Category: Musings

Morality, intelligence and humanism.

An open letter reply to Patrice Ayme.

Two days ago I published a rather introspective post called The temptation to turn ever inwards. It was the result of reading three disturbing essays about the ‘affairs of man’; essays by Tom Engelhardt, Jim Wright and George Monbiot. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting a great response either in the form of ‘Likes’ or written replies. However, the first reply, a long reply, came in from Patrice Ayme. I made the decision to reply to Patrice via a new post; ergo today’s post. Since making that decision a further comment came in from Sue Dreamwalker, also republished today.

What I am going to do is to reproduce Patrice’s comment but interspersed with my replies.

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The biosphere evolved over billions of years. Now it is taken over by critters who live for just a few years. Solution? Make it so that said critters live longer, thus attaching a greater value upon survival.

I presume that the ‘said critters’ refer to humans? The average lifespan of humans has increased hugely. From a life expectancy of 30 years [1] at birth in Medieval Britain, back in the 13th Century, to an average of 67.2 years for humans worldwide in 2010. [2]

That’s an increase of 124% in a little over 700 years. Yet despite that incredible increase in lifespan, humans have shown no interest in attaching a greater value to their survival: far from it! One might even muse that humans have attached a greater value to those things that actively harm our survival.

For all the (over-) elaborate set-up of dear Monbiot, it’s simpler than that. Instead of going back to Baby Thatcher, Baroness god save the queen knows what, let’s grab a clear and present example.

I’m unclear as to what is meant by “the over-elaborate set-up” but as a long-time reader of Mr. Monbiot‘s essays I applaud both his commitment to the highest standards of journalism and to the UK’s Guardian newspaper for publishing so many of them over the years. I would invite Patrice to give an example of over-elaboration coming from the pen of George Monbiot.

Britain, and many of the Brits, say our dear friend Chris Snuggs, a participant to your, and my, site, have said that they hated Europe, because Europe was not democratic enough. However, one of the latest improvement of the European Constitution is now effective: the head of the EC, the European Commission, is now to be elected by the just elected European PARLIAMENT. Guess what?

Chris Snuggs is more than a participant to Learning from Dogs, he is a close friend of many years. Yes, he has strong views about Europe but those views are expressed in a declared, personal manner.

Chameleon Cameron, came out of the woodworks to bark, in the clearest way, that it was out of the question to do things differently from before, and now dare to have the European Parliament to elect (what is basically) the European Prime Minister.

Never mind that Britain voted for that European Constitutional change.

Never mind that in representative democracies, the leaders of the executive are elected by Parliament.

So what do we see here?

Contradiction within moods and thoughts systems (Britain agreed to the democratic change, and now does not). We also see erroneous ideas imposed (leaders of the executive says Cameron should be nominated undemocratically, that’s erroneous).

The same sort of things is also perking up in Iraq: the USA caused the mess there, committing several major war crimes in the process. Precisely because those war crimes were not prosecuted, a strong push has been exerted on Obama to duplicate Bush, and go back to attack Iraq some more.

Thus, it is simple: there bad ideas out there, and they need to be destroyed. And bad moods too (an example of bad moods is the enormity that the American population was made, by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc., into an accomplice of the most major war crime there is, war of aggression. Now that this war is in the process of being lost, some clamor to have the war pursued with renewed vigor.

We are now the stewards of the biosphere, whether we like it, or not. We can’t just sit on our rumps, strokes dogs, and whine we will attend to our garden (Voltaire style). By doing nothing, we leave criminals such as Bush, or their spirit, or their mood, in power. And thus we become accomplices.

There is total agreement for the idea that humans are the stewards of the biosphere. But if the “sit on our rumps, strokes dogs and whine we will attend to our garden” is aimed at me, as it appears to be, then I strongly disagree. Living as simple a life as we can is a long way from “doing nothing”.

So go out there, and engage in combat, bad moods, and bad ideas. That’s what even very old alpha monkeys, covered with age spots, do. We don’t want to let very old monkeys be examples of moral rectitude we cannot emulate.

A last point: Monbiot does not realize the contradiction he engages in. In the guise of criticising the opposition, he puts it on a pedestal, and engages in its very propaganda. Monbiot, and many like him, bemoan a “shift towards conservatism”. Nothing could be more false. People who destroy the biosphere are NOT conservatives. They play conservatives on TV. In truth, they are just the opposite. They are destructionists.

I am of the opinion, totally so, that George Monbiot is not playing at conservatism.

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So, dear reader, there is little in the comment from Patrice that has me nodding my head. Don’t get me wrong! Patrice Ayme is an individual of extreme intellect as even a dip into his blog will confirm. I am a regular reader of the writings over at that place.

