I follow Patrice Ayme and have done for many years. Some of his posts are super-intellectual and those I struggle to understand.
But a post published on September 8th, 2024 was very easy for me, and countless others no doubt, to understand and I have pleasure in republishing it on Learning from Dogs today.
I doubt that there are civilizations around. We are facing a galaxy devoid of intelligent aliens: little green mats out there, not little green men.
First, we don’t see them. With foreseeable technology (hibernation, nuclear propulsion, compact thermonuclear reactors, bioengineering, AI, quantum computers) we should be able to send very large interstellar spaceships at 1,000 kilometers per second… Thus it would take a millennium to colonize the Centaur tri-star system…. 25,000 years to colonize a 200 light years across ball… And the entire galaxy in ten million years… Wars would only accelerate the expansion. So if there was a galactic civilization, within ten million years it would have spanned the entire galaxy and its presence should be in sight.
Second, life took nearly four billion years to evolve animals. Bacterial life could have been nearly extinguished on Earth many times…. Be it only during the Snowball Earths episodes. A star whizzing by could have launched a thousand large comets. The large planets could have fallen inward.
Third, ultra intelligent life may not be able to have hands or tentacles and thus develop industry. Once intelligent life forms have evolved, say sea lions or parrots, let alone wolves, they may just be sitting ducks for the next disaster which would revert life to the bacterial level, erasing billions of years of evolution.
Fourth, when civilization is launched, it can fail… And not get a second chance (from lack of availability of mines after easy picking during the initial civilization).
So I don’t expect little green men… Besides those sent by the perverse Putin…
Just when we thought we knew of all the stress, here is another one: if we go extinct, the universe loses its soul! We have thus found a new Superior Moral Directive: SUS, Save Unique Soul!
Expect little green mats, not little green men.
Patrice Ayme
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A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk to our local Freethinkers group and called it The Next Ten Years. It began, thus:
This presentation is about the world of the future; of the near future. And the biggest issue, most agree, is the change in the climate.
The Global Temperature anomaly, as of last year, 2023, is 1.17 Centigrade, 2.11 Fahrenheit, above the long-term average from 1951 to 1980. The 10 most recent years are the warmest years on record.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is quoted as saying that ‘a goal without a plan is just a wish.’ So my plan is to show you how we can change, no let me put that more strongly, how we must change in the next ten years. Because our present habits are ruining the world.
Ellie Woods’ family dog Bobby has always been an important part of her love story with her wife Georgie Woods. When Ellie brought Georgie home for the first time, the family member she was most anxious for Georgie to meet was Bobby.
When the couple got engaged and started planning their wedding, they decided it would be fun to try to document the wedding from Bobby’s unique perspective. So right before the ceremony started, they attached a GoPro to Bobby’s back and then set him loose.
For some dogs, walking around with a camera on their back might take some getting used to — but not for Bobby. He immediately felt comfortable.
“He loves being the center of attention,” Georgie told The Dodo. “He just loved it.”
Georgie and Ellie said having Bobby at their wedding was incredibly meaningful for them.
@SASHALEEPHOTOGRAPHY
“Animals are really important to queer couples,” Ellie said. “[I]t was so important to have him … as part of our big day.
When the newlyweds sat down to watch the footage Bobby had captured, what they saw surprised and delighted them. The GoPro had caught Bobby stealing hors d’oeuvres and even walking in on Georgie’s sister in the bathroom. While Bobby is an expert videographer, he is still a dog, after all.
Of course, Bobby’s camera recorded much more than shenanigans. Georgie and Ellie loved watching themselves walk down the aisle together from Bobby’s perspective.
“It captured some really special moments,” Ellie said. “[W]e couldn’t be happier for how it came out because it’s just so organic and such an interesting, different perspective.”
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Dogs are just incredible. As much as I have already said that, time and time again there comes a story that just reinforces that previous sentence.
