A deep dose of reality.
I'm fascinated and amazed to watch my 17 month old son steadily become more aware of his surroundings. The past few weeks have seen him regard and identify many of the wonders of Nature. We recently returned from a snowy family vacation to Newfoundland. Marc has now flown in a jet plane some 15 times and grows more curious - especially during take off and landing - at seeing the land recede or approach us, respectively. Although he had seen it as an infant, these past few weeks were Marc's real first experiences with snow including the classic scene of being enveloped by huge falling snowflakes and spontaneously catching them on your tongue.
The past 24 hours have been particularly memorable for an amateur astronomer like myself. I watched in amazement as I pointed out and Marc curiously acknowledged 1) the gibbous Moon rise in the morning, 2) the Sun set later that day, 3) the planets Venus and Jupiter in the evening as well as an assortment of bright stars, completed fittingly by coming full circle to 4) a gorgeous red sunrise this morning.
Observing and identifying Nature is a passion that I have always held and passing that reverence for it on to my son is truly rewarding in the most fundamental of ways. The "World of Wonder" article by Rachel Carson (posted here before) always comes to mind when these moments occur. I recommend reading it to anyone with children (or, even those without) because it will allow you to step back and appreciate this one sweet world we live in.
Peace,
Grant
The past 24 hours have been particularly memorable for an amateur astronomer like myself. I watched in amazement as I pointed out and Marc curiously acknowledged 1) the gibbous Moon rise in the morning, 2) the Sun set later that day, 3) the planets Venus and Jupiter in the evening as well as an assortment of bright stars, completed fittingly by coming full circle to 4) a gorgeous red sunrise this morning.
Observing and identifying Nature is a passion that I have always held and passing that reverence for it on to my son is truly rewarding in the most fundamental of ways. The "World of Wonder" article by Rachel Carson (posted here before) always comes to mind when these moments occur. I recommend reading it to anyone with children (or, even those without) because it will allow you to step back and appreciate this one sweet world we live in.
Peace,
Grant
My recent tectonic/oceanographic study in the Alboran Sea (between Iberia and Africa) opened my eyes to some natural realities. Living on a ship for three weeks with the same 40 people surrounded by 'Poseidon's' beauty and power is a unique experience and one that invariably brings you closer to your shipmates and Nature itself.
We started the campaign in Vigo, Spain, in the northwest, just across the border from Portugal. Immediately the sea took charge and put us in our places, but the Sarmiento de Gamboa kept us safe. Nonetheless, long wavelength swell can make you seasick and affect your ability to concentrate. After several days of testing equipment and finally getting our 'sea legs' we headed south to the Strait of Gibraltar where we then entered into the calm, placid Alboran sea (the westernmost part of the Mediterranean sea). After passing through the five stages of grief that follow the isolation from all things terrestrial, I settled on the comfortable, peaceful outlook of Nature in balance. One needed only look out onto the sea, most days as smooth as a mirror, to remain likewise in this balance.
In the hours we were not working, there was time to take photographs and thereby document Nature at its finest. First there were the dolphins, who took every opportunity to surf on the ship's bow wave. At first, they were jumping out and entering the water linearly, but, as it seemed at the time, when they realized we were all on the bow overlooking them, they flipped onto their sides, to lay and eye those humans above. Sometimes they spun completely over. Amid this playful display the dolphin voices were heard, pipping and peeping, a variety of clicking sounds. Could they have been talking about us?These shots are from the bow of the ship.
Then, there were the sunrises and sunsets. One of the best places to see them is over the ocean. This is mainly because of the interrupted horizon but also because of the reduction in things like smog and (at least in our case) more or less cloudless skies for weeks. But, one thing was clear. Although the sky seemed infinitely clear during the day, upon sunset you would see a distant, brown haze near the horizon several sun-widths thick. On the best days, you could track the entire sun's disc sink slowly into the mirror-like marine horizon until the last moment. On one such occasion we witnessed what is known as a 'green flash' (no photo... likely story!), an atmospheric refraction event where the colours of the visible light spectrum separate (as through a prism). Higher frequencies such as blue and violet have also been observed. So, for a split second as the sun finally passed below our horizon, we saw a bright green ray at the tip of the sun. The green flash is a rare event, so we were grateful to have finally seen one after many failed attempts.
