Category Archives: 2019 Trip to Southwest United States

Musings on my trip to the Southwestern United States that occurred mainly in 2019 (though it started 2018)

The Most Powerful Mafia Don in the World

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Populism, Trump

 

Like most days, when we watched television, the subject of Donald Trump came up. It always does.  Here in the USA Trump is ubiquitous. Trump has recently threatened his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who is scheduled to testify at a hearing of a Committee at the US. House of Representatives investigating the connection of the Trump campaign to Russian meddling in the 2016 Presidential campaign. Trump, according to Cohen, threatened Cohen that if he testified his father-in-law and wife should be investigated for vague offences.  Adam Schiff the Democratic Chair of that committee said the actions of Trump were exactly like a Mafia Don. Not just any old Mafia Don! Remember these threats came from the most powerful man in the world!

Trump has been publicly complaining about the “rats” who have agreed to co-operate with the Mueller investigation while applauding the bravery of former associates  who have agreed not to co-operate. Did you ever think the President of the United States would act precisely like a Mafia leader?

These are the actions of a tyrant who has no respect for the rule of law. And this is all happening while democracy and the rule of law are threatened by populist leaders around the world in Russia, Spain, the Philippines, Brazil, Hungary and Poland, among other countries. This fight against autocrats is one of the most important fights in the world and the most powerful man in the world seems to be on the side of the autocrats!

Species that love us

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Anthropocene, Bio-Diversity, Extinction, Hummingbirds

 

Professor Pearson said that although humans have caused incredible damage on wild life, not all species are in decline. Why is that? Dr. Pearson finds this important. So do I. The fact is that  some species have adapted to life on a planet dominated by one species, Homo sapiens. They seem to like us! Can we learn something from the adaptable species?

Pearson said that scientists have learned that some species in urban environments have experienced accelerated evolution. For example, cockroaches and pigeons have changed their behaviors to live and even thrive in urban environments. How did that happen?

Scientists have been studying a species I am very familiar with. It is called Crepis setosa, or Hawksbeard. It was originally brought over to North America by Europeans and now is common all over North America including Manitoba. Scientists have learned a very surprising thing about this common plant, namely, that it has evolved its method of propagating seeds. Instead of sending them in the wind it is now tending to drop the seeds to the ground instead. What is remarkable about this evolution is that it has happened in 15 years! That is an astonishing rate of evolution.

Coyotes in cities have also been evolving to live alongside humans. As a result coyotes have learned to hunt deer in packs, they are less shy, larger, have different teeth, and have larger territories than they did a short time ago. Again they adapted and then evolved in very short periods of time. That is why coyotes can now be found in nearly every major city of North America. I have seen them in Vancouver.

European Blackbirds have first adapted and then evolved to sing louder songs. They have done that of course to compete with noises humans have brought to cities.

 

30 years ago Anna’s Hummingbirds did not fly to Arizona. At least they were very rare. Now they are common. At this time of year where we live they are the most common hummingbirds. Why is that? Do they love the feeders that humans put out all over? Has the climate changed enough to attract them? Now these hummingbirds have found that they likelife in the city. People plant flowers all over the place just for them. So it must seem. The heat island effect of cities is also likely attractive to Hummingbirds. They seem to like cities, and who can blame them? Maybe they even like us!

Neo-tropic cormorants are not common to the Phoenix area, but there were virtually none here 15 years ago. Things have changed enough that these birds have learned to adapt to the city, even though they must share it with about 5 million other people. Now these cormorants are common.

These are examples of species that are managing to adapt to live and even thrive with humans. Can more species do this? Are there things humans can do to make adaptations by other species easier? These are all questions that Professor Pearson raised.

The problems of species decline are massive. We will need more knowledge. Knowledge is more important than money. Though it costs money too. We will have to work together, collaborate, to get more knowledge. All of that knowledge, experience, and wisdom will have to be shared so that we can attack the problems ahead.

Further changes in the urban ecosystem can be expected. Change is the only constant. Social, economic, and cultural changes are all important. Their impacts will be important. The continuing rise of the numbers in the middle class will have a major impact on the world. As the numbers of the middle class rise, their impact on the environment will grow exponentially. There will be greater consumption, more cars, greater waste, increased pollution, expanding extraction of resources, and always, more degradation of the environment as a consequence. This is what we can look forward to if we’re lucky!

Yet again there will be positives too. It won’t be all bad. We can expect people to have fewer children and that will mitigate environmental impacts. Education will improve and that will improve the lives of millions. People will have more free time. People will have more hobbies. All of this will bring about more citizen science. It is a sad fact that there is not enough money, even in the richest country in the world, to fund all the research that is needed. Pearson believes, citizen science will help reduce the harmful effects of this omission.