However, there is one major stumbling block for me, one that I have communicated privately to the said Patrice, and that is the issue of anonymity. Because Patrice Ayme is a nom-de-plume. Despite following ‘his’ writings for some time and sharing the occasional private email, I have almost no idea about who the person is. Yes, ‘his’ writings are often very strong and highly critical of many aspects of modern life, especially the American political system. But that is not unique. There is a long line-up of writers doing the same, and doing the same over their signatures: Tom Engelhardt, Jim Wright and George Monbiot and many, many others

For me, hiding one’s identity so securely behind a ‘virtual’ mask yet writing so passionately about many of the issues critically affecting the future of mankind, doesn’t work. If one can’t or won’t be honest about who they are, then better, perhaps, that they keep their thoughts and ideas close to them. There is no shortage of people openly being critical about the American Government and much else across the world, and being critical openly.

Later, Sue of Sue Dreamwalker added a comment. That resonated perfectly with me and it, too, is reproduced in full.

Paul sometimes I despair at how Mankind plays out his life in the world Paul… We bemoan lots as we sit in our homes as the virus of hate, greed, and disaster pours into our living rooms via the BLACK BOX of FEAR tricks… Which helps depress, make us anxious, fearful,…. It insights anger, aggression and the spiral of thought escalates out via the Web… Internet at our fingertips- instant reactions…

Some times I wonder as I ponder… at the soup being remixed… as only this week we hear of ISIS another branch of the terrorists we are now supposed to fear… As the UK now makes friends with its long time enemy Iran.. reinstating diplomatic relationships again.. The Saga runs on an on… With Oil as the major players .

That’s why turning inward is sometimes Paul the only thing we can do… As we can only live our lives… While I so want to save the world.. The world has also got to want to save itself…

I can only live my own life and stop the petty squabbles, the judgements, the criticisms as I mend my own world to live at peace within it…
Once we all realise its our thoughts which in fact we send out, in fear, in anger, as we judge and condemn that are reflected back …

WE create the world.. We consume its products, We want to live in the lifestyles that demand this World to exploit others for riches.. And yet condemn the conditions of the haves and have nots…

We have lost sight of our basic values in life Paul…

So yes I often retreat inwards… I have too.. Because I worry too much about the kind of Earth we are leaving our Grandchildren to grow up in…
~Sue

In final reply to Patrice, I shall reproduce this well-known quotation [3]:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.“

References:

1. “A millennium of health improvement“. BBC News. 1998-12-27.

2. CIA Factbook.

3.This saying is widely attributed to Voltaire, but cannot be found in his writings. With good reason. The phrase was invented by a later author as an epitome of his attitude. It appeared in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall under the pseudonym Stephen G. Tallentyre.

Secesh Reservoir, Oregon.

A gem in the crown of stunning countryside.

Funny how things happen!

In last Wednesday’s post I included a picture of Jean with Robert who helped us load 60 bales of hay onto our trailer. This photo:

Jean thanking Robert for his great help in loading 60 bales!

Anyway, Tad, who farms the land, mentioned a wonderful place to fish not far from his farm at Wolf Creek.

I’m not a fisherman but Andy, who is staying with us with his wife, Trish, is a keen fisherman.

So last Wednesday we all set off into the high forest lands up above Wolf Creek and after some pretty tough driving up some steep dirt roads found the lake. Here’s a record of our morning at Secesh.

As you can see, it was a breath-taking oasis in a sea of tall trees and towering peaks.

With crystal-clear waters that just seemed to be calling out to those that enjoy fly-fishing!

Doesn't get much better than this! — Doesn’t get much better than this!

Meanwhile, yours truly decided to walk the perimeter of the lake that is, apparently, some 3.7 acres of water area.

Towards the farthest point of the shoreline, a beautiful stream was flowing into the lake.

And not too farther along, a likewise beautiful stream outflowed from the lake.

What flows in ... must eventually flow out. — What flows in … must eventually flow out.

From this vantage point, one could look across the full breadth of the lake.

First sighting of the lake! — Tranquility in spades!

And marvel at the wildlife, from ….

… the very small, to ….

…. the stunning eagles of the land. A veritable icon of this country!

Returning in time to see Andy pulling a (small) fish from the lake.

And Jean and Trish catching up on old times.

What a fabulous discovery!

Less than 25 miles from home.

Thank you, Tad!

We will return – possibly with a dog or two!

Learning from the play of dogs.

A recent newspaper article offers yet more learning from dogs.

I can’t recall how I came across the article but so what! What I do recall was reading a recent item in The Washington Post and thinking that has to be reported here on Learning from Dogs.