As I said to Jeannie the broadcast really spoke to me as each morning I am in awe of the black-tailed deer that I go down to feed near the old stables just outside the house.
Then I pause on my way back and look at Mount Sexton and the rising sun; again I am in awe.
Then at night, being a crystal-clear sky on many occasions, I am in awe at the heavens above.
The programme spoke of one being in awe of both the small and the large and I want to close with two of my photographs of me sensing awe in both scales.
When staff members and volunteers at Saving Hope Rescue noticed a box had been dumped on their property, their hearts sank. As they got closer, they saw the box had “puppies her” written on the side of it and had a feeling they knew who was inside.
Saving Hope Rescue
When they opened the box, the rescuers came face-to-face with a whole pile of all-white puppies. Even though their rescue was already at capacity, they knew they couldn’t turn their backs on the sweet little family. They put out a call for help to the community in order to get some support and began to get the pups settled in.
Saving Hope Rescue
As everyone at the rescue started getting to know the abandoned puppies, they realized that the pups had been hiding something: Apparently, they were all visually and hearing impaired to some degree.
“At first, they were all deemed blind and deaf,” Lauren Anton of Saving Hope Rescue told The Dodo. “Eventually, as time went by and they developed some more, we discovered that some puppies are more impaired than others.”
Saving Hope Rescue
It’s possible that this was the reason the puppies were abandoned in the first place, but it’s hard to know for sure. Either way, it didn’t change anything for the puppies’ rescuers. Even if they might need a little extra help, they were still members of the Saving Hope family.
As the puppies grew, their unique personalities began to shine through, and their rescuers were also able to start getting an accurate picture of their different abilities.
Saving Hope Rescue
“Mate is a good example of the slightly impaired puppies,” Anton said. “We don’t know how much she can see and hear, for sure, but we do know that she can hear being called, knows when we shake the food bag, and will approach people when called to come over … Koala, on the other hand, is much more impaired … We aren’t sure how much he can see. Maybe just shadows.”
Everyone is doing their best to get to know the puppies and their individual needs so they’ll know how to best help them as they grow. One thing is for sure though, the puppies are happy and thriving.
Saving Hope Rescue
“Over the last few weeks, they’ve gone from sleepy babies to rambunctious puppies,” Anton said. “They’re constantly playing and wrestling with each other. They’ve learned that human pets and snuggles feel nice, and they love to sleep in our arms.”
These puppies may have been abandoned, but now they’re getting the second chance they deserve.
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That is a beautiful story. Lauren and the staff are to be congratulated on doing what they did, and that was giving these puppies a new lease of life.
Extreme weather is by definition rare on our planet. Ferocious storms, searing heatwaves and biting cold snaps illustrate what the climate is capable of at its worst. However, since Earth’s climate is rapidly warming, predominantly due to fossil fuel burning, the range of possible weather conditions, including extremes, is changing.
Scientists define “climate” as the distribution of possible weather events observed over a length of time, such as the range of temperatures, rainfall totals or hours of sunshine. From this they construct statistical measures, such as the average (or normal) temperature. Weather varies on several timescales – from seconds to decades – so the longer the period over which the climate is analysed, the more accurately these analyses capture the infinite range of possible configurations of the atmosphere.
Typically, meteorologists and climate scientists use a 30-year period to represent the climate, which is updated every ten years. The most recent climate period is 1991-2020. The difference between each successive 30-year climate period serves as a very literal record of climate change.
This way of thinking about the climate falls short when the climate itself is rapidly changing. Global average temperatures have increased at around 0.2°C per decade over the past 30 years, meaning that the global climate of 1991 was around 0.6°C cooler than that in 2020 (when accounting for other year-to-year fluctuations), and even more so than the present day.
A moving target for climate modellers
If the climate is a range of possible weather events, then this rapid change has two implications. First, it means that part of the distribution of weather events comprising a 30-year climate period occurred in a very different background global climate: for example, northerly winds in the 1990s were much colder than those in the 2020s in north-west Europe, thanks to the Arctic warming nearly four times faster than the global average. Statistics from three decades ago no longer represent what is possible in the present day.