Of course people must learn to do more than play with their phones, iPads or watch their various monitors. People will have to learn to enjoy learning. Private citizens who become bird watchers are good examples of the new citizens that will be needed. Scientists will use these people to help them do science. The professional amateur will be a boon to society. More and more researchers will look to them for help in many disciplines.

Scientists will have to learn to collaborate more, use social interaction to a greater extent. A good example is how Scientists will learn to use crowd sourcing to a greater extent. Many use it already. If a scientist puts a question ‘out there,’ it is amazing how many responses the scientist will get and how many creative solutions or proposals. Businesses will learn to do this too. A business has a problem, it asks the world to comment, suggest, and help. This will become much more common. Perhaps the best solutions will be rewarded.

All of this can help to create a new ecology, including urban ecology. That does not mean the Grand Canyon won’t be important any more. It does mean we won’t be able to rely solely on such iconic places. The urban landscape might become more important than the Grand Canyon from a conservation perspective.

The key question will be: how do we work with nature manage and control the new world that is rapidly approaching? It will be vitally important for us to learn to adapt. Species will be lost. What can we do to minimize the losses while fostering the gains?          What will be the future of biodiversity in the cities in 2090? Will we recognize them? We will need big parks in the city. Parks like Central Park in New York City, or Hyde Park in London, or Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg. Politicians a century ago had foresight. Those parks were very expensive but those leaders found the will and the money to do such great projects. We will need such forward thinking from our current crop of political leaders.

Things won’t be easy, but we have a chance. We must take that chance with eyes and minds both wide open.

Birds and Anthropocene: Not all Doom and gloom

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Anthropocene, Birds, Extinction

 

Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)

We drove to Gilbert to participate in the monthly meeting of the Desert Rivers Audubon Society. We went last year to one of their meetings and really enjoyed it. Tonight they had a talk by Arizona State University Professor Dr. David Pearson. His topic was “Birds and the Anthropocene: The Future of Biodiversity”. It was fascinating. Dr. Pearson looked at the issue from a new perspective. In other words, he wanted to beyond the doom and gloom of species loss. It is easy to go down that path. I know, I do it all the time.

The notion of the anthropocene is designed to capture the fact that the era of human impacts is upon us and we as a species have had such a profound impact on the planet that our impact is comparable to the global geological forces of the past. I recently blogged about the precipitous decline in animals (not just birds)  The numbers are stupefying. The big question though is what can we do about it?

Dr. Pearson began with a startling proposition: “Don’t dwell on the past if you want to conserve the future.” That is not intuitively true. After all should we not learn from the mistakes of the past? Of course we should, but that does not mean we have to be stuck in the past. We need a new approach. The problem that we have to take into consideration is that so much has changed that we must learn to adapt.

Pearson suggested we consider conservation and ecology but with a new focus. We have to change our focus. The most important first step is to realize that we must give up our search for the pristine. The pristine no longer exists, and it ain’t coming back any time soon.  That is why we have to forget about the past. It will only serve to depress. There is no pristine left anywhere on the planet. Human impacts can be seen on every continent. Even in Antarctica the human effects are obvious and easily discernable.

What worked 50 years ago won’t necessarily work today. Too much has changed. So we have to change too. So we have to forget about the pristine and forget about achieving it. Think outside that box. We need a new ecology. We cannot fix the past. We need knowledge. We have to be smart. Yes we have to avoid the mistakes of the past, but we also need to learn new ways of doing ecology. We have to realize that we can’t save everything. We need triage. Really that means we must prioritize what needs to be done and what can be done. We must also understand that money is always a factor. It is never unlimited. Even in the United States, the richest country in the world, we have to practice smart ecology. We have to practice ecology that knows its limits too.

We have to work with the state of nature that we have, even though it is far from the pristine nature we would like to have. We can’t undo the past so what do we do?

Around the globe the number of species that have been lost for good and the habitat that has been lost for good are staggering. But concentrating on this doom and gloom won’t be help. It might even make things worse, because if things are hopeless people tend to give up.

Even in Kruger National Park, one of the finest national parks in the world, they have had to adapt. As a result much of it is now fenced! I remember when I was there, only a few years ago, they were just talking about fencing it. The notion seems abhorrent, but they had to adapt. We will have to adapt too and accept some things we don’t want to accept.

We have to reconsider what is natural. The natural is what is caused by nature, not by humans. But humans affect everything. Humans everywhere affect everything.

One of the things Pearson emphasized is that we can’t just concentrate on National Parks. We have to do conservation work elsewhere as well. We have to look at secondary habitats. In some of these places we can actually make a difference, and sometimes at a surprisingly small cost.