The article, written by David Grimm, was entitled: In dogs’ play, researchers see honesty and deceit, perhaps something like morality. Here’s how it opened:

A shaggy brown terrier approaches a large chocolate Labrador in a city park. When the terrier gets close, he adopts a yogalike pose, crouching on his forepaws and hiking his butt into the air. The Lab gives an excited bark, and soon the two dogs are somersaulting and tugging on each other’s ears. Then the terrier takes off and the Lab gives chase, his tail wagging wildly. When the two meet once more, the whole thing begins again.

Watch a couple of dogs play, and you’ll probably see seemingly random gestures, lots of frenetic activity and a whole lot of energy being expended. But decades of research suggest that beneath this apparently frivolous fun lies a hidden language of honesty and deceit, empathy and perhaps even a humanlike morality.

Now I don’t have permission to reproduce the entire article but will draw your attention to this further piece:

All of this suggests that dogs have a kind of moral code — one long hidden to humans until a cognitive ethologist named Marc Bekoff began to crack it.

A wiry 68-year-old with reddish-gray hair tied back in a long ponytail, Bekoff is a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he taught for 32 years. He began studying animal behavior in the early 1970s, spending four years videotaping groups of dogs, wolves and coyotes in large enclosures and slowly playing back the tapes, jotting down every nip, yip and lick. “Twenty minutes of film could take a week to analyze,” he says.

The data revealed insights into how the animals maintained their tight social bonds — by grooming each other, for example. But what changed Bekoff’s life was watching them play. The wolves would chase each other, run, jump and roll over for seemingly no other reason than to have fun.

Few people had studied animal play, but Bekoff was intrigued. “Play is a major expenditure of energy, and it can be dangerous,” he says. “You can twist a shoulder or break a leg, and it can increase your chances of being preyed upon. So why do they do it? It has to feel good.”

Suddenly, Bekoff wasn’t interested just in behavior; he was interested also in emotions and, fundamentally, what was going on inside these animals’ heads.

Marc Bekoff’s name rang a bell with me and, sure enough, I found that previously he was mentioned here. It was a post called Daisy offers a lesson for all,:

Animal Emotions

Do animals think and feel?
by Marc Bekoff – Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Daisy: The Injured Dog Who Believed She’d Walk Again and Did

Anthrozoology, also called human-animal studies (HAS), is a rapidly growing and expanding interdisciplinary field. A recent and comprehensive review of this wide-ranging discipline can be found in Paul Waldau’s book titled Animal Studies: An Introduction. Many of the essays I write for Psychology Today have something to do with anthrozoology in that they focus on the wide variety of relationships that humans establish with nonhuman animals (animals). Some essays also discuss what we can learn from other animals, including traits such as trust, friendship, forgiveness, love, and hope.

Often, a simple video captures the essence of the deep nature of the incredibly close and enduring bonds we form with other animals and they with us. As a case in point, my recent essay called “A Dog and His Man” showed a dog exuberantly expressing his deep feelings for a human companion he hadn’t seen for six months. Another essay titled “My Dog Always Eats First: Homeless People and Their Animals” dealt with the relationship between homeless people and the animals with whom they share their lives.

Daisy: An unforgettable and inspirational symbol of dedication and hope

I just saw another video called “Daisy – the Little Pup Who Believed” that is well-worth sharing widely with others of all ages. There is no way I can summarize the depth of five-month old Daisy’s resolve to walk again after she was injured or of the devotion of the woman, Jolene, who found her on the side of a road – scared, malnourished, unable to walk or wag her tail, the people who contributed money to help her along, or the wonderful veterinarians and staff at Barrie Veterinary Hospital in Ontario, Canada, who took care of her. You can also read about Daisy’s remarkable and inspirational journey here.

Please take five minutes out of your day to watch this video, read the text, listen to the song that accompanies it, and share it widely. I am sure you will get teary as you watch Daisy go from an injured little ball of fur living in a ditch on the side of a road with a broken spine to learning to walk in water to romping around wildly as if life had been that proverbial pail of cherries from the start.

I’ve watched Daisy’s journey many times and every single time my eyes get watery. Among the many lessons in this wonderful video is “stay strong and never give up”. Clearly dogs and many other animals can truly teach us about traits such as trust, friendship, forgiveness, love, and hope.

Back to that Washington Post article.

Bekoff’s recent work suggests another remarkable canine skill: the ability to know what another animal is thinking — a so-called “theory of mind.”

Dogs seem to display a rudimentary form of this skill during play. He has noticed, for example, that one dog won’t begin trying to play with another dog until he has her attention. To get her to notice, he may nip the other dog or run into her field of view. That, Bekoff says, shows that the one wanting to play knows that she’s not paying attention to him. Though this may seem like a simple skill, it’s incredibly important to our species. Without it, we can have a hard time learning or interacting with the world around us.

So will leave you with this video and return to the theme tomorrow.