On hazier days, sunsets would be wonderful works or natural art, as though oil on canvass. The culprit of these beautiful sunsets is likely the higher proportion of particulate matter in the atmosphere, caused by our society's lust for consumption reflected in petroleum-driven global trade. Indeed, the Alboran sea (especially at its pinch-point in the Strait of Gibraltar) is one of the busiest lanes of ship traffic in the world. Daily, one would watch as minimally-crewed massive tanker and container ships lumbered by on their way from Asia to Europe and America (The Synthetic Silk Road?).
One can be tempted to compare life on a ship together with the same people a kind of big-brother scenario (the pop culture 'reality' TV show, not the Orwellian imagery). But, in actuality it is none of this. After three weeks at sea, many wonderful friendships were forged, the kind that don't soon fade. We spoke of our cultures, our hopes and desires, our cuisine, our languages and the interaction of our integrated multi-cultural world.
The sea is time for reflection (existentially, and sometimes seismically). Given consistency in meteorological conditions, every day at a given time, pretty much looks beautifully the same. Yet, we were always on the move, and let's not forget the often overlooked dimension of time. On land, within civilization, our mind is constantly vexed by an every changing local environment. Survivability depends on our ability to adapt to changing circumstances ("calm, blue ocean; calm, blue ocean"). People and animals are coming and going, and plant life abounds. But human-made structures and systems are often ubiquitous and it's easy to think that the human and natural worlds (as if humans were not natural!) are somehow distinct. A few weeks gazing over the open ocean challenges that view. Although humans are hardy land-lubbers, we are all children of the sea in evolutionary terms. A return to the sea for quiet reflection relaxes the neurons and recharges one's vitality. Give it a try!
Peace,
Grant
We started the campaign in Vigo, Spain, in the northwest, just across the border from Portugal. Immediately the sea took charge and put us in our places, but the Sarmiento de Gamboa kept us safe. Nonetheless, long wavelength swell can make you seasick and affect your ability to concentrate. After several days of testing equipment and finally getting our 'sea legs' we headed south to the Strait of Gibraltar where we then entered into the calm, placid Alboran sea (the westernmost part of the Mediterranean sea). After passing through the five stages of grief that follow the isolation from all things terrestrial, I settled on the comfortable, peaceful outlook of Nature in balance. One needed only look out onto the sea, most days as smooth as a mirror, to remain likewise in this balance.
In the hours we were not working, there was time to take photographs and thereby document Nature at its finest. First there were the dolphins, who took every opportunity to surf on the ship's bow wave. At first, they were jumping out and entering the water linearly, but, as it seemed at the time, when they realized we were all on the bow overlooking them, they flipped onto their sides, to lay and eye those humans above. Sometimes they spun completely over. Amid this playful display the dolphin voices were heard, pipping and peeping, a variety of clicking sounds. Could they have been talking about us?These shots are from the bow of the ship.Then, there were the sunrises and sunsets. One of the best places to see them is over the ocean. This is mainly because of the interrupted horizon but also because of the reduction in things like smog and (at least in our case) more or less cloudless skies for weeks. But, one thing was clear. Although the sky seemed infinitely clear during the day, upon sunset you would see a distant, brown haze near the horizon several sun-widths thick. On the best days, you could track the entire sun's disc sink slowly into the mirror-like marine horizon until the last moment. On one such occasion we witnessed what is known as a 'green flash' (no photo... likely story!), an atmospheric refraction event where the colours of the visible light spectrum separate (as through a prism). Higher frequencies such as blue and violet have also been observed. So, for a split second as the sun finally passed below our horizon, we saw a bright green ray at the tip of the sun. The green flash is a rare event, so we were grateful to have finally seen one after many failed attempts.
On hazier days, sunsets would be wonderful works or natural art, as though oil on canvass. The culprit of these beautiful sunsets is likely the higher proportion of particulate matter in the atmosphere, caused by our society's lust for consumption reflected in petroleum-driven global trade. Indeed, the Alboran sea (especially at its pinch-point in the Strait of Gibraltar) is one of the busiest lanes of ship traffic in the world. Daily, one would watch as minimally-crewed massive tanker and container ships lumbered by on their way from Asia to Europe and America (The Synthetic Silk Road?).
