tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59343256173651446072023-11-16T07:58:21.551-08:00Environmental MismanagementThoughts on the environment, politics and culture. Plus occasional rants.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-85112406844831160122012-06-07T08:39:00.000-07:002012-06-07T08:45:47.595-07:00Why Everyone Believing in Climate Change Might be Really Bad for Climate Change<br />
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It’s hard to cut through the layers. A news report links to
an NGO briefing. Links to a report. Links to another report. And at the center?
Not a solid core, but instead an amorphous collection of scientific
uncertainty.</div>
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The clamour rises nonetheless.</div>
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Meanwhile, scientists have stepped sheepishly aside, not
lying so much as omitting the truth. Why should they, when the public concern
they’ve been begging for is amplified by each new heat wave and multiplied by
every flood.</div>
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That question was so rhetorical that I didn’t even bother to
end it with a question mark, but I’m going to answer it anyway. Because whether
or not one believes the end justifies the means, we’re headed down a road that
could really come back to bite the scientific community.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
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By way of explaining what I mean, I’ll use a concrete
example. </div>
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Bill McKibben’s 350.org campaign recently produced a
terrific-looking factsheet. It has large quotations and referenced facts and
impressive graphs. I look at it and I struggle to fight the impulse to unquestioningly
accept everything they present. The argument they’re making is the same that
has attached itself to countless weather reports over recent months: climate
change is here now and present in the anomalous weather events experienced by
much of North America and Europe this spring. It urges us to “connect the
dots”, drawing together hurricanes in Florida and floods in Pakistan to create
a picture of a rapidly changing climate.</div>
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I want to believe it, because it makes sense. In fact, it’s
precisely because it makes sense that it has gained so much traction in the
public discourse. Now, for the first time, there is an intuitive link between
what we see and experience of climate change and what we read in the
literature. </div>
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The most satisfying kind of science is the type that
provides context and furthers our understanding of intuitive phenomena. But not
all scientific findings conform to our intuition (see: string theory), which is
in large part why we embraced science so thoroughly in the first place.</div>
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I followed all six referenced links on the 350.org
factsheet. Here is a one or two sentence synopsis of each:</div>
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1.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>The Munich RE insurance group has kept data on
the number of loss-related weather events over the past 25 years. They do not
account for an increase in human density over that time.</div>
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</span> A paper
by Soden, et al. identifies increased tropical precipitation for the period
1979-2008.</div>
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</span>A report by the Global Change Research Program shows
clear signs of warming but not of increased climatic events.</div>
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</span>A blog post by Joe Romm, cherry picking flood
data from Tennessee.</div>
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5.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span>Tropical cyclone intensity has increased by ~10%
over the past 25 years.</div>
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</span>A story on research which indicates that surge
floods will, in the future, occur more frequently under conditions of climate
change.</div>
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To me, this collection of sources betrays not so much the
paucity of corroborating evidence, but the hubris of a movement which clearly
feels that the empirical evidence speaks for itself.</div>
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“Every day, every week, another piece of the puzzle seems to
fall into place. More extreme weather seems to have become the rule, not just
in the U.S. but in Europe and Asia.” This quotation comes from a meteorologist
who, while no doubt well-acquainted with weather patterns, would have no
particular training in climatic analysis. </div>
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Connecting the dots is now the thinking man’s position and
the damndest part – the part that prevents me from speaking out loudly – is
that it may be right. The climate may already be increasing the intensity of
frequency of extreme weather events all over the globe. What makes me
uncomfortable is that the science doesn’t actually support this conclusion yet. </div>
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Nevertheless, 69 percent of respondents to a recent New York
Times poll agreed with the statement “global warming is affecting the weather
in the United States”. </div>
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Has the general public begun to take a critical look at the
scientific literature? Well maybe, but Dr. Cliff Mass of the University of
Washington offers a more plausible explanation:</div>
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“One does not have to wonder very
hard about where Americans are getting their opinions--and it is not from the
scientific community.</div>
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It is somewhat embarrassing for me
to admit this, but part of the problem is that a small minority of my
colleagues--people who should know better-- are feeding the
extreme-weather/climate hype in the mistaken belief that by doing so they can
encourage people to do the right thing--lessen their carbon footprint”</div>
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If we start to believe that the existence of climate change
is predicated on our ability to see the changes as they happen around us then
we have missed the point of relying on science in the first place. If we begin
“believing” in science and rejecting those elements which don’t fit with our
empirical observations then I would argue that we are no further ahead than we
were at the beginning of the scientific revolution, having simply swapped one
static faith for another.</div>
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Even more importantly for the global climate change
mitigation effort, hitching our cart to the horse of empirical observations
could backfire badly. The incidence of extreme weather events varies wildly
from year to year: how do we explain the state of things if flooding goes down
next year? Or the next ten years? </div>
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There is still so much uncertainty involved in making
climate predictions. Not “will climate change happen or not?”, but “will it be
1m of sea level rise or ten?”. If we say
ten in order to scare people into taking action, I’m concerned that scientific
credibility will take a hit when it turns out to be only 5m. Meanwhile,
Bangladesh will have become the world’s largest splash pool.</div>
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The 350 campaign and I are entirely agreed on the goal:
immediate social, political and economic action to stop climate change. The
frustration of spending years without making so much as a dent in public
opinion is also a feeling with which I am familiar. I understand, I sympathize
and I empathize.</div>
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Climate change is a problem which will require massive
amounts of human cooperation to solve. I suggest that we embrace our
limitations and work within the data we have collected. I can’t endorse
connecting the dots, even for such an obviously good cause. </div>
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The uncertainty ahead does not demand that we slow the pace
of our actions, merely the pace of our rhetoric. Because – and allow me to put
this delicately – if we don’t trust each other enough to work together on this one,
we’re screwed.</div>
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<u>Sources</u></div>
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1.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><a href="http://www.munichre.com/en/group/focus/climate_change/strategy_and_policy/strong_indicator_of_climate_change/default.aspx">http://www.munichre.com/en/group/focus/climate_change/strategy_and_policy/strong_indicator_of_climate_change/default.aspx</a></div>
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2.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><a href="http://news.cisc.gmu.edu/doc/publications/Allan_Soden%20et%20al.pdf">http://news.cisc.gmu.edu/doc/publications/Allan_Soden%20et%20al.pdf</a></div>
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3.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><a href="http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report/executive-summary">http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report/executive-summary</a></div>
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4.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/05/26/206044/nashville-katrina-tennessee-superstorm-1000-year-flood/?mobile=nc">http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/05/26/206044/nashville-katrina-tennessee-superstorm-1000-year-flood/?mobile=nc</a></div>
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5.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><a href="ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/Factors.pdf">ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/Factors.pdf</a></div>
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6.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/storm-of-the-decade-0213.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/storm-of-the-decade-0213.html</a></div>
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7.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/science/earth/americans-link-global-warming-to-extreme-weather-poll-says.html?_r=3">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/science/earth/americans-link-global-warming-to-extreme-weather-poll-says.html?_r=3</a></div>
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8.<span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><a href="http://cliffmass.blogspot.ca/2012/04/extreme-silliness.html">http://cliffmass.blogspot.ca/2012/04/extreme-silliness.html</a>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-87166364040484923132012-03-28T08:45:00.000-07:002012-03-28T08:45:31.484-07:00Greening Higher PlacesPopulation pressure and environmental concerns are pushing cities around the world to embrace the concept of green roofs. As climate change distorts natural systems, the environmental, economic and aesthetic benefits of green roofs are set to create a new norm in city management.<br />
<br />