Since no habitat is able to escape human influence we have to be willing to go where humans have already had an effect. For example, we must look at urban ecology. This may sound counterintuitive, but we have to be willing to work in areas where humans have already had a profound impact. We have to practice ecology in our cities.

A single generation from today, by 2030, the population of the world’s cities will likely grow by 2 billion more people. That will be nearly 10 billion people. At present, about half of the humans on earth live in urban areas.

In short, the entire planet is becoming more urbanized, a phenomenon which is already having a profound effect on the natural systems that maintain breathable air, drinkable water, and fertile soil for agriculture.

But large areas of green spaces exist within cities. Lawns, parks, golf courses, and nature preserves created decades ago and now surrounded by development help filter pollution in air and water, produce oxygen, mitigate heat absorption by asphalt and concrete, and provide habitat for songbirds and other wildlife.

In the past quarter century, scientists have recognized that understanding the interactions of the living and nonliving components of these urban ecosystems is vital to the future of all life on earth, including ourselves.

Dr. Pearson said one day he took his students at Arizona State University on a walk through their campus. They were amazed by the wildlife they found right there. He said before they were done 50 other students joined his class, intrigued by what they were looking at. We all have to take a fresh look at the environment. Even the environments in our cities.

We have to look at the costs and benefits of urbanization. There are a lot of hidden costs. They are only hidden though until we look. The costs of urbanization include the following: pollution has increased, more floods have been created, water has been affected, air quality has been affected and that has affected people living in cities, people’s stress has been increased, people have become alienated from nature, and garbage has accumulated. The list could go on and on.

Of course there are benefits to living in cities too. Otherwise so many people would not live there. Many people think the costs are worth the price. In fact since more and more people live in cities that must mean that more and more people think it is worth living in cities, notwithstanding the enormous costs. The benefits include better access to education, jobs, entertainment, culture, sociability, and efficiency of services, to name again just a few. Often life is just plain more comfortable and for many more enjoyable than outside the cities. Apparently the benefits outweigh the costs. At least to many people. That’s why so many choose to live there. We have to work with that.

One of the facts about living in a city is the presence of heat islands. It is hotter in the city than outside the city. People must learn that green islands in the city are not a luxury. They help modify the ill effects of city living.

Humans in cities have to do things to improve city life. Cats are a good example. Every year in the United States domestic cats kill 2 billion birds. This is contributing to the serious decline of bird populations. Humans should keep their cats inside or tied up. Cats can learn to accept that. Cat owners must be responsible. I admit to some guilt here. I used to have cat pets and always let them roam around the neighbourhood and I knew that my cats killed birds. I did not like it, but I let them out. If someone complained I promised to speak to the cats. Attitudes like mine have to change.

Riparian areas are marvellous adaptations inside cities. There are 2 astounding examples very close by–the Riparian Reserve at Water Ranch (where I took the photograph of the owl., though it is captive) and the Veterans Oasis Park. Both are wonderful green areas inside the city. And both help recycle water in a region that badly needs clean water! This is win/win at its finest. Dr. Pearson said he proudly shows pictures of these 2 places around the world when he gives presentations at conferences. I have been there many times and am always amazed at the wildlife inside a major city.

As Dr. Pearson repeated over and over, he did not want to concentrate on the gloom. He wanted to concentrate on how we should adapt to these horrid facts. If we can’t adapt we will suffer the same consequences as other species that fail to adapt when challenged. We will disappear–forever.

The entire story is not grim. For example, in the past hundred years in Arizona perhaps only 1 or 2 plant species have gone extinct as far as we know. Even though many exotics have been introduced they have not muscled out the locals. Plants have been able to survive.

Next I will blog about species that are not declining. How is that possible?

Astonishing Species Decline

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Anthropocene, Birds, Extinction

 

Chris and I went to hear a Professor from Arizona State University talk about the amazing decline of birds and what we can do about it. Before I bog on what he said, I wanted to give some information, about the general problem of species decline. It is not a pretty story but the Professor did not concentrate on doom and gloom. He actually had some suggestions.

We all know birds (and other animals) have been seriously impacted by human activities inside and outside cities. The Living Planet Report of the World Wildlife Fund of 2018 delivered shocking news. It reported “On average, we’ve seen an astonishing 60% decline in the size of populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians in just over 40 years.” You have to be careful in interpreting such figures. They are more complicated than at first they appear. But it is not difficult to understand we are losing a lot of wildlife. In addition the report said, “The top threats to species identified in the report link directly to human activities, including habitat loss and degradation and the excessive human use of wildlife such as overfishing and overhunting.”

As Damian Carrington reported in the Guardian, “Between 1970 and 2014, the latest data available, populations fell by an average of 60%. Four years ago, the decline was 52%. The “shocking truth”, …, is that the wildlife crash is continuing unabated.”

