Good reading

I’ve finished two books in the last ten days. The first was an audio version read by its author Rachel Maddow entitled Blowout. It’s a history of the fossil fuel industry.

She is not someone I watch regularly on TV - but what I have seen suggests that she comes with strong views, a focus on facts and a wry wit. These are all borne out in the recent book - which I first heard about at the end of 2019 at an environmental seminar.

Her view is hardly unbiased and starts from the premise that the point of the industry is to make money come hell or high water and basically do as it pleases. No government anywhere has ever come close to controlling it.

She alternates between its development in Russia and in the United States and focuses on the fact of industry greed without having any idea of the consequences of its actions. Part of its success relates to its size and reach across the entire planet.

A blowout happens when the pressure of an oil or gas well builds up beyond the limits of its control system and backs up in an explosion. In the process blowouts have affected water systems and have caused earthquakes though the development of horizontal drilling. Never mind killing pets and making countless people sick who reside close to wells.

The book ties together a number of fascinating stories ranging from incompetent Russian spies, to a multimillion dollar playboy from Equatorial Guinea who enjoys giving his girlfriends $80,000 for shopping trips in Malibu, while three quarters of the citizens of his country starve. We move through entrepreneurs in Oklahoma, Texans who want to secede. Always lurking behind the scenes is Vladimir Putin who will do whatever he can to stir the pot. From Standard Oil to the present, one of the inevitable results is all countries depending on industry support for the election of its officials - who then use government money to return the favour in the form of government subsidies to the most profitable industry on earth.

Changing this will be an enormous challenge everywhere. What will count, Maddow says, is paying attention and asking questions. Our futures will undoubtedly depend upon that.

Polarization around climate change

Photo Credit::University of Virginia Race and Democracy Lab

A recent conversation with one of my sons centered on the importance of curation in the age of too much information. I’m interested in how what I read frames and changes my own knowledge. I came upon this video recently which tackles this important divergence. While the video is quite long I urge you to watch the whole thing. If you can’t because of your own information overload, you could use the trailer which I have also posted below.

We sometimes forget that any point of view in the present has a history of formation in the past as well as implications for how it plays out in the future. The University of Virginia created a Religion, Race & Democracy Lab and explored how these elements interface. It tells us:

“The video addresses decades of what it calls “religious polarization, political propaganda, corporate deal-making, and environmental injustice based on systemic racism.”

You can find the full version here.

Or view the trailer here

Celebrating Women

Begun in 19111 and marked annually on March 8th, International Women's Day (IWD) is one of the most important days of the year to:

• celebrate women's achievements

• raise awareness about women's equality

• lobby for accelerated gender parity

• fundraise for female-focused charities

The theme this year is Choose to Challenge. It directs people to do so by looking a statements on social media, through images that show bias and stereotypes, and to foster discussions, The Canadian Women’s Foundation has been particularly active in sponsoring gender justice.

And as the pandemic’s effects continue and there is a call to return to “normal” it may also well to to rethink the less attractive aspects of normal. You can see some of them.

Musings

In spite of ignoring social media lately, I liked this image that a son recently published on his personal news feed. There were some flat earth indications on other things I have read recently.

The admirable EcoChallenge is sending me Thirty Days of Readings on Systems thinking with daily articles and videos. I intend to learn more from these and undertake a a study of a recent organizational situation that has gone badly to see whether there are lessons to be learned using this approach. But there are also connections with the flat earth thinking and other recent readings that I can make immediately.

Fareed Zacharia writing his weekly column in the Washington Post and also presents it as an introduction to his weekly show on CNN. His interviews are excellent and the introduction is worth a watch for its own sake. He asks:

“The current Republican congressional delegation includes people who insist the 2020 election was stolen, have ties to violent extremist groups, traffic in antisemitism and have propagated QAnon ideologies in the past. At the state level, it often gets worse. Mainstream Republicans have tolerated these voices and views for years. Can the party finally find a way to control them?” He goes on to say that in any political party or institution what has to be controlled is the outer fringes of the organization.

On Saturday, I read that there was a protest in Edmonton against Covid-19 health measures. It involved hundreds of people starting from Lethbridge. Global News noted:

“The protest was organized by the “Walk for Freedom Alberta” group. That group claims to stand up for rights and freedoms and “peacefully promote breaches to our civil liberties across Alberta.”

The Mayor of Edmonton protested the protesters by noting that the pandemic is not a hoax and that some behind the protest may be connected with known hate groups. Canadians can spare any self righteousness when we view our neighbours to the south.

