Water Wars

There's an extreme water crisis in Mexico City right now. They could run out of water within weeks. 

From Peter Dynes of MEER, 

"'Day Zero' is counting down to June 26th. The whole country is in drought conditions, and huge parts are in extreme drought. A society can't run without water, and that could become a reality very soon in some regions. This is due to the drying up of the reserves of the Cutzamala system."

Some commenters mentioned how Coke, Pepsi, and Nestlé have moved into areas with weaker political defences in order to suck their aquifers dry to sell their own water back to them. (That includes Aberfoyle, Ontario).  Other point out that they will have no choice but to migrate further north. Maude Barlow predicted that the next wars will be over water, and Canada will be the next Iraq a good 16 years ago in the documentary FLOW: For the Love of Water. 

"The rich will drink; the poor will die. 

Adam McKay added,

"Most populated city in North America, and there's very little coverage. I never imagined the disconnect between news and reality could get this wide. And I made Don't Look Up." 

I watched Furiosa yesterday. Not nearly as good as Fury Road. But both are a bit frightening in their depiction of a future that's feeling more and more possible. We're not coping by massing together in order to help one another like one would hope when times get bleak. We're at a point where hospital staff will refuse to do the bare minimum to prevent harm to babies by wearing a mask, and people are going gangbusters to burn up every bit of fuel flying around to see stolen stuff behind glass in museums on the other side of the world when we could just look at it all online (or maybe give it back), and to develop AI, which is something we didn't think we needed just yesterday, which is using up a ton of fresh water! It's all pretty fucked up. 

And then there's this:

Aging with Humility

I had a birthday, and I was feeling pretty good with how I look and feel these days. Biking regularly and tons of energy and all my faculties intact, knock wood. Very little grey for being almost sixty. My mum was like that. Just a few strands here and there for a long time, then all at once. 

Then my daughter sent me that second picture down there. 

First she said, "Who's that guy in the movie with the business cards? You look just like him."

She's not wrong, but it was my birthday! 

A beard would hide my jowls. 

We CAN Reduce Illnesses!

The WHO is trying to encourage masking again, but their ads show people in surgical masks (should be at least an N95), and they keep focusing on "crowded indoor spaces" as if spacing a few feet from people makes a difference with an airborne virus. But at least they're not still telling us that hand washing is enough. Baby steps. 

But some people still haven't got the message.

In this interview with Erica Stanford, New Zealand MP, she makes the political obliviousness to solutions so crystal clear. Teachers are already falling ill enough for schools to be closed at the very beginning of their winter (from about 8 to 12 minutes):

She tries to fix the problem with sick teachers by throwing more supply teachers at the school, NOT by maybe preventing illnesses in the first place. With the interviewer's cajoling, she acknowledges that teachers have the highest cases of covid than any other profession because they're surrounded by sick kids. At 10 minutes in:

Interviewer: "Do you think there is a risk that in trying to avoid disruption, trying to get more kids back in schools . . . you will inadvertently create more disruption by having more illness?"

Stanford: "What would you say I should do next? . . . I don't have a magic bullet!!" 

What Moment Begins an Official Genocide?

Aryeh Neier was born a Jew in Nazi Germany and escaped with his parents. He co-founded Human Rights Watch and was at the forefront of establishing international tribunals. He was interviewed on CNN, but I can only find the full interview on Twitter. 

Neier says he was concerned with the size of bombs used in Gaza, but he didn't call what Israel is doing a genocide until they obstructed aid coming in, destroyed the farms, killed aid workers, challenged aid agencies, and turned a blind eye to defence forces and settlers attacking trucks. Those most victimized aren't Hamas, but children of citizens who will starve to death or at least be diminished by severe malnutrition. 

"The use of the term anti-semitism to attack those who criticize Israeli policies degrades the concept of Anti-semitism. Anti-semitism has been a great scourge but it doesn't insulate the Israeli government from being held to the same standards as other government have to be held to around the world. . . . Jews are only going be safe if everyone's rights are respected."

Neier also wrote about this in the New York Review. 

Recently Christa Peterson felt it appropriate to remind us how the Nazi genocide began with images from Robert Gellately's Backing Hitler. Notice how normalized each step was as reported in the media. 

Billions and Billions

Would you rather have the convenience of being seen quickly at a local ER that was funded to stay open OR the convenience to buy mixed drinks at select grocery stores? Such a hard choice!!

Our public, taxpayer funds are going to companies outside Ontario so we can get booze easier, sooner. Brittlestar did the best video explainer:

The biggest issue is the money it's costing to open up August 1st instead of letting the contract run its course to December 31, 2025. It just means that supermarkets currently selling beer will be allowed to also sell larger cases and mixed cocktail drinks. It will extend to some convenience stores in September. 

