Splashing Through the ... Snow?

Keeping Up With Climate Change

December 2022 and The arctic is warming 4 times faster than the world. We're in trouble. My last post about this was While Heaven Thaws, January 24, 2022. Except for the revised increase in temperature, in the past year there are no surprises at the North Pole. We knew we were in trouble. Santa will soon need a change of wardrobe. Just have a think about that.

Here at our house, we take the future seriously; our grandkids live there. That means asking questions, making changes and spending money. We haven't yet invested in real estate on Baffin Island; but here are some things we have done over 20 years with approximate costs if I remember them:

old house's new furnace: $ spent lots
old house's new insulated siding: $ lots
old house's new windows $ lots

a new well-insulated house:  $ lots & lots

replacing incandescent lights with LEDs: $500

rooftop solar array: $30,000

electric vehicle: $40,000

heat pump and efficient furnace: $9,000

letters to politicians at every level: $ 000
turning off lights when not needed: $ saved a bit
wearing more and turning down the heat: $ saved
the other way around in summer: $ saved
reducing, recycling, reusing: $ saved

nagging friends about climate justice:    $ 000

Compare this to

the cost of doing nothing: EVERYTHING

I give you this list because I have nothing else to brag about, and also as a reminder that everyone can help fix this whatever their circumstances. We can work on this at every level: personal, family, municipal, corporate, regional, national, global. 

So what shall we do this year?

Give Santa a break in 2023.
Make a plan.
Do something to brag about next December.

EIEIO.

**********************
Permafrost Rapidly Thawing: CBC News, December 12, 2022

Arctic Warming: Just Have a Think

In Appreciation

 I was happy to be asked to speak for my friend, Ray Millard at his funeral yesterday. Our friendship goes back so far that it is lost in my dimming memory. We knew each other back when we actually polished our shoes. Things have moved on. My last pair of shoes got thrown out before I remembered to polish them. I forget details, but I will always remember Ray's last hug.

I asked Dorothy, to help me out with some specific recollections so I would have a story to tell about Ray. She was there in Port Elgin when Ray was baptized in Lake Huron. She recalls how the experience so affected him that he was shining as he came out of the water. Shining. Dorothy found the right word. I've seen Ray shining. That shine was always there on his face.

I expect those who lived with Ray would have seen him tired, discouraged, sad, angry, but he didn't let things hold him down. He wouldn't talk about his pain unless you asked. I asked once, and he said, as I remember, that the pain was a separate thing from who he was. He turned his attention elsewhere and kept on shining.

Ray shone in his singing. Way back when, John Black called up some of his friends and invited them to form a gospel quartet. John sang bass, I sang tenor, Don Richardson was in the middle, and Ray sang lead with his strong, dramatic voice lending conviction to inspiring words. As I remember, it was Ray who suggested we call ourselves The Interpreters.

The Interpreters, 1986
Don, Ray, Dennis, John

We met weekly for years and sang in church services and other events once a month. It wasn't all singing. There was a lot of joking and gab during our rehearsals. We became an extended family, including spouses, kids and other singers and players. We were a community of shining friends.

John arranged a recording session so we would remember the group at our prime. I'm glad he did. I listened to it again this week. When I say Ray shone in his singing, maybe some of you remember and would agree that shone is the right word. We sang and we shone.

We sang:
He Touched me, and made me whole
Something beautiful
I Will Serve Thee because I Love Thee
Steal away to Jesus
We are so blessed
Dozens of songs, still there in memory.
I know the words. I feel my voice reaching up for the tenor part even though there isn't much voice left. I hear us shining together.

Ray was slow to tell others what he thought or what they should think. He was rather a mentor. I often found myself the object of his attention. He would ask questions and listen to the answers like they mattered to him. Maybe he did that with you too. It was like he trusted us to think things through and make something out of life without any hint what that might be except that he cared. He was always a few steps ahead, encouraging us to take the next step but leaving the direction up to us.

Of course Ray wasn't alone in this. Ray and Nan were a team, conspiring to get us to be our best selves. And not just us. They engaged with waiters, cashier clerks, everybody.