This is an incredible report and not many people are talking about it. They are talking about Trump and the Mueller report, but that is not nearly as important as this. As Carrington said,

 

Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.

The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by the WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else.

“We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff” said Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF. “If there was a 60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of what we have done.”

“This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature, desperately sad though that is,” he said. “This is actually now jeopardising the future of people. Nature is not a ‘nice to have’ – it is our life-support system.”

According to Prof Johan Rockström, a global sustainability expert at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, “We are rapidly running out of time.…The Living Planet Index has been criticised as being too broad a measure of wildlife losses and smoothing over crucial details. But all indicators, from extinction rates to intactness of ecosystems, show colossal losses. “They all tell you the same story,” said Barrett….”

Tanya Steele, chief executive at WWF, said: “We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it.'”

However, as Professor Pearson repeated over and over, he did not want to concentrate on the gloom. He wanted to concentrate on how we should adapt to these horrid facts. If we can’t adapt we will suffer the same consequences as other species that fail to adapt when challenged. We will disappear–forever.

Next I will blog about how we should react to this decline. Besides crying that is.

Sometimes it pays to listen to your spouse: Dead Cold by Louise Penny

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Books, Buddhism, expansive religion

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Dead Cold

By Louise Penny

When I first heard about Louise Penny I was very surprised. She had been an unexceptional host on CBC radio in Winnipeg. As a regular CBC listener, I listened to her nearly every day. I heard she had moved to Quebec. Much to my surprise she wrote a book called Still Life. It was a murder mystery that took place in a small fictional village in the eastern townships called 3 Pines.  I found it a little difficult to believe that she could be any good. How could a young woman from Winnipeg be a good mystery writer? That prejudice shows you how stupid I can be. Later I learned she was on the New York Times bestseller list. That did not seem improbable; it seemed impossible.

Sometimes it pays to listen to your spouse. Chris became a Penny  fan and suggested I read her too. It took me a couple of years to follow her suggestions. Funny, how suggestions from a spouse are the last that are followed. And Chris says, “Should be the first to be followed. As a matter of fact, since Chris is a big mystery fan, when I learned this Winnipeg woman was an internationally respected mystery writer, I suggested she read her. Now Chris has conveniently forgotten my suggestion to her! Funny how that happens!

Eventually I read her first novel and concluded Penny is indeed a very good writer. Chris was right. Again I have to admit that.  I have started to read her series now. Chris has read them all. This year I read the second in the series, Dead Cold. This convinced me that Penny is an exceptional writer.

One of the great pleasures of the series is Penny’s description of this small town in Quebec and it’s many fascinating inhabitants. This is how she describes the small town in her second novel:

“Three Pines had what she craved.

It had croissants and café au lait.It had steak fries and the New York Times. It had a bakery, a bistro, a B & B, a general store. It had peace and stillness and laughter. It had great joy and great sadness and the ability to accept both and be content. It had companionship and kindness.”

         There was one outstanding incident in Dead Cold that I want to mention. It involved Clara, a recurring character in the series. Clara is an artist. So far she has toiled without success. She does not know if she is any good or not. Naturally she was insecure. She asked CC, who Clara wrongly thought was a friend, to introduce her art to a Montreal art critic.  Then one day she encountered CC on an escalator in a Montreal department store, and CC, her erstwhile “friend” pretended to be talking to the critic as she was travelling down the escalator and Clara was travelling up.  She led Clara to believe that the critic had dismissed her art as “amateur and banal.”  It was cruel gesture and entirely deflated Clara. Clara was “murdered by words.” She “knew” her art was crap.

A few minutes after this painful incident,  Clara encountered a homeless bum on the streets of Montreal. The bum was lying on the ground covered in vomit and excrement. The bum was an old woman. Clara intended to give her a bag of food. She almost stopped; the smell was so bad. Yet she continued and placed the bag beside the old woman. Amazingly, the old woman turned up to Clara and said, “I always loved your art, Clara.” How could that be?

For some reason, Clara was convinced this bum was God. The shit-covered bag lady was God!  She thought she had met God. In my opinion Clara was wrong. She had not met God; she had become God. By offering food to the bum she became God. The Buddhists say that we must learn to become the Buddha. This is what Clara had done, and in the process she was redeemed. This is what we should do; we should become God. I believed that this is what genuine religion is all about. Religion leads us to the God within.

All of this in a mystery novel. Funny how that happens.

Green Book

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Movies, racism

 

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This movie has received a lukewarm reception from the critics, but I dissent from their views. Critics have suggested this movie is superficial. I suggest the reviews are superficial.

