six simple things you can do to save the Earth…

The University of Leeds has an article (which I found through the Guardian) listing six things individuals can do to make a meaningful climate impact. My comments in brackets.

  1. “Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste.” [this sounds good]
  2. “Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year.” [I’m not a big clothes shopper, but even socks and underwear wear out faster than this. And my family’s economic livelihood requires me to not look like a complete slob at work. They also tell us to exercise, and that is going to wear out our footwear at least once a year. So I am not sure this is practical. What we can do is resist the fashion industry mind control telling us clothes are disposable, and just replace them as they wear out. We could move more towards mending clothes and shoes that wear out, but this is not a good use of time for busy people. I like the idea of taking more items to tailors and cobblers to be repaired, although this will likely not save money given labor costs in developed countries vs. low labor, material, and shipping costs in developing countries. We could also make it much easier to donate and repurpose old clothes. Right now shoving them in a trash bag is often the easiest thing for busy people to do.]
  3. Keep electrical products for at least seven years. [Again, I think we can just replace things as they wear out. Getting service and repairs on appliances is way harder than it should be, and getting good information to inform a repair/replace decision is also very hard. And again, donating/disposing of appliances and devices is hard. My basement is full of old things I know I am not supposed to put in the trash, but there are not easy pickup options and I have not had time to take them to the place I am supposed to take them, partly because I am a good-two-shoes who doesn’t drive much (see below).]
  4. Take no more than one short-haul flight every three years and one long-haul flight every eight years. [This is a tough one. I understand flights are a big problem, but I also think there is value in international peace and understanding to people traveling more, not less. Carbon offsets are out there, although I know they are not perfect – we need better information on how to access these and which programs can be trusted. Ultimately, I think this one needs to be solved by governments and scientists and industrialists – hydrogen fuel cells seem promising. High speed rail could solve the short-haul problem if our cowardly cynical politicians would let that happen. Driving those short and intermediate distances is not the solution – again see below.]
  5. Just don’t drive. [I am 100% on board with this, and unlike the vegetarian thing I practice what I preach. People say they can’t do this because of where they live, but I always urge people to think about where they might like to and be able to live in five years. That is a long-enough time frame to think about making a change, but short enough it is not the bulk of a person’s life. Of course, the supply of walkable places in the United States is extremely limited, and limited things that are in high demand are expensive, so the vast majority of people assume this is not a practical option even if they like the idea. Many people don’t like the idea because they have never experienced and can’t imagine a non-driving-based lifestyle. I am not talking about forcing people to change lifestyles – I am talking about our cowardly cynical politicians giving us a lot more choices.]
  6. “Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier.” [These are actually short-term investments that have a longer-term positive return. This is something we irrational, short-lived humans are not good at doing, but where there is free money in the future that can be shifted forward in time some government program or entrepreneur should be able to come up with solutions. We don’t do this because of failures of communication, innovation, or trust.]

So live somewhere you can make most work, school, and shopping trips on foot or by bicycle. Eat less or no meat. Replace stuff when it wears out, and think about repairing and/or donating rather than just junking. Work toward home energy efficiency. I don’t want to stop traveling, but I hope doing some of the other things will at least partially offset my travel impacts, and I can think about offsets to cover the rest. And then we need to improve our democracy and get rid of those cynical cowards!

why daylight savings time is unhealthy

There is a clear consensus that everybody hates setting the clocks ahead and losing sleep. There seems to be movement toward doing away with this dumb tradition and going towards all daylight savings time all year. But at least one scientist says the evidence points toward going all standard time all year.

  • There is evidence for increased strokes, heart attacks, and sleep deprivation during daylight saving time, the latter particularly affecting teenagers. There is also evidence of increased obesity, diabetes, cancer, lower income and higher health care costs in the western portions of time zones, where the shift in dawn and dusk is most pronounced.
  • The lack of morning light disrupts the body’s natural rhythms when we are trying to wake up.
  • Increased light in the evening makes it harder to fall asleep. This is particularly hard on adolescents and young adults, who have trouble falling asleep already for biological reasons and often have to wake up early for school, leading to chronic sleep deprivation affecting their already wacked-out bodies and minds.
  • Standard time is a better match for the natural rhythm of the sun, with the sun directly overhead around noon.

