Chandra Clarke

Offering Whatever Light I Can

It’s the System, Man

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One’s got to change the system, or one changes nothing. 

— George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Not long ago, The Guardian⁠1 reported on a study that suggested that just 100 companies were responsible for 71 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

100 companies. 71 percent.

Which sounds like an actionable bit of knowledge. Just boycott those 100 and we’re good to go, right?

Except that it turns out those companies are coal, oil, and gas producers that, in general, you and I don’t buy from directly. 

So, that means we have to take a two-pronged approach:

  1. We need to make systemic changes.
  2. We need to make personal changes.

Systemic changes are up first, because while we can definitely influence things by making small personal changes, we must really kick the system hard to get the actions we want as fast as we need them.

Let me use a real world example to illustrate what I mean.

You probably already recycle your plastic bottles, right? Or maybe you don’t even use them. That’s awesome, and you should be congratulated. It’s important that you keep doing that.

But … as long as the system continues to produce plastic bottles and also doesn’t account for the hundreds of thousands of people who either can’t or won’t recycle them, and also doesn’t account for the bad actor companies that just dump what they’re supposed to recycle, we still have a huge problem.

Well, I hear you say, we just need to get more people to recycle. Education! Awareness!

To which I say: hogsnarfle.

For one thing, we’ve been running education and awareness programs for decades. They only work if people are receptive to the message and can act on it. (Spoiler alert: The system makes it really, really hard to act on it.)

But more to the point, there’s just too many of us!!

Let’s do some math. Don’t worry, I’ll do all the heavy lifting here.

Coca-Cola⁠2 says that they sell 1.9 billion servings of their drinks in 200 countries every day. 

Now, let’s assume we do such a great job of recycling that a whopping 90% of those serving containers are recycled.

That still leaves one hundred and ninety million containers in our landfills, oceans, and by the side of the road.

190,000,000. 

Every. Single. Day.

(And yes, you could argue that not all of those servings are individually packaged, what with bigger bottles and fountain drinks, but even if you slash that number in half or by two thirds, it’s still mind-boggingly huge. It’s also just the drinks from one company. Think how many other products there are out there?!)

Now let’s be honest with ourselves here. You’ve seen the comments on any social media post. You know what your co-workers and the people in your community can be like. 

Can you really see any future in which we have 90% of people doing the right thing 100% of the time?

No, me neither. And I’m an optimist!

So that’s why we need to tackle the systems first. We must have systems that account for real human behaviours, both good and bad. 

This is the last explanatory/introductory post. In our next section, we’re going to start kicking the system, beginning with your local government.

Today’s action? Subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss a post. There’s a Newsletter Subscribe form at the right.

1 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change

2 https://www.coca-cola.co.uk/our-business/faqs/how-many-cans-of-coca-cola-are-sold-worldwide-in-a-day

 

 

Suspicions Confirmed

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Finally, a scientist has confirmed what I have long suspected: my dog laughs.

According to work done by Patricia Simonet, an animal behavior researcher at Sierra Nevada College, when dogs pant on a hot day, or from exertion, there’s a certain rhythm and pattern to the sound they make. Roughly translated, the sounds mean exactly what you’d think they’d mean: “I’m hot” or “I’m tired” or sometimes even, “Man, I could really go for a cold beer and a bowl of kibble.”

When dogs are playing, on the other hand, the panting sounds quite different. It’s a more explosive sound that hits a wider range of frequencies, and researchers have likened it to a laugh. Roughly translated, the sounds would be written as, “Bwahahahahaha! Woof!”

I know many of you will be wondering just why this study took place, and whether or not your tax dollars went to support it.

First, I’d like to remind you that many scientists who started out in dog research went on to describe important theories about human behavior. Consider Ivan Pavlov who basically spent most of his career training dogs to dribble on command. He discovered two things: 1) Waterproof shoes are important in the lab. 2) As a result of “conditioning,” (previous experience), when presented with a “stimulus” (a huge mobile phone bill), people will have an immediate, “conditioned response” (throwing up).