In later years, when we were retired from singing, Dorothy and I met with Nan and Ray once a month for lunch; well, actually, for conversation with a side order of lunch. Dorothy recalls their story of canoeing in Algonquin Park, a holiday gift from the family. I imagine Ray shining as he risked getting his old bones into a tippy canoe to spend time with his lady in the wilderness on the water. He was at home in the wilderness. He knew he was so blessed.

How fortunate we are to have such friends as mentors, helping us grow out of self-absorption and obsession with suffering into compassion for others. I haven't forgotten the words or the music. There is a groove in my fading memory where Ray is still singing the lead with passion and conviction at a tempo that calms the pulse and makes us shine.

"We are so blessed by the gifts from your hand.
I just can't understand why you loved us so much.
We are so blessed, I just can't find a way,
or the words that can say,
'Thank you lord for your touch.'
When we're empty you fill us till we overflow.
When we're hungry you feed us and cause us to know we are so blessed.
Take what we have to bring,
take it all, everything.
For we love you so much." (Gaither Vocal Band)

We are so blessed to have shared time and space with Ray. He generously passed on his best to us. He did that intentionally. We can do that too. Personally, I am inclined to dwell on bad news, inflation, the pandemic, partisan politics, war, famine, drought, floods, the world falling apart. We should be aware of all of that so we do what we can to make things better; but then we can set it aside to pay attention to what is probably the most beautiful planet in the universe and the amazing creatures and friends with whom we share it.

We can share the joy. Ray and Nan, conspirators in joy, had the habit of saying goodbye with a hug, so you know you are thoroughly loved, and go home shining.

Thank you lord
that you touched Ray, 
and that he touches us.
In the name of Jesus, mentor of mentors,
Amen.

Got It In One

The day I wrote this note, the Wordle word was "THERE". Got it in one!  In reply, Wordle called me a genius. I'm not that. A genius would need more information. There are 158,390 five-letter words in English according to The Free Dictionary. Guessing the right one with no clues on one try with those odds would make me lucky, not smart. In truth, it should have called me a cheater because I had previously worked it out on another computer where it took me three tries to guess the right answer. I cheated because I was curious what Wordle would say if I got it in one. 

So, either Wordle got it wrong, or it's flattering me to keep me playing until it hooks me into paying for a New York Times subscription. If this is just a marketing strategy, Wordle was cheating, as was I.

Winning or losing a game is trivial. Nobody gets hurt. But games do arouse the same motives and invoke the same methods we might use in more serious contests and many everyday social transactions. It's always nice to win. However, if we don't treat our friends right, we may lose by winning.

We are reminded of the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. Martin Luther King Jr. said it this way, "Be the peace you want to see in the world." The same idea has been phrased in a variety of  negative ways.

Cheaters never prosper.
What goes around, comes around.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

In the real world, none of these statements is  absolute. Cheaters sometimes prosper, although they should not be surprised if some smarter trickster cheats on them in return. The Golden rule suggests how we can improve the odds of getting what we want by noticing what we most want: friends we can trust who trust us. 

We would all be better off if we were more gracious and less selfish. 

War, ethnic feuds, labour negotiations, trade disputes, wealth disparity, masking mandates, partisan politics, immigration rules, who washes the dishes, less selfishness and more grace means everyone wins the benefits of community. Otherwise, everyone loses.

As the world degenerates into scarcity and climate disaster, our instinct will be to withdraw into smaller exclusive groups competing for limited resources. The cheaters may survive for a time, but in the long term, nothing will survive if we are not wise enough to master respect, restraint, reciprocity, grace, gratitude and generosity. Global problems need a more gracious response from a global community so we trust each other to do what we can for mutual benefit.

The default definition of community includes only people and plays a competitive game with everything else, other living things and the physical world. If we continue to win by cheating the nonhuman components of the system which has spawned us, we lose everything.

You've heard all this before although our grandparents were hearing other homilies. The new worldview quickly becomes so familiar that we stop paying attention. This is why we encode our deepest understanding in key words and phrases repeated ritually and leading to action. 