See the full article: http://www.innovationmanagement.se/2012/02/08/greening-higher-places/Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-46787504564386172902012-03-22T11:22:00.000-07:002012-03-22T11:22:32.374-07:00Hockey and Climate Change: Canada’s Game in a Warming World<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-CA</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">It seems to me that all this talk about the potential impact of climate change on Canadian food production is missing the point. Has food production ever won us Olympic gold over the Americans? Has food production ever filled an arena in Winnipeg? Do you reminisce about where you were during the famous food production series of ’72? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">No? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Well then let's dispense of all this non-essential talk and get down to what really matters: what does climate change mean for hockey? More specifically, what does the possibility of all that melting ice mean for Canada’s place in hockey?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Our Place in the Game</span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We already fear “our game” slipping away from us. There was a palpable dose of relief mixed in with the joy of our celebration after Sidney Crosby won us gold in Vancouver. It was the same relief that every home, street and classroom must have felt as Paul Henderson saved our national sport from the Soviets in 1972. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The loss of our hockey teams to the American south stings even after the return of the Jets. We look nervously across the border just as we once anxiously marvelled at the Soviet machine. There are now more kids playing hockey in Texas than in all of Alberta. We worry that they will catch up, and we hugged our neighbours at the dramatic Olympic conclusion, happy to have staved that day off for a while longer. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Will it come? Is it a pure advantage in numbers which has maintained our global hockey stature? In what does our comparative advantage consist? The answer to this question is what will determine whether climate change poses a legitimate threat to our perch atop the hockey world. There are two possibilities:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Possibility number one is that frozen lakes, ponds and backyard rinks matter, either because we actually use all of that extra ice time, or because they shape our consciousness. Think of the Staal brothers beating the #$%! out of each other on their farm, Gordie Howe skating miles through Saskatchewan or Wayne Gretzky spending every second of his day on Walter Gretzky’s homemade rink. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Possibility number two is that hockey is so firmly embedded in our national consciousness that the availability of natural ice is now just a pleasant, but unnecessary, scaffolding for our collective identity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Climate Change and Canada</span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Let’s bracket that discussion for the moment and turn to the issue of climate change’s impact on Canada. We used to say “global warming”, but have modified our terminology, since climate change is going to mean warmer temperatures in some places and colder in others. Still, on average, things are going to get warmer. And ice – as you well know – tends to prefer the cold. Seasonal temperatures are trending upward and there have already been studies which suggest that the availability of suitable pond hockey ice is on the decline.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Environment Canada shows a great deal of seasonal temperature variation over the past 63 springs, but 1.9 degrees worth of warming overall. For winter temperatures, Damyanov et al. (2010) claim a warming of 2.5 degrees since 1950. According to </span><span class="td-endpagebody">another study in the Journal of Climate, there has been a loss of two-thirds of the Great Lakes ice cover over the last four decades.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Meanwhile, the IPCC projects continued general warming for the region, and most ominously, significant warming where snow is reduced: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“The largest warming is projected to occur in winter over northern parts of Alaska and Canada, reaching 10°C in the northernmost parts, due to the positive feedback from a reduced period of snow cover.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And if we extrapolate far enough:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“In the most extreme case of the Southwest Canada region, a simple linear extrapolation of the OSS length trend from the last 30 yr of our record into the future shows that the number of viable rink-flooding days could reach zero by mid-century.” (Damyanov et al.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Ah, hell.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Unless there is a radical departure from the prevailing temperature trends, we are likely looking at the end of Canadian pond hockey – at least in the places with moderate population density – within a few decades.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Does Alberta become Texas?</span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><u><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The rest of the world will soon be dealing with climate change as well, but it’s not like warmer temperatures are going to reduce the number of outdoor rinks in California. So this </span>seems the appropriate time to revisit our earlier question.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>If Carolina can produce artificial ice then so can Edmonton, so the real question is whether there would remain any qualitative difference between Alberta and Texas. Given that the latter is now producing more hockey players, would that give them an accompanying advantage in quality?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">A popular belief is that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something. I don’t think this is true in all cases, but I’m willing to bet that Canada produces a few NHLers every year out of a pool of players who would not have made it without putting in all those hours on the local pond. Without natural ice, we would likely lose a few players, and our hockey player production would become concentrated in areas with many artificial ice surfaces. Probably cities. Building arenas thus becomes a priority.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">As for the depths of our caring, it’s hard to look at the example of Winnipeg and not think that our love of hockey extends beyond the absence of ice, decent teams, the immediate presence of any actual hockey games, etc. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><u>Moving Forward</u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><u><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">It strikes me that some combination of practice and religious-like devotion to the game is responsible for whatever hockey-related success we have enjoyed as a country. Guy Lafleur never would have snuck into the local rink at 6am if he didn’t love the game, but he never would have become Guy Lafleur if he hadn’t put in all that practice time either. Whether our interests will shift as the ice disappears is anyone’s guess, but if hockey is to remain “Canada’s game” then we’re going to have to work at it. Damnit, if Texas can make ice, then so can we.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-8591309135585967832011-09-16T11:30:00.000-07:002011-09-16T11:30:32.752-07:00One of us is an Idiot: Persuasion and Climate Change<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-CA</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal">As a hockey referee, I would often find myself entertaining unsolicited advice from coaches. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“You are an idiot,” they would helpfully suggest. This tended to result in more penalties for the team in question, at which point the coach would, rethinking his strategy, attempt to deepen it (“You are a giant idiot”) reframe it (“Have you considered the possibility that you are an idiot?”) or broaden it (“You are an idiot and a moron”). I have to confess that none of these strategies was particularly effective in altering my decisions. Indeed, owing to my years of experience, I am prepared to categorically state that telling someone they are an idiot is a singularly ineffective way to influence human behaviour.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But at least the coaches were open and honest about it. It’s one thing to be called an idiot, but quite another to be treated like one. The latter tends to be even less effective in influencing behaviour, which is why I am surprised that environmentalists continually resort to it.</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">I understand the frustration. I believe that climate change is a very real and present danger which has already begun to make itself felt in certain regions, and which requires decisive and widespread action at all political levels around the world. But it doesn’t always feel like people are listening and when people don’t listen to you, sometimes you try to ramp up your message. This is where climate advocates get themselves into trouble, like a coach yelling from the bench.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The particularly tricky thing about climate change is that both the science and the policy are complex and uncertain and require a lot of diversified input. There are very few easy answers, there are no right answers and anyone who claims otherwise is blowing smoke. Climate scientists know this, of course, but “the details just aren’t settled” does not make for a very compelling headline, and climate deniers have been jumping on this, twisting and distorting it in an attempt to disguise the wide consensus that does exist. Let’s be realistic: there are large swaths of the USA in which evolution has been successfully dismissed as a mere “theory”; there is probably no degree of climatic certainty that could withstand a concerted denial.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Nevertheless, a desire to make believers of deniers and the belief that political consensus hinges on wider public consensus has pushed scientists to attempt to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy">control the message</a> and to emphasize the impacts beyond <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/02/natural-disasters-floods-earthquakes-landslides">what the science can support</a>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of these messages have begun to disseminate among the general public, and it is becoming popular wisdom that natural disasters and related insurance claims are on the rise due to climate change. Neither claim has much in the way of scientific evidence behind it. Suddenly, scientists are treating people like idiots.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now, I am not saying that you are not an idiot. For all I know, you and everyone you love is an idiot. But whether you are or are not an idiot is immaterial, because the second that you perceive you are being treated like one, you will lose interest in the cause at hand.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s difficult to control a message and even more difficult when the facts must be presented in journals, where anyone can read them and judge the evidence for themselves. Not everyone will, of course, but enough people that a scientific claim that goes beyond what the evidence can support will not remain a secret for long. Now you’ve been caught manipulating the public and your cause is even worse off than before.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Some have taken a slightly different direction on this, declaring that others are idiots and proposing that their small group of non-idiots just fix the damn problem themselves (e.g. <a href="http://deepgreenresistance.org/">http://deepgreenresistance.org/</a>).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are two problems here:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>From a normative perspective, the population at large should be involved in choosing the course of its own future.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>Climate change is too complex and multi-faceted a problem to be solved through anything other than a relatively widespread commitment to environmental principles.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So if people can’t be tricked, insulted, looked down on, manipulated or shanghaied into solving the climate change problem, I would offer that they need to be convinced the old-fashioned way: through a straightforward discussion of what the science does indicate and what we should do about it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The alternative – treating people as idiots – is ineffective in changing opinions and also ignores the necessity of consensus building.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You may be an idiot, but it remains to be seen how many penalties climate advocates will need to incur before they start to get the message.</div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-CA</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</style> <![endif]-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-67409869872782520362011-08-16T09:05:00.000-07:002011-08-16T09:05:05.557-07:00Summarization: She ain't gonna happen, manMy Philippines experience continues to struggle, push back and otherwise resist my efforts to bundle it up into a tidy little blog. There are strings of environmental non-sequiturs going everywhere, giant pieces of cultural misunderstandings that I can't squish down and dangerous bits of corruption and intrigue that just won't allow themselves to be nicely summarized with a bow on top.<br />