One can be tempted to compare life on a ship together with the same people a kind of big-brother scenario (the pop culture 'reality' TV show, not the Orwellian imagery). But, in actuality it is none of this. After three weeks at sea, many wonderful friendships were forged, the kind that don't soon fade. We spoke of our cultures, our hopes and desires, our cuisine, our languages and the interaction of our integrated multi-cultural world.
The sea is time for reflection (existentially, and sometimes seismically). Given consistency in meteorological conditions, every day at a given time, pretty much looks beautifully the same. Yet, we were always on the move, and let's not forget the often overlooked dimension of time. On land, within civilization, our mind is constantly vexed by an every changing local environment. Survivability depends on our ability to adapt to changing circumstances ("calm, blue ocean; calm, blue ocean"). People and animals are coming and going, and plant life abounds. But human-made structures and systems are often ubiquitous and it's easy to think that the human and natural worlds (as if humans were not natural!) are somehow distinct. A few weeks gazing over the open ocean challenges that view. Although humans are hardy land-lubbers, we are all children of the sea in evolutionary terms. A return to the sea for quiet reflection relaxes the neurons and recharges one's vitality. Give it a try!
Peace,
Grant
Here is a wonderful talk by Naomi Klein:
I was occasioned recently by the sudden passing of my friend's father to reflect on death and how fragile life is, indeed. This is perhaps the most difficult blog to write since everyone is or has been or will be touched by death. I write this with a sensitive ear to the suffering of those dying and those loved ones affected by it.
Death is a necessary part of life. This statement can sound rather vacuous and insensitive to the suffering of others but upon closer examination we can reveal the beautiful necessity of death and how it, in fact, makes life worth living to the fullest. I'm a naturalist, but I do find inspiration in the words of the Dali Lama. Buddhist teachings instruct one to contemplate death on a routine basis. We all must and will die, so the sooner we come to grips with this reality, our mortality, the sooner we can focus on living the good life. Over the past ten years or so I have become more consciously aware of this mortality and I hope that it is part of what brings me so much peace in my life.
Let's digress a moment. The basic unit of life is the cell. A cell contains many components of it's own, but only together they function as what we recognize as a living organism. Yet, often we perceive life as discretized (through the classification system of taxonomy) into its individual species, and even into individuals themselves. If we accept that living organisms can be aggregates of cells, then, by extension we can think of the planet as a kind of super-organism, a quasi-continuum of life. This idea was first developed and popularized by James Lovelock (with contributions by Lynn Margulis), a now elderly British earth scientist who gave it the name Gaia, after a suggestion by his friend and neighbour, the writer William Golding (Lord of the Flies). The Gaia Theory has the potential to completely rewire our collective consciousness about the planet, not just as "our home" - which, itself is a beautiful conscious raising statement - but as the very fabric of life as we know it. We are part of the Earth System, like cells are part of us. In this light, each species on earth is analogous to a cell within our body in that each individual acts (consciously or not) to affect the whole. The Earth is not just our home, but it is us, we are part of it. Various physical and chemical processes are common throughout the Universe, but we know of at least one planet, where in addition biological processes play a significant role to keep the system in balance. The words in balance here may not just refer to the cycles of the planet as perceived by temporally constrained humans, but to larger periods, greater waxes and wanes, the bigger ebbs and flows of Nature on geological time scales.
So, where does this leave us? The planet (or rather, the biosphere) is surely "alive" and I don't just mean this as an abstract construct. Like each of our bodies (and individual cells) we must die to help regulate the ebb and flow of the planet as a whole. Indeed death (or dead cells) play a concrete role in maintaining life. Everything must eat and everything must been eaten. Think of compost. But death also plays a more indirect role in life. It's fascinating to observe for instance that vascular plants have evolved a system using dead cells to form networks (xylem) by which water and nutrients are brought upward by capillary action to participate in photosynthesis. When we die we invariably fertilize the soil somehow as our cells decompose into their individual (non-living) atoms and "we" thus become other organisms (or non-biological entities), likely a wide distribution of each. Regrettably, our individual consciousness is lost, notwithstanding being preserved in the minds and memories of others.