Second, the rapidly changing climate means we have not necessarily experienced the extremes that modern-day atmospheric and oceanic warmth can produce. In a stable climate, scientists would have multiple decades for the atmosphere to get into its various configurations and drive extreme events, such as heatwaves, floods or droughts. We could then use these observations to build up an understanding of what the climate is capable of. But in our rapidly changing climate, we effectively have only a few years – not enough to experience everything the climate has to offer.
Extreme weather events require what meteorologists might call a “perfect storm”. For example, extreme heat in the UK typically requires the northward movement of an air mass from Africa combined with clear skies, dry soils and a stable atmosphere to prevent thunderstorms forming which tend to dissipate heat.
Such “perfect” conditions are intrinsically unlikely, and many years can pass without them occurring – all while the climate continues to change in the background. Based on an understanding of observations alone, this can leave us woefully underprepared for what the climate can now do, should the right weather conditions all come together at once.
Startling recent examples include the extreme heatwave in the Pacific north-west of North America in 2021, in which temperatures exceeded the previous Canadian record maximum by 4.6°C. Another is the occurrence of 40°C in the UK in summer 2022, which exceeded the previous UK record maximum set only three years earlier by 1.6°C. This is part of the reason why the true impact of a fixed amount of global warming is only evident after several decades, but of course – since the climate is changing rapidly – we cannot use this method anymore.
Playing with fire
To better understand these extremes, scientists can use ensembles: many runs of the same weather or climate model that each slightly differ to show a range of plausible outcomes. Ensembles are routinely used in weather prediction, but can also be used to assess extreme events which could happen even if they do not actually happen at the time.
When 40°C first appeared in ensemble forecasts for the UK before the July 2022 heatwave, it revealed the kind of extreme weather that is possible in the current climate. Even if it had not come to fruition, its mere appearance in the models showed that the previously unthinkable was now possible. In the event, several naturally occurring atmospheric factors combined with background climate warming to generate the record-shattering heat on July 19 that year.
The highest observed temperature each year in the UK, from 1900 to 2023
Later in summer 2022, after the first occurrence of 40°C, some ensemble weather forecasts for the UK showed a situation in which 40°C could be reached on multiple consecutive days. This would have posed an unprecedented threat to public health and infrastructure in the UK. Unlike the previous month, this event did not come to pass, and was quickly forgotten – but it shouldn’t have been.
It is not certain whether these model simulations correctly represent the processes involved in producing extreme heat. Even so, we must heed the warning signs.
Despite a record-warm planet, summer 2024 in the UK has been relatively cool so far. The past two years have seen global temperatures far above anything previously observed, and so potential extremes have probably shifted even further from what we have so far experienced.
Just as was the case in August 2022, we’ve got away with it for now – but we might not be so lucky next time.
That last sentence says it all: “Just as was the case in August 2022, we’ve got away with it for now – but we might not be so lucky next time.”
I am giving a talk, The Next Ten Years, next Saturday to our local Freethinkers group in Grants Pass. Close to the start of the presentation I say: “The Global Temperature anomaly, as of last year, 2023, is 1.17 C, 2.11 F, above the long-term average from 1951 to 1980. The 10 most recent years are the warmest years on record.“
Finally, I am getting on in age and part of me wants to die, hopefully naturally, before more climate extremes are reached, but then another part of me would like to experience it!
The drawing depicts a turbaned cavalry soldier facing off against an English dragoon. It’s a bit trippy: The British soldier sits astride a carrot, and the turbaned soldier rides a grape. Both carrot and grape are fitted with horses’ heads and stick appendages.