Celebrating Pharaoh.

Today is the eleventh anniversary of the day Pharaoh was born.

Yes, Pharaoh was born on the 3rd June, 2003.

Last year, I celebrated Pharaoh’s tenth birthday with posts over two days. Being ten seemed such a significant milestone for him.

So rather than repeat those two posts, as much as I am tempted to so do 😉 , I will just offer you the links and repost one photograph. Thus here is that first post, Meet the dogs – Pharaoh (pt 1) and the second part is here.

Here’s the photograph of Sandra Tucker, owner of Jutone Kennels in Devon, England, holding puppy Pharaoh the day I first met him: 12th August, 2003.

It would be so easy for me to gush over having Pharaoh in my life these last eleven years. But I shall resist, dear reader! Will just repeat a few words that were said a year ago.

The biggest, single reward of having Pharaoh as my friend goes back a few years. Back to my Devon days and the time when Jon Lavin and I used to spend hours talking together. Pharaoh always contentedly asleep in the same room as the two of us. It was Jon who introduced me to Dr. David Hawkins and his Map of Consciousness. It was Jon one day who looking down at the sleeping Pharaoh pointed out that Dr. Hawkins offered evidence that dogs are integrous creatures with a ‘score’ on that Map of between 205 and 210. (Background story is here.)

So this blog, Learning from Dogs, and my attempt to write a book of the same name flow from that awareness of what dogs mean to human consciousness and what Pharaoh means to me. No, more than that! From that mix of Jon, Dr. David Hawkins, and experiencing the power of unconditional love from an animal living with me day-in, day-out, came a journey into my self. Came the self-awareness that allowed me to like who I was, be openly loved by this dog of mine, and be able to love in return. As is said: “You cannot love another until you love yourself.“

Which, serendipitously, brings me to tomorrow’s post: Celebrating Who I Am.

Obviously, I wanted to include some current photographs of the birthday boy but, try as I did, the perfect image wasn’t captured.

Thus will leave you with these two, both taken yesterday afternoon.

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Happy Birthday, my dear friend!

Celebrating Ben and Ranger.

The joy these horses have given us.

It’s almost impossible, at times, to get one’s mind around life’s events. I’m not wishing to be overly philosophical but, nonetheless, it doesn’t do any harm to muse from time to time about the nature of things.

Take our two rescue horses: Ben and Ranger.

They have now been with us for coming up to three months. Considering how terribly they were treated before being rescued by Darla Clark of Strawberry Mountain Mustangs, it’s a privilege to experience the way that these two horses have so rapidly put their past behind them.

All of which is a preamble to this photograph taken just a couple of days ago.

Ranger (LHS) and Ben enjoying our open grassland.

Just look at their shiny coats! Just look at them so happily munching away on the grass.

Now look at how they were not so long ago.

Ranger, when first seen in February.

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Ben2 when found — Ben as seen last October.

So back to present, happy times.

The last photograph is of Jean having just put a halter on Ranger so that the two of them can be taken in at the end of the day. Ben follows Ranger in without the need of a halter. Ben and Ranger are inseparable!

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Tomorrow, the celebration of another beautiful animal!

Saturday smile!

If you are a lawyer, please turn away!

Richard M., a close friend for more than forty years, recently sent me a hilarious story. Richard prefaced the story with a quotation from the late Bernard Levin.

Some of the readers of Learning from Dogs may not be familiar with Mr. Levin. I can do no better than to quote the WikiPedia entry:

Henry Bernard Levin CBE (19 August 1928 – 7 August 2004) was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as “the most

Bernard Levin c. 1980

famous journalist of his day”. The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ’s Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics, graduating in 1952. After a short spell in a lowly job at the BBC selecting press cuttings for use in programmes, he secured a post as a junior member of the editorial staff of a weekly periodical, Truth, in 1953.

Levin reviewed television for The Manchester Guardian and wrote a weekly political column in The Spectator noted for its irreverence and influence on modern parliamentary sketches. During the 1960s he wrote five columns a week for The Daily Mail on any subject that he chose. After a disagreement with the proprietor of the paper over attempted censorship of his column in 1970, Levin moved to The Times where, with one break of just over a year in 1981–82, he remained as resident columnist until his retirement, covering a wide range of topics, both serious and comic.

Levin became a well-known broadcaster, first on the weekly satirical television show That Was The Week That Was in the early 1960s, then as a panellist on a musical quiz, Face the Music, and finally in three series of travel programmes in the 1980s. He began to write books in the 1970s, publishing 17 between 1970 and 1998. From the early 1990s, Levin developed Alzheimer’s disease, which eventually forced him to give up his regular column in 1997, and to stop writing altogether not long afterwards.