Pay attention.
Have a say in what happens next.
Be the peace you want to see in the world.

********************

Next day on Wordle, my first guess was LUCKY. I wasn't lucky, except for the L and the Y which were in the wrong spots. The correct word was GLYPH, to which Wordle responded "splendid". It took me four tries. No cheating. This  glow  is self-esteem. Now I'm not pretending to be so smart but I am playing honest. I also won a word, GLYPH, an old friend which had not come to mind for years. Feels splendid.

A challenge to young artists (older ones too): design a glyph (symbol or idiogram) as a representation of global community. Make it easy to draw so we all can do it. I have a collection of excellent words, and you can win one.

Email to ware605040@gmail.com 

********************

COP27: climate damage fund approved

How to avoid a climate disaster. Bill Gates

Get the Mop

You know how you go through the same routine every morning around breakfast: get the porridge cooking, start the coffee maker, empty the dishwasher, set the table, get out the vitamin tablets, pour the orange juice? You know when you get distracted by thoughts about inflation, politics, war, climate change, ecosystem collapse, and forget the important stuff like putting the coffee pot under the drip? Never done that? Let me tell you. It involves a mop. 

No! I don't want to think about it. Don't ask Dorothy either; I forgot to clean up the mess. It won't help if you remind her. I've decided that I get two more chances before I have to switch to instant or reserve a table at Tim's or give up coffee and save a bundle. Just joking.

Some things happen because that is the way the universe works. You can't beat nature by quick freezing your head and keeping it in cold storage until the genes controlling dementia can be turned off. Forgetting stuff is predestined.

Forgetting the coffee pot is a random variation on the theme just to make life interesting. When it's no longer interesting, one morning you will not wake up and breakfast will go on without you. That's as it should be. Otherwise, the world would devolve into a dystopian nightmare populated by those who were first in line for CRISPR therapy. They discover that immortality is hell because there isn't enough coffee for eight billion people. Nature's solution is that sooner or later someone else gets to do breakfast. 

That's the way the universe works. Be glad it's your turn, and get the mop.

***************************

The Day of 8 Billion: United Nations

November 15: Quirks and Quarks

Fishing for Meaning

I am not a fisherman, although when I was five years old, I thought it would be fun.

Dennis and Ronnie 1946

***************
You can skip to the end if you're in a hurry. I wasn't in a hurry so the rest is just rumination.
***************
Catching a fish was whelming, not overwhelming because of threading a live worm onto a hook, which is underwhelming. When we finally caught a fish one day, seeing it hanging by its lip from the hook was dyswhelming. I imagined the fish was longing to be rewhelmed. That is just a kid doing the thinking for a creature that doesn't think much. But then, what did I know about fish?

I am not a fisherman, but I aspire to be a writer. I have the same relationship with meaning that I had with that fish way back when. I got stuck on the previous paragraph when the word overwhelming came to mind, and I discovered that I didn't know exactly what whelming meant. So, I baited Google Search with the word whelm and hooked a response from the ocean of meaning known as the Internet. Whelm, meaning submerge, comes from Middle English whelmen, to overturn, or Old English hwelfan, to cover. The meaning struggled on the hook for the remainder of the paragraph while I tried it out in my story. Then I threw it back because submerged was not exactly what I had in mind.

Here is an edited version.

I am not a fisherman, although when I was five years old, I thought it would be fun. Fishing did not live up to expectation because of threading a live worm onto a hook, which is yucky. When we finally caught a fish, seeing it hanging by the lip from the hook gave me the heeby-jeebies. I imagined the fish was longing to be back in the water. But that was just me thinking fishy thoughts on behalf of the fish who probably wasn't thinking anything.

Not sure that says what I want to say. I gave it another try. Here is an alternate Hogwarts version.

I am not a fisherman; but when I was five years old, catching a fish was pretty cool, though not magical since you have to thread a live worm onto a hook, which sucks like Slytherin. When we finally caught a fish, and it was hanging from the hook by its lip, it looked like lunch for Voldemort, and I do not serve the Dark Lord. The fish, if it was thinking anything at all, was looking for Hermione to rescue it. But who knows the mind of a fish? Catching one doesn't make you a piscean empath.

