My writings - and those of others.
Better but faster
I enjoy Fareed Zacharia both in his writing and online hosting - and frequently listen to “Here’s My Take” in his Global Public Square broadcast. Here are some of the highlights of that today re COP26. There is some good news amid all the doom and gloom that too many journalistic reports convey.
100 nations have agreed to reduce methane fuels.by 30% by the year 2030. These emissions have been avoided up to now and they are major polluters.
By that same year, the same 100 will end deforestation and will provide funds to back that up
130 trillion will back up investments to reach net zero emissions of 1.5C by 2050.
The costs of solar and wind power are going down - 89% for solar and 70% for wind. Lithium- iron battery prices are down by 97%.
But we have to do more and speed up our emission reductions. Every aspect of the way we live is affected - the cars we drive, the food we eat, One cow emits 250 pounds of methane a year. We can’t be too scared to act - but we better not be in denial either. Zacharia quotes author John Doerr who makes these points for us as individuals to urge our individual governments to work on:
Decarbonize the electric grid.
Protect nature.
Work with other governments across the world to come up with policies that work - a good example is working together to produce and initiate the use of solar panels.
Follow good examples - like the State of California and Hawaii. Both set goals that were transparent and were open about results.
Most of us want a better world. We need to pay attention and participate as citizens who care and work with our politicians to take action.
Worthwhile places
There is no excuse ever to be bored with the wealth of good opportunities online. Chances are that if we feel that way, we are wasting our time on all the trivia that is there as well. Two things crossed my inbox today that made it worthwhile. One was the mid=week posting of the amazing Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings, a weekly newsletter full of excerpts and wonderful children’s illustrations on many important themes - frequently climate related. Today’s relates to a book called The Songs of Trees, which already resides on my Ipad. As she says:
“It is in such lyrical prose and with an almost spiritual reverence for trees that Haskell illuminates his subject — the masterful, magical way in which nature weaves the warp thread of individual organisms and the weft thread of relationships into the fabric of life”
The book is a journey through time and space, where the writer focuses on trees in various locations and references how they influence their surroundings. I haven’t quite finished it, but it is definitely a keeper and you can find it here - or as Brain Pickings usually does, go to the public library.
The other was an excellent podcast featuring the climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe. I like that when she is asked, as a resident of Texas, whether she is a Democrat or a Republican, she replies, “I am a Canadian.” The video, featured on Climate One was useful in reminding us how to communicate. Hayhoe doesn’t waste time with serious climate deniers, but she has lots of time for the skeptical. She also says that we respond to change based on our values and these come not only from the mind, but also from the heart. I also like her translation of “Dominion” in the book of Genesis - as “responsibility”.
And she is proud of her work on Science Moms, which focuses on facts and other excellent resources for mothers and grandmothers.
The podcasts are recorded live and subsequently posted and you can see some good ones here. Katherine Hayhoe also has a new book coming our that I’ll add to my Ipad Collection, You can find it here.
8 Key Issues
These are the eight key issues for indigenous peoples in Canada according o Bob Joseph’s Indigenous Relations blog. He notes that they are all connected and the challenges seem to hamstring all those in governments at all levels who try to deal with them
Poorer health than that of other Canadians; causes relate to income levels and social factors. People have higher degrees of respiratory problems and infectious diseases. Heart Disease and diabetes are on the rise.
Lower levels of education. These are affected most by colonialism’s sorry legacy of the residential schools and the experience of attempted assimilation. About 36% of indigenous people have not completed high school compared to 18% of the rest of the Canadian population
Inadequate and crowded housing. Close to half those living on reserves live in dwellings that need major repairs.
An income gap. Indigenous people earn about 25% less than other Canadians
Unemployment rates remain high
Incarceration. Nearly half those incarcerated are indigenous, and women are incarcerated more than men.
Higher death rates among children and youth due to unintentional injuries such as drowning. These are three or four times higher than those of other Canadians of the same age.
Higher rates of suicide among youth. “Suicide and self-inflicted injuries are the leading causes of death for First Nations youth and adults up to 44 years of age.” (A Statistical Profile on the Health of First Nations in Canada for the Year 2000, Health Canada, 2003).
What to do? Pressure governments on areas that you know and care about from your own level of expertise or experience. Donate to those organizations working to deal with the issues. Learn historic first nations values that may save us from our own flawed ones.
What Freedom Means
We don’t have a line in our national anthem such as “the land of the free and the home of the brave” as our neighbors to the south have. But it is certainly causing more problems in America than in Canada over the right to be free from vaccinations. After a slow start, Canadians are now ahead with nearly 60% fully vaccinated and 71% with one dose according to Covid-19 Tracker Canada. 26,601 have died since the beginning of the pandemic as opposed to 613,000 in the US. Ours is roughly a tenth of the US population.
