Forests are our Friends

Nature, New Attitude to Nature

 

We must learn to have a new attitude to nature. That includes a new attitude to our forests. Forests are our friends. As David Attenborough said about forests, “They are the best technology nature has for locking up carbon.”

 

Once more what is good for nature is good for us.  What is good for forests is good for us.  Forests are a wonderful source of bio-diversity and bio-diversity is essential for human health on the planet. Some people say happy wife happy life. I am not stupid enough to quarrel with that. I just want to add, happy forest happy life.

 

Forests will be a vital part of any recovery we can make of the natural world. They provide two very important things that will be vital for the recovery. First, forests are very important in storing carbon rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. They are among the best of our technology. If we are going to hold down to a minimum the effects of climate change we must take advantage of the things forests can do to help. Secondly, forests are critically important for maintaining bio-diversity. We are losing our biodiversity at a stunning rate. We must stop deforestation everywhere for both of these reasons. Both of these processes work well together.

Costa Rica provides an example of what must be done. Early in the 20th century more than was 75% of Costa Rica was forested. By the 1980s this was reduced to ¼.   Costa Rica realized this was unwise and made serious efforts to change the depletion of the forests. Costa Rica encouraged land owners to plant trees. This turned out to be remarkably effective. According to Attenborough,

“In just 25 years the forest of Costa Rica has returned to cover half of Costa Rica once again. Just imagine if we achieved this on a global scale. The return of the trees would absorb as much as 2/3rds of the carbon emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by our activities to date. With all of these things, there is one overriding principle: nature is our biggest ally and our greatest inspiration. We just have to do what nature has always done. It worked out the secret of life long ago. In this world a species can only thrive if everything around it thrives too. We can solve the problems we now face by embracing this reality. If we take care of nature, nature will take care of us. It is now time for our species to stop simply growing and establish a life on this planet in balance with nature, to start thrive .”

This applies to us as well. We will only thrive if nature around us thrives.

Of course, it is not just forests that are important. Nature is important. People not so much. People think we are important. We are wrong. If nature does not thrive, we do not thrive. It really is that simple.

 

Farming Smart: The Dutch Way

2017 Trip to Southwest USA, New Attitude to Nature

 

If you recall,  as I learned when I arrived in Arizona earlier this year, David Attenborough was pointing the way towards a new attitude to nature. Part of this project involved the Dutch.

The Dutch are smart. The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated places on earth. Their land is filled with mainly family home farming operations. There is really little land left over for more farming, Therefore, they have to be smart. As David Attenborough said,

“Dutch farmers have become expert at getting the most out of while at the same time every hectare of farm land. Increasingly they are doing so sustainably, raising yields tenfold in 2 generations while at the same time using less water, fewer pesticides, less fertilizer and emitting less carbon! Despite its size the Netherlands is now the world’s second largest exporter of foods! It is entirely possible for us to apply high tech and low tech to produce much more food from much less land.”

 

It is difficult to deny that Dutch farmers are smart. As I learned from one of my Dutch clients, before I became a recovering lawyer,  Dutch farmers manage to have intensive livestock operations while minimizing the impact on their environment.  Because their country is  small they cannot waste land.  Intensive livestock operations emit a lot of unpleasant   odours and chemicals. At least in Canada.  Yet Dutch farmers have such operations right next to residential areas largely without complaints from the residents. They have learned how to manage farm odours, and chemicals, and not just carbon emissions. In Canada we do this by using more land and keeping neighbours apart from each other. We should try to be smarter instead. Like the Dutch.

Attenborough also said “we must learn to produce food in new places such as indoors within cities. Even in places where there is no land at all.”  For example, we must learn to farm vertically. Or produce food in the ocean. Some farmers are already doing this. More must do that. The smarter we get the more burgers we can eat.

Attenborough also said, “As we learn to farm smarter, we can reverse the land grab we have been involved in ever since we began to farm, because we have an urgent need for all that free land.”

This really is a new attitude to nature. It requires us to be smarter.

