My writings - and those of others.
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.
Vaccination adventures
Sometimes things work well. In the constant noise about pandemic procedures and cures, here is one story of a solution that went the way it was supposed to - at least for a start.
In Canada, health care is regarded as a right - and public health is a priority. The first group to be vaccinated were seniors in care homes and their caregivers. That group has largely been accommodated. The next group specified in my province, Ontario, are those 80 and over. I’m computer savvy - and until this week totally mobile - after a minor fall that created a tiny fracture - painful to walk a couple of blocks for an Xray to learn this - but it could be much worse.
The rollout for us 80 plus group hasn’t been the smoothest. My GP has really worked hard to keep us up to date and recently provided two possible avenues to get there. One was a pre-booking tip for two local hospitals. I signed on with the closest one and got straight in with providing basic information including a provincial health card. A friend tipped me off that she and her husband already had an appointment at a nearer one - and that same contact came a day later from the GP’s office. They were already accepting bookings - but every day was filled. An insider tip from the friend let me know that new dates became available on Thursdays at 7:00 pm, and I was primed to go online. Naturally the system was overloaded and wouldn’t let me in, so I waited an hour and tried again. This time there was a message - “You are now in line, your screen will update automatically so stay on”. I did and sure enough within minutes I was at the registration site and went for the furthest available date to save time. There were several choices and I signed on for a convenient one. The next morning I received a confirmation and instructions to proceed.
The pre-booking also offered a place the next day to register. It gave me 96 hours to respond. What it didn’t allow was a chance to refuse the appointment, since I now had one elsewhere. I hope that doesn’t mean I deprived someone else to register. It would have been easy to have a link to say, “I don’t need this appointment.”
The day dawned and a caring daughter-in-law drove me to the hospital. I entered the large main floor unit and was greeted by someone who noticed me sporting a cane and immediately took me to a seat in the closest section. My appointment was for 9:30. I handed over the letter with my information and they orally confirmed that I had consented. They found me in the system by last name immediately. I received the shot - totally painless so the needle must be really fine tipped. - at exactly 9:29. I was asked to wait for 15 minutes and texted the daughter-in-law that she could come back soon. After chatting with the staff attendants and thanking them, I was back in the car at 9:46. A copy of proof of vaccination identical to the one I had been handed at the hospital was sent and in my email when I arrived home
The only bad news was a sixteen week wait for the second shot. We are now following the British pattern of getting as many first doses into arms as possible to lessen the serious infection rate. I commend that strategy. I awakened this morning glad that things worked out well - and grateful that I started using a computer in 1984 and explored the mysteries of internet and the like soon after. When technology tools are understood and implemented well, live becomes easy. Would that that were always the case.
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
Another woman to celebrate
A top environmental and climate lawyer, Dianne Saxe brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the community. with more than forty years of experience in environmental law. From 2015-2019 she was the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario until a change of government thought that the stand-alone position was unnecessary and transferred its responsibility to the office of the Auditor General. Legal organizations have presented her with many awards and regard her as one of the world’s 25 best environmental law experts.
At a Massey College environmental conference in November 2020, Saxe and a co-presented focused on the arts and its role in communicating the importance of environmental care. The arts energize and touch the heart in a way that science is not always able to do, she says. Though institutions often are slow to change, museums have taken up the cause of environmental issues. It doesn’t help that fossil fuel industries are among their largest donors. Some of us have been around long enough when the same issue happened with the tobacco companies. She interviewed a number of artists in different fields and also had young activists interview some of their elders like David Suzuki.
Her website, is rich in resources. Her podcasts where she interviews climate heroes doesn’t include herself, but she clearly is one..
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.