Sometimes a movie does not need great subtlety to be worthwhile. This movie tells a story that must be told, over and over again. It tells the story of horrendous racism in America not that long ago. We all need to hear this story. This is even true of us non-Americans who are by no means free of racism ourselves. We must learn to speak out against racism. That is sometimes hard. As Angela Davis said, “In a racist society it is not enough not to be a racist, one must be anti-racist.”  That is one of the reasons I have started to blog. I want to denounce some injustices. Racism is one of them.

I liked the fact that the serious topic of racism in the movie was handled with humour. That is not always easy to do. The movie made us laugh and think. Isn’t that pretty good?

The movie is sort of twist on “Driving Mis Daisy, ” with the racial roles reversed. The driver is Tony Vallelonga, a.k.a. Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen). He is a white iconoclastic Italian New Yorker. The elegant passenger is a brilliant and rich black musician, Donald Shirley (played by Mahershala Ali). Donald hires Tony to drive him through the Deep South before the civil rights successes in the 60s. They need the “Green Book” to find safe places for Donald to eat and stay. His wealth and fame is not enough. They are definitely an odd couple. Tony is brash, loud, unsophisticated and talkative. Dr. Donald Shirley is quiet, thoughtful, and refined.

The story in the film is how both of them become woke to the intricacies of the other. Both have to learn to get around the stereo-types. Tony begins as a racist, who discards in the trash glasses used by 2 black workers in his home, but learns in time to appreciate and befriend Donald. He overcomes his own racism. He is better than that. Donald learns to see the good  heart and street smarts underneath the rough exterior of Tony. Both have to get through the surface of the other to the richness underneath. Both have to look beyond skin color. That should be easy, but by now we know it is not. It is difficult to overcome deeply ingrained prejudice.

Tony is a self-confessed bullshitter. But he denies lying. He tells stories to others to get them to do what he wants. Reminds me a lot of a certain President.

While driving Tony is surprised that Donald seems unconnected to modern black popular music. He doesn’t seem to know the music of Chubby Checker, Little Richard, Aretha Franklin or Sam Cooke. This causes Tony to exclaim: “These are your people!” Tony exclaims, ultimately adding, “I’m blacker than you are!”

Donald on the other hand realizes that he is rich, talented, famous, and alone. He cries out that he is “not black enough, not white enough, not man enough,” and adds, with bewildered anguish, “What am I?” He has no place. He does not belong.  He gains an epiphany of sorts in a black jazz/blues club as he performs classical music for a surprised crowd and then joins a black band playing rousing blues and jazz. I loved their jamming.

I won’t say that the movie is brilliant. But I loved it. Sometimes brilliance is not necessary.

A Big Beautiful Wall

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, politics, Trump

 

Today,  I considered 2 reports on the border issues in Arizona.  First, I read a brief report in the Arizona Republic newspaper which I decided to subscribe to today for the balance of our visit. I think local news is important. We should not rely entirely on Comedy News.

The newspaper reported on a group of mostly Guatemalan asylum seekers that breached the U.S.-Mexico Border yesterday. A smuggler helped a group of 118 asylum seekers by providing a ladder so they could climb over the wall near Yuma Arizona. that sounds like a lot of people. They were caught on video surveillance scaling the wall yesterday. About 86% of them were families travelling together, Customs and Border Agency reported. The video showed a number of people dropping to the ground after scaling the fence that was about 18 ft.

As the members of the group dropped to the ground they huddled in a group. The person who supplied the ladder, on the Mexican side, was shown leaving the scene in a hurry. According to the report, the people were “brazen  A spokesman for Border Security said, “It shows how brazen these smugglers are and the fact that they’re unafraid I wondered, ‘were they brazen, or were they desperate?” This incident happened about a mile from where 376 asylum seekers dug  holes to tunnel under the border fence last week. That too sounds like a lot of people.

Is this an emergency as Trump alleges? Does it warrant spending billions on a wall? Does it warrant shutting down the American government? Some would say yes. That group in Yuma was the single largest authorities had encountered in the area.

Some say that the wall there is “only” 18 ft. high. We should build it 30 ft. high some say. Of course, if a wall is built 30 ft. high does that mean the next smuggler will get a ladder 31 ft. high? A border guard interviewed by the Arizona Republic said, it might not be so easy because the smuggler would need two  30 ft. ladders. One on each side of the fence (wall). The video showed that an 18 ft. drop was pretty high. Particularly for young children. There are always young children. We have to remember that. These were families with young children. Do we not care about that?

On the radio today I also heard an interesting interview with Santa Cruz Sheriff–Tony Estrada. He is 75 years old and was recently elected for his 7th term as Sheriff.  That county includes Nogales Arizona and Nogales Mexico where  Chris and I lived near  for a month 3 years ago.

