Lessons from long-neck critters

Whenever I click on a newspaper website, or switch on the TV news, I see someone cradling an AK47 or some similar killing machine.

Another click takes me to news of more shootings in the Ant Hill – the place most people call Toronto. There have been 248 shootings and firearms discharges in that city so far this year resulting in 125 injuries of deaths.

Globally, 560,000 people died in interpersonal and collective violence in 2016, says the Small Arms Survey produced by a Swiss study group. About 385,000 of them were the victims of intentional homicides, 99,000 were casualties of war and the rest a variety of causes.

Ours is a violent world. So much so that I wonder if we humans actually are more violent than the wild animals, most of which kill for food. Some don’t kill at all, restricting their diets to plants.

Take for instance giraffes. They eat leaves, vines and fruits, although in desperate times have been known to grab something meaty.

Giraffes set a good example for we humans, not just for eating healthier but for living peacefully. Those long-neck critters live in loose, open herds, doing their own thing, or just going with the flow.

 
They get along without leaders to tell them where to go, and what to do. And, they are not territorial, a trait that gets humans in a lot of trouble.

Besides being gentle and graceful, giraffes are quiet, never causing noisy uproars. They are not known to roar, growl or howl. The most any researchers have ever heard from a giraffe is a grunt, which could be translated as: “Whatever, eh?”

Because giraffes have little to say some people assume they must be stupid. They are not dumb; they communicate not with their voices, but by touching and eye signalling each other. They identify each other by their spots, which are different in each giraffe.

They often hang around villages in southern Africa where folks consider them gentle giants who seldom do any damage and don’t cause anyone to be afraid.

Giraffes fooled the early Romans, who first became acquainted with them when Julius Caesar brought one back from Alexandra, Egypt. The Romans thought that the strange beasts, which they called camelopards because of their brownish flagstone-like patches, would make vicious opponents for the gladiators.

Imagine the spectacle! A short, muscular gladiator with shield in one hand, battle axe in the other, staring up at a 16-foot-tall beast that could sit on him and crush him into the sand.

However, giraffes are lovers, not fighters, and any brought into the killing ring likely just stared at the odd little men standing beneath them. The Colosseum crowds no doubt were disappointed.

Staring is what giraffes do today when confronted by lions that want to eat them. A herd of giraffes will stand and stare patiently at lions that come looking for a meal.  The giraffes have learned that lions will not attack when they are being watched.

So, there is much we can learn from these peaceful beasts. Diet is obvious. A mature male giraffe weighs roughly 2,500 pounds. He has grown all that muscle, bone and sinew without ever tasting a Big Mac, fries, or pepperoni pizza. Acacia leaves, and other greenery, suit him just fine.

Getting along with each other is another lesson. Males might get into a serious neck wrestling match over a female but these encounters are not usually overly violent.

Yes, there is much to learn from watching and listening to animals. As A. A. Milne, the author who created Winnie-the-Pooh, is reported to have said: “Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem.” 

One of the problems for giraffes is trophy hunting. Between 2006 and 2015, trophy hunters legally imported into the United States 3,744 giraffe hunting trophies, and thousands of giraffe parts such as skins, bones and bone carvings.

There are an estimated 117,000 giraffes remaining in Africa, according to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. They are considered endangered because populations have decreased by roughly 30 per cent in recent times.

We need to keep them around. They are good teachers, and we humans have much to learn.

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How many kids will die?

From Shaman’s Rock

By Jim Poling Sr.

There are days this summer when my mind spins like a roulette wheel about to fly off its spindle and crash into a wall.

I sometimes think it is this summer’s hot and unsettled weather that is making me feel that way. It’s not. It’s all the unsettling crisis-like events swirling around us all.

Some of the events are far away, but still threatening to us, and others are on our doorsteps. It hurts to think that much of what threatens us is preventable or solvable. It hurts even more thinking about how little progress we are making in eliminating, or at least reducing, these threats.

The menacing threat on our doorsteps, of course, is the Covid-19 Delta variant. It is starting to sicken and kill unvaccinated children. It’s not so bad yet in Canada, but Canadian institutions always lag behind the U.S. in collecting and distributing data important to its citizens.

Covid-19 infecting children is a developing nightmare. In the United States almost 4.5 million children have tested positive for Covid since the pandemic began. More shocking, 94,000 children tested positive in the first week of August, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The U.S. Centres for Disease Control reported a 27.3-per-cent increase in the seven-day average for Covid hospital admissions among children zero to 17 years old. That increase was seen in just 14 days in late July and early August.