Hence dispassionately, death is a part of life, they are one and the same. As conscious creatures, this may not be easy to accept, and it is perhaps, from an evolutionary standpoint, natural that we seek more meaning and significance to life than the stark reality that we have forever witnessed as the transition from living to dead. But, I myself find solace in seeking the truth. Given what we know about the interconnectivity of life and death, and upon acceptance of death as inevitable, we can begin to live in the present and really appreciate how wonderful is this life on Earth. I feel that in this way one can begin to reduce suffering in the world and work toward a better now, here.
Peace,
Grant
Death is a necessary part of life. This statement can sound rather vacuous and insensitive to the suffering of others but upon closer examination we can reveal the beautiful necessity of death and how it, in fact, makes life worth living to the fullest. I'm a naturalist, but I do find inspiration in the words of the Dali Lama. Buddhist teachings instruct one to contemplate death on a routine basis. We all must and will die, so the sooner we come to grips with this reality, our mortality, the sooner we can focus on living the good life. Over the past ten years or so I have become more consciously aware of this mortality and I hope that it is part of what brings me so much peace in my life.
Let's digress a moment. The basic unit of life is the cell. A cell contains many components of it's own, but only together they function as what we recognize as a living organism. Yet, often we perceive life as discretized (through the classification system of taxonomy) into its individual species, and even into individuals themselves. If we accept that living organisms can be aggregates of cells, then, by extension we can think of the planet as a kind of super-organism, a quasi-continuum of life. This idea was first developed and popularized by James Lovelock (with contributions by Lynn Margulis), a now elderly British earth scientist who gave it the name Gaia, after a suggestion by his friend and neighbour, the writer William Golding (Lord of the Flies). The Gaia Theory has the potential to completely rewire our collective consciousness about the planet, not just as "our home" - which, itself is a beautiful conscious raising statement - but as the very fabric of life as we know it. We are part of the Earth System, like cells are part of us. In this light, each species on earth is analogous to a cell within our body in that each individual acts (consciously or not) to affect the whole. The Earth is not just our home, but it is us, we are part of it. Various physical and chemical processes are common throughout the Universe, but we know of at least one planet, where in addition biological processes play a significant role to keep the system in balance. The words in balance here may not just refer to the cycles of the planet as perceived by temporally constrained humans, but to larger periods, greater waxes and wanes, the bigger ebbs and flows of Nature on geological time scales.
So, where does this leave us? The planet (or rather, the biosphere) is surely "alive" and I don't just mean this as an abstract construct. Like each of our bodies (and individual cells) we must die to help regulate the ebb and flow of the planet as a whole. Indeed death (or dead cells) play a concrete role in maintaining life. Everything must eat and everything must been eaten. Think of compost. But death also plays a more indirect role in life. It's fascinating to observe for instance that vascular plants have evolved a system using dead cells to form networks (xylem) by which water and nutrients are brought upward by capillary action to participate in photosynthesis. When we die we invariably fertilize the soil somehow as our cells decompose into their individual (non-living) atoms and "we" thus become other organisms (or non-biological entities), likely a wide distribution of each. Regrettably, our individual consciousness is lost, notwithstanding being preserved in the minds and memories of others.
Hence dispassionately, death is a part of life, they are one and the same. As conscious creatures, this may not be easy to accept, and it is perhaps, from an evolutionary standpoint, natural that we seek more meaning and significance to life than the stark reality that we have forever witnessed as the transition from living to dead. But, I myself find solace in seeking the truth. Given what we know about the interconnectivity of life and death, and upon acceptance of death as inevitable, we can begin to live in the present and really appreciate how wonderful is this life on Earth. I feel that in this way one can begin to reduce suffering in the world and work toward a better now, here.
Peace,
Grant
Here's something that we should all watch and absorb. Something we should all participate in to some degree. Over the past 5-10 years corporate interests have successfully cast doubt on the reality of climate change. It was easy! They didn't have to outright debunk it, just make the science appear "unresolved". It's understandable (but, not excusable) why short-sighted people with vested economic interests are doing this. And, they have the money and influence to do it. They speak with one BIG voice. But we speak with billions of little voices. Let's organize and make ourselves heard!
Visit: http://climaterealityproject.org/
Visit: http://climaterealityproject.org/
I just recently moved to Kiel, Germany located on the Baltic Sea. I still call Spain home though, so I suppose I can still be considered SFD's Spain correspondent. I will be writing a little about Germany too, over the next 2 years that I am stationed here on a research fellowship.