I would add that the time shift causes trouble in science and other technical fields, where we try to measure stuff over time and make sense of it. It also causes practical problems for people who have to travel or collaborate with colleagues across time zones (which is already challenging). Once I got a roomful of people together at 7 a.m. in Singapore for a meeting led by U.S. staff, only to find that the U.S. had changed its clocks the night before and the meeting was over. Those people were a little mad at me. I bought them doughnuts. A lesson learned there is to let your calendar software handle time zones and not try to do the math yourself. The U.S. is not even the worst – Australia has half-hour time shifts that are different in different cities not that far apart. The time shift is dumb, let’s just stop doing it.

the highway of death

Here’s what it looks like when a large military convoy is bombed. In 1991 the U.S. had clear air superiority over an opponent without weapons of mass destruction (unlike in 2003, Iraq did have an active nuclear program at the time but I think that by this point it was clear they did not have weapons that they were willing or able to use.)

other diseases to think about

Are you sick and tired of worrying about Covid-19? You may feel better if you take a step back and realize it is just one of many horrible and exotic (not to mention horrible and common) diseases you can be terrified of.

A couple of hantavirus cases have popped up, spread by rats in Washington D.C. The article mentions Baltimore as another rat capital. Luckily it doesn’t mention Philadelphia so there is nothing to worry about, although I see them frequently around my neighborhood due to the completely inept trash pickup practices in our city. I also see them frequently around construction sites and occasionally in parks. I have never seen one indoors but we see plenty of their less terrifying cousins the mice, which also can spread hantavirus. The article describes one person who contracted hantavirus, is a plumber’s assistant, and does not believe he could have been exposed through his work. Well, have a look behind the walls in an old house in any of the cities mentioned above and you will see plenty of evidence of rodent activity. Apparently he is okay and I wish him well.

This is also concerning:

According to DLD Director-General Sorawit Thanito, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) recorded outbreaks of avian influenza at 5,213 locations in 61 countries for 2021. A recent OIE article published on February 25, 2022, reported outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 H5N6 H5N2 H5N5, and H5N8 viruses in more than 30 countries across Africa, America, Europe and Asia. The World Health Organization (WHO) has meanwhile reported human infection cases and fatalities of H5N6 avian influenza in China.

Pattaya Mail

Nothing to worry about. The infected birds may be all over the world, and the 1918 flu may have been a bird flu, but only some unknown number of human beings has been infected and killed so far. These people were far away, not U.S. citizens, and I can’t think of any recent cases of exotic fatal diseases that started in China and spread to the rest of the world, can you? At least we have had a bit of a dress rehearsal for a really bad flu outbreak.

the war in Ukraine

I keep saying I don’t want to analyze fast moving current events, but I can’t help it. Here are a few things I want to say. It’s March 5, 2022 as I write this.

First, Putin’s actions are deplorable and inexcusable in terms of the human suffering they are causing and in terms of the very real risk of nuclear war they entail. Nothing I say below changes this. To say any of the points below excuse Putin’s actions would be like Hitler saying “Stalin did it first”. (Stalin slaughtered millions of Ukrainians before Hitler slaughtered millions of Ukrainians and Poles, among many others. Tens of millions of wrongs obviously don’t make a right. They add up to pure and unfathomable evil. Putin is putting himself in this category although he is only slaughtering human beings by the hundreds or thousands so far. But we are one nuclear exchange away from a body count even Hitler and Stalin might not have been able to fathom.)

There is a lot of obvious propaganda coming from the Russian side. There are a lot of lies (many so obvious they are just dumb) posted on social media by random people for random reasons. But there is also obvious spin coming from the U.S. government, and our media and public is buying into it without question. You don’t have to support Putin to just be a little skeptical about what you are hearing and ask who you are hearing it from and what their motivations might be. We are hearing that the war is going unexpectedly badly for the Russians. We are hearing that Russian morale is low. We are hearing and seeing videos of ordinary people stopping tanks and standing up to soldiers. We are hearing that Russia has not established air superiority. We are hearing that Putin is irrational or mentally ill. There may be kernels of truth to any and all of this, but it is all coming from U.S. government/military/intelligence sources and being parroted uncritically by our media. Government officials at all levels are giving interviews with very similar talking points, suggesting to me that it is a coordinated intelligence effort. Major newsrooms are either in on the propaganda effort (as it is clear to me they were on the Iraq weapons of mass destruction debacle), or they just don’t have other sources of news so all they can do is repeat what they are hearing from the government and each other.