Vaccines have made Covid-19 controllable. If everyone got the shot, infections, hospitalizations and deaths would be minimal.

The fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people who refuse vaccination and are willing to let children get sick and perhaps die is beyond shocking. 

Also on our doorsteps and threatening our futures is climate change. Western North America is on fire, other parts have dried to dust and still others are flooding under a summer of violent storms.

We have been warned about global warming and climate change for more than 100 years. Amateur scientist and women’s right activist Eunice Foote experimented with carbon dioxide in the 1850s and concluded: “An atmosphere of that gas [CO2] would give to our Earth a high temperature.”

Despite even more conclusive evidence, more warnings, a lot of political talk and some weak-kneed action, the fires and the floods grow worse. So do CO2 emissions.

Meanwhile far abroad, the mentally-deranged Taliban, who treat women as sex slaves and stop children from reading books, have taken over Afghanistan. No big deal for us in North America? 

No big deal - until they get their hands on a nuclear bomb from neighbouring Pakistan, North Korea or China. The Taliban goal is to eliminate all ‘infidels’.

The biggest threat, however, is ourselves. We allow ourselves to be governed by weak leaders who worry that firm stands and strong actions needed for solutions to the threats will threaten their re-election. Making masks and vaccinations mandatory would end Covid but would make some voters unhappy.

While all of this swirls around us, our federal politicians are stomping through our neighbourhoods sucking up to us for votes.

We are told we need a federal election - in the midst of the most serious health crisis in modern history and an unprecedented developing climate crisis - despite one being held only 22 months ago. The need is simply a wish in the mind of the current minority government. 

A minority Parliament is probably better for finding solutions to our problems. With a minority the government has to listen to and work with the other political parties. Majority governments think they know it all, don’t listen to anyone else and carry on doing what they want.

Covid, climate change, and international upheavals are major threats that require bipartisan solutions. Also, solutions require money.

Elections Canada estimates that the Sept. 20 federal election will cost us an estimated $610 million, roughly $100 million more than the one 22 months ago. That will be the most expensive election in Canadian history.

The cost could be higher depending on how the fourth wave of Covid-19 develops.

Six hundred million plus seems like a ton of money that could be used to help fix current problems and threats.

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 A good friend who lived at the top of the hill behind my place passed away this summer. Her name was Fagus, a Latin name I believe. 

I’m guessing that Fagus was close to 100 years old. I can’t be certain because I never counted her growth rings.

Yes, my friend Fagus was a tree. Fagus Grandifolia is the official name for North American beech, those heavily crowned forest sentinels with smooth bluish-grey bark and saw-tooth leaves.

I don’t know what killed her. It was likely beech bark disease, which has become a grim reaper in Ontario’s beech stands. The disease is caused by the combination of a canker fungus and the beech bark beetle, an invasive bug from Europe.

Fagus had a short life, considering beeches can live for 200 or more years. But hers was a happy and productive life, spent giving and helping others.

It might seem odd to be writing an obituary about a tree. However, trees have lives similar to humans. Like us they are born from seed, grow through life stages of childhood, young adulthood, maturity and old age. Like us they have to fight off diseases and try to protect themselves from natural disasters.

They are a vital part of overall life on this planet, probably more so than we humans, and deserve recognition and respect. 

Fagus stood on the edge of a trail I use regularly. Whenever I walked up the hill I stopped and leaned against her trunk to catch my breath.

I often thought it would be nice to talk to Fagus, to hear her story and what changes she has seen over the last century. Some indigenous cultures believe that trees have spirits that talk and people can speak with them if they listen deeply and learn their language.

There is no solid evidence of that but scientists tell us that trees do communicate with each other through underground fungal networks. There is a growing pile of research that shows trees send water and nutrients to each other through underground networks that also carry warning signals about dangers such as disease and insect attacks.

I know little about talking to trees, but I have learned much about Fagus’ life just by observing her and her surroundings.

Fagus believed that even as a lone individual she had a critical role in sustaining the world around her. She gave of herself fully and her generosity was evident everywhere.

She regularly dropped high-protein nuts that gave bears, deer and some smaller critters the energy and strength they need to live in their harsh environments. 

She sheltered many birds in her dense foliage, protecting them from predators and killer storms. Birds, squirrels and chipmunks gave birth to their young in nests she allowed them to build in cavities created where branches were torn from her trunk by strong winds and heavy snows.

During her life Fagus took in about 48 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, or more than two tons over her 100 years. She released enough oxygen into the air for 10 people to inhale each year. 

