me, I will get Jean to take a picture and publish that before the end of the week.)  So with that in mind, let me turn to the details recently sent to me by friend and colleague, Dapinder Singh, from England.

———————

George and loving owner, Ian.

This is George. He was in an English dog pound and condemned to death.

He had been very badly abused, one eye blinded by what was thought to be a kick, he trusted no-one and had rejected all human contact.  He was desperate and in despair.

After an exhaustive search for anyone who take on the rescue of George, we (as in Doris Banham) took him into our care just a day before he was due to be euthanased.  His veterinary problems were easier to deal with than the mental ones.  His eye was damaged beyond repair causing him constant pain so it had to be removed, teaching George to trust again was much harder.

That journey back to trusting humans was long, George had suffered severe and terrible abuse,  but there was no question of giving up on him and slowly but surely he began to live again as we fought to undo the wrongs that had been done to him. After some months with us, a wonderful family came to the rescue and offered George his ‘forever’ home where he found the love that he so deserved. His family are completely devoted to him.

His story, however, could have been a very different one were it not for the work of the team at Doris Banham’s. Below is an extract written by the lovely family who adopted him and from our fantastic volunteer, Sheila, who helped bring George back to life again.

“Hi, Sheila. Here is a shot of George in his new garden. He is settling down very well and seems to be very happy. I will keep you posted as to his progress. All the best Liz and Ian.”

There were a number of photographs sent to Sheila, however I have taken editor’s liberty and moved them to the foot of the article – I want you to stay with this to the point where you can see how to help.  Here’s Sheila’s reply,

“WELL THESE BOUGHT ME TO TEARS , OUR GEORGE , THIS IS TRUE RESCUE , THIS IS ALL DOWN TO YOU DORIS BANHAM NOTHING ELSE TO SAY …” SHEILA X.

Are there other Georges out there?  You bet! Far too many of them, right across the world.  So let’s all do something to help these special creatures, who show us humans just what unconditionally love feels like.

Friday 4th November, 7.30pm – Come to the Hellaby Hall Hotel, Old Hellaby, Maltby, Yorkshire, S66 8SN

Call for tickets now to the Pound Dog Ball telephone number (UK) 07772 538513 or email pogpublications@yahoo.com  Full details here.

Please help all the Georges out there by supporting this Charity Fundraising Event: Black Tie, Dinner/Dance at Hellaby Hall, Rotherham, 7.30pm, on Friday 4th November. It’s a don’t miss night…..3 course meal, live entertainment all night and dancing ’til late!!!! It’s going to be a great night.

If you can’t make the Ball but would like to send in a donation then please post a cheque, made out to Pound Dog Ball, to the following address:

c/o Jennifer Smith

Clumber Lodge,

50 Hemingfield Road

Wombwell, S73 0LY.

Or if you prefer an electronic donation, further details are:

Pound Dog Ball
A/C 31542265
Sort 40-45-29 (HSBC)

The account is a charity account, set up only for this event.  Once the money has been paid to the charities the account will be closed.

All monies raised will be shared between http://www.dogsos.co.uk/ (Doris Banham) and http://www.barnsleyanimalrescue.org.uk/  (Barnsley Animal Rescue Charity)

I know that Dapinder, and everyone else involved in helping these precious animals, sends you their heartfelt thanks.

Finally, more photos of George enjoying life as all dogs should. What a wonderful story, an honour to be able to publish it, and promote the Ball, on Learning from Dogs.  Please help.