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”.

Governance - Sage Advice

We discussed some of the basics of morality in the west in a discussion groujp yesterday. From our European perspective the scriptural documents appeared to be the guidelines for morality even when they were made more general with terms like care and compassion. But it reminded me of something that I read in Brain Pickings, where the writer sends us back to Confucius, living in the east between 551-479 BCE.

“The ancient Chinese philosopher and statesman Confucius recognized the indelible link between personal and political morality, recognized that interpersonal kindness is the foundation of social justice, recognized that democracy — a form of government only just invented on the other side of the globe in ancient Greece, not to take root in his own culture for epochs — begins in the heart.”, she says.

Confucius made a connection “between personal good and public good rooted in purity of heart and discipline of mind” – a relevant directive for current politicians.

How does one get there? It means an orderly and disciplined home environment, which means moving back to individual responsibility, developing priorities around what is important – and seeing these as organic categories, looking at these with the mind and moving back for final evaluation by the heart. With these in place, one can work back to through the steps in ascending order leading to good governance at local and regional levels - and ultimately to national and international ones that have developed long after Confucius.

What if these were the steps politicians took – as opposed to trying to stay in office as their only imperative?

Self Portrait

What will life look like when later in this century researchers look back on 2021? 

 I was interested in contrasting my current life as a single elderly woman living alone in the past few days with that of one of my oldest friends.  I was able to renew contact via email with her daughter and hoped that we could connect via technology during the current lockdown.  This is not easy, she said, because her mother’s hearing is challenged, even with hearing aids, and her sight because of macular degeneration. Personal visits are best and her children are frequent visitors – but since she lives in another city, that is not an option for me right now.

 There are similarities, but key differences for which I have every reason to be grateful. I also wear hearing aids but they allow me to hear well.  My optometrist can see tiny beginnings of macular degeneration, but taking a supplemental vitamin is currently preventing an increase showing in the sophisticated optimal scan.  I am also reasonably mobile so long as I do gentle exercise regularly.  My friend is confined to a wheelchair.

 But I can also see how changes in technology make my current life not only tolerable but extremely rich during lockdown.

 Books – As a child I could walk to the local public library and sometimes read a picture book on its steps and then returned it right away. I still enjoy hard cover books and am currently reading Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste, a provocative and deeply troubling portrayal of a humanly constructed system of superiority with profound implications.

 Much – even most of my reading, of course is now online – via a laptop, a tablet and a phone. I first turned on a desktop in 1984 to use office software, but computing is now just part of living.  Reading books happens through Kindle or Libby, the public library app, and that can include both print and audio books.   My morning starts with online newspapers, New York Times, Washington Post , the Ontario edition of Canada’s Globe and Mail – and sometimes the aggregated Apple News.  I still have a paper subscription to the New Yorker but I can read a library version of The Economist.  These give me some balance between progressive and conservative views about current issues.

 Then there are online newsletters.  I first picked up the initial edition of the magazine Fast Company in an airport when I was still working, and I liked its approach to innovation.  I still do.  There are eclectic ones like Brain Pickings, Maria Popova’s weekly aggregations of famous writings and wonderful illustrations from children’s books that she finds in public libraries - and Aeon, an Australian newsletter with wide reaching topics. I also scan most many of the environmental newsletters referenced under the resource section of this site.

 As a former resident, I’m somewhat of an American news junkie and dive in an out of CNN and PBS – as well as the Canadian channels, CBC and CTV.  These can all be accessed both live and after the fact through recordings.  I might turn later to Prime or Brit Box for a series of two.

 There is still the telephone.  I pick up less and less to avoid the robocalls – but I can see whether it’s a son calling from Hong Kong or another one who wants to borrow my car which is an easier one for his teen age son to practice driving between online lessons - or a friend wishing me a happy birthday. Less welcome is a call from a colleague who has clearly traveled down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. All I can do is remind him of the caring person I have known in the past – but I doubt if I have changed his view.

And I realize that in the week that the only live face to face conversations I have had is a brief one with the son and grandson picking up the car keys – and the concierge when I picked up a food box.  A couple of Zoom meetings lasted much longer and provided views of welcome faces.  And I’m back taking art lessons on Zoom where the gifted instructor can receive our works in progress and make suggestions for improvement, The six learners share their work and we admire one another’s creations and learn.  My twice monthly piano lesson on Zoom also provide good instruction and learning.

This is a pretty rich environment where I am lucky to be alive and experience.  One of the things that has struck me in writing this.  While I have social media accounts, I feel almost no need to access them at this point. What that means is that I’m not part of the world totally immersed in lack of truth.  And the challenge for others and for me is – how to I change that from where I sit now?