It was all part of that miracle process called photosynthesis in which trees take in and store harmful carbons and give off helpful oxygen. Without photosynthesis there would be no plant life on earth, and therefore no human life.

Fagus dropped her leaves every autumn, fertilizing and protecting the soil around her. Her massive crown of leaves provided shade that helped to regulate temperature extremes.

Along with all her good work, Fagus also raised children who are the promise of a strong, healthy forest future. 

Even in death Fagus is not finished giving. Her wood could be used for plywood, pallets or even railroad ties. However, I’ll cut her wood into rounds, and split them for the woodstove because beech burns hot and slowly and is rated among the top firewoods.

I’m sad to see Fagus gone, but happy for the generosity of her life. Like humans she provided much good, but unlike humans she never did anything bad.

Thank you, Fagus. You were kind and generous, and beautiful to look at.

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Have the feeling that someone is listening and watching?

I have that feeling more often these days. It’s more than a feeling. It has become a belief.

The other night the television went wonky, as televisions do in these times of mystifying electronics, spy satellites and other stuff beyond the reach of average human comprehension.

I called the TV service provider. A distant and unconcerned voice answered and said things were being checked but nothing appeared to be wrong. 

“You might try changing your TV remote battery,” advised the voice. “It’s down to 30 per cent.”

I stared at the remote in my left hand, then the telephone in my right.

“How do you know that?” I asked. No answer.

I changed the battery, but the TV remained wonky. Occasional cutting in and out and flashing like there was a thunderstorm overhead, but that night there wasn’t a cloud for hundreds of miles around.

“Monitor it for the next 24 hours and if there’s still a problem, call us back.”

The next day the TV was normal and I assumed the voice had fiddled a switch or jiggled a button and the problem disappeared. However, I was left with that uncomfortable feeling that the voice on the phone also was a set of eyes inside my home.

How did it know the battery level in the TV remote sitting on my coffee table? And, why didn’t it say how it knew when I asked?

It’s creepy how little of our lives is private anymore. 

For instance, I’d like to know where they get those questions you must answer to get into your bank account web site. Who was your first manager? Where did you go on your honeymoon? Who was your Grade 12 math teacher? On what day did you clip your toenails last month?

I don’t remember giving anyone those questions, or the answers. 

I suppose I should be thankful they are questions I can guess at. If they asked me really difficult stuff like: Where did you leave your car keys? I would never get into my bank account or any password-protected site.

Governments and big businesses know more about every one of us than they will ever admit. They have it stored in brightly lit rooms that buzz, whir and crackle with digital sounds. 

By one estimate, more than 98 percent of the world’s information now is stored digitally, and the volume of that data has quadrupled since 2007. Much of it is data taken from home and work electronics that we use to send and receive emails, chat on social media and work on crowd-sourced projects.

Many of us were shocked reading George Orwell’s novel 1984. The book’s Big Brother with his telescreens in every home and office was small potatoes compared with today’s Big Data.

Stroll into a shopping mall store and covert lenses track you to record your shopping experience. Show an interest in Big Bill blue jeans and the Big Bill company knows about it.

Big Data has tens of thousands of unambiguous algorithms sniffing through our Web histories like beagles looking for puppy snacks. What they find is stored forever, unlike paper which loses what it has stored when you accidentally spill your coffee on it.

Big Data has other sneaky tools – like facial recognition, which you thought was really cool when you got it on your new smartphone. So did governments and big corporations, who now know more about you than your mother.

Those selfies that many folks are so fond of placing on social media apps? They likely are ending up somewhere you didn’t want them to be.

Surveillance of citizens minding their own business has been growing dramatically during the Covid pandemic. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have installed mandatory ‘health code’ smartphone apps that determine whether they can leave home.

Some European governments are collecting Telcom data, employing drones and copying contact-tracing apps invented in Asia as part of Covid surveillance.

Governments and corporate giants constantly tell us that privacy is important and surveillance is used only to prevent crime, improve efficiency, or whatever. 

Yeah, maybe. But just to be safe I am going to start showering in my undershorts.

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Mother Nature is no longer simply disappointed in us; she is blazing angry.

Her anger is evident throughout the world this month. Killer mudslides in Japan. Parts of Germany devastated by unprecedented flooding. Ditto India. 

People in China were photographed up to their necks in a flooded subway. Tornadoes ripped through the U.S. and parts of Ontario.

And, of course, many of us have been inhaling smoke from massive wildfires out west. Smoke that has stretched from British Columbia to Halifax, with some research suggesting that breathing it can reduce immunity and increase the chances of contracting Covid-19.