So many ways to tell the story, it's hard to choose. One more try, the primitive version.

I am not a fisherman. I thought it would be fun. It wasn't. I don't think worms like it. Nor fish. But then, what do I know? 

 Writing about fishing is more fun than fishing. I now fish with words as bait cast into the dark semantic ocean to hook some meaning onto which I project my own intent before tossing it into the basket or letting it loose in the story. No living things get harmed. I write, you read, we wonder. I believe we writers and readers are whelmed in the magic of meaning, which connects us more securely than shared DNA. But then, what do I know?

**********************

Anticipating COP27, I have been casting out words like While Heaven Thaws, EIEIO and Growing Up. Did you catch my meaning? Here is what others are saying.

According to Antonio Guterrese, we are 'on the highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator'. Well said, Antonio.

Here's how to put on the brakes.
Act now: the UN campaign for individual action.

However the story is told,
don't be overwhelmed.
But for sure be whelmed.
If underwhelmed, we're done for.
Not quite the right words,
but you know what I mean.

Growing Up

Halloween was fun, princesses and superheroes.

But it's a scary world we live in.
It's the ordinary people,
taking care of business
while ignoring the cost of doing business:
floods,
drought,
famine,
heat domes,
monster storms,
rebellions,
wars,
wildlife decline,
extinctions,
tipping points,
collapse.

What's a person supposed to do?

Avoid the news.
Ignore the evidence.
Distrust those who know.
Deny what's coming.
Listen to what we want to hear.
Blame the scientists.
Blame government.
Blame the elite.
Blame corporations.
Blame larger populations elsewhere.
Blame the victims.
Practice psychic numbing.
Withdraw from community.
Load the guns and start shooting.
Make excuses.
Give up.
Shrug and carry on.
Pretend to fix things while breaking them.
Get all we can while we can get it.
Leave it up to the experts.
Leave it up to the government.
Leave it up to God.

Or pay attention
and grow up.

This picture was taken back when we slept in a chilly attic room in Gram and Poppy's house, just before we moved into a nice new house of our own with a coal-fired furnace. A few things have changed since then including climate.

Yes, I am writing about climate change, as usual. I learned about the greenhouse effect at university, and taught it in high school science classes for 33 years. Back then I was too busy dealing with teenagers to do much about global warming. However, at various times I have tried out all of the behaviours in the list above (except loading and shooting). I know them inside out, so I can write about them with some confidence.

Anyone younger can do better than me. It is important to work through the list and grow up as quickly as we can. COP27 is going to tell us what we already know, that we will likely fail to limit global warming to 1.5°C, and there is much worse coming than we have seen so far. No time to waste. Pay attention and grow up fast.

So what is the plan? How will you and I get to net zero?

I was going to recount my own efforts, beginning with walking or cycling 8 km to work and back home (uphill both ways, in all kinds of weather), and ending with the heat pump we just had installed that will reduce our estimated residential energy use from 73 to 40 GJ/year, and our estimated annual carbon dioxide emissions from 4.0 to 2.1 tonnes. There have been many steps which I won't include in my brag list.  There are also many worrying steps left to get to net zero. When we know there is a problem, doing something about it is the ultimate grownup response, and we are growing up too slowly.

Since I was born 81 years ago, global carbon emissions have increased by a factor of 9. Canada is one of the highest per capita emitters of carbon dioxide in the world. Global emissions in 2021 were the highest levels on record. If we continue as we are going, the global increase in average temperature above pre-industrial levels will reach 2.8°C by 2100, with catastrophic results. One troubled lifetime remains after I'm gone. And then what?

Pay attention.
Consider what to do.
Do something.
Rejoice at success.
Learn from failure.
Decide what to do next.
Don't lose hope.
Forget hope and do what's right.
Grow up.

We can do this.
Grownup steps.
Uphill but feels good.