Anyway, that quotation from Bernard Levin was, “You’ll never see a thin lawyer or a fat litigant.” In the case of the following story, no doubt both lawyers were paid!

Enjoy!

ooOOoo

This took place in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against, among other things, fire.

Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost ‘in a series of small fires.’ The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.

However, the lawyer sued and WON!

Delivering the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company, in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable ‘fire’ and was obligated to pay the claim.

Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000 to the lawyer for his loss of the cigars that perished in the ‘fires’.

BUT IT DIDN”T END THERE!

After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.

(This true story won First Place in last year’s Criminal Lawyers Award contest.)

ooOOoo

Perhaps this offers a small clue as to why this Englishman, having now lived in America for more than four years, still finds his new homeland a little strange!

Have a great week-end!

Is it just me?

Some days, one just wonders about a world that appears to be stark, raving mad!

One of the fundamental things that mankind is not learning from dogs, or from other animals for that fact, is having a sensitivity to danger.

Even happy, domesticated dogs, as with cats, are incredibly quick to pick up on something that just doesn’t ‘feel right’!

For example, take what was written here last Wednesday. About the extreme madness of our dependency on oil for our food!

Why is there no outcry?

Just recently, NOAA reported that “April 2014 was tied with April of 2010 as being the warmest April on record globally for land and ocean surface combined. NOAA also said that – globally – the January 2014 to April 2014 period was the 6th warmest Jan-Apr period on record.”

Why is there no outcry?

Just ten days ago, I wrote a post under the title of The nature of delusions. Included in that post was an essay from George Monbiot he called Are We Bothered? His proposition being, “The more we consume, the less we care about the living planet.”

Part of me hates the way that this blog often touches on pain and negativity but my motivation is simply that doing nothing, ignoring what is so wrong in the world, would be the height of irresponsibility.

All of which is a preamble to another George Monbiot essay. Mr. Monbiot is a powerful writer as his many essays demonstrate. But this latest one from him is one of the most powerful essays in a very long time.

It’s not a comfortable read. But sure as hell, it’s a must read!

ooOOoo

The Impossibility of Growth

May 27, 2014

Why collapse and salvation are hard to distinguish from each other.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 28th May 2014

Let us imagine that in 3030BC the total possessions of the people of Egypt filled one cubic metre. Let us propose that these possessions grew by 4.5% a year. How big would that stash have been by the Battle of Actium in 30BC? This is the calculation performed by the investment banker Jeremy Grantham (1).

Go on, take a guess. Ten times the size of the pyramids? All the sand in the Sahara? The Atlantic ocean? The volume of the planet? A little more? It’s 2.5 billion billion solar systems (2). It does not take you long, pondering this outcome, to reach the paradoxical position that salvation lies in collapse.

To succeed is to destroy ourselves. To fail is to destroy ourselves. That is the bind we have created. Ignore if you must climate change, biodiversity collapse, the depletion of water, soil, minerals, oil; even if all these issues were miraculously to vanish, the mathematics of compound growth make continuity impossible.

Economic growth is an artefact of the use of fossil fuels. Before large amounts of coal were extracted, every upswing in industrial production would be met with a downswing in agricultural production, as the charcoal or horse power required by industry reduced the land available for growing food. Every prior industrial revolution collapsed, as growth could not be sustained (3). But coal broke this cycle and enabled – for a few hundred years – the phenomenon we now call sustained growth.

It was neither capitalism nor communism that made possible the progress and the pathologies (total war, the unprecedented concentration of global wealth, planetary destruction) of the modern age. It was coal, followed by oil and gas. The meta-trend, the mother narrative, is carbon-fuelled expansion. Our ideologies are mere subplots. Now, as the most accessible reserves have been exhausted, we must ransack the hidden corners of the planet to sustain our impossible proposition.

On Friday, a few days after scientists announced that the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is now inevitable (4), the Ecuadorean government decided that oil drilling would go ahead in the heart of the Yasuni national park (5). It had made an offer to other governments: if they gave it half the value of the oil in that part of the park, it would leave the stuff in the ground. You could see this as blackmail or you could see it as fair trade. Ecuador is poor, its oil deposits are rich: why, the government argued, should it leave them untouched without compensation when everyone else is drilling down to the inner circle of hell? It asked for $3.6bn and received $13m. The result is that Petroamazonas, a company with a colourful record of destruction and spills (6), will now enter one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, in which a hectare of rainforest is said to contain more species than exist in the entire continent of North America (7).

The UK oil company Soco is now hoping to penetrate Africa’s oldest national park, Virunga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (8); one of the last strongholds of the mountain gorilla and the okapi, of chimpanzees and forest elephants. In Britain, where a possible 4.4 billion barrels of shale oil has just been identified in the south-east (9), the government fantasises about turning the leafy suburbs into a new Niger delta. To this end it’s changing the trespass laws to enable drilling without consent and offering lavish bribes to local people (10,11). These new reserves solve nothing. They do not end our hunger for resources; they exacerbate it.