Those of you who still believe that global warming and destructive climate change are fake news can stop reading here and go back to your social media gossip and computer games.

Politicians and their governments are getting worried and talking longer and louder about stopping climate change. But it is too late. It is already here.

Nature takes its time and it will take decades or maybe centuries to reverse damage already started. Those millions of tons of Arctic ice that have melted are not coming back soon. All that can be done now is to stop the damage from worsening.

Stopping it from getting worse is too important and too big a job to leave to the politicians, most of whom nowadays are talkers, not thinkers and doers. We individuals have to think through how we can change our lives in practical ways to alleviate climate change. 

That will require us to give up some things we are not willing, or simply unable, to give up. Fighting the advance of climate change is a daunting task that demands sacrifices from us all. It’s questionable whether enough of us are willing to make those sacrifices. 

I think about this as I look out at the patch of lawn at my lake place. It was designed and planted mainly as a covering for the septic field. It looks pretty when trimmed but I have been questioning why I should maintain and groom it. 

This year I decided not to cut it; simply let it grow naturally. One reason was to let it build itself up for the annual summer influx of very active granddogs.

As it grew taller and more unkempt, I began to see its natural beauty. The green clover produced small, white blossoms that attracted bumblebees, a declining species once considered one of our world’s most important pollinators.

Patches of chickweed, an antioxidant-rich plant used as herbal medicine, sprouted beautifully delicate tiny white flowers. A couple of clumps of wild daisies with white heads and golden faces also appeared, adding an aura of innocence to my out-of-control landscape.

Passersby looked at my jungle-like yard with dismay and concern about my mental health. 

Lawns are seen as an important indicator of socio-economic character. A well-groomed lawn tells others that you are a good fit for the neighbourhood. Someone with the time, money and good sense to support an eye-pleasing attraction. An ungroomed yard says you are not.

But seeing manicured lawns as natural and important pieces of our environment is a myth. They are not natural. Their only purpose is to be decorative.

Lawns were invented by the wealthy English and French aristocracy for their self-conceit. Settlers brought the idea of manicured spaces to America, where lawns became an obsessive sign of prosperity.

Canadians also have the lawn obsession. The country has seven million plus detached homes, most with manicured lawns, plus tens of thousands of row housing and apartment buildings with patches of lawn.

Maintaining lawns consumes huge amounts of gas, oil, electricity or compounds needed to make batteries. Lawn maintenance also wastes millions of gallons of water that could be used for other things.

After three months I succumbed to the smirks and whispers of the passersby and cut my jungle lawn. The majority likes manicured lawns and many other nice things that must be given up to stop damaging climate change. 

I’m sorry now that I succumbed to the majority. Beating back global warming is going to mean sacrificing things that we like. We have to start accepting that because Mother Nature is demanding it.

An interesting anniversary passed virtually unnoticed last Sunday: the 204th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death.

Austen, in the two centuries after her passing, became world famous for her novels interpreting and critiquing life among the British upper middle-class landowners of the late 1700s. 

Her writings used literary realism in which the author tries to describe everyday life like it is and not how they imagine it as most fiction writers do. She is the acknowledged mistress of characterization, using her characters’ actions – not just their words – to show readers their true and complete characters.

Jane Austen is not here to describe our tragicomic lives in North America in the first part of the 21st century. It’s not hard to imagine, however, the word pictures she would draw of Canadians and Americans.

Her Canadians might be shell-shocked characters wandering zombie-like in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate change mutilating our wonderfully diverse northern regions.

I can imagine Austen’s biting irony when one of her Canadian zombies is stopped on the street and asked where she is going.

“I’m out looking for our leaders,” she says bewilderedly. “Have you seen where they’ve gone?”

Austen’s characters in today’s United States would be angry and unfocussed. 

The U.S. is a country in civil war. It is not the civil war of the 1800s when men in blue uniforms and grey uniforms fired muskets at each other. It is a civil war in which people with unbending blue views and hard rock red views are tearing the country apart.

America’s social problems grow and are not getting fixed because there is no truly functional government. Blind partisanship is so severe that it has shackled the federal government and many state governments.

Jane Austen surely would repeat one line from her novel Pride and Prejudice when writing about America - “keep your breath to cool your porridge.”

That famous line has been taken to mean Mind Your Own Business! Good advice because therein lies America’s greatest fault, and the fault of many of us.

That fault was glaringly evident earlier this month when President Joe Biden spoke from both sides of his mouth. One day he said the U.S, supports Cuban citizens’ “clarion call for freedom and relief” from its Communist government.