The first thing I noticed about Kiel (which is a small city of about 240,000 people) are the bicycles. Bicycles dominant transportation it seems and bike lanes are just about everywhere. Lanes are clearly marked in pavement (or cobblestone) of a different colour. Kiel, in fact won a prize a few years ago for bicycle accessibility. It doesn't hurt, too, that the city is more or less flat. Here, it's common to see all types and socioeconomic classes moving around on bikes. Driving is discouraged by such things as making red lights noticeably longer and making parking a similar and expensive nuisance.
Compared to Barcelona, where bicycling ("bicing") is commonplace, but still surrounded by swerving diesel cars and noisy motos, Kiel (albeit, being about 1/6 or less the size of Barcelona) is a haven for bicycles. Compared to the majority of North American cities, it is off the charts! In North America, the predominant thought, regrettably, is that bicycles are an obsolete technology and a pain in the ass to drivers, many who consider it their right to drive.
A common solution to traffic woes is to expand the road system. Unfortunately, through Jevon's Paradox, this just leads to more drivers, more congestion and, thus more frustrated drivers and longer commute times. There's no better feeling than whizzing by stalled traffic on your bike in a safe bike lane. If cities started to heavily invest in bicycle infrastructure, the trend would be, similarly, more bikers, thus more demand for infrastructure and therefore fitter, happier, and healthier people.
Peace,
Grant
The diminishing returns of technology and deliberate obselence
Published 8 July, 2011 by Grant George Buffett.
I bought some close-pins the other day. They're horribly made. They are plastic of course and the spring is weak and the slightest torsion when putting one on causes it to fall apart. Not break, but just come apart. So, what do most people do with a close-pin that comes apart... "Hey Bob, perhaps they'll just discard it when it breaks", in in this throw-away society in which we live. I imagine some dorks in suits in a boardroom analyzing some pseudo-graph of manufacturing cost-to-revenue ratio or something, and determining that the cheapness of the product trumps the potential loss of customers due to their being conveniently so faulty.
We also have some old wooden close-pins that my wife's grandmother had. I figure they're are 30-40 years old, and they've been basking in the hot Spanish sun outside for most of that time with not a sign of structural wear, just a little off-coloured, but still totally useful. Close-pins are a rather mundane product to blog about, but the larger picture is that of planned, deliberate obsolescence of items to ensure their continued replacement, and hence, "bottom line". They don't make 'em like they used to!
Of course the real bottom line is not the economy, it's its life support system; also known as the environment. Together with that thing, 'keeping us living', the environment supplies all the raw materials for the products that are made, the energy to make them as well as their delivery systems (whether in the form of a petroleum driven truck or wind driven sailing ships). But, as I've written before, these costs, being too complex to effectively estimate, are externalized from the equations of economy and just ignored. The recent CBC radio program aptly called "The Bottom Line" with David Suzuki explores many of the connects between the real bottom line and the economy as well as the obvious disconnects between producers and "consumers". Check it out: http://www.cbc.ca/thebottomline/. Dr. Suzuki gets deep down and sometimes personal with his guests, which include those from the oil industry and government, taking them to task on the state of the environment and why, for goodness sake, we are so complacent about the problems we face.
Which leads me to this idea of techno triumphalism, the notion that we will forever invent our way out of our energy and environmental predicament. The discovery of oil and its use has led us to this false notion, because for the past several hundred years it has been more or less true. But, it all depends on having an ever-growing supply of energy. In terms of oil, this has likely begun to be false, if (as many honest pundits admit) we have now passed the peak of maximum global oil production and have started the slow, relentless decline of the amount of oil produced per unit time. The decreasing supply (not to mention the increasing demand) is being felt in the form of not meeting our creative expectations. Although the world is essentially continually supplied with energy from the sun (thus, in reality, all energy is solar energy, including oil - the curse of the dinosaurs), we have not developed the infrastructure or the know-how to sustainably make use of it. We have instead relied on the bountiful supply of oil. Once we became addicted to oil, it didn't take a genius to predict that its finite supply might be our Achilles' heel. We mislead ourselves by assuming that there would always be another technology to get us out of our problems, just in the nick of time, like Hollywood!