‘The Battle of the Fruit and Vegetable Soldiers,’ a drawing on the back of a manuscript page from Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species,’ attributed to Darwin’s young son Francis. Cambridge University Library, CC BY-ND
It’s thought to be the work of Francis Darwin, the seventh child of British naturalist Charles Darwin and his wife, Emma, and appears to have been made in 1857, when Frank would have been 10 or 11. And it’s drawn on the back of a page of a draft of “On the Origin of Species,” Darwin’s masterwork and the foundational text of evolutionary biology. The few sheets of the draft that survive are pages Darwin gave to his children to use for drawing paper.
Darwin’s biographers have long recognized that play was important in his personal and familial life. The Georgian manor in which he and Emma raised their 10 children was furnished with a rope swing hung over the first-floor landing and a portable wooden slide that could be laid over the main stairway. The gardens and surrounding countryside served as an open-air laboratory and playground.
Play also has a role in Darwin’s theory of natural selection. As I explain in my new book, “Kingdom of Play: What Ball-bouncing Octopuses, Belly-flopping Monkeys, and Mud-sliding Elephants Reveal about Life Itself,” there are many similarities – so many that if you could distill the processes of natural selection into a single behavior, that behavior would be play.
Through natural selection, the rock pocket mouse has evolved a coat color that hides it from predators in the desert Southwest.
In contrast to foraging and hunting – behaviors with clearly defined goals – play is likewise undirected. When a pony frolics in a field, a dog wrestles with a stick or chimpanzees chase each other, they act with no goal in mind.
Natural selection is utterly provisional: The evolution of any organism responds to whatever conditions are present at a given place and time. Likewise, animals at play are acting provisionally. They constantly adjust their movements in response to changes in circumstances. Playing squirrels, faced with obstacles such as falling branches or other squirrels, nimbly alter their tactics and routes.
Natural selection is open-ended. The forms of life are not fixed, but continually evolving. Play, too, is open-ended. Animals begin a play session with no plan of when to end it. Two dogs play-fighting, for instance, cease playing only when one is injured, exhausted or simply loses interest.
Keepers noticed that Shanthi, a 36-year-old elephant at the Smithsonian national zoo, liked to make noise with objects, so they gave her horns, harmonicas and other noisemakers.
Play is likewise profligate. It requires an animal to expend time and energy that perhaps would be better devoted to behaviors such as foraging and hunting that could aid survival.
And that profligacy is also advantageous. Animals forage and hunt in specific ways that don’t typically change. But an animal at play is far more likely to innovate – and some of its innovations may in time be adapted into new ways to forage and hunt.
Competing and cooperating
As Darwin first framed it, the “struggle for existence” was by and large a competition. But in the 1860s, Russian naturalist Pyotr Kropotkin’s observations of birds and fallow deer led him to conclude that many species were “the most numerous and the most prosperous” because natural selection also selects for cooperation.
Scientists confirmed Kroptokin’s hypothesis in the 20th century, discovering all manner of cooperation, not only between members of the same species but between members of different species. For example, clown fish are immune to anemone stings; they nestle in anemone tentacles for protection and, in return, keep the anemones free of parasites, provide nutrients and drive away predators.
Play likewise utilizes both competition and cooperation. Two dogs play-fighting are certainly competing, yet to sustain their play, they must cooperate. They often reverse roles: A dog with the advantage of position might suddenly surrender that advantage and roll over on its back. If one bites harder than intended, it is likely to retreat and perform a play bow – saying, in effect, “My bad. I hope we can keep playing.”
River otters at the Oregon Zoo repeatedly separate and reunite while playing in a tub of ice.
Natural selection and play also may both employ deception. From butterflies colored to resemble toxic species to wild cats that squeal like distressed baby monkeys, many organisms use mimicry to deceive their prey, predators and rivals. Play – specifically, play-fighting – similarly offers animals opportunities to learn about and practice deception.
And since natural selection shares so many features with play, we may with some justification maintain that life, in a most fundamental sense, is playful.
Learning from Dogs 