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.
Profiles in Courage
Like all Canadians, I rejoiced in the return of the two Michaels amid all the news of depressing news of the hospitalizations and deaths of so many Canadians who don’t understand the value of vaccinations. I grew up in the middle of a polio epidemic which left some classmates unable to ever walk again. But for once there was real news.
No sooner than a couple of hours after watching Meng Wanzhou, the financial officer of Huawei depart, we heard the newly elected Prime Minister make an announcement of their imminent return to Canada after 1019 days of captivity.
I really didn’t know either of these men - but seeing the length of their incarceration every day in the front page of my newspaper kept them in focus. One of them was a year behind my youngest son in his high school. The latter noted that Michael Kovrig was serious even then. The stories of his walking 7000 steps every day in a small cell and keeping busy with reading anything possible, in spite of almost no visits or contacts with the outside world was inspiring. Many of us complained about a restricted life during the pandemic. The story of his wife, previously separated, but now doing everything possible to secure his release, was an added inspiration - and a pleasure to share her obvious joy.
Freedom to reject vaccinations - claimed as a violation of human rights - doesn’t seem the highest form of courage. Having faith that imprisonment as retaliation will ultimately end is a more inspiring example.
Breaking silence
Billl McKibben recently gave up his climate report for the New Yorker, but as he did so he reminded us that those of the silent generation have a voice - as a large proportion of the population, as well as controlling a lot of financial assets and being known for voting. We may become more small “c” conservative as we age but that does not mean that we are unaware of the effect of climate change on our children and grandchildren.
He’s about to form a new organization to add to existing ones such as such as Elders Climate Action and Great Old Broads for Wilderness. He says he doesn’t particularly look forward to the task at hand - after all he was the founder of 350.org - but he knows that the best way to counter the organized money of the big corporations is with organized people.
So if you want to help - you can go here and sign up. I did. And there are Canadian options too.
Bad Thinking
I spent an hour on Labour Day attending a webinar presented by The Philosopher, entitled When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People. It was good enough to download Steven Nadler’s Book by the same name. It was a bit less easy to access a philosopher in Plato or Aristotle’s Day but this one came in an instant and was a quick read.
The writer is concerned about current American Thinking - or perhaps the lack of it, which he finds not only perplexing but even dangerous with epidemic proportions. Beliefs like denial of climate change as a hoax, conspiracy theories and a election fraud can’t be blamed just on lack of education - though poor education is a factor. A recent survey revealed that a third did not know that Auschwitz was a concentration camp and about the same number can’t name a single branch of the US government. Yet many who promote these ideas are highly educated from some of America’s best universities. By many criteria, they are good people. But the author believes they have a character flaw - stubbornness. They fail to tailor what they believe to evidence. They hold false beliefs and doing so has consequences/
What can be done about it? If they think badly, the solution is to learn to think well. There are in fact standards of how to think that have come down to us through - no surprise here - philosophy! It relates to knowing how to know. That comes from knowing one’s self - and knowing what one knows and doesn’t know - evaluating the truth of one’s beliefs.
Bad thinking involves refusal to change one’s beliefs in the face of evidence and instead relying on prejudice, hearsay and emotions like hope and fear. Many are averse to science and its methodologies. Some wrong beliefs - like a flat earth - might seem logical when you look at the horizon and holding such a belief is unlikely to cause harm to others. Other wrong beliefs - like thinking the election was stolen - lead to insurrection.
The lecture took me back to first year philosophy and a reminder that logic patterns have rules. It contended that more often than not, the faults in wrong thinking relate to illogical premises and these need to be questioned. The other common one in bad thinking is paying attention to small samples of evidence. Unfortunately even the best media often publish reports of studies with small samples, which bring on hope and fear rather than reasoned response. Retraction of bad studies don’t get the same press. In our own time press coverage of conspiracies enhance their reach.
We may not have time to go back to philosophy class - but the book does present some ways to counter bad thinking. Some beliefs may give us comfort whether we have any proof of them or not and this doesn’t present a danger to others. It’s when beliefs lead to behaviour that harms others where we have to pay attention. And there are plenty of those beliefs currently around us.
Jobs - pay attention to the numbers
In the middle of an election we will undoubtedly hear from the candidates about job creation - and in some cases, caution that cutting out fossil fuels will cause irreparable harm to the economy and create major job loss. Thus it is good to see the results of a new report from Clean Energy Canada which gives some current facts and projections in its modeling report, The New Reality.
Most of us would be hard pressed to guess how many are currently employed in the clean energy sector. There are already 430,500 people employed there right now. That is more than the number of people in the real estate sector for comparison. By the year 2030, the estimate is that there will be an increase to 639,200 under the proposed federal government new climate plan. The fossil fuel sector will drop by 9%. Thus new clean energy jobs will add 208,700 as opposed to 125,800 lost to fossil fuels.
Here is something else that the report says:
“The energy transition, like climate change itself, does not respect borders, and Canada has the ingredients needed to prosper in a future in which oil is no longer its largest export. As the International Energy Agency recently concluded, if the world is to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, no new oil and natural gas exploration and development will be needed going forward.”
We have a major part to play. Politician are far more interested in getting elected than in saving the planet. If you look at the above numbers it is important to see how many are still working in the sector that needs to disappear. It’s not really about jobs - it’s about our future on the planet. We need to pay attention to what the politicians say and vote accordingly.