The trajectory of compound growth shows that the scouring of the planet has only just begun. As the volume of the global economy expands, everywhere that contains something concentrated, unusual, precious will be sought out and exploited, its resources extracted and dispersed, the world’s diverse and differentiated marvels reduced to the same grey stubble.

Some people try to solve the impossible equation with the myth of dematerialisation: the claim that as processes become more efficient and gadgets are miniaturised, we use, in aggregate, fewer materials. There is no sign that this is happening. Iron ore production has risen 180% in ten years (12). The trade body Forest Industries tell us that “global paper consumption is at a record high level and it will continue to grow.” (13) If, in the digital age, we won’t reduce even our consumption of paper, what hope is there for other commodities?

Look at the lives of the super-rich, who set the pace for global consumption. Are their yachts getting smaller? Their houses? Their artworks? Their purchase of rare woods, rare fish, rare stone? Those with the means buy ever bigger houses to store the growing stash of stuff they will not live long enough to use. By unremarked accretions, ever more of the surface of the planet is used to extract, manufacture and store things we don’t need. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that fantasies about the colonisation of space – which tell us we can export our problems instead of solving them – have resurfaced (14).

As the philosopher Michael Rowan points out, the inevitabilities of compound growth mean that if last year’s predicted global growth rate for 2014 (3.1%) is sustained, even if we were miraculously to reduce the consumption of raw materials by 90% we delay the inevitable by just 75 years(15). Efficiency solves nothing while growth continues.

The inescapable failure of a society built upon growth and its destruction of the Earth’s living systems are the overwhelming facts of our existence. As a result they are mentioned almost nowhere. They are the 21st Century’s great taboo, the subjects guaranteed to alienate your friends and neighbours. We live as if trapped inside a Sunday supplement: obsessed with fame, fashion and the three dreary staples of middle class conversation: recipes, renovations and resorts. Anything but the topic that demands our attention.

Statements of the bleeding obvious, the outcomes of basic arithmetic, are treated as exotic and unpardonable distractions, while the impossible proposition by which we live is regarded as so sane and normal and unremarkable that it isn’t worthy of mention. That’s how you measure the depth of this problem: by our inability even to discuss it.

http://www.monbiot.com

References:

1. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7853

2. Grantham expressed this volume as 1057 cubic metres. In his paper We Need To Talk About Growth, Michael Rowan translated this as 2.5 billion billion solar systems. (http://persuademe.com.au/need-talk-growth-need-sums-well/). This source gives the volume of the solar system (if it is treated as a sphere) at 39,629,013,196,241.7 cubic kilometres, which is roughly 40 x 1021 cubic metres. Multiplied by 2.5 billion billion, this gives 1041 cubic metres.

Since posting this, I’ve received the following clarifications:

From Jacob Bayless:

“… about the volume of the solar system — there is no agreed-upon definition of its diameter, which is why the figures vary wildly. (There are also two definitions of ‘a billion’, which adds to the confusion). Using the radius of Neptune’s orbit, as the farthest ‘planet’ from the sun, gives the 2.5 billion billion figure:

The orbit of Neptune is 4.5 x 10^12 m radius, which yields a 4 x 10^38 cubic m sphere. Multiplying this by 2.5 x 10^18, or “2.5 billion billion”, gives 10^57 cubic m. So that calculation checks out.

The heliopause radius would be another possible way to measure the solar system radius; it’s 4 times as far and thus 64 times the volume.”

From Geoff Briggs:

“Michael Rowan has taken the size of the solar system to be the orbit of Neptune, which is kind of understandable, but the sun’s influence extends a LOT further than that, so his estimate is correspondingly significantly overstated (ie the extra billion).

The 39,629,… cubic km figure from yahoo answers is based on a correct calculation in light years, but then a massive cock-up in the conversion to cubic km. The author seems to have assumed that a light year is about 21,000,000m, which is off by about eight orders of magnitude. 4.2 cubic light years is about 3.6 x 10^39 cubic km (and hence about 3.6 x 10^48 cubic metres).”

From Andrew Bryce:

“Starting volume of Egyptian possessions = 1 m3

after 3000 years volume = 1 x (1.045)^3000

= 2.23 x 10^57 m3

Assume the radius of the solar system is 50 AU (the distance to the Kuiper belt)

1 AU = 1.496 x 10^11 m

radius of the solar system = 50 AU = 7.48 x 10^12 m

volume of solar system = 4/3 x pi x r^3

= 1.75 x 10^39 m3

so the Egyptian possessions would require 2.23 x 10^57 / 1.75 x 10^39 solar systems

= 1.27 x 10^18

= about 1.27 billion billion solar systems

If you consider the radius of the solar system to be 40 AU (about the mid point of the orbit of Pluto), then you would get a figure of about 2.5 billion solar systems.”