Take any article on the situation and replace Russia or Putin with the United States, then replace Ukraine with Iraq. The world could have justified imposing “crippling sanctions” on the U.S. for that illegal “war of choice”. They don’t do that because they don’t have the political, military, or financial power to get on the wrong side of the United States, and we abuse that power.

Russia clearly felt threatened by that U.S. war, and by the NATO wars on Libya and even going back to the 1990s NATO war on Serbia.. The Afghanistan war seemed like a justified defensive action at the time even though it seems pointless in retrospect, but it was in Russia’s backyard and they could easily feel threatened. The U.S. has intervened in Syria, brought former Soviet countries into NATO, and almost certainly interfered in Ukrainian elections. Again, try to put ourselves in their shoes and we would be outraged to find that Russia had interfered with a Canadian or Mexican election let alone formed a military alliance with those countries. And remember when they formed a military alliance with Cuba and a nuclear war almost happened? Even the 1991 Gulf War must have been threatening to Russia as it seemed so overwhelming and came at a time of Russian weakness. Looked at another way, that war seemed at the time like a case where a sovereign UN member state was invaded by its neighbor, and the world came together to make it clear that would not be tolerated. Maybe this should have been the principle ever since then, rather than expansion of a (perceived) aggressive alliance in Eastern Europe. (Sorry Taiwan, this doesn’t help you.)

Now add U.S. politicians openly calling for Putin’s assassination, and imagine how outraged we would be if that rhetoric were reversed. Add the CIA openly salivating over the idea of a prolonged insurgency. Don’t think about a repeat of the death squads that caused so many civilians in Iraq and throughout Latin America to be tortured and disappeared, as the U.S. embraced right-wing elements and looked the other way in an enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend mentality.

I won’t second guess our political and military leadership in their response to this acute crisis, although the idea of NATO countries openly leaving guns and tanks on the border of Ukraine and Poland seems like a serious escalation to me. I assume the U.S. and NATO are openly sharing intelligence and advising the Ukrainian military on maneuvers. What are the chances there are really no CIA paramilitary or U.S. special forces in Ukraine? At least no tactical nuclear weapons have been deployed that we know of, and no naval confrontations have occurred.

Once this crisis passes and the dust settles, assuming it eventually does, maybe a group of courageous politicians could get together and make a serious renewed effort at arms control and risk reduction. That would be the absolute best outcome we can hope for from this crisis.

back to drugs and crime

Recently I said my thoughts on the relationship between violence and the drug economy were evolving. Well, here is a paper from Temple University showing evidence that a lot of violence is linked to the drug economy. They look at neighborhoods in Philadelphia that are similar across most variables other than drug activity, and show that the neighborhoods with more drug activity have more violence.

If you are experiencing a nuclear explosion press 1

As I was doom scrolling yet again to check if the nuclear missiles are incoming, I came across this helpful website from ready.gov.

If you are experiencing a nuclear explosion and are still able to walk, first you should go to your basement and stay there for at least 24 hours. That makes sense to me. Second, and this is a little weird, you should take a shower if you can. I guess some people have showers in their basements. Third, and this is where it gets really weird, you should stock your basement with a vintage hand-cranked videocassette player and a VHS copy of the 1983 made-for-TV movie The Day After, starring 1983 John Lithgow, who was already not young, playing a plucky ham radio operator who will tell you what is going on. Finally, and this is where it gets unbelievable, you should call your health care provider.

Hello, this is your United States health care provider. Listen carefully as menu options keep changing. If you do not have insurance, press 1 and a recorded voice will tell you to go fuck yourself. If you have insurance, press 2.

Congratulations, you have pressed 2 indicating you have some type of health insurance. If you have a pain in the ass or balls, this may require specialist attention. If your health insurance does not cover this, press 1. Otherwise press 3.

Congratulations, you have pressed 3, indicating you have half decent health insurance. If you are experiencing A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION right now, press 4.

You have pressed 4, indicating you are experiencing or have experienced A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION. If your flesh has not melted from your bones and your bones turned to ash and blown away on the blast wave like in the opening scene of Terminator 2, please press 5 or stay on the line and a scheduling specialist may assist you.

Congratulations, you have pressed 5 indicating that you have experienced A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION but are somehow still alive and in urgent need of medical attention. We’re sorry, all our scheduling specialists are currently assisting other callers. Your call is important to us. The next appointment with your health care provider is in 6 months. But your health care provider’s schedule is only posted for the next 3 months, whatever that means. No, we won’t call you. You can try to call us in 3 months. Or you can try to call us every day and check if we have a cancellation. No, we won’t call you about that either. If you have a problem with that, you can just go ahead and press 1.