Estrada  said he was  the longest running Sheriff in Arizona. He seemed very knowledgeable.

Estrada is not a fan of Trump’s proposed “Big, beautiful, border wall.”  In fact he thinks it is a fantasy. “The wall won’t help,” he said.  Estrada said that almost all illegal immigrants come through at points of entry. Those are the legal border crossings that people use when they cross a border. Those places all have border walls already! They don’t need more walls.

Estrada also said that illegal immigrants were not the big problem, illegal drugs were the main problem. Meth in particular had in recent years become the main problem. This reminded me of Manitoba. Meth is a problem. But a wall won’t help. Those drugs also come in through points of entry, according to Estrada. The real problem is demand! In the US demand for illegal drugs is extremely high. Estrada said, the US has 5% of the world’s population and more than 50% of the world’s drugs. Americans can afford to pay and they demand that they get them. That is the problem. It is not a wall or lack of a wall that is the problem.

Sheriff Estrada said the border authorities could use money in the new proposed bill that Trump insists be signed before the government is reopened. It could be used for better technology (even though they already have the best technology!) and more boots on the ground, but spending money one a wall would be a waste. (Other border guards agree with Trump that building a wall is a good idea.)

Estrada pointed out that once in a while people cross the border with ladders as happened in Yuma, but this is rare. It is also rare that some people dig under the wall. I think he was saying if we wanted stronger borders we have to be smart. Building a ‘big, beautiful wall’ is not smart. I agree.

It’s always better to be smart.

Something Nice About Trump

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Extremism, politics, Trump

 

As some of my critics have pointed out, I don’t often say something nice about Donald Trump. That is true. Today is an exception.

As everyone knows, the American government has been partially shut down for more than 4 weeks. Not everyone knows this has caused serious problems. It causes serious damage to the American economy as many things can’t be done, that should be done. Even more important, it has caused serious damage to many Americans. About 800,000 American government employees are not being paid. Many of them are still expected to go to work. That is inherently unfair.

I blame both sides. Not just Donald Trump, but certainly including him. Trump has said he won’t approve spending that does not include money for a wall on the southern border. This is an absurd position. It is highly unlikely that a wall will do any good. It is just window dressing for his ego. He is asking for about $5  billion at this time. This is small  beer in terms of American political spending. The Democrats say they were elected on the basis of opposing the wall. But Trump also got elected on the basis of promising a wall. Both sides should get over it.

This stand-off  shows how crazily dysfunctional their system of government is. This keeps happening over and over again, particularly as the chasm between Americans deepens. I damages the American international reputation. Extremism is on the march. This should be resolved. That will required either statesmanship or compromise or both. Since statesmanship is conspicuously absent, that means the parties must compromise. That means both sides have to agree to a settlement that is less than ideal from their perspective. So be it. Politicians willing to compromise in America appear to be a species on the endangers species list.

I listened today to  a small part of an interview with Joseph Stiglitz a respected American economist. I really just heard one small part of his talk. That was enough. He said there were figures out there that indicated that 40% of Americans have less than $400 in their accounts. 25% have less than $1,000 That means such a shutdown has serious consequences for these people. I have heard that Air traffic controllers have been working over time at second jobs with Uber so that they pay their portages. Americans need to be fair to their civil servants (even though many of them don’t respect civil servants). Many other people have lost their jobs because they depend on working with government employees. All of this is a serious drag on the American economy.

Today Donald Trump offered to approve a temporary extension of protection for people facing deportation on the basis that they are undocumented, so that both parties in Congress have more time to come up with a solution for this serious problem, but only if Congress approves a spending bill that includes money for the wall. In the circumstances Trump has made a reasonable offer. This will help thousands of people in America who are anxiously awaiting a return to work so they can feed their families and pay their bills. It will  postpone many deportations for at least 3 years. This is good. Not perfect, but good. Democrats should not let perfection be the enemy of the good. The Democrats should compromise, even though that will be painful for them. It will be good for the country. It will be good for many individuals and families. That is more important. Much more important.

Thinking about Climate Change

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Climate change

 

I have been thinking a lot about climate change lately. Thinking of course, not necessarily doing anything about it. That is harder. So I am determined at least to speak up. I will also try to do something in my own personal life. But I think speaking up is important too.

I have recently left a country that is in climate change denial for another . I have left Canada for the United States. In Canada we are just more surreptious about it. We claim we  believe climate change is real and is caused by humans, and we claim we are doing something, but nothing gets done. IN 20 years now nothing has got done. In the US many people  still don’t even believe that climate change is happening or that it is caused by human activities. The numbers of those who resist the obvious are shrinking, no matter what their President says about it. I am not sure which country is worse.  The hypocrite (Canada) or the resister (the US). Both have serious flaws. Our grand children won’t be impressed.