"Technology" has turned from things such as "the wheel" or "the bicycle", which are examples of true human ingenuity, to pixelated forms of techno-wizardry like "Apps", many of which do absolutely nothing useful and are just distractions from the tasks at hand. But, we cling to our inventions and resist the need to make major changes to our living circumstances, in what James Howard Kunstler calls our "psychology of previous investment". That is, we've invested so much of our time and effort into (making petroleum driven cars, for example) it that we fail to be creative and think outside the box. Instead we stick with our old technology, until it is just too late. I'm beginning to think it's already too late.
Peace,
Grant
Of course the real bottom line is not the economy, it's its life support system; also known as the environment. Together with that thing, 'keeping us living', the environment supplies all the raw materials for the products that are made, the energy to make them as well as their delivery systems (whether in the form of a petroleum driven truck or wind driven sailing ships). But, as I've written before, these costs, being too complex to effectively estimate, are externalized from the equations of economy and just ignored. The recent CBC radio program aptly called "The Bottom Line" with David Suzuki explores many of the connects between the real bottom line and the economy as well as the obvious disconnects between producers and "consumers". Check it out: http://www.cbc.ca/thebottomline/. Dr. Suzuki gets deep down and sometimes personal with his guests, which include those from the oil industry and government, taking them to task on the state of the environment and why, for goodness sake, we are so complacent about the problems we face.
Which leads me to this idea of techno triumphalism, the notion that we will forever invent our way out of our energy and environmental predicament. The discovery of oil and its use has led us to this false notion, because for the past several hundred years it has been more or less true. But, it all depends on having an ever-growing supply of energy. In terms of oil, this has likely begun to be false, if (as many honest pundits admit) we have now passed the peak of maximum global oil production and have started the slow, relentless decline of the amount of oil produced per unit time. The decreasing supply (not to mention the increasing demand) is being felt in the form of not meeting our creative expectations. Although the world is essentially continually supplied with energy from the sun (thus, in reality, all energy is solar energy, including oil - the curse of the dinosaurs), we have not developed the infrastructure or the know-how to sustainably make use of it. We have instead relied on the bountiful supply of oil. Once we became addicted to oil, it didn't take a genius to predict that its finite supply might be our Achilles' heel. We mislead ourselves by assuming that there would always be another technology to get us out of our problems, just in the nick of time, like Hollywood!
"Technology" has turned from things such as "the wheel" or "the bicycle", which are examples of true human ingenuity, to pixelated forms of techno-wizardry like "Apps", many of which do absolutely nothing useful and are just distractions from the tasks at hand. But, we cling to our inventions and resist the need to make major changes to our living circumstances, in what James Howard Kunstler calls our "psychology of previous investment". That is, we've invested so much of our time and effort into (making petroleum driven cars, for example) it that we fail to be creative and think outside the box. Instead we stick with our old technology, until it is just too late. I'm beginning to think it's already too late.
Peace,
Grant
I'm writing this post on May 21st, 2011 at a time when the world should be crumbling around us due to a massive earthquake the 'likes of which the world has never seen'. That's according to a group of radical bible thumpers in the US. People have predicted the end of the world a multitude of times over the centuries. They've all been wrong.
The great thing about this extraordinary claim is that it fits one aspect of a scientific hypothesis, namely that it's falsifiable. Most religious claims about the nature of the Universe are conveniently (for them), not. Clearly today isn't the mythical Rapture allegedly foretold in precise detail in the King James Bible. The truly exasperating thing about these deluded people is that they are so taken in by this prediction that they are without a Plan B. Some have even sold their homes (what they plan to do with the money in Heaven is another question!)
It's not that the Bible (or other texts which are claimed as canonical) are all bad. Most religious people I know cherry pick the good stuff for guidance in life, and justify the bad somehow. The Bible for instance, is chocked full of beautiful literature and is one of the best preserved historical texts of the bronze age. Indeed, atheists and other non-believers would do good to emphasize this fact. But, we have learned so much more since the Bible. Isn't it time humanity based its zeitgeist on current knowledge, not the opinions and poetry of semi-literate goat-herders in the Fertile Crescent? No offense to goat herders, the semi-literate or people from the once Fertile Crescent. ;)
When will people accept centuries of scientific progress (I mean outside of their daily lives, where, by their actions, they already accept it in practice) and contemplate that God really is just equivalent to Nature? There's most certainly no conscious, benevolent, omnipotent being that listens to our prayers and takes sides in wars. Nature is all about being full-circle, one of Dan's recurring themes. Call it reincarnation if you want, but when you die, you cease to exist as a conscious being. Your atoms will 'live on' in other organic and inorganic matter. That existential revelation, that we are all composed of non-living atoms, no different from any other of the same element elsewhere in the Universe, is one of the most significant understandings of history. Isn't that beautiful enough without invoking a conscious Creator? When we realize that we are all so transient we can then begin to love. Peace will soon follow.