But: “if you round off the volume of possessions to exactly 10^57 m3, and you assume the radius of the solar system to be 30 AU (the orbit of Neptune), then you would also get a figure of around 2.5 billion billion solar systems (well, 2.64 billion billion), which might be where the calculation came from. That would be a better definition for the size of the solar system, because it has a neatly defined edge.”

3. EA Wrigley, 2010. Energy and the English Industrial Revolution. Cambridge University Press.

4. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/12/western-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse-has-already-begun-scientists-warn

5. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/23/ecuador-amazon-yasuni-national-park-oil-drill

6. http://www.entornointeligente.com/articulo/2559574/ECUADOR-Gobierno-concede-licencia-para-la-explotacion-de-dos-campos-del-ITT-23052014

7. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/16/ecuador-approves-yasuni-amazon-oil-drilling

8. http://www.wwf.org.uk/how_you_can_help/virunga/

9. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/23/fracking-report-billions-barrels-oil-government-cynicism

10. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fracking/10598473/Fracking-could-be-allowed-under-homes-without-owners-permission.html

11. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/23/fracking-report-billions-barrels-oil-government-cynicism

12. Philippe Sibaud, 2012. Opening Pandora’s Box: The New Wave of Land Grabbing by the Extractive Industries and the Devastating Impact on Earth. The Gaia Foundation. http://www.gaiafoundation.org/opening-pandoras-box

13. http://www.forestindustries.fi/industry/paper_cardboard_converted/paper_pulp/Global-paper-consumption-is-growing-1287.html

14. https://www.globalonenessproject.org/library/articles/space-race-over

15. Michael Rowan, 2014. We Need To Talk About Growth (And we need to do the sums as well.) http://persuademe.com.au/need-talk-growth-need-sums-well/

ooOOoo

Why is there no outcry!

Picture parade forty-five.

Just a few this week for you that have caught my eye.

From Suzann:

A black deer – unbelievably gorgeous!

All three pictures taken by RJ Verge near Beamsville, Ontario, Canada. Black deer are more rare than albinos.

Deer1

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For all animal lovers a rare and beautiful set of pictures.

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Now three ‘nanosecond’ pictures sent to me by John Hurlburt.

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More of these another Sunday.

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Finally, one from a great set that Dan Gomez sent me.

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More from Dan and John over the coming Sundays.

The genuine you!

Do you or I know you or I?

OK, I accept that the sub-heading is slightly provocative but so what!

The fascination in truly knowing who we are is endless!

Back in January of this year, I penned an essay under the title of 20:20 self-awareness. Here’s a snippet from that post:

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw is reputed to have once said!

Today’s essay on the challenges of speaking clearly to another, perhaps better described as communicating in a clear and unambiguous fashion, came out of a recent conversation with Jon Lavin, a good friend from my Devon days. (Jon offers services for business owners and entrepreneurs under his business banner of The People Workshop.)

Jon was explaining that the number one hurdle for businesses that are managing change, and for so many businesses managing change is practically a constant, is having clear communications within the team.

The essence of that, and other posts over the years, is that knowing others, communicating with others, is so much easier when we know ourself well.

Not just relevant to us humans, by the way. Dogs love knowing us sufficiently well that they can trust and understand our behaviours.

So all of that is an introduction to an article that was recently on the website of London-based Harley Therapy. The article is called How to Be Your Authentic Self. I have taken the liberty of republishing it in full here on Learning from Dogs. (See copyright statement at the end.)

ooOOoo

It’s a little after 6am.

I awoke this morning with the terrible realisation that I didn’t have permission to republish that article and, therefore, have ‘amended’ today’s post and removed the item..

Apologies to my readers.

Paul.

Not seeing the wood for the trees!

A postscript to the last two days.

This week is taking on a life of it’s own, so far as Learning from Dogs is concerned!

For when I penned Monday’s post, Running on Empty, I had not yet read George Monbiot’s essay Are We Bothered?. When I did so, it struck me as the perfect sequel to Monday’s post and formed the crux of yesterday’s post The nature of delusions. That second post also included a personal account of my delusion with regard to ocean sailing and seemed sufficiently wordy not to be extended by my further reflections.

Thus the decision to run over to a third day!

Let me offer, first of all, my own reflections to George Monbiot’s concerns. That I distill, using his words, to: “The more we consume, the less we care about the living planet.” Expanded in his concluding paragraph:

So the perennially low level of concern, which flickers upwards momentarily when disaster strikes, then slumps back into the customary stupor, is an almost inevitable result of a society that has become restructured around shopping, fashion, celebrity and an obsession with money. How we break the circle and wake people out of this dreamworld is the question that all those who love the living planet should address. There will be no easy answers.