No, don’t be stupid and confuse this with The Day After Tomorrow.
Now that’s some dark shit. And we don’t need evil robots because we have politicians. Politicians, let’s keep this only in the movies okay?

February 2022 in Review

The horrible war in Ukraine is obviously the most frightening and depressing thing going on as of early March 2022, both in terms of human suffering and the risk of nuclear war. But I prefer to avoid commenting too much on fast moving current events. I’ll just say that if the world can get past the acute crisis and maybe start talking seriously about arms control again, that could be a possible silver lining. But it seems like we are months or years away from that point. So I’ll pick something else below.

Most frightening and/or depressing story: Philadelphia police are making an arrest in less than 40% of murders in our city, not to mention other violent crimes. Convictions of those arrested are also down. Some of this could be Covid-era dysfunction. But there is a word for this: lawlessness.

Most hopeful story: “Green ammonia” offers some help on the energy and environmental front.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: I found a 1992 Saturday Night Live skit about the Olympics more entertaining than the actual Olympics. May Phil Hartman rest in peace. I checked on Dana Carvey and he is 66 and doing okay.

“not an inch to the East”

Here is some more historical background on the promises made by NATO at the end of the cold war. One lesson Trump taught me is that U.S. Presidents don’t feel bound by promises made by their predecessors to foreign parties (examples: Trump pulling out of climate change and nuclear arms control agreements, the W. Bush overthrow of Iraq and Obama of Libya). And the U.S. Congress does not feel bound by promises made by Presidents (examples: the original Kyoto climate change pledge). But this has been going on for a lot longer than the Obama/Trump era, since at least the end of the cold war. And you could go back in history and look at promises made to Native Americans and Mexico among others and conclude that talk has always been cheap. It’s not just the U.S. of course – here is an article about promises made by Russia and others to Ukraine in exchange for giving up the nuclear arsenal it inherited at the end of the cold war. And of course you could go back to promises made by Hitler and Stalin that most likely neither ever intended to keep.

I guess a lesson that could be learned by the political class is that you don’t make deals in exchange for a promise of some future action beyond the political lifetime of the party you are making a deal with. You need something tangible in return in the short term in exchange for whatever you are giving up. It seems like a sad, cynical world sometimes.

Europe, the Baltics, the Caucasus, and NATO geography quiz

There are lots of point-and-click geography quizzes online. I tried this one and did horribly at 57%. If I manage to find the time, I might take it once a day until I actually know where some of the places I am hearing in the news are. That still won’t help me much when the media uses terms like “the Baltic States” and “the Caucases” (being “Caucasian” doesn’t help me with that last one. I also looked up the map of who is in NATO at this point and what surprised both at some countries that are and some that aren’t.

According to Wikipedia:

The Baltic states is a modern unofficial geopolitical term, typically used to group three so-called Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea are sometimes referred to as the “Baltic nations”, less often and in historical circumstances also as the “Baltic republics”, the “Baltic lands”, or simply the Baltics.

Wikipedia

The Caucasus (/ˈkɔːkəsəs/), or Caucasia[3][4] (/kɔːˈkeɪʒə/), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly occupied by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically been considered a natural barrier between Eastern Europe and Western Asia.[5]

Wikipedia

The NATO members are:

  • ALBANIA (2009)
  • BELGIUM (1949)
  • BULGARIA (2004)
  • CANADA (1949)
  • CROATIA (2009)
  • CZECH REPUBLIC (1999)
  • DENMARK (1949)
  • ESTONIA (2004)
  • FRANCE (1949)
  • GERMANY (1955)
  • GREECE (1952)
  • HUNGARY (1999)
  • ICELAND (1949)
  • ITALY (1949)
  • LATVIA (2004)
  • LITHUANIA (2004)
  • LUXEMBOURG (1949)
  • MONTENEGRO (2017)
  • NETHERLANDS (1949)
  • NORTH MACEDONIA (2020)
  • NORWAY (1949)
  • POLAND (1999)
  • PORTUGAL (1949)
  • ROMANIA (2004)
  • SLOVAKIA (2004)
  • SLOVENIA (2004)
  • SPAIN (1982)
  • TURKEY (1952)
  • THE UNITED KINGDOM (1949)
  • THE UNITED STATES (1949)