<br />
What has surprised me most is how quickly and easily I've slipped back into Western ways of eating, talking, washing, travelling, watching hockey, eating lobsters, etc.<br />
<br />
To be fair, it took a minute or so.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
After six months of being greeted at every turn with "Hello Sir" "Yes Sir" "Anything Sir?", I did a bit of a double-take when the Canadian customs officer said to me "How's she goin, man?" And then, like the initial shock of an unheated Canadian swimming pool, it was gone and I was paddling happily into the deep end of Canadian culture, nearly oblivious to the conspicuous absence of endless car horns, backyard roosters and low-built ceilings. <br />
<br />
In fact, the only thing that I have really struggled with has been crossing the street. I did my usual Filipino thing where I sauntered out into traffic, timing my walk so that I would arrive just behind a vehicle going one way, then wait in the middle for traffic to pass in the other direction.<br />
<br />
WELL.<br />
<br />
It's not that anyone was angry with me either, since it was clear to all observers that I could not possibly be in my right mind. Everything came to a stop for a firm 100 metres in ever direction, and the concerned drivers waited patiently for me to scuttle the rest of the way across and (hopefully) find my way to whoever was withholding my medication. So crossing the street is a work in progress. But other things, like drinking tap water, turn out to be like riding a bike: you never forget.<br />
<br />
Keep your fingers crossed that I remember how to skate as well. <br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-47873040328355105292011-07-12T22:30:00.000-07:002011-07-19T18:23:01.567-07:00Branding Your Hippopotamus: The Asia-Pacific Cities Summit<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">It’s not every day that one has the opportunity to present an elaborate hippopotamus metaphor at an international conference, and so I felt it would be remiss (not to mention intellectually irresponsible) of me not to work everyone’s favorite semi-aquatic mammal into my talk on “Green Cities” at the 2011 Asia-Pacific Cities Summit in Brisbane.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">The summit, attended by nearly a thousand civic and business leaders, culminated in the signing of the “Brisbane Accord” by more than 40 city mayor’s from around the region. City mayors turn out to be curious animals in their own right, alternating been the signing of serious accords and the formation of enormous conga lines. The latter activity was fuelled by only a relatively small percentage of the truly impressive quantities of free booze on offer throughout the conference.<br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span>Of course, the whole kit and caboodle was designed to impress people who are far more difficult to impress than I am. In fact, they may have inadvertently overdone it: I needed to watch only 2 seconds <a href="http://www.australiannetworkentertainment.com/laserman.htm"><span style="color: blue;">of this act</span></a> before deciding that sustainability is for chumps. I’m going to be Laser Man when I grow up.<br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Or at least I thought so, until I was forced to consider the possibility of becoming an electric cello rock group.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Or perhaps<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci2eJOE7W_8&feature=share"><span style="color: blue;"> Sir Richard Branson</span></a>. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Or an entire <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ts10.gazettelive.co.uk/Wheatlandss.jpg&imgrefurl=http://ts10.gazettelive.co.uk/communities/school-college/pupils-in-cricket-triumph.html&usg=__N57DtFuTKtRxkOCrmz7eZAy4FyU=&h=259&w=400&sz=16&hl=en&start=85&sig2=ioOr542GbFEjwn2c-5bqMA&zoom=1&tbnid=W9VNBhB7r32o1M:&tbnh=130&tbnw=200&ei=DCsdTtrjN8v2mAWw2NG7Bw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dchildren%2Bcricket%2Bteam%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3D1TD%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D649%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1046&vpy=361&dur=753&hovh=181&hovw=279&tx=192&ty=126&page=6&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:85&biw=1366&bih=649"><span style="color: blue;">8 year-old cricket team</span></a>. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Although I have to admit that I thought the entertainment had peaked when former mayor of NYC, Rudy Giuliani, on the heels of admitting his potential interest in the 2012 Republican nomination, declared that he had begun his clean up of New York by having “wiped out the squeegee people”.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">While Giuliani was apparently prepared to take a hard line on Star Wars ethnic groups, Sir Richard could easily have been mistaken for your favourite billionaire uncle. He wasn’t particularly eloquent, nor was he terrifically brash, but it was hard to listen to him and not start to feel like we could pool all the resources in the room and solve all of the world’s problems right then and there with 692 iphones, 912 ANZ-sponsored summit satchel bags and Branson’s motto “Screw it, let’s do it”.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">This motto was, however, later applied with gusto to the smoked salmon appetizers. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">One step at a time, I guess.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Personally, I found myself fascinated by some of the talks on the branding of cities. I have to admit that, even though I work for an organization with “cities” right in its title, and I had just presented on cities at an international conference on the topic of cities, I had not often thought of climate change and green issues in the context of the world’s cities – opting instead for a more global outlook. The message I took away from the city branding talks was, with over half the world’s population now living in urban centers (a fact trotted out no fewer than six times over the course of the summit), the potential for cities to market themselves as centers of sustainability in order to appeal to an international workforce. I subscribe to the school of thought that human beings will not willingly sacrifice much in the way of economic growth for the green cause, so I am always pleased to find new ways in which the two goods may be combined. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">But back to the hippopotamus.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">The point of the hippo metaphor was to illustrate the inadvisability of trying to solve every problem through a single project. Just as a snake would do well not to attempt to swallow a hippopotamus whole, so climate change is a complex problem better broken down into its component parts to be approached individually. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">I suppose the same principle applies just as well to the APCS as anything else, which is why it was exciting to see so many divergent ideas being tossed around like Australian <a href="http://www.theroar.com.au/2011/07/06/state-of-origin-game-3-result/"><span style="color: blue;">rugby players</span></a>. I would like to attribute this diversity to the fact that, in addition to representatives from 84 other countries, there was <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/summit-opens-doors-for-niche-industries-20110708-1h64e.html"><span style="color: blue;">a single Canadian</span></a> in attendance.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">The summit closed with an international incident in which the Chinese delegation walked out after the 2013 APCS was awarded to the city of <a href="http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aALL&ID=201107080031"><span style="color: blue;">Kaohsiung, Taiwan</span></a>. What remains unclear is whether the Chinese had simply received advance warning that the Kaohsiung group was about to sing a song they had written about Brisbane. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">It was an intriguing end to a fascinating conference and I look forward to attending again sometime in the future. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">When I am Laser Man.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-90910090342769772011-06-30T01:32:00.000-07:002011-07-19T18:21:52.612-07:00"My friend, where are you going?"<div class="MsoNormal">“My friend, where are you going?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The question is a fair and reasonable one, since I am a young, white man towering, somewhat confusedly, over a sea of Filipinos.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However, months of experience have taught me that an honest answer to this particular inquiry is not likely to yield much in the way of directions or impartial touristic advice. An admonition to buy some unidentified meat is much more likely. Now I happen to be a big fan of unidentified meat – some of my best friends are unidentified meat – but if I stopped every time I was called I wouldn’t get very far in this city.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was never going to be possible for me to blend in here, no matter how much Ilokano I learned. Figuring out all the ins and outs of any new culture is hard; it’s just much more obvious when you look so different as well.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
Still, the market seems to have been specially designed to thwart my vegetable-purchasing aspirations, which brings us back to the question: “where am I going?”</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Actually, I wouldn’t mind backing up even further than that. “Where am I?” seems worthy of consideration as well. The market is a ceilinged labyrinth of stalls filled with an even mix of things I recognize and things I don’t. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