 

Chronic Stress

Decline of the west, Drugs, Health

 

As Dr. Sajay Gupta pointed out on his HBO documentary, in the United States, the self-proclaimed leader of the Free World,  “we are 4.7% of the world’s population and take 80 to 90% of the world’s OxyContin and hydrocodone. And I’m pretty sure that we don’t have 80-90% of the world’s pain.” Another thing is that epidemic of drugs is mostly affecting whites aged 35 to 55. Stress should be listed as a contributing cause to many deaths. Why whites?

Stress of course is a natural phenomenon.  As Robert Sapolsky, a neuroscientist from Stanford University said,

” When you look at the stress hormones we secrete exactly the same chemicals as a lizard and a fish and a bird. This is ancient, ancient biology. For 99% of the beasts out there what stress is about is 3 minutes of some screaming crisis when somebody is very intent on eating you or you are very intent on eating somebody, and everything your body does at that time makes perfect sense. You increase your heart rate, your blood pressure, your breathing rate, you turn off everything that is not essential and you shut down growth, tissue repair. When a lion is chasing you and you are running for your life and one of the things you are doing is all sorts of metabolic stuff to divert energy to your thigh muscles. Oh my god you think you only have 3 months until your taxes are due and you divert energy to your thigh muscles. That makes no sense whatsoever and that’s where you pay the price.”

 

Robert Sapolsky who wrote a book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers points out that when a lion is chasing a zebra it needs stress to get away. Stress is entirely good in that situation. Yet once the zebra gets away the stress level returns to normal. That also happens quite quickly. Life is good again. The zebra relaxes. The stress was entirely good.  It saved the zebra’s lie.

As Dr. Gupta said, “Stress is not the enemy. It’s the constant never-ending toxic stress–that’s the stress that’ll kill you.” Chronic stress in other words is what we should be stressed out about. Sapolsky says he has learned a lot about stress from the baboon world. What he learned is “What makes psychological stress really corrosive is lack of control, lack of predictability, lack of social support. If you are chronically stressed you will chronically increase your blood pressure and you are going to get more liquid turbulence into your blood vessels and hit the walls. They pound the walls and they cause microscopic bits of scarring, tearing, and inflammation there. And you get plaques and you get the whole cascade there. It’s a fairly straight biological line from chronic stress to your blood pressure that is chronically elevated. It’s a much more indirect route to liver sclerosis.”

Sapolsky was convinced that stress is the common cause of liver sclerosis, suicides, and opioid overdose.  They are all related. Stress is the root problem, he is convinced. “Our lives are more psychologically corroded by stress. Stress: am I valued? Stress: do I have a meaningful place in the community? Stress: is there even a community I can rely upon. Stress: why am I here?” Note all these questions point to social issues.

 

Epidemic of Despair  

Alienation, Health, Loneliness, Social Issues, Substance Abuse

 

When Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who besides being a physician is also a periodic commentator on CNN  first started looking at the deaths in the white middle class that included deaths by opioid overdose, suicide, cirrhosis of the liver, it felt a bit mysterious. He was struck by the numbers but did not really understand the causes. It took some time for him to piece things together.

 

He found an interesting article with an interesting title. This was “The Epidemic of Despair Among White Americans: Trends in the Leading Causes of Premature Death, 1999-2015” published by Elizabeth Stein, MD. MS, Keith P Gennuso, PhD, […] and Patrick Remington, MD MPH in the medical journal American Journal of Public Health. An epidemic of despair? That is very strong language? Is it justified? Gupta wanted to know. So did I.

Dr. Gupta wanted to know, ‘what causes those deaths of despair?’ That is an important question. He was not satisfied with the medical causes of death. He wanted to know ‘the cause of the cause.’ He, like me, thought that was a much more significant question. But this one is harder to tackle.

Why are people taking so many opioids?  Why are they becoming addicted? Part of it is overprescribing for which physicians are responsible. Why are so many people drinking to excess? Why are so many people dying of suicide. Is there a common cause of the cause?

As Neurosurgery Resident Kumar Vasudevan put it, “We are living in a time in which we are very, very good at treating diseases, we are less good and less proficient at understanding health.”  I would add, that many of us are reluctant to look at social causes, and, believe it or not, political causes. Is that possible?