When I first read Mr. Monbiot’s essay, I found myself nodding in agreement. Yet, upon further reflection, I became less sure that “a society that has become restructured around shopping, fashion, celebrity and an obsession with money.” was the core of the issue. I think it is a symptom.

Stay with me awhile I take a small deviation. To dogs, and other animals.

Many creatures have a powerful and instinctive means of assessing danger. One only needs to observe the wild black-tailed deer that frequent our property to know that the slightest hint of danger or the unknown has them dashing away to safety.

A young black-tailed deer seen at home last September.

Dogs are the same in that they will run early on from a danger.

Humans also have the propensity to be cautious about a clear and present danger. However, it’s my proposition that when the danger is unclear and when that danger threatens the very essence of who we are and the world that we have constructed around us, we can be blind to the point of madness. I can think of many examples in support of that thesis and I’m sure you can too.

Yes, we have “a society that has become restructured around shopping, fashion, celebrity and an obsession with money.” But I contend only because of the power of capitalism, of the power of modern marketing and advertising and the allure of being ‘one of the crowd’.

So back to my proposition. It is this.

That when our lives are threatened by something unclear, complex and, ultimately, of devastating impact, we are very reluctant to embrace it and even more reluctant to both embrace it and escape to safety; whatever the latter implies.

Mankind’s effect on the environment, the rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the increasing acidification of the oceans, the growing concerns about global weather, and on and on, are the most unclear, the most complex and the most devastating of futures to embrace.

(Thanks to Patrice for using this recently.) — (Thanks to Patrice for referring to this recently.)

So it really is no surprise to see mankind in general behaving as though this is a bit of a hangover, and an aspirin and a good night’s sleep will sort it! Especially when there is so much money and control invested in selling the same message; the message that there really is nothing to worry about.

There will be a so-called ‘tipping point’. A point in our awareness where the urgency to prevent the destruction of the biosphere will be paramount. And it will be a miracle if when that point arrives it isn’t far too late to save us.

I truly hope that I am wrong.

oooo

Remember what I wrote in yesterday’s post? About experiencing an Atlantic gale?

Fewer than 48-hours before my estimate of coming into Horta Marina on the Azores island of Faial, Songbird of Kent was struck by an early, fierce Winter gale. I seem to recall it was touching Force 10 Beaufort Scale (54 – 63 mph or 48 – 55 knots).

Anyway, it just about finished me off: literally as well as psychologically! I was so frightened, so utterly scared that I could think of nothing else other than getting to Horta and never going sailing again.

It revealed my delusion!

That was my ‘tipping point’ when it came to ocean sailing.

The gale subsided and I motor-sailed the 150-odd miles to Horta without any break for sleep or rest. Came into the harbour early in the morning after the second night since the gale. As soon as I was securely berthed, I closed the boat up and found a local hotel where a hot shower and a clean bed could restore a part of me.

Within a week, I had engaged a crew to sail the boat to Plymouth in South-West England and I flew back to England on a commercial airline.

Once Songbird of Kent arrived at Plymouth, she was put up for sale at a price that wouldn’t delay matters and that was that!

Oh, and I have never read any more books about single-handed ocean sailing. (But see my P.S.!)

oooo

P.S.

In yesterday’s post, I referred to Les Powells. Remember when I was in Larnaca, Cyprus? This is what I wrote:

Living on a boat close to me was Les Powles. Many will not have heard of Les but this quiet, softly-spoken man knows a thing or two about solo ocean sailing. As an article in The Guardian newspaper explained (in part):

In the 1980s and 90s a British man called Les Powles sailed three times round the world – always single-handedly, once non-stop. He couldn’t afford a radio transmitter, and on his greatest adventure he didn’t speak to anyone for 329 days. At 84, his circumnavigating days are now behind him, but he still lives on his boat, the Solitaire. What’s the appeal of sailing, I asked him. “It’s the solitude. When you’re out at sea on your own, there’s no government or bankers to worry about. You’re not responsible to anyone but yourself.”

Three times around the world – solo!

Thus getting to know Les was a great inspiration in getting me over the hurdle of can I really do this! (Les once said to me “the first three days are the worst!”)

Anyway, I have discovered that Les is living happily on his boat in Lymington, England and has written a book about his sailing life.

It has been ordered and arrives today. This one will be read – from the comfort and safety of our rural home in Oregon!

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.“

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Animal Emotions

Daisy: The Injured Dog Who Believed She’d Walk Again and Did

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Happy Birthday, my dear friend!

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