I would, ideally, like to float around the market, unnoticed until I have verbally expressed my desire to purchase some beans. Fat chance. I stick out like an abnormally tall thumb, and am accosted accordingly. But herein lies my salvation from becoming lost forever: I navigate via catcalls.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Hello, Sir”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Helloooo, Sir”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I know that if I make a right turn at the three ladies selling mangos (“Sweet mangos, Sir!”) I can walk straight past the good onions to the egg stand with the woman who tries to set me up with her daughter. From there, it’s just a hop, skip and jump through the rice gauntlet of single female venders (“do you have a girlfriend?”) and past the pineapple stands where everyone has figured out that I can speak a little Ilokano (“ada ti girlfriend mo?”). The smell of the fish section guides me the rest of the way back to the street.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve mastered a variety of polite replies and retorts that propel me from one encounter to the next; surrounded by helpful people but only slowly unlocking the cultural formulas which enable me to ask the right questions. And yet, I fear that time is running out (in more ways than one) and sooner or later I am bound to answer “yes” to a query I didn’t properly understand and find that I have entered into a legally binding contract to marry all five of somebody’s children.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For now, I bounce happily around the market, searching for that elusive smell so that I can finally answer the age-old question.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I am going toward the fish.”</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-79916445056471909302011-05-11T01:22:00.000-07:002011-06-30T01:35:08.706-07:00Heisenberg and the Plight of the Modern Backpacker: A Tour of Thailand<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I went to Bangkok, saw oddles of temples, and didn't take any pictures.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">This is partly because to do so would expose my laughable photography skills, and partly because I think that the photograph is increasingly relied upon as the only legitimate means of demonstrating or absorbing new experiences. We don't bother to remember, because a photo can do it better. And along with remembrance goes thought, because this cannot be digitally documented and thus lacks legitimacy.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Of course, there's only so much thought that should really go into a drunken photo of your friends pretending to have moustaches, but Bangkok's temples are something quite different. A temple is nice to look at – covered, as they are, by dragons – but simply to look at them without thinking about what they represent seems to me somewhat akin to hoping to know about bees by staring at the outside of a beehive.</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The search for legitimacy is closely linked to the search for authenticity, and both are troublingly on their way to becoming necessary conditions of the modern backpacking experience. There are some problems associated with the dictation of what is or is not an 'authentic' expression of culture, especially in the context of those countries for whom colonialism remains a fresh collective memory. What many backpackers dismiss as inauthentic is those portions of a culture which cater to tourists; e.g. The very portions of which they themselves avail. Many move further from the mainstream areas, in hopes of somehow catching hold of something truly authentic.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Thus, backpackers encounter the same frustration that quantum mechanics ran into nearly a century ago. The uncertainty principle posits, simply, that one cannot observe without affecting. Similarly, a tourist cannot visit a new place without engaging in tourism, thus rendering the place “inauthentic” in some small way. The fetishization of authenticity is such that backpackers search for it in increasingly obscure places, ironically becoming the vanguard of tourism spread to many new corners of the globe. I'm not convinced that any part of a culture could ever be deemed inauthentic, and I'm not a fan of this style of travelling.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">On the other end of the continuum is Khao San Road. Just about every tourist in Bangkok stays on this one road and the stoic history of Bangkok creaks and groans with the strain of thousands of tourists spilling out of Khao San Road like ants from a hill, consuming history and beauty as a light snack before washing it down/away with the main course of beer. Crawling annoyances though they may be, ants present a tasty meal in themselves to more than a few predators. These line the street to form a gauntlet through which KSR visitors must pass – the new and the unwary being picked off. Very little exists here except things designed to be consumed or enjoyed by tourists. Khao San Road is the archetypal “inauthentic” place, and – just so I don't get too comfortable up on my philosophical high horse – I have to admit that I don't like it one bit.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">So on the one hand I don't approve of searching for an authentic version of a culture. On the other, I can't stand Khao San Road. I cannot extract myself from this conundrum, but I do hope to find middle ground. The compromise I've proposed to myself is the following: I accept that Khao San Road is a legitimate expression of Thai tourism culture, but I would rather experience a section of the culture more heavily weighted toward another sphere; perhaps something involving nature.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">This is a long philosophical backstory to explain how it was that I wound up being head-butted by a baby elephant in the forests of Northern Thailand.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">More on that later.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-79616374885020524022011-04-28T01:42:00.000-07:002011-04-28T01:53:36.635-07:00The $#&! I Deal With<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I know more than I ever wanted to about septage. Since what I wanted to know was more or less “nothing” I have been acutely aware of this insipid, creeping competence for the past several weeks.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But today, I realized with a start that I am doing something that might <i>actually</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> have an impact on the world. Which means, of course, that I have no one to blame but myself. I spent the months after my graduation telling everyone who would listen (too many to knock off) that I wanted to do ANYTHING that would have a tangible impact on the world.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">So here I am. Wadding through shit.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">And I admit it here in this blog post, for the first time anywhere, including my own head: it's not the least-interesting job in the world.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The sheer volume of vaccines one must receive before coming to the Philippines serves notice of the kind of sanitation problems faced in this part of the world. Hepatitis A, typhoid and cholera (which recently killed 21 people in another part of the country) are all very real concerns.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">A great part of the problem can be traced to inappropriate contact between groundwater and wastewater. An average septic tank needs to be desludged (i.e. Emptied) every 5 years or so. With 67% of San Fernando's inhabitants having never desludged their tank (perhaps, like me, having never heard the term “desludged” before), it doesn't take much of a leap to imagine that many of those tanks are overflowing into the groundwater. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In fact, we don't really need to imagine: 58% of groundwater in the Philippines is contaminated with coliform bacteria and 56 of 59 wells sampled in San Fernando are contaminated with the same.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">What we're working on now is a mandatory desludging program, which will empty every septic tank in the city on a repeating five year schedule. In order to get there, we've got to deal with a lot of shit, both figurative and literal.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">But it's kind of interesting.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-9057063792427885522011-04-26T02:25:00.000-07:002011-04-26T02:27:50.661-07:00Whacking Enormous Rodents<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Every couple of days, I have a moment that causes me to ask myself “is this really my life?” The answer is typically ‘yes’, but I generally repose the question, just to be sure: so I really am singing in an Ilokano song competition? There really is a perturbed-looking owl sitting in a box beside my desk at the office? Yes to both.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I think I have, in part, simply adjusted enough to the daily ins and outs of Filipino culture that I forget to expect differences. But also, I bring it on myself.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I had promised myself at the outside of this little adventure in the Philippines that I would seize every opportunity presented to me. I like to think of it like a whack-a-mole game, where there’s no time for hesitation:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Hey Stu, want to go zip-lining with some middle-aged women from Manila”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">WHACK! Gotcha, mole! (“Yes I do, Firth, thank you for asking.”)</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Want to give a speech?”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">WHACK!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Want to eat this disgusting food?”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">WHACK!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Want to...”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">WHACK!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I would be tempted to believe that this is not real life at all, if it were not for the realities of work. I am, in turn, reminded of all the work yet to be done as the smell of burning garbage wafts through my windows at the end of a long day. If this is all just a whack-a-mole game, then the segregation (rather than burning) of waste in the Philippines is the King Kong of moles; a 300ft rodent spewing chemicals and smog into the atmosphere. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But I've only got six months to tackle the beast, so there's no time for hesitation. Good thing I carry a big stick. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-72136046039720886362011-04-12T03:22:00.000-07:002011-07-19T18:20:00.554-07:00Into the Heart of Chaos<!--[if !mso]> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The water from the broken air conditioner drips down onto my lap, making it look for all the world as if I've pee'd my pants. As recently as perhaps even two years ago, I might have felt like it: an unplanned trip from my small city of San Fernando into the heart of Manila could easily have caused me to lose control of my bladder just a little bit. But a year in Amsterdam and another two months in the Philippines have me feeling – with a touch of ill-advised hubris – like I can handle the chaos of one of the world's largest urban centers.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The drip has become more persistent, and I move to the neighbouring seat. This one is stuck in a reclined position, but I consider it a fair compromise. It wouldn't be good for one's blood pressure to get upset about such things in this country; the Filipinos themselves just shrug it off with their typical good humour.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">A couple of vendors pop onto the bus as we pass another unidentified town, and start selling food down the aisle. I think it's pork skin, but I can't be sure, so I sneak a peak.</span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">It is pork skin, but I've been spotted. I haven't yet mastered the art of satisfying my curiosity without conveying purchasing intent (e.g. being caught looking). The pork skins are now in my face and I do my best to express that I am saving myself for a good fried banana, if one should happen past me. I would also settle for pancit, but my Ilokano skills are stretched enough by the articulation of the pork skin rejection.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">I have another hour or so before we travel out of Ilokandia and into lands where my desire for fried bananas will inevitably need to be expressed in English, owing to my non-existent Tagalog vocabulary.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">I dread this.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">I've become addicted to the friendly smiles and surprised chattering at the market, where I deploy my modest Ilokano in order to obtain as many mangoes as possible. I can't do much more than order food and ask friends where they are going, but then, I often don't need to.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The reclined seat puts me to sleep and I wake up as everyone else is getting off the bus. Sheep that I am, I fall in line, and am immediately struck by the size and pace of what I assume is Manila. I am nearly also struck by two jeepneys and a bicycle, but this much I am used to.