So let's make the best of our one life by celebrating reason and let's do the things necessary to make the world sustainable and habitable for all.
For more information about reason and its importance, please watch this 2 hour discussion by the 'four horsemen' of the anti-apocalypse, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris.
Peace,
Grant
We are lying to ourselves by repeating the mantra that Gross Domestic Product is even minimally representative of the state of human well-being. The GDP, being a measure of the market value of all goods and services produced by a country in a given time, has become to be regarded as the litmus test for standard of living. Let's examine that premise in more detail.
If for a minute we consider productivity as a measure of prosperity, we can easily arrive at the conclusion that they are linearly related (or, if not linearly, then somewhat). That is, the more goods and services we produce, the better our overall prosperity as a society. There are a few things wrong with this mode of thinking:
1) Although overall prosperity (on average) may seem to move in lock-step with productivity, we overlook the fact that (as we all know) wealth is far from evenly distributed. In Canada and the USA and, increasingly, in Western Europe and other burgeoning economies, a small portion (single digit percentages) of the population (the elite political classes), whom are privy to the workings of the monetary system, are able to successfully exploit this to their benefit. Meanwhile, working class citizens futilely wait in the unemployment lines for the 'trickle down' of the economy to jobs, baby, jobs!
2) Not only is prosperity an illusion because of the disproportioned distribution of wealth, but GDP as a measure of productivity is even called into question. This is because ALL productive work contributes to the GDP no matter its consequence. For instance, take the nuclear crisis in Japan. The Fukushima Daiichi region is effectively destroyed for generations, limiting it's long-term productivity and prosperity. However, the efforts made to clean up the mess will veritably add to the short-to-mid-term GDP, thus increasing the entire productivity of Japan (as measured by GDP). Same goes for the cost of health care. Sick people are decidedly someone else's profit in a privatized system.
3) Thirdly, GDP measures productivity as reflected by the state of the economy, which is disproportionately reflected by the economic state of the largest corporations. The glut of the problem is in their mathematics. They forgot (or neglected) a major variable in the equation: the biosphere. Some decades ago (maybe around the time that corporations were granted the rights of a person under the law - in the US) the powers-that-were decided to externalize certain unpredictable variables (like environmental degradation, for example) probably because they were just so unpredictable. Thus, these factors were simply taken out of the equations, left for "someone else" to worry about. As a direct result, for many years GDP seemed to nicely parallel "growth" and hence, by a logical fallacy, prosperity. Now, with global resource depletion a growing concern and society's increasing understanding and compassion for planetary house-keeping, GDP has been thrust back in our faces as a sham measure of human well-being.
So, let's forget GDP. What are some other measures of human well-being? How can we create a useful index that would be able to account for the consequences of, say, industrialization?
One useful construct is the GPI, or Genuine Progress Indicator. Wikipedia defines it as:
an alternative metric system which is an addition to the national system of accounts that has been suggested to replace, or supplement, gross domestic product (GDP) as a metric of economic growth. [It is] an attempt to measure whether a country's growth, increased production of goods, and expanding services have actually resulted in the improvement of the welfare (or well-being) of the people in the country.
Granted, it is difficult to quantify true human welfare because civilization is dynamic and many factors are inherently subjective, like happiness. Nevertheless, happiness, however subjective can be seen and understood to be (beyond the basic necessities of life) only loosely correlated with financial wealth. Once a person has a full belly, clean water, adequate shelter, security, loving family and friends and is emotionally respected by peers, the rest is icing on the cake. The problem with icing is that it is almost always bad for you. The past few decades have seen a doubling and tripling of some people's icing.