If the temperature rises 1°C the new UN Climate report released in 2018 says, up to a third of people in the world could lose their source of clean water. At a 2 °C rise people begin to die in what are “normal” summers. Countries already hit hard by hurricanes could see those already dramatic effects amplified, and most fearfully, 1/3rd of all  life on the planet faces extinction. If that does not catch the attention of people it is difficult to comprehend what could. Now I admit thinking about things like that are hard.  Who wants to do that?  Well, for sure, not the President of the United States. Nor most of his Republican enablers.  Even worse, millions of Americans still support his Presidency.

Trump was recently interviewed on CBS 60 Minutes and was asked if he still thought climate change was a hoax. He dodged the question. As comic Jim Jefferies said, “Some Republicans continue to say that climate change isn’t real, but the real hoax is Republicans pretending it’s a hoax. They know the science is real, they’re just making so much money they don’t give a shit. ”

Texas Republican Lamar Smith is the Chair of the American House Science Committee and he received more than $600,000 from the oil and gas industry. Another Republican, the senior Senator from Oklahoma since 1994, has many contributors from the oil and gas sector. His biggest funders include ExxonMobil and Koch Industries. It sometimes  seems the only thing that one can afford to buy is a Senator.

Of course it is difficult for people to focus on issues like this when you tell them they are going to die. As Anthony Leiserowitz the Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication  said, “Climate change is the policy problem from hell. You almost couldn’t design a worse problem as a fit with our underlying psychology or with the way our institutions make decisions.” The problem is that when we feel fear, or guilt or experience anxiety we tend to withdraw from the issue and try to think about something else that makes us feel better. That is much more pleasant. It is difficult to avoid doing that. But critical thought demands it.

As Jim Jefferies said, “Imminent death is too scary to contemplate. If you told me that I am going to die and everyone I ever met is going to die a fiery death my first thought wouldn’t be ‘Oh I’d better bring my own grocery bags to the store. It would be more like, ‘I have been meaning to try heroin.’ The problem of climate change is just too big and overwhelming. How can we possibly deal with a threat to our lives, our kid’s lives, our grand kid’s lives, our great grand kids?”

Jefferies suggested that the only way to get Trump’s attention was with pictures.  So he drew one of a Trump Hotel filled with people, but not the kind of people Trump wants. he pictured a Trump hotel filled with dirty refugees. He asked Trump to consider this, “First Mr. President with all the refugees created by global warning, poor people will have to stay in Trump hotels with all their disgusting unwashed faces and their dirty hands.” Then Jefferies had another horror story for Trump to consider. “As the weather gets more severe if you think Stormy Daniels is a problem wait until she is upgraded to Hurricane Daniels!”  As if that picture was not graphic enough he had another, “Eventually Russian prostitutes will be too dehydrated to piss on a mattress.”  His conclusion was that “we gotta put these pictures on chicken buckets until he gets the message.”

These were stories from a comic. It’s pretty bad when the comedians give us the straight goods and the politicians evade the truth. That seems to be where we landed.

Hummingbirds: How Smart are they?

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Birds, Hummingbirds, Natural History

 

 

After our adventures on the highways we did make it safely to our rented home in San Tan Valley Arizona. Our first Arizona friends to visit us were the hummingbirds. They arrived the first day we were here and went directly to the same spot we had our feeder last year before we had time to set it up.  How smart is that? I don’t think anyone has fed them here for 9 months!

As we were reading in the backyard, we saw an intense aerial display that could match any of the dogfights in either of our World Wars. Two Anna’s Hummingbirds conducted this military exercise. They flew after each other for so long that mostly they had no time to dine on the nectar we provided. That is not very smart! I did get a couple of photos of one of them in one of the few moments when he stopped to drink, including the image above.

Humans have a strong tendency to think they are better and smarter than everything else. Many of us believe that God made this world for humans to rule. The world is subordinate to us. Sometimes however, humans should learn a little humility.

I have watched a few astonishing nature shows on television about hummingbirds. One of them was about  Andy Hurley and his research partner Sue Healy who study hummingbirds. In particular, they study rufous humming birds, astonishing little birds with brains the size of a grain of rice. Yet even these birds are smart–very smart. Their hearts can beat at more than a 1,000 beats per minute! Their wings beat at more than 70 times per second! All of that requires the expenditure of an enormous amount of energy. How do they get that energy? Well they need to be smart to find it.