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">I still have no idea where I am or where I want to go, which presents the lovely advantage of meaning that I can't possibly pick the wrong direction. I start walking.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Navigating using the scientific method of wandering down whichever street has more ongoing basketball games, I soon find myself arriving precisely nowhere. I decide to apply something similar to a jeepney – hoping off where a bunch of youth were congregating. Thus I find myself at Cubao City's Araneta Center. This was also the present location of my arch nemesis, Bruno Mars, but I was unaware of the fact at the time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Actually, I remained unaware of just about everything, so I thought I may as well find a hotel. It turns out that one must pay by the hour for hotels in Manila, with an extra fee if one wishes to stay longer than 12 hours. Fine, I said, making a monumental mistake. I'll just check out at 8am then.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Off for more exploring. I'd been warned up and down of the dangers of Manila, but it seemed alright to me. At least, I was thinking this right around the time that I made a wrong turn. There was no immediate sign, no flashing lights to indicate that I'd gone somewhere I shouldn't, but the looks I received turned from friendly and inquisitive, to what I can only describe as playfully predatory, like in the scene where Simba meets the hyenas in The Lion King. I did an abrupt aboutface; no harm done, but suddenly desirous to wander somewhere nice and tame.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Happily, the Araneta Center turned out to be a giant shopping mall (Filipinos love malls). This was a nice safe place from which to reap the rewards of my labours.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">For the past two months, I have been collecting friends in Manila with the same fervent passion with which we used to collect hockey cards. I scoop them up on the beach in San Juan, cultivating the friendship and gently enquiring whether we could hang out if I ever venture into Manila. I waited to make this trip until I could assure myself of at least a few friends to text when I arrived, and now, from the friendly confines of a giant mall, it was time to put my master plan into action.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">A series of texts and terrifying cab rides later, my German friend, Sebastian, was remarking to me over beers (in French, so his Filipina girlfriend wouldn't understand) that we are “tall, white and good-looking. This city can belong to us.” Or something to that effect; his French wasn't much better than mine. At any rate, I was less desirous of seducing all 10 million women in Manila, but quite a bit interested by what kind of adventures the city might have up its sleeve.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The answer, on this night at least, was a fancy night club where several prominent TV personalities were drinking expensive gin in a private corner. We set ourselves up in the cozy confines of the middle of the dance floor, and found ourselves to be very popular.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">I find it interesting to think that, somewhere out there on the internet, there are roughly 8 million photos of me and a bunch of Filipino friends from that night: none of which anyone I know will ever come across. Nothing scandalous: the most risque of the lot was of Sebastian attempting to ride a drunken TV personality like a pony.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">I'm not sure if it was the photos, or the fact that Sebastian was, at this point, attempting to pare down his list of candidates according to shoe colour, but it somehow became 6:30am. There's something intrinsically ridiculous about rushing home in order to sleep.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The next day, I decided to explore Makati. Makati is very rich, registering at least 5 SGCM<a href="" name="sdfootnote1anc"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5934325617365144607&postID=7213604603972088636#sdfootnote1sym"><span style="mso-bookmark: sdfootnote1anc;"><sup><span style="color: blue;">1</span></sup></span><span style="mso-bookmark: sdfootnote1anc;"></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: sdfootnote1anc;"></span> by my calculations. Everyone is wealthy, well-dressed, and not very impressed that I am tall and white. Well I am not impressed that they are not impressed. I sent another text, met with another friend, made my way to another bar and was ejected far too early from another hotel. For someone working for an organization with “sustainable” right in the title, I'm not doing the best job of maintaining a sustainable lifestyle.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">I was originally concerned by the prospect of losing all my money to a mugging, but it seems to me now that such an event may well have saved me money. Manila is big and expensive, but different from my adopted home in more than just scale.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">And it is home now, San Fernando is. The jeepney callers all know that I'm going to San Juan (of course, they guessed immediately upon my arrival, but I like to think that they are now certain of it) and the cafeteria workers all give me a smile indicative of concealed humour as I approach. In a country where drunken karaoke is treated as operatic performance, it takes some really hilariously bad Ilokano to force someone to try to hide their amusement. Manila isn't so scary, but it doesn't have all of the little quirks that I've fallen in love with. Or perhaps my narcissism simply objects to the fact that it doesn't appreciate my quirks like San Fernando does.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">The air conditioner on the bus ride home works just fine, but I'm not really content until I step off the bus, sleep-deprived and half-alive, in San Fernando's plaza. Everything is familiar in a way that I hadn't previously noticed or appreciated. The tricycle drivers who immediately attempt to simultaneously run me over and pick me up seem like old friends. The preposterous, scorching heat is soothing in a way that would otherwise indicate mild sun stroke. I breath deep of the polluted air: Ah, cough cough home.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">I don't need this city to belong to me; I'm quite content to belong to it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><a href="" name="sdfootnote1sym"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5934325617365144607&postID=7213604603972088636#sdfootnote1anc"><span style="mso-bookmark: sdfootnote1sym;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">1</span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: sdfootnote1sym;"></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: sdfootnote1sym;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">Security Guards per Cubic Meter</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-88169389835556729072011-04-01T02:08:00.000-07:002011-04-01T02:09:03.115-07:00Fear and the Great Poohead<div class="post-header"> </div> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Fear rules.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It ruled when thousands of Americans lost their lives driving after 9/11, during a time in which zero were killed in/by airplanes.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It ruled recently when Angela Merkel – apparently confused by the concept of tectonic plates – shut down Germany's nuclear plants for fear that tsunamis could come streaming up the Rhine any day now.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I can't keep the disappointment out of my writing, but I do try not to react by condemning the entire human race for this inescapably bit of humanity. Economists have for years divorced themselves entirely from the realities of human existence in designing theories to explain a 'rational' actor (e.g. a person who behaves according to invented economic theory) who does not exist. Humans are not that simple.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Fear is a part of human nature, and as much as it can lead to poor decisions, it can neither be legislated out of existence nor ignored as a reality. Attempts to do so constitute relatively minor sins, but they stem from good, or at least ignorant, intentions.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It's those who exploit the fear of others for whom I reserve my venom. I would very much like to have, to take a random example, a chat with Mr. Stephen Harper about his use of ads implying that refugees are terrorists. Or perhaps about his shrill fear-mongering over the possibility of that most deadly of democratic ills: the coalition. Never mind that this is the man who led the first Canadian government in history to be found in contempt of parliament.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Geez, thanks, Steve, you poohead. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I've digressed to childish name-calling in my displeasure, which still leaves me at a level of discourse one or two steps above that of an election campaign that has so far merely couched similar points in more overblown language. Michael Ignatieff will form a coalition and there are bad things going on in the world and you should just generally be afraid.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">We will, sadly, never be able to entirely remove the potential resonance of such claims on at least some segment of the population. But just as living on my own hasn't left me snorting lines of cocaine off surfboards, so we should hold political discourse to a slightly higher standard than 'anything goes'. Preying (and I really think this is the best descriptor) on the insecurities of the populace is irresponsible to its core and bereft of any ethical compunctions at all.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">We struggle enough with our fear without politicians exploiting it for their own ends. But I'm missing the more important point here, which is clearly thus: Stephen Harper is a chicken-butt.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-87199137284936357702011-03-08T20:55:00.001-08:002012-04-21T08:37:45.805-07:00Pointing Fingers in the Heat<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There seems to be an emerging public consensus that the recent global rash of extreme climatic events can be more or less directly attributed to climate change. The theory is this: climate change increases climatic variability, thus increasing the incidence of extreme weather events such as hurricanes and floods.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This is interesting, because it remains entirely uncertain whether the science actually supports this conclusion. It has become climate change denier double-speak to say that “the science is uncertain”, but I think it does more damage to the movement to allow false beliefs to propagate in the public sphere.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The belief that natural disasters can be directly linked to climate change is part emotional reaction, part logical fallacy, and this fallacy – let's call it the Edmonton winter fallacy – has already played a significant role in shaping opinions on both sides of the debate.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><br />