Second, there are worse things to research. Case in point: Jaak Panksepp of Bowling Green University has discovered that rats chirp or squeak when you tickle them. Given that rats aren’t exactly cootchie-coo material, I think this man ought to be given the Nobel Prize for Most Fingers Donated In The Name Of Science. And I can only hope he doesn’t try studying this effect in other animals:

Lab Notes, Day 2: Assistant tickled Fluffy the Tarantula. Noises recorded best described as follows: “Ssssnicker. Sssssnicker. Ssss-ARRRRRRRRRRGH!” Suspect last noise was from assistant, not Fluffy.

Lab Notes, Day 3: Assistant attempted to tickle Petunia the Polar Bear, using the remaining non-swollen fingers of his left hand. Noises recorded best described as follows: “Heh heh. Heheheheh. CHOMP. Gulp.” Curious. Must request funding to develop English-Polar Bear dictionary to find out what ‘chomp’ might mean. Must also find another assistant.

At any rate, now that we know that dogs are capable of laughing, it will be interesting to learn more about the canine sense of humour. What makes a dog laugh? In the case of pit bull terriers, the answer to that question is easy: just show them pictures of French poodles. But what of other breeds? Would they enjoy a night of sit-up comedy at the cabaret? Would they require a dog and pony show?

And what about cats? Because cats are, to use the scientific term, ‘stuck up,’ so far the only recorded and translated noise we have to date is ‘Sniff! Hmph!’

One thing we might try is sitting a cat in front of a new industrial strength, automatic animal washing machine, invented by Eduardo Segura and Andres Diaz. The device has a series of nozzles that wash and massage from every direction; an owner can watch his dog’s bath session through a large glass door. I suspect that if a cat is ever caught laughing on tape, it will sound like: “Hch. Hchhch. Spin cycle! Hchchchch.”

At least it will until the cat realizes that it’s going to be the next one into the machine. Then the dog will have the last laugh, which makes sense, because as everyone knows… every dog has its day.

Photo by Jonathan Daniels on Unsplash

Be A Good Sport

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A writer’s job is to take a look at the issues, and try to see them in a whole new way or from a completely different, radical perspective. This can be done through A) lots of in-depth research or B) the regular use of hard drugs.

Because a single aspirin can make me too loopy to write, I have to rely on research. Since I like to write about global issues, this means that I am forced — forced, I say — to travel to exotic locations around the world, especially those regions that have warm, sunny beaches populated by scantily clad people.

What I’m trying to say here is that I am gearing up to investigate the dynamic interaction of nation states in a 21st century context. It will only look like I am sitting in front of the TV watching my favorite winter Olympic sports, which only coincidentally feature lots of well-built humans in skin tight athletic wear.

As I know many of you are also concerned about serious problems like, um, the position of the individual in a collectivist society, I have created this handy guide to the Olympics, (which I will call Chandra’s Handy Guide to the Olympics) so you can do research too. This completely unbiased glossary (Go Canada!) will explain some of the sporting events you will see.

Alpine Skiing: In this event, athletes strap thin, waxed boards onto their feet so they can hurl themselves down a mountain at Mach 1. A gold medal is awarded to the person with the fewest number of broken bones. It is called alpine skiing because most race courses are bordered by trees, i.e., ‘He lost control and it was all pine after that.’

Bobsleigh: Competitors throw themselves into a box that has no visible steering or braking system and race down a track covered in ice. In many ways, this sport is like the morning commute in Alberta or Minnesota. It is called Bobsleigh because Petesleigh would be a silly name.

Curling: In an ice rink, one player will shoot a large piece of granite toward a target. (Canada Rules!) His teammates will frantically sweep the ice in front of the granite as it slides, because as everyone knows, you have to make ice slippery. It’s called curling because the sport was invented in Scotland, and thrifty Scots believe that calling it ‘Sliding a large piece of granite toward a target’ would be spending too many words.

Figure Skating: An amazing sport wherein people stick metal blades to their shoes and do crazy maneuvers like the Triple Lutz and the Platter Lift. These are not to be confused with the moves I do on the ice, which are known as the Triple Klutz and the Splatter Lift. The sport got its name when someone observed the first known skater and said, ‘He’s voluntarily jumping off the ice and trying to land?! Go figure!’

Ice Hockey: A sport at which Canadians will kick winter Olympic butt. As for its name, only Americans call it ‘ice hockey,’ perhaps because they don’t want it confused with, say, meadow hockey or sand dune hockey.