The Climate Change Challenge

President Biden’s returning to the Paris Climate Accord, halting the Keystone Pipeline project and putting new restrictions on oil and gas production is good news; but it is only the beginning of a long challenge for the leader who has vowed to become the climate president. As he vows to cut fossil fuel emissions, the oil and gas industry is immediately mobilizing to challenge any changes. Executive orders are immediately viewed as job killers in an already over stressed economy. Biden counters that new production in areas like electric cars will create and replace jobs. Last year was the hottest ever recorded. Environmentalists say that the challenges have never been greater. The US has to be a partner in climate change with the world.

It’s easy to be focused on one’s own country, so I was interested in a modeling in the New York Times this morning that allowed me to look at the primary risks for Canada. It is well worth looking at the model which presents the insights modeled by the company Four Twenty Seven with comments placed on top of maps of the areas.

The chart posits that our major climate hazard in Canada will be flooding - followed by wildfires, water stress, cyclones and sea level rise. These could affect 60% of the population. Our gross domestic product and agriculture could also be affected by at least one of the hazards.

We won’t be alone - 90% of world populations will be threatened. Some of the figures are staggering and defy imagination. In the first 18 years of this century, 165 billion people were challenged with flooding. It will be even greater by 2040.

Climate change has unequal effects. The poor suffer most and economic inequality increases. Other factors, like population density add to the discrepancy and food shortages and infrastructure decline, lead to mass migrations. Rich countries like ours are not immune from the challenges The Covid - 19 pandemic has brought home the lesson that we are all connected and the lesson is immediate. The climate pandemic is much more serious but easier to deny.

Here are some of the perceptions of Americans about climate change identified by PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy. I will try to find comparable information re Canadian perspectives later.

• Americans rank climate change last on a list of important issues. Only five percent of Americans say climate change is the most important issue facing the U.S. today. 

• When asked which environmental problem is most important for the current administration to tackle, nearly 3-in-10 (29%) Americans point to air, water, and soil pollution. One-quarter (25%) of Americans say climate change is the most pressing environment problem, while a similar number (23%) identify water shortages and drought. Fewer Americans cite the shrinking of wilderness areas and animal habitats (11%) or endangered species (4%) as the most critical environmental issue.

• Americans are significantly more likely to believe that people living in poorer developing countries will be harmed by climate change than they are to say that they personally, or U.S. residents as a whole, will be negatively affected by climate change.

• Less than one-quarter (24%) of Americans believe that they will be personally harmed a great deal by climate change, while 30% say climate change will affect them a moderate amount. More than 4-in-10 Americans say climate change will have only a little (23%) or no impact (22%) on them personally.

• The Climate Change Concern Index—a composite measure that combines perceptions about whether climate change is a crisis and whether it will have adverse personal effects—finds that nearly 3-in-10 (29%) Americans are very concerned about climate change, 21% are somewhat concerned, 29% are somewhat unconcerned, and 21% are very unconcerned.

  • Close to half (46%) of Americans say that the earth is getting warmer and that these changes are primarily the result of human activity. We characterize this group as climate change “Believers.”

  • One-quarter (25%) of Americans believe the global temperature is rising, but say the change is due to natural fluctuations in the earth’s environment or are uncertain about its cause. We describe this group as climate change “Sympathizers.”

  • Finally, more than one-quarter (26%) of Americans say there is no solid evidence that the earth’s temperature has been rising over the past few decades. We call this group climate change “Skeptics.” Skeptics were asked to share, in their words, why they believe the earth’s temperature is not increasing. Answers varied considerably, but the most frequently cited reason (33% of all open-ended answers) was that they have not noticed a change in the weather around them.)

• Climate change Believers are substantially more likely to than Sympathizers or Skeptics to score high on the Climate Change Concern Index.

Clearly what we believe counts - the challenge is to determine what it is base on

Plastics - Everywhere

Bill McKibben has noted this week in the New Yorker that we have to stop burning things - and notes that trading wood for oil based material may create as many problems as it was thought to solve. That may be a topic for another time. He goes on to discuss the prevalence of plastics in our lives.

Who knew the extent? He interviews Judith Enck, who tells him:

“Microplastics can be found in everything from drinking water to soil to beer to table salt to a cup of tea. In fact, we’re all ingesting roughly a credit card’s worth of plastic each week. Stunningly, scientists recently found plastics in human placentas.”

Enck, who formerly worked in the Obama administration, is a visiting professor at Bennington College and the president of Beyond Plastics, It starts by framing the plastics trifecta - focusing on the three most prominent single use products that can be replaced - and suggest that citizens in the US approach all levels of government to ask for their banning. Canadians can take note. See if you can guess the three most villainous pollution products. They have even created a sample bill to send to legislators, making the case that single use banning is less effective than looking a bans for one product individually.

This is a really good site. Go to it and take advantage of all the resources it offers. There are a number of concrete actions that citizens can take - from writing tea companies to asking food delivery companies to hold the plastic in their packaging. Individual actions are good - but they have to be supported by going to the source of the polluters and telling them what we think.