Yes, we have unvaccinated people - some who oppose for supposedly religious reasons, some with difficulty of access. But generally people have been supportive and appreciative of the opportunity to contribute to their own health and that of others. When restrictions are lifted quickly, some are quick to object to the speed of it.
Contrast that with Florida where 10,000 are currently in the hospital. Its governor insists that “the left are coming for your freedom” if anyone thinks that regulations should be tighter. Freedom is about personal choice.
Sometimes of course we are highly selective about personal choice. The Canadian government more than a hundred years ago thought that it could convert its first nations population to its own cultural values and exerted its privilege. It’s taken us a long time to realize that was wrong. We can argue about the size of government, but in some circumstances we recognize a responsibility to introduce policies that protect the majority of people. As Paul Krugman observes in a column in the New York Times this morning:
“Well, driving drunk is also a personal choice. But almost everyone understands that it’s a personal choice that endangers others; 97 percent of the public considers driving while impaired by alcohol a serious problem. Why don’t we have the same kind of unanimity on refusing to get vaccinated, a choice that helps perpetuate the pandemic and puts others at risk?”
It appears that carrots - like $100 for laggards - are not working - and the previous compliant ones don’t see why their tax dollars should support such practice. What does seem to have an effect are sticks like consequences. You can be as unvaccinated as you want, but expect that to affect your ability to come to work, to enter a theatre, bar or arena, or avoid being tested a couple of times a week with an unpleasant procedure. It’s not only freedom lovers who get to make the rules.
Krugman goes on to say that “freedom” often just means “privilege” for people who are also white, male and sometimes Christian. Freedom can never be divorced from responsibility or consequence.
Changing Places
One of the people we need to learn from is recently retired Senator Murray Sinclair. He appeared a few months ago to speak to the law students at UWO but the address that I found stunning was this one he gave as recipient of the Tom Symons Medal lecture series at Confederation Centre in Prince Edward Island.
Unless you like lengthy introductions, you will want to skip forward to the lecture itself entitled, Confederation - We could have done better. Indeed he is right. We could have - and we must - all of us.
Sinclair knows the power of story and tells his own brilliantly. He notes that in legal training, one of the lessons is to lose your imagination and focus solely on facts. He then moves to facts with the audience. He invites them to take out their cell phones and find their favourite picture of a child. He stops the lecture and suggests that the audience share a story about that child with the person seated next to them - and the audience does so with great enthusiasm. He calls them back.
He then says “Delete that picture - after all it’s only a picture”. The room falls silent. He encourages them to do so even more - “Go ahead -You still have the real child after all”. He then asks to have a picture of his own samll granddaughter mounted on a large screen behind him. “I can’t either” - he admits. But Canada did that to our children.”
The point hits home. In this lecture and in so many others he outlines the damage of cultural genocide. In his book, coauthored with the other tribunal leaders, What We have Learned: Principles of the Truth and Reconciliation. he elaborates on the definition:
“Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group and biological genocide is the destruction of a group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized. and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement in restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated or destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmissions of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.
In dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things”. The stories relating to the schools follow and they tell the stories of the actions of all the schools. There is no excuse. All the religious traditions are implicated in the words of the survivors.
Later in the lecture he made reference to his personal story - which relates well to the announcement yesterday that Cowessess First Nation within the province of Saskatchewan becomes the first to control its child welfare system under Bill C-92; it empowers indigenous communities to reclaim jurisdiction. 83% of children in the province were from first nations as of last fall. The Eagle Woman tribunal there will help settle disputes,
Senator Sinclair’s father was a residential school survivor who suffered trauma from the experience which was increased when his wife died leaving him with four young children. He transferred the responsibility for them - including one year old Murray - to his parents in their sixties. “My grandmother connected every one of us with an auntie, with whom I went everywhere and learned from her. On the basis of long term results my grandmother proved to be an excellent child-welfare administrator.”
He also talked about his own lack of fellunderstanding of indigenous spirituality and the role it must play in his life, until he was counselled by an elder. That part of the video above is also moving and revealing. He told us of the importance of a name - and how his in his own language has prophetically given him direction as to how to live his life. His granddaughter has her own name story and we understand how fearless and true to that spirituality that is forming her. When asked to describe her grandfather’s occupation by a nine year old classmate when he visited her school - Senator Murray was not sure she actually knew - but she still had an answer - “He Sentaizes”
Thank the universe for Senator Sinclair - and even in retirement we hope he continues to Sentatize.