Nordic Combined: This is either Swedish pornography or a cross-country skiing event. As the participants all wear those skin tight body suits, I’ll let you be the judge.

Skeleton: Athletes who must have experienced head injuries at some point in their career (see ‘all pine,’ above) lie belly down and head first on a sled and race down a mountain. It’s called skeleton because the player who arrives at the bottom of the mountain with one intact, wins.

Snow Boarding: Many people believe this sport was also invented by the Scots because A) it uses only one ski instead of two and B) has moves with names like ‘Air to Fakie’ which sounds like a line out of a Robbie Burns poem. However it also has American moves (McTwist, Pop Tart) and British moves (Roast Beef Air), which makes it a truly international sport. Nevertheless, Canadians will kick winter Olympic butt here too, and anyone who says otherwise is just blowing (or inhaling) smoke.

Oh, and in case you have any doubt as to what team I support: Rah! Rah! Ca-na-da!

Photo by Brendan Beale on Unsplash

A Fluke Accident

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So I was sitting there trying to figure how long I’d have to spend at the gym to work off all my stress pounds, when I was inexplicably reminded of a story I read last week about beached whales.

Beached whales have always been a source of fascination for me. You hardly ever hear about beached squid or beached guppies, so why do whales have such a reputation for flinging themselves ashore? I’ve entertained several theories:

  1. Whale expeditions are led by male whales who refuse to ask for directions. This might be responsible for a few beachings, but it certainly doesn’t explain all of them. Besides, new age sensitive male whales now have a public awareness campaign complete with bumper (dorsal fin) stickers that read: Friends don’t let friends drive into fjords.
  2. Unlike fish, whales travel in pods. Thus, whales are unschooled, and never took geography classes.
  3. Whales have been paying attention to recent discoveries in genetics and learned they are more closely related to hippos than they are fish. Attempts to visit their cousins have been disastrous.
  4. Trendy creatures, whales keep trying to get into the whole surfing scene, but end up being washed ashore after catching a perfect wave.
  5. Whales have heard about that evolution thing and wanted to try being land animals for a while, forgetting the part where they have to evolve legs first.
  6. Beached whales are actually thrown ashore by mafia whale goons, as punishment for breaking the orca omerta.
  7. Beached whales heard ads for the latest all-you-can-eat seafood buffet at Red Lobster.
  8. All the whales we find on beaches are actually stupid teenagers who had been daring each other to see how far up the beach they could get. This is known as the tide pod challenge.
  9. Beached whales are actually avid movie goers trying to reach a screening of films like The Shipping News. (Has anyone ever attempted to correlate beachings with releases of previous movies like Titanic or Whale Music? I don’t know).

Alas though, it seems like all my research efforts were for nothing, because the answer to why whales beach themselves seems to have been right under our noses all this time: navy sonar.

According to an interim report into a mass whale stranding in the Bahamas says that US navy midrange tactical sonar was to blame. Apparently military operations had been going on in the area for an unusually long time.

Now, before you scoff at this theory, consider these two things: a) Whales use their own sonar to communicate and navigate and b) how angry, confused and desperate to escape did you feel the last time you were trapped beside a car playing really, really loud country and western music during rush hour?

So what does this mean exactly? Well for starters, we’re going to have to find a way to use sonar in a way that doesn’t mess with whale heads. We might have to turn down the volume, change frequency, or possibly build structures to block our sonar (i.e., whaling walls). Or it might involve an international campaign to have volunteers knit huge, waterproof earmuffs. (You laugh, but thousands of people knitted sweaters for the oil soaked penguins of Phillip Island, near Australia).

A better way would be to devote more energy to understanding how whales talk and navigate. For all we know, a navy sonar ‘boop boop beep’ might mean ‘your mother dresses you funny!’ in whalish. If we had a Whales-English dictionary, we might be able to warn them away from our ships, or for that matter, listen to what they can tell us about the seas. Perhaps a project like this requires a big name sponsor, like, say, the Prince of Wales.

In any case, what with increasing ocean going traffic, we’d better start translating. We wouldn’t want to hurt them on porpoise.

Photo by Todd Cravens on Unsplash