He was saying he favours the overthrow of a peoples’ government, yet just days before said U.S. troops are being withdrawn from Afghanistan because the Afghan people have the right “to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”

So, Afghans should be left alone to decide if they should be governed by Taliban, but Cubans wishing to overthrow their Communist government should be supported.

The U.S. has a habit of interfering in other countries’ business, resulting in tens of thousands of lost American lives in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan and other places. 

Most often when we push our noses into someone else’s business we do not help them.  We deprive them of the chance to learn by trial and error and from making their own mistakes. We take from them an opportunity to have pride in managing their lives.

One of the worst things about not minding our own business is what it does to ourselves. When you are knee deep into someone else’s business, you are neglecting your own.

Edward Weston, the famous American modernist photographer, once said:

“A lifetime can well be spent correcting and improving one’s own faults without bothering about others.”

The United States – in fact all countries and individuals – have enough faults to correct without getting involved trying to correct others.

Jane Austen’s work has a huge North American following today. One reason is that it remains relevant.

The class divides of the 1700s continue to exist today, although they might not be exactly the same. Divisions between the haves and the have-nots grow wider today, as do resulting different social norms.

Both her society and ours are heavily opinionated. Her characters form strong opinions based on parlour gossip. We form opinions based on social media gossip.

Minding our own business, and forming opinions based on proven facts, would go a long way to making our society a better one than Jane Austen’s.

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You have to wonder whether the Neanderthals of 50,000 years ago lived better lives than we genius Homo Sapiens of the super tech 21st century.

The Neanderthals lived in caves and had only wood and stone tools, but probably had more relaxed and rewarding lives than we do today. Yuval Noah Harari makes that case in his international bestselling book titled Sapiens. A Brief History of Mankind.

Ancient peoples were hunter-gatherers who fed themselves by gathering berries, nuts, roots, insects and plants and by hunting animals. Getting food was their main job and, in some ways, it was easier than the jobs we have today.

These hunter-gatherers set off into the meadows and woods some time after dawn in search of mushrooms, bugs or anything else edible. They likely had all they needed by noon and were back home for lunch, with the rest of the day for napping, telling stories and playing with the kids.

Today, many folks climb into a vehicle after dawn, endure a frustrating commute to the shop, and work repetitive, mind-numbing tasks until early evening. They make the same irritating and boring commute back home for a late dinner, perhaps a bit of TV, then bed.

Many are not totally happy with this lifestyle. It probably is a factor in the social unrest we see today.           

And, not just in capitalistic countries. There have been stories recently about Chinese workers, notably younger ones, suffering burnout from long hours doing boring jobs.     

Dolly Parton sang about working 9-to-5; the Chinese now are singing 996, a reference to working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.

Hunter-gathers also had a lighter household work load. No dishes to wash. No toilets to clean. No vacuuming or sweeping up. No beds to make.

Today we have luxuries like vacuum cleaners and dishwashers to help us but luxuries need to be maintained, which costs time and money, which requires us to work harder.

Overall, Neanderthals had more time to relax and less worry about what was going on around them.

There were no organized politics back then, so Neanderthals did not have to put up with the thought manipulation, misinformation, and outright lying that we have today. No arguments over vaccines because there was little infectious disease and no large, crowded populations in which epidemics thrive.

The Neanderthals did have worries. If one fell and broke a leg, there was no health care. 

Going to work could be dangerous. You could be bitten by a poisonous snake, eaten by a sabre tooth tiger or stepped on by a woolly mammoth.

Folks today don’t have to fear being attacked by wild animals while going to work. However, we could be killed in traffic accident or in a drive-by shooting. 

As our cities grow larger and more crowded, they become more dangerous, less healthy and less likely to be places of better living. More people are feeling this and are moving to smaller, more relaxed places. 

Statistics Canada reported recently a sharp rise in the number of people moving out of our three largest cities – Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. It reported that 87,444 people left those three cities between July 2019 and July 2020 for other parts of the same province, up from an average annual exodus of 72,686 the previous three years.

Few of us would want to live in a cave, or spend the day digging roots and catching insects for food. But many people are looking for less stressful, simpler lives. 

Harari’s thoughts in the book Sapiens put the lives of Neanderthals, plus our own lives, in a new light. It’s a fascinating and provocative look at human history and is followed up by: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. 

The latter contains thoughts, supported by some interesting facts, about what our future might hold. 

The Neanderthals lived lives directed by the forces of nature. Today increasingly large chunks of our lives are directed by computerization.

That leaves me wondering not just whether the Neanderthals lived better lives, but whether algorithms will become more important than nature and life will become simply data processing. 

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