As Dr. Gupta said, “deaths of despair seem to be a symptom of an underlying problem, rather than the problem itself.” Cyril Wecht believes that the underlying problem is that American society is increasingly stressed. Pressures make lives more and more difficult. Pressures of making a living, depersonalization, families breaking up, and what he calls the “robotization of society.”

But there were also things that happened on the side of medicine. The idea began to flourish that people should not have to suffer. If they suffer that was seen as a failure of medicine. There always seem to be simple solutions–write a prescription. Drugs can take care of any problem. But simple solutions are often the most dangerous. And prescriptions were one of them.

Of course there is more to it than this. Let’s look farther.

Escape from the Canadian Alcatraz

Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools

 

In the CBC podcast Kuper Island, Philip Joseph told Duncan McCue the story of a young boy who tried to escape from Kuper Island. Unfortunately, he drowned.  The body of the boy washed up on the beach.  The other students were all forced to go to the beach to see the body on the sand. It was felt this would be for their own good. One of the priests warned the survivors as they stared at the body, what would happen to them if they chose to try to escape.  The students stared at the body and saw a crab climb out of his mouth. It was a horrific memory that would last a life time. Philip tried to look away, but a priest hit him over the head with a 2 by 4 plank. He said they were kept there for 2 hours looking at the body. Joseph bit his lip until it was bleeding. He tried not to cry for, “if you cried, they really beat you up.”

 

Philip Joseph had to stare at a dead child a second time. The other one was Richard Thomas. He wanted to look away again, and again, was hit for failing to look. The priests told the young students looking at the body of Richard hanging in the gym, “If you feel sorry for yourself this is what is going to happen to you. Is that what you want?”So the young students tried not to feel sorry for themselves even when they were beaten or abused or when one of their family was beaten or abused. Joseph said, “every day reminds me of residential.”

Sounds a lot like Alcatraz doesn’t it? Our Canadian Alcatraz I guess.

 

Intergenerational Trauma

Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools

 

In the CBC podcast on Kuper Island Residential School, Duncan McCue made an important point about residential schools: “the death of a child in a residential school isn’t a thing of the past. It travels like ripples over water, touching the generations.”

Richard Thomas, an Indigenous student at Kuper Island Residential School in British Columbia,  died in 1966 but it is not a thing of the past. That death continues to be present. That is how inter-generational trauma works. For example, Belvie’s son John Thomas, was affected by residential schools even though he never attended one.  His mother’s experience affected his mother and he paid the price for that. Growing up with his mother was extremely difficult. She was an active alcoholic and as a result he became an alcoholic as well.

The pain Belvie experienced at the residential school affected the rest of her life and the lives of those around her. That pain included the pain of experiencing her brother’s death. That amplified the abuse she experienced directly.

John Belvie explained it this way:

 “Here is something that is extremely difficult for me. My mom gets insanely abused by these nuns and priests…that is somebody that is messing with you, and the problem for the next generation is that we get messed up by the people that are supposed to be nurturing us. Our own parents are the one’s that are mangling us.”

 

That is how inter-generational trauma works. And it is ugly.

After Richard died the students were forced to look at the body of Richard hanging in the gymnasium. Can you imagine that? That disturbed all the other students deeply. John Thomas said such a sight was “fuel for alcoholism.” But John wanted to learn the truth about his uncle Richard Thomas. He concluded that Richard had been sodomized by a Catholic priest at the school and then killed by that priest. How much more horrific can things get?

John wanted to see justice for his uncle. Specifically, he wanted to know that people cared enough about justice for his uncle that the authorities would actually pursue justice for him by locking up the perpetrator.

 

After Richard passed away, Belvie’s entire family eventually turned to alcohol to mask the pain. All of them were young when it happened and all of them in turn were also abused at the school. Each one of them was abused! It seemed like her entire family was trying to kill themselves through alcohol or in other ways. 2 out of 17 “succeeded” in doing exactly that.   Belvie was somehow able to break through the trauma. Belvie was 73 years old at the time she was interviewed for the podcast. She just wanted to live in peace and believed that finding out what happened to Richard, she believed, would bring her peace. She believed strongly that he did not commit suicide.