<hr align="center" size="2" width="100%" /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Humans like to make direct attributions to causes. Thus, it's much easier to believe in climate change when it's hotter than the surface of the sun outside. Al Gore exploited this natural tendency during the congressional hearing he convened on climate change way back in 1988. Picking what was historically the hottest day of the year, he went into the room the night before and opened the windows. The AC wasn't working either, and the blazing heat both inside and outside brought national attention to the issue.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Conversely, I'm convinced that it's not entirely coincidental that Canadian apathy toward climate change seems to increase during the winter. During a recent climate change march in Hamilton, our group's message was dismissed by at least one passer-by with a curt “it's -40 degrees outside”. Brushing past the slight exaggeration, it is absolutely true that the danger of “warming” does not seem so viscerally present (or even like much of a bad thing) when your toes have gone numb.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">While most people can talk themselves out of such overly-simplistic cause and effect explanations, the natural disaster permutation of our Edmonton winter fallacy comes complete with what appears to be a cut-and-dried scientific explanation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The esteemed scientific journal, Nature, certainly thinks so: a recent cover shows a flooded town, with the copy “The Human Factor” sprawled across it. This seems to have opened the proverbial floodgates, and now the mainstream media is picking up the idea that climatic disasters can be directly linked to human action, and <a href="http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/2011/02/17/lots-of-ink-global-warming-not-just-raising-temps-stats-suggest-rain-and-flood-marker-too/"><span style="color: blue;">running with it</span></a>, as if they've finally been given scientific permission to state the obvious. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I'm particularly interested in this issue, because the Philippines, in addition to being at significant risk for <a href="http://www.observatory.ph/vm/images/CW_hires/risk_CW.jpg"><span style="color: blue;">climate-related disasters</span></a> such as typhoons, is also what scientists refer to in technical terms as “really frigging hot”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In preparation for a major pan-Asian project on climate change adaptation, I've encountered a considerable sum of literature out of the Philippines which makes the disaster-climate change connection both implicitly:</span><br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Since 2000, nearly three million people have been affected by various disasters annually. Reming alone affected almost this number. Based on statistics provided by the NDCC, the frequency and severity of natural disasters have been increasing, as has the scale of impact (loss of life and property damage).” (Philippines UN Typhoon Appeal, 2006)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And explicitly:</span><br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Climate change’s impact on the Philippines is most often associated with extreme weather disturbances such as typhoons and floods, which, in turn, affect many other sectors of economic life. With 50.3 percent of its total area and 81.3 percent of the population vulnerable to natural disasters, the Philippines is considered a natural disaster hot-spot.” (Rincon & Virtucio, 2008)</span><br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It's a difficult temptation to resist. Some have amusingly attempted to incorporate such statements into their global <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8349545/Unscientific-hype-about-the-flooding-risks-from-climate-change-will-cost-us-all-dear.html"><span style="color: blue;">climate change conspiracy</span></a> worldview, but I think that Occam's razor probably holds here: humans are simply very good at seeing patterns and making logical leaps.</span><br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The reason why we rely on the science before jumping to the conclusion that floods are a consequence of climate change is the same reason why we don't dismiss climate science as soon as winter hits in Edmonton. How can climate science hold any credibility otherwise?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So while a direct link between natural disaster and human action will likely present itself sometime before the end of the century, it needs to be noted that direct attribution is <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/02/going-to-extremes/"><span style="color: blue;">hard to do</span></a>, and very little of the rest is <a href="http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/on-storms-warming-caveats-and-the-front-page/"><span style="color: blue;">cut and dried</span></a>. Population increases, for example, may account for the increased disaster damage in the Philippines and <a href="http://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2010/10/15/population-floods-africa/"><span style="color: blue;">in Africa</span></a>. If temperature increases lag roughly half a century behind CO2 concentrations, then does it not also stand to reason that extreme weather events will also be somewhat delayed? These are the main arguments being rolled out in the scientific debate over attribution.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5934325617365144607&postID=8719913728493635770&from=pencil" name="_ftnref1"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5934325617365144607&postID=8719913728493635770&from=pencil#_ftn1" title=""><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And yet, I know I'm making my job more difficult just writing this. I'm going to have a lovely time convincing Filipinos to take immediate action on climate change after I've removed all of the immediate causes and consequences.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Climate science has already suffered too much in the name of spurring public action. But ask me again once the Filipino summer arrives, and we'll see how ready I am to blame my heat-related misery on Italian climate policy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5934325617365144607&postID=8719913728493635770&from=pencil" name="_ftn1"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5934325617365144607&postID=8719913728493635770&from=pencil#_ftnref1" title=""><span style="color: blue; font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> As an aside: it's interesting how blogs have brought the internal debates of the scientific community into the open.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-59379768158446455262011-03-02T22:57:00.000-08:002011-03-02T22:59:54.720-08:00Trying it once: On relationships with food<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Jumping off a cliff.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Stepping on a kitten.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Cheering for the Toronto Maple Leafs.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">These are all things I don’t need to experience to know that they are galactically unfortunate ideas. But everything else? Worthy of at least a try.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Of course, this is an easy philosophy to both invent and uphold when one lives in Halifax, and the most outlandish activity one could possibly engage in would involve somersaults down Citadel Hill.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But there’s nothing like travelling precisely halfway around the world for encountering an unidentifiable food or two; globalization or not.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The roughly 8 billion different types of fruits here are not particularly frightening – no one ever won an iron stomach competition by holding down an entire papaya.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The meats are a different matter. Some are identifiable: the Filipino practice of cooking and eating whole fish generally makes them visually traceable, upon consumption, right down to the underwater neighbourhood in which they were spawned (“The Mariana trench? Me too!”). On the flip side, some meats are not so easily attributed back to the source ruminant or barnyard fowl.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">There are two schools of thought on whether one should know what one is eating before consuming it. I generally belong to the group that would prefer to know, but my boss – a man with an evidently questionable sense of humour – delights in refusing to tell me what I’m eating before I eat it. It is, however, when he won’t tell me what I ate even after I eat it that I start to fear I’ve consumed something particularly egregious. Still, I’ve stuck to my policy of trying everything once, which has thus far taken me a good chunk of the way through the rather impressive roll call of “Filipino foods that would bring an abrupt halt to a first date back in Hamilton”.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I've thus far ingested chicken embryos, parts of the goat that I didn't even know existed and a variety of unidentified dishes from a cow-like animal called a Caribou (pronounced: care-I-bow). Also, bile.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Complaining – or worse, condescendingly laughing – at the unfamiliar foods in a foreign culture is a trite and inane activity, and I won't engage in it. What I would like to do, however, is to suggest (somewhat paradoxically) that eating unidentified foods is a great way to connect with one's food sources in a way that often eludes us while eating processed ham and frozen pizza.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Fish provides the best example. I conducted a bit of an experiment during my time in Hamilton, wherein I would ask the seafood worker to identify for me the species of tuna to be found in steak form behind the counter.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Tuna,” they would announce, after a few moments thought. Further prompting led, on my most successful excursion, to the confident answer, “sushi grade”.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Compare and contrast: Last week I came face to face with an enormous Yellowfin tuna. I know it was a tuna because its big, stupid tuna eye was still looking at me as I dug into it with a fork. Also because the guy who caught it was spitting out bones from the other end of the beast. Does this connection make my tuna any more sustainable? I don't know. Am I at least acutely, unavoidably aware of what I'm eating and where it came from? Absolutely. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Similarly, when chewing part of a goat, it's well-nigh impossible to dismiss from one's mind the fact that one is eating a goat part. Happily, Filipinos generally delight in volunteering this information as one is mid-chew.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Since I believe that a lost connection to our food is a major hindrance to efforts to increase food sustainability in the Global North, I'll be looking for ways to export the food-connection I've found here. It will ideally involve a new animal or experience that forces people to think about what they're eating. For sustainability's sake, it should be relatively cheap and otherwise valueless to society.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Deep fried Toronto Maple Leaf, anyone?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">You've got to try it once.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-37542656220098318732011-02-24T21:37:00.000-08:002011-02-24T22:02:39.977-08:00Old and Unnecessary Roller Coasters: The Environmental Kuznets Curve<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-CA</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> 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{mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">It doesn’t take more than 5 seconds on a <a style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" href="http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/jeepney.jpg">jeepney</a> to imagine the kind of environmental improvement that could be made through efficiency gains in the Philippines. The switch to gas from coal, for example. Or even installing 4-stroke (as opposed to 2-stroke) engine in the uncountable <a style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" href="http://www.hobotraveler.com/b-photos01/211-608-trike-philippines.jpg">trikes</a> which zip about this country like great swarms of motorized bumblebees. </p> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><p class="MsoNormal">This is precisely the thinking behind what is known as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), which posits that all economies follow a pre-determined roller coaster ride of relative pollution levels.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhedkn-IXWYWzwpBOg1CrySuXUpUP7USoLwopG2zRBsDzOZPcuO_BTZHnVAg65abTuiBhPxLTnrLXaigG4yamHUJl6WyQ0oUM1MSrNGMVMa9CKy8JUXNoN8bKe01XwPJt1NX0qGDQRPBoI5/s1600/EKC.