         Hurley and Healy found that in the lab birds like this do surprising things, but not nearly as surprising as the things that the birds do in their environment. That is where their intelligence really shines. They set up a number of fake flowers for the real birds. Each a different colour. They created a pattern of cardboard disks on top of sticks or poles stuck into the ground to resemble flowers. These were artificial flowers filled with a sucrose solution that resembles nectar.  The birds were actually offered slightly better food than they would get in the wild, in order to keep them interested. “Being smart birds they recognized a good thing when they saw it.” They kept coming back for the nectar of the gods. “Not only do they see it; they remember it,” Hurley said.

Because male rufous hummingbirds are so territorial, the same bird comes back to the cafeteria over and over again. As Hurley said, “A Male rufous hummingbirds has hundreds if not thousands of flowers in its territory. As a result, he has to remember where good food is, and where he has just visited.” That takes serious smarts! As Healy said, “they seem to know where a flower is after one visit. One visit! And we are still asking ourselves how do they do it?” Remember that is one visit among hundreds or even thousands of flowers! That also takes serious smarts. No doubt this is far beyond my capacity. But that is not all. They are even smarter than that!

As David Suzuki, who presented the show, said, “Its not just bird brain power, its biology. Hummingbirds have such a high metabolism they cannot afford to waste precious energy looking for food.”

People need a meal every 3 or 4 or 5 hours. “Hummingbirds are thinking I need a meal every 10 minutes! They have to make decisions that are really important, and if they don’t do it well they die. ” If we miss MacDonald’s we can always go to Wendy’s down the street. It doesn’t much matter to us. We have the time to make mistakes and correct them. Hummingbirds don’t have the luxury of much time. They cannot make a lot of mistakes.

Hummingbirds have another big problem–that is biodiversity. Normally that is a good thing for all of us, but for hummingbirds in the wild that can be a serious obstacle. In the wild, unlike the nectar Café the scientists could create, flowers replenish their nectar at different rates. In the experiment the scientists mimicked this diversity. The question then became can the hummingbird figure out which fake flowers are empty and which are filled with sucrose solution? The scientists were shocked at how well these tiny birds with their tiny brains did in the wild.

For half the flowers, after a bird visited, the scientists waited 10 minutes before replenishing. The other half of the flowers were refilled after 20 minutes. So a bird came in, visited 3 or 4 flowers, then went away and came back 10 or 15 minutes later, and then the bird must decide which flowers have not yet given up nectar and which ones will have it already. That is no an easy test. I would not want to take this examination, particularly if my life depended on it. Hummingbirds have no choice. They take such tests every day, over and over again. As a result the scientists  saw a hummingbird that had already sipped from 2 flowers. Then when it returned it headed straight for a new one. After a day of doing this, the hummingbird had a remarkable ability to separate out the 10 minute and 20 minute flowers. The bird must treat them differently.

Scientists call this episodic memory. I am glad I heard this expression. That is because I know I will forget it. That’s because I have so little of it. “They have to remember not just the what, and the where, but the when.” As Suzuki said, “this is a cognitive skill once thought to belong only to humans.” How wrong can we get?  How stupid are we? At least in comparison to these little birds with their minute brains.

Hurley described this well, when he said, “I would need a clipboard and pencil and 8 different stop watches for hours and hours and hours. Yet the birds are able to do this, seemingly without effort. They are smarter than me.” They are astonishing creatures and we have underestimated them–forever. As Healy said, “These birds have extraordinarily small brains and yet they do things that we find phenomenal.”

Naturally, that brings up an important question, ‘when it comes to brains does size matter?’  Humans are a good example of species where the size of brains does matter. Humans have very large brains for the size of their bodies and humans have an astounding capacity thanks to their brains. Well some of us at least.

The question was, ‘can a hummingbird outsmart a human?’  It seems unlikely. Andy Hurley is still amazed by hummingbirds after studying them for more than 25 years. Hurley said, “I’ve been humbled by these birds.” That was a lesson he wanted to pass on to his students. Humility is good.

Hurley did an experiment that required his students–smart University students–to forage like a hummingbird at the University of Lethbridge. He set up a memory test with candy instead of nectar. This one was to test the students. He had 8 paper cups.  4 of the paper cups were visited by students earlier. He asked the students to go to the cups that they had not yet visited to determine if they had candy hidden underneath them or not. One would think humans could do this easily. After all, humans have huge brains, and university students are thought to be the best of the best. The Students did pretty good. They got it right 75% of the time. This was the same as hummingbirds!

This made Professor Hurley say to his students, “You have brains that are 7,000 times larger than hummingbirds. My question is what are you doing with all those neurons? Why are you not scoring better than an animal that has a tiny, tiny brain?” The students chuckled. They chuckled at themselves that is.

Why are hummingbirds so smart? According to Professor Hurley, “the answer is that there is intense natural selection of hummingbirds to get this right because if they don’t they die.” Now humans have figured this out. They are pretty smart too.