The Genuine Progress Index is a much better representation of development and social, environmental and economic progress than the GDP ever was. We should, in fact, begin to abandon the GDP as a proxy for our well-being and move toward the GPI or something similar. The GPI works by considering 'full-cost accounting', that is, in addition to accounting for many of the externalities that are not part of the economic equation for most corporations and businesses, the GPI evaluates social costs. For example, costs that are seen all around us in the form of, 'vanished fisheries, broken families, gridlocked cities, smog-filled air, drug abuse, and other social and environmental woes'. So, at first count, following a GPI-based model of economic growth may impose unwelcome restrictions, these restrictions are not arbitrary or virtual, they are based on real-world restrictions such as those imposed by the planet. One thing is for sure, if we choose our current course for more growth at any price, there will still be restrictions, but they will ultimately be imposed not by prudent, responsible adults, but by the very finite nature of the planet itself. You can be sure that these restrictions will bite much harder than anything we can impose.
The GNH (Gross National Happiness) is another also a useful metric what would have positive consequences on our collective well-being. You can find more information about this and other forms of indexing human wellness with the GNH here:
and the GPI here:
You can find what Atlantic Canada is doing in this respect here:
Gross National Happiness and GPI are much more important indices than Gross Domestic Product because GNH and GPI measure humanity flourishing, while GDP only measures consumption.
Thanks to my good friend Glen Whelan for the idea for this post.
Peace,
Grant
Well, here are a few of the photos I promised. I'll put a short comment by each. Briefly though, it was strange to see the same people I see often around the village day-to-day who never preach of religion or dogma (at least to me) follow this centuries-old tradition without questioning or skepticism, nor even with a mild bout of critical thinking. To be clear, these people are not associated with the KKK in the United States (the ritual costumes of the KKK were derived from the Spanish, not the reverse - in addition, this is typically a tradition from the south of Spain, not Catalonia, but there are a significant number of immigrants from the south in this village). They portray the Nazareños (people of Nazareth in Palestine).
What bothers me most about dogma and religion in not the infantile thinking about the nature of the Universe (when we know so much more now), it is the lack of people's ability to apply the same degree of scrutiny to obsolescent religious beliefs as they would to nearly all other facets of their lives. Will it rain today?
Here, you see the lead Nazareño and his followers.
What is this little boy thinking? Probably not
about the intricate details of the doctrinal system
of the Catholic Church. And, sadly he probably
never will.
Perhaps the most poignant picture I took.
This ritual is meant to be about sacrifice, and though it was
"too cold" to be barefoot this year, these eyes of reflection tell
their own story. Is she practicing mock-strangulation or just
keeping the draft out?
The look on these men's faces is surely one of unquestioned devotion.
The oddest thing outside the ceremony itself was the attitude of many who did partake (or were obliged to partake through traditional and cultural stereotyping); the insolence and disrespect of the practice of sacrifice. Kids were running around this sombre display buying "Churros" (sugary, fried bread dipped in hot chocolate). I didn't participate, but nonetheless I wouldn't publicly disrespect one's system of belief by profiting from the sale of sugary snacks (which is ironic in too many ways to discuss in a few sentences). But, that's just me.
It was interesting to see what seemed to be a Muslim couple following the procession. She wasn't wearing the Niqab or Burka (another day's discussion) - this is Spain, not France! but the head scarf. My feeling is that, like all Muslims, they believe in Jesus as a prophet, like Mohammed, but not the manifestation of God in human form. Incidentally, this is why the name Jesus (pronounced Hey-Zeus!) is so common in Spanish culture (because of the domination of the Iberian Peninsula by the Islamic faith for some 700 years - until the Christian reconquests, beginning in 1492 - Jesus was an acceptable name for one's son... and so the tradition continued. Compare this with nearly all other Christian cultures, where naming your son after 'God' is impolite to say the least).
Finally, in conclusion, this year, the Easter celebration fell on Earth day. That's my day of reflection and symbolic sacrifice. If religion is good for one thing, in principle it should be reflection or meditation about one's place in the Universe. But unfortunately, many years ago, this sense of humility and reverence to Nature was usurped by those who wished to control them. This was documented at Nicene in the year 381 when, at the second Ecumenical council, was decreed the belief system of hundreds of generations to unquestionably follow. This is not what Jesus required. It was put in place for control of the masses. When Christianity (for centuries an underground belief system) got too big, the powers-that-were successfully incorporated it into their dogma. The rest is, as they say, history.
Can we break the shackles of dogma? Yes. But, that's for another blog.
Peace,
Grant
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