 

The Most Dangerous Man in America

Extinction, Rebellion and Resistance, Right-wing Extremism, World of ideas

 

The clarion call of the new right-wing was all about liberty and freedom. This was, according to Justin Ling, in his podcast aptly called The Flame Throwers, “the language of revolution.”  1998 was time for a New Tea Party. Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich saw themselves as right-wing revolutionaries. In fact Gingrich invited Limbaugh to come to Washington to fire up the new troops that had been elected. This was going to be the politics of extremism with no holds barred.

Limbaugh advised the newly elected Congressmen in 1998. “This is not the time to be moderate, this is not the time to be liked, this is no time to seek to gain the approval of the people you have just defeated.” American politics had entered the age of extremism where there was no room any more for moderation, reasonableness, or humility.

The incoming class of Republican Congressmen and women presented Limbaugh with a plaque that said, “Rush was right.”  They also assured him that there was not a single Feminazi in the bunch.  The right in America was nothing if it was not hyper- masculine. Only wimps would give in to feminists. Women were one of Limbaugh’s most consistent targets of verbal abuse.

At the time Limbaugh’s radio shows were shown on more 600 stations in the USA. He had a television show on another 225 stations. As Ling said, “Tens of millions of Americans were hanging on his every utterance. He now basically runs the Republican Party.”  This was a role later taken over by Donald Trump. As much as he loved being adored by the Republican party, there was one endorsement that he treasured above all others—he got a personal letter from Saint Ronald Reagan himself. He was in heaven. Not only that it was the best heaven of all—Republican heaven.

This is what that blessed epistle from the Saint of the Right said:

“Thanks Rush for all that you are doing for promoting Republican and conservative principles. Now that I have retired from active politics, I don’t mind that you have become the number one voice for conservatism in our country. I know the liberals call you the most dangerous man in America, but don’t worry about it. They  used to say the same thing about me. Keep up the good work. America needs to hear the way things otta be.

Sincerely, Ron”

In many ways, Rush Limbaugh was in fact the most dangerous man in America. He was ready to blow it up—in the world of ideas of course. Though it would have ramifications beyond that.

 

Newt Gingerich Revolutionary

Extremism, Hate, Moral Humility, Right-wing Extremism

 

After the massive Republican victory in the American mid-term elections of 1994, Newt Gingerich  became the new Leader of the House, and he was obviously a firebrand. Nothing else would do. Moderates were scorned.  It was time for a new Tea Party.

The Atlantic magazine said that Gingrich “turned partisan battles into blood sport, wrecked Congress, and paved the way for Trump’s rise.” Polarization in American politics was jump started. American politics would not be the same for decades (or perhaps forever?). He called himself the “most serious systematic revolutionary of modern times.”

Here is one of his early incendiary remarks for which he became famous:

“You cannot make civilization with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year-old shooting each other, 17- year-olds dying of AIDS, and 18-year-olds getting a diploma they can’t read.”

 

Interestingly, this also established Gingrich as part of the culture wars that have taken over American politics, both on the left and the right.

Justin Ling said this about Gingrich on The Flame Throwers podcast:

 

“What he really was, was a pugilistic bomb thrower who was willing to tear down the entire American political structure with his bare hands if he had to.”

 

These were the type of guys (usually they were all guys) that the American right-wing loved. And still love! They were bombastic; they were confident, and they mocked all the namby pambies of the liberal camp. Later they referred to them as “woke.” Gingrich was Rush Limbaugh’s kind of guy! This was a guy he could support, just like Donald Trump later was the kind of guy he could support.

Gingrich, again like Trump later, called Limbaugh for advice. They ascended together. They joined in hatred of  liberals, an in particular the Clintons, and dragged a nation of conservatives with them. According to Justin Ling, “together they remade the language of politics. Liberals are anti-flag, anti-child, traitors, thieves.” Together they helped create the astonishing polarization of American politics. Their extreme language helped establish extreme hatred for “the other party.” There was no room for moderation. This was a battle between Satan and Jesus. It was the beginning of a new age of extremism in which we are still living . Humility found no home in this new movement.

And it had American talk radio to thank.