The theme of supposed unfairness continued this morning (Feb. 22) with and article in the Globe and Mail reporting on a defiance coming from a western church congregation. While many churches with limited reopening in Ontario have noted that there was not a single case of infection, the article begins with a story about a small church in Saskatchewan. On Christmas Eve 15 people gathered for an early service with all the proper precautions in place - and no masks, no singing. But afterwards one sick person discovered that more than 12 had contracted the virus. In Edmonton, a pastor remains in jail for opening his church in contravention to restrictions. His attorney is trying to make the case that that freedom of religion is more important than public health.

Public health has also led to similar conflicts in British Columbia. The Provincial Health Officer, Bonne Henry, argues that services of worship unfortunately have elements most likely to cause the spread of the virus. These are gatherings of people from different households - over an extended period of time, held indoors in buildings often with poor ventilation and activity can include singing. The congregation is also likely to contain elderly persons with pre-existing conditions. It’s a recipe for high risk - and that’s why I avoided any such opportunities in Ontario when live services still existed. I administered a registration system for one and was startled to see who wanted to attend - primarily the highest risk group. Perhaps they just didn’t care whether death came sooner or later.

Yes - sometimes rights are infringed upon. But it’s difficult to see a small number of people championing their own rights above those of a broader community. Generally Canadians see things differently than their American cousins and I find it depressing to see individualism topping (I refuse to Trumping or former-guying) society as a whole. I can understand making comparisons with bars or restaurants in Alberta - but why not advocate for their sharing concern for the common good by closing until it is safer.

When it comes to common good, there was better inspiration in the Globe’s business section with an article on leadership where Mi’kmaw educator Marie Battiste was interviewed. She is a retired professor from the University of Saskatchewan, an honorary member of the Order of Canada with four honorary doctorates and many other citations.

Her current research asks us to think historically and aims to assess the teaching of our history sad history of the treatment of first nations peoples and how to improve the teaching of indigenous knowledge. Here are some of her insights:

• Understand your own skills and talents and how you can use them to best understand and serve your purpose.

• Indigenous ways of life embrace a more holistic worldview, anchored in the understanding that we are all interconnected.

• When we understand how we are related, we better understand our obligations and responsibilities to one another, to the earth and to the seven generations to come.

My father wrote a family history which told us of more than seven generations past - and part of that story is one of our white privilege in spite of many hardships along the way. I commend this wise indigenous leader’s reminder of our role in learning the truth in assessing our science and our society. A long view shows us the importance of the systems of which we are a part and the ones we determine.

May I Have Your Attention

These words sometimes come across the public address system in my apartment – usually in response to a fire inspection to warn us that the alarms are not signaling a real fire. But I noticed a connection in a recent article by Charles Warzel, who interviewed Michael Goldhaber and called him a Cassandra for our current age.

Goldhaber was a physicist but also something of a prophet. In the eighties he predicted that society would become totally a world of online technology – with its political rudeness, social media over-sharing, information hijacking, reality TV, influencers and bloggers. Distraction affects our action – or the lack of it.

Goldhaber later termed this “the attention economy”. Everyone from presidents to parents want to have global influence. It used to be that modesty and humility were the pre-eminent virtues but not any more. Everyone is busy seeking attention – or getting it. Attention has become the currency of advertising, journalism and social media where the numbers of likes or subscribers are the only thing that counts.

There is a certain amount of pushback lately with requests for content moderation and censorship. But there is also an appeal to first amendment rights - where what a president Tweets is just a personal expression of his point of view – or even after pushback explained away as sarcasm.

What really matters is that attention is power gained through tweets and rallies carried by cable news. Complaining about it or opposing it as some channels do doesn’t take away the attention. It enhances it.

What Goldhaber wonders about – and we should too – is the effect of this attnetion on democracy. What used to be nuanced discussion now come in the form of slogans. They are easy to say and obvious and become rallying cries. Difference of opinion now gives way to tribalism where every opponent becomes the enemy to be both feared and hated. It’s easy to voice and publish what used to be unmentionable and become a spokesman. These often are views that others have been afraid to say, but are willing to give power to anyone who can say it. That’s precisely the power of the former president.

What is to be done? We need to start to pay attention to personal our habits and hobbies. They simply relate to how we spend our time, a limited and precious commodity. A pandemic could be an unanticipated moment of grace to do that. We also need to see how we relate to the social issues of our era. We also need to re-evaluate our relationship with those closest to us and how to connect during a lockdown. Loneliness and discouragement are common emotions for all of us along with hope for better times. It is not insignificant that a reporter who followed the life of conspiracy enthusiasts found that much of their conversation is social – wishing one another happy birthday in the midst of spreading hateful or ridiculous information. What was desired and met was companionship.

I’ve been a fan of Howard Rheingold since I first encountered him in the eighties. I even wrote him once and was pleased when he took the time to write back. He says:

“Attention is a limited commodity – so pay attention where you pay attention”.