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 232px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhedkn-IXWYWzwpBOg1CrySuXUpUP7USoLwopG2zRBsDzOZPcuO_BTZHnVAg65abTuiBhPxLTnrLXaigG4yamHUJl6WyQ0oUM1MSrNGMVMa9CKy8JUXNoN8bKe01XwPJt1NX0qGDQRPBoI5/s320/EKC.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577499077433948482" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Beginning at a point of relative poverty, a developing country’s pollution levels increase until, at the top of the bell curve, greater efficiency, concern for environmental degradation, and the cost of pollution abatement relative to the utility of continued pollution combine to bring about a cleaner economy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So things are supposed to get worse before they get better, but might it be possible to take a short cut? What if, instead of switching from coal to gas, we moved to renewable energies; and instead of upgrading engines, we installed bicycle lanes? We could cut across our graph, like so:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJup2NthQYmwytjoq5JexuyO40ZN7_ft-QqRiz5NuwRMSuf0zuSe04WznjIwV55U3rHQl1N-m53yQiDzdjBUw8UrQpUpGKqU4V5FXN4giAOa1k2KQZtTfiwB-65SV2bAncjZ97YwvMVr-/s1600/EKC+Shortcut.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 234px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJup2NthQYmwytjoq5JexuyO40ZN7_ft-QqRiz5NuwRMSuf0zuSe04WznjIwV55U3rHQl1N-m53yQiDzdjBUw8UrQpUpGKqU4V5FXN4giAOa1k2KQZtTfiwB-65SV2bAncjZ97YwvMVr-/s320/EKC+Shortcut.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577499430868747698" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Having one’s environmentally-sustainable cake and eating it too. But I would be remiss not to point out that, as a Westerner, I have an enormous vested interest in this outcome. Like the children’s game “King of the Castle” there’s not room for everyone at the top of the pollution curve, and a source of much climate negotiation disagreement has been the disinclination of those on top to either step down from their perch or help others up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let’s daydream for a moment, and pretend that, since I’m in the development field, I might actually be able to help the Philippines develop (momentarily leaving aside the larger question of whether that would be an inherently good thing). If I succeed in my ultimate goal, I will eventually be clotheslined by the fundamental problem facing international development: if the EKC represents an inevitable path, then it is almost certainly also true that not everyone can become “developed”. What happens after I single-handedly raise the quality of living of the Philippines’ population of 90 million to become equivalent with that of, say, Oakville, Ontario? And then, since I’ve apparently acquired God-like powers, I move on and do the same for China’s 1 billion people.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now we have a good chunk of the global population perched on the top of the castle, enjoying the equality that one cannot – in good faith – say that they do not deserve. Here we take our lesson from the eminent philosopher Seuss, whose <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHUd7wCSviVEoiJtdOb2E7r7tjJ0jGIxBM9RxMh9y8gsnd215S4feUxUFgw1RiKnnH4pmzmdcOg21U8s8PHcKtC5T4nGwjLzQgSjUvqjq2zd2feyuSG06LaJ7Jy4FF_YBLycID7UK2ZOqy/s320/cat_in_the_hat.jpg">hatted cat</a> clearly demonstrates the unsustainability of massive balancing acts.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Given that the NGO for which I work has the word “sustainable” right in its name, I feel that professional considerations alone should be enough to give me pause before flicking my magic wand in that particular direction. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">But then where are we? If development isn’t an option, and neither is the status-quo, what course of action is left to the Philippines’ of the world? How can we achieve the holy trinity of sustainability, development and equality?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If an easy answer were forthcoming, then Copenhagen would have just been a giant excuse for world leaders to spend a week daring each other to ride on the <a href="http://www.welcome-to-my-copenhagen.com/tivoli_gardens_copenhagen.html">world’s oldest roller coaster</a>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Even with my acknowledged self-interest in this outcome, I think the EKC shortcut represents the least-unappealing option open to those countries to the left of the curve, but only if those countries on top are willing to meet them there.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Am I dreaming in technicolor? You bet your Filipino fish sauce I am, but I’ve seen <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489099/">this movie</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963966/">this movie</a> and also <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0207201/">this one</a>, and I know how important it is to know what I want the world to look like in case I ever develop super powers.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-19202554735481971932011-02-21T00:04:00.000-08:002011-02-21T00:07:52.105-08:00Raising Money for the Environment<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I've been writing a work plan for my next six months at the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO). It includes the following primary projects:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">1. Implement a solid waste management system in two of the city's barangays (neighbourhoods of approx. 10,000). We'll need to take this project all the way from the formation of a council, to the passing of an ordinance, to the implementation of the plan.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">2. Sewerage and Sanitation (oh yes). The city recently mandated that every septic tank in San Fernando needs to be desludged every 5 years – I need to figure out how to make that happen, and how much money needs to be collected.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Additional side projects (as if one could ever tire of septage) include a study of residual and hazardous waste in junk shops, a recycling project in schools and a composting initiative.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Here's what I've accomplished so far:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">1. Learned the names of more than half my co-workers.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">2. Figured out how to express, in Ilocano, the basic concern that my hovercraft is full of eels (Napno iti igat ti hovercraftko).</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">So it's been a productive first couple weeks.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">One emerging theme is that of money. There are some rich individuals in San Fernando, but the city itself is not exactly rolling in cash. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">We spent a good deal of last week trying to figure out what kind of septic tank desludging fee we needed to level against the city's 25,000 households in order to raise the 3 million pesos required to build a new septage treatment facility. Water quality problems led to the city's recent pronouncement that every septic tank in the city needs to be desludged every 5 years. Without the infrastructure to treat so much waste, the money will need to be raised quickly in order to begin construction of a new facility.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">To contextualize the 3 million peso figure a little bit: the average city worker makes roughly 10,000 pesos per month. Three million might not break the bank, but it's nothing for the city to scoff at.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">On the weekend, a friend and I were out with San Fernando's richest <i>Bucla</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> (the Tagalog term for a particular type of feminine gay man). We were inspecting her<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote1anc" href="#sdfootnote1sym"><sup>1</sup></a> doll collection, when there came an enormous WHUMP! </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I spun around to find that she had slammed 1 million pesos down on the coffee table.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I said something incredulous to the effect of “what are you doing with so much money”?</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“<span style="font-style: normal;">Spending money, sweetie. You're coming for dinner, aren't you?”</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Given that the most expensive dinner in the city costs less than 400 pesos, the stack of 1 million seemed moderately excessive, but the point of this anecdote is to illustrate the divide between rich and poor within San Fernando.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The city's relative poverty is going to inform how we approach all of our environmental projects. Whereas moral and ethical factors drive environmental sustainability within Canada, economic concerns are paramount here. Nobody takes a lot of convincing to recycle cans and bottles for which they receive money, but something like composting, with no immediate financial benefit, is a tougher sell. The most common means of disposing of waste – though illegal – is burning. Providing a financial incentive to instead segregate and recycle waste is going to be a big challenge.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">But not as big as cleaning these stupid eels out of my hovercraft.</span></p> <div id="sdfootnote1"> <p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote1sym" href="#sdfootnote1anc">1</a>Ilocano does not differentiate between male and female pronouns. 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mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:none; mso-hyphenate:none; text-autospace:ideograph-other; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="Standard">Like a 3D painting, San Fernando shows more of its depth everytime I look at it. I was shocked when Friday's boxing event featured two designated “gay boxing” cards. Dressed in full drag, the combatants clearly had no formal training, but easily had the best time of the night. The crowd loved it.</p> <p class="Standard">A Lady Gaga impersonator came into the ring and did a dance during the intermission. The crowd loved that too. I was enjoying it as well, all the more so after the vice-mayor leaned over and asked me “Have you met him? He works for the city library”.</p> <p class="Standard">These are the outer layers of San Fernando's attitude toward its LGBTQ population.</p> <p class="Standard">Further down presents increasing shades of grey.</p> <p class="Standard">Locally known as “the gays,” the mayor refers to them as the “third sex”. Locals will casually remark “look, a gay!” in the same tone that one might exclaim, “look, an iguana!”</p> <p class="Standard">And just as everyone likes iguanas, enjoys having them around and goes to see them in zoos, so “gays” are generally liked, and 5000 people showed up to see them at the Miss Gay San Fernando Universe pageant.</p> <p class="Standard">But you wouldn't want to bring an iguana home to meet your parents, and you certainly wouldn't want to be one, no matter how much fun it is to watch them crawl around on stage. The “third sex” implies an equality which is not, in reality, more than a thin layer deep.</p> <p class="Standard">The crowd at the Miss Gay pageant seemed to feel that it's okay to enjoy such events, but only to a point; there was something in the volume of laughter that suggested a cautious distancing and perhaps an element of derision. It would appear that, for all of the superficial acceptance, gays, like iguanas, remain spectacle.</p> <p class="Standard">Which is too bad, because neither gays nor greys deserve to be lumped together.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-48716565905512192802011-02-13T22:55:00.000-08:002011-02-13T22:56:19.381-08:00The Mayor and Me (Or: How White Privilege Taught Me the Art of the Left Hook)<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I've had the tremendous fortune of arriving in San Fernando during the annual city fiesta – a two-week long party and all-around good time.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Friday was boxing night.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I hadn't really gone into the city, at that point, except in a work-related capacity. I was standing outside the central plaza where the event was to take place, when a security guard from inside pushed through the crowd, pointed at me through an even larger crowd and offered me a seat in the (still empty) VIP section.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Surprised, I told him I was waiting for friends (the truth). Friends arrived an we tried to sit in the corner somewhere, but were quickly accosted by a gentleman whom I was later able to identify as the mayor's personal bodyguard.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In Canada, one is usually able to determine which offers it would be rude to decline, and which it is not really expected that one will accept. The offer of a beer is probably genuine, but the offer of one's house (after several beers) may not be. I still struggle with this distinction here, but it was clear in this instance that the request fell under the former category, so off we went to sit front and centre next to the mayor, the vice-mayor and Manny Pacquiao's trainer.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote1anc" href="#sdfootnote1sym"><sup>1</sup></a></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Then there was the boxing. I'd never seen a live boxing match before, but the conceit of unearned privilege had me discussing the finer points of the left hook with the vice-mayor, as if I could possibly have done more in the ring than just bleed. Maybe whimper a little.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The following night, another Canadian and I were whisked around a crowd into an event without so much as a cursory glance at our tickets (which were free to begin with). On the rare occasions I've been given VIP treatment at home, I've lived it up like I were the Prince of Monaco, because I know that my limousine will turn back into an oversized gourd at midnight, and I'll be back in the cheap seats with the rest of the suckers.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The problem is that the cost of the cheap seats at home can pay for a whole heck of a lot over here. I don't want to be given the key to the city, for several reasons:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">1) I haven't done anything to deserve it.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">2) The people in San Fernando's cheap seats don't live in nice suburban houses. They're hungry.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">3) The specter of neo-colonialism follows me around like an over-protective parent; escorting me through the poorest parts of town and ushering me into VIP seating.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">4) Part of my purpose here is to encourage the participation of marginalized groups in environmental activities, thus decreasing their relative marginalization. I see some pretty easy conflicts of interest on this count.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">No problem: I'll just implement a solid waste management plan in a couple of communities, and the entire city, if not the better part of the country, will surely be immediately hoisted out of poverty.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In the interim, a quick bout with Manny Pacquiao should be enough to keep me (permanently) grounded.</p> <div id="sdfootnote1"> <p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote1sym" href="#sdfootnote1anc">1</a>Possibly the most famous person I've ever met, now that I think about it.</p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-91958317836079622462011-02-03T21:00:00.000-08:002011-02-03T21:04:09.375-08:00Languages: Lots and Lots of Languages<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The usual binary language choice I face while travelling is the following:</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">A) Learn the local language.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Or,</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">B) Fail to learn the local language, thus resigning myself to weeks or monthly of bumbling indelicately and obliviously through a foreign culture, like a delirious sea lion performing Swan Lake.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But the Philippines is – to understate things slightly – an interesting place. Depending on who you ask, there are between 110 and 175 separate languages spoken in the Philippines. I am perhaps fortunate that my choice here is limited to two of them.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It's going to be a difficult decision to make. Ilokano is the local language here in San Fernando, and is spoken by perhaps 8 million people in the world. Tagalog, on the other hand, is one of two national languages, and claims 22 million native speakers, while being understood by 55% of the population. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It's simple enough on the surface: according to the current interns, Tagalog is the language spoken in meetings, and the resources to learn it are plentiful. If I learn Tagalog, I'll stand a decent chance of being understood anywhere in the Philippines (whether you agree that that would be a good thing or not).</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It might be a bit strong to suggest that Ilocano is dying, but the vultures are already circling. One of the previous interns here has become extremely invested in language preservation. He shares an anecdote in which he addressed a young child in Ilocano, only to find that his parents had made the decision not to teach the child the local language; he spoke English and Tagalog instead. Increasingly, upper class families in the region are making this decision, opening up the first cracks in the stability of Ilocano as a vibrant language.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">So, sigh, I'm left to make a philosophical decision, and I already know that I couldn't make any other choice. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">My insightful partner recently quoted Wittgenstein on the subject of language: "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world". A lost language represents a lost way of knowing, thinking and understanding the world; all items for which I believe in increased, rather than reduced diversity. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">None of this is to say that I will actually succeed in learning Ilocano, but fueled by my residual guilt over having failed to properly master Dutch, I'm going to give it my best shot.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Vegas would give the sea lion better odds.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-36903863219095959172011-02-01T08:54:00.000-08:002011-02-03T21:00:10.509-08:00Mangoes and Other Dangers of Excess<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">With so many things to feel guilty about as a Westerner in a developing country, I’ve been casting about for things I can feel good about. My chief candidate at the moment: mangoes.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I love mangoes, but since mangoes don’t love -30 degree temperatures, they tend not to grow in Canada. In order to acquire them, as a Canadian, one needs to import them from overseas and I find it difficult to justify enjoying a fruit with such an enormous carbon footprint. It’s sort of analogous to melting the arctic ice with a blowtorch; one mango won’t make all the difference, but it doesn’t seem the right thing to do. Anyway, the Philippines is reputed to produce the world’s best mangoes, and I intend to consume them until I start to look like one.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But over-exuberant mango consumption isn’t the only way in which I will be tempting fate. No, I will also be learning how to surf. And how can I not? I’m living 200 metres from one of the best surfing beaches in the Philippines. San Juan is, in fact, a town populated primarily by surf bums. I suspect that my new home’s sleepy nature will provide a welcome antidote to the nearby barely controlled chaos of San Fernando City, where I will be actually working.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In theory, I’m supposed to be working on community-based waste management projects in several of San Fernando’s unserviced districts. For the moment, however, I can hardly envision a future in which I am able to navigate San Fernando’s chaos, let alone harness it. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Predictably, I haven’t been helping my own chances of survival. But in my own defence, I was brought up to believe that when the mayor personally invites you on a bicycle race, you accept the offer. And if that race happens to consist of a 5 hour climb up a mountain in the searing heat, then you plan your funeral with dignity and grace. He gave me a mug with his picture on it; how could I say no?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I admit that I was feeling a little pressure to please, since the first thing I saw upon entering the city was a welcoming poster with my name on it. But I suspect they would have evicted me anyway after I ate an entire season’s worth of mangoes.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Coming soon: context for the mayor’s declaration that “with the modern times, even fish can now have their own condominium”.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5934325617365144607.post-69911354601526305252011-01-30T17:32:00.000-08:002011-02-03T20:56:32.892-08:00The Great Problems of the World<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In this world we live in, many people have many problems. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There are children starving in Africa.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender, Dan Ellis, continues to lose sleep over his <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Goalie-Dan-Ellis-discovers-lack-of-sympathy-for-?urn=nhl-267868">measly 3 million dollar contract</a>.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The president of the United States has to deal with, on top of everything else, accusations that he was born outside of the Milky Way galaxy.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Even contemporary philosopher, Jay-Z, claims to have ninety-nine of them.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Everyone on Earth has problems, and many share the same problems. But for all the overlap, there are relatively few people complaining about my new problem: being a white male.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Yeah I know, boo hoo.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And for every way that it will be a problem, I'm sure there will be a hundred embarrassing benefits. But I don't like to stand out. I want to blend into new environments, like a tall, inept ninja. In the Netherlands, I could just keep my mouth shut and/or express a dry sense of humour and I fit right in. In fact, I've never been somewhere where I could be identified as “foreign” on sight. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It makes me uncomfortable. So sure, it's not as bad a problem as starving in Africa, but it may perhaps be on par with at least a few of Jay-Z's troubles.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">San Fernando is small enough (100 000 people, give or take) that I'm likely to gain some degree of recognition after some spent wandering about town. I'm given to understand that there are few white people there, excepting the current interns and an endemic problem of old, white sex tourists. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Or perhaps these are the predictable fears of a nervous narcissist. Perhaps no one will notice me at all. Here on the very edge of my departure, the uncertainty is such that I'm not sure which eventuality would be worse. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">So the only solution, for now, is to contextualize the problem.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size:100%;">At least I don't make 3 million dollars.<br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0