Giving Up or Letting Go

In September 2010, John Holdren, Harvard professor and Obama's science adviser, gave a speech on climate change arguing that people aren't aware enough of the ways we're affected by the changing climate: availability of water, productive agriculture, fisheries, forestry (paper and lumber), and the spread of disease. 

Almost four years earlier, in a New York Times article, he said, 

"We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. We're going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be."

Some people think we're too late for significant mitigation, and we need to work on adaptation. Rupert Read takes a page from Vaclav Havel: 

"To change the narrative from the evidently-failed 'Yes we can' to 'Can we please just face up to how badly we've failed, and admit where we really are now' might sound to some like 'giving up'. It is the very opposite of giving up. For the energy which will become available once we stop rather desperately staving off grief, depression, despair at the state of our world and the extent of our common failure, the energy that then becomes available to us is incalculably huge. . . . emotional power that is latent within us all, but held back by a dam of fake optimism. . . . We have to acknowledge what must be let go of, such as hopes for a smooth transition and of staying within the climatic safe zone. It all begins with admitting our incapacity. . . . For what you are then picturing is the game being changed. Soft denial being punctured. The media and political leaders unable to hold back the tide. . . . Havel wrote brilliantly about the power that anyone can touch and become by naming the truth, and confessing their own incapacity to act directly on it so as to change it sufficiently. This power of the powerless strips legitimacy away from failed ideologies, false dreams." 

There's a small but real danger that some people will let the grief in and then be paralyzed by it. Some psychologists over the last century have referred to depression as being stuck in grief. And this isn't just grief over a loved one, but grief over all the potential for loved ones, the secure and comfortable futures of children and grandchildren, and all the many, many amazing plants and animals in collapsing ecosystems. 

But if we can get to the other side of that, to an authentic place that is able to acknowledge the impermanence of it all anyway, then our task isn't to hope to save any species, but just to do our very best each day to care, to offer help, to teach, and to love while doing as little harm as possible in the very short time we have here without any expectation of success or completion. 

From the Tao Te Ching (ch.29 - Stephen Mitchell trans.):

Do you want to improve the world?
I don't think it can be done.
The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it....
The Master sees things as they are,
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way,
and resides at the center of the circle.

And from Pirke Avot:

"You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it." 

It's the same message from Buddha, the Bhagavad Gita, the Gospels and the Stoics and Epicureans and Plato: Act rightly today without clinging to the fruits of your labour. I think we need to hear it over and over again because it's so hard to learn!  

AI - Stealing Voices, Artwork, and Water

AI is an environmental issue. 

Microsoft-backed OpenAI requires water - massive amounts of the limited resource:

"pulled from the watershed of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers in central Iowas to cool a powerful supercomputer as it helped teach its AI systems how to mimic human writing. . . . Microsoft disclosed that its global water consumption spiked 34% from 2021 to 2022 (to nearly 1.7 billion gallons, or more than 2,500 Olympic-swimming pools), a sharp increase compared to previous years that outside researchers tie to its AI research. . . . ChatGPT gulps up 500 millilitres of water every time you ask it a series of between 5 to 50 prompts or questions. . . . Google reported a 20% growth in water use in the same period." 

Check out what's happening in Mexico City right now. Taps are going dry for hours a day, water is brown, and key reservoirs are running dry. 

Last February an article in Forbes addressed this same topic:

"1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year. Inadequate sanitation is also a problem for 2.4 billion people. . . . At the same time, our world is racing ahead to advance AI into every aspect of our world. With the rise of generative AI, companies have significantly raised their water usage, sparking concerns about the sustainability of such practices amid global freshwater scarcity and climate change challenges. Tech giants have significantly increased their water needs for cooling data centers due to the escalating demand for online services and generative AI products. AI server cooling consumes significant water, with data centers using cooling towers and air mechanisms to dissipate heat, causing up to 9 liters of water to evaporate per kWh of energy used."

News Alert: Masks Work! Better Masks Work Better!

A new paper is out that definitively concludes absolutely, without question that masks/respirators reduce transmission of respiratory infections.

It's important that this work is published, but it's a shame that it's so necessary ONLY because there are so many misinformed nay-sayers who objected to mask mandates enough to actually influence policy to the point that some Health Care workers don't even mask near infectious or immunocompromised people - even around preemies - because they don't have to anymore. It's important because Covid is still here, of course, still killing and disabling people daily, but also TB, measles, and whooping cough have made a huge comeback. I'm not sure this paper will change policy or public opinion, though. We're well immersed in post-truth governments at this point. But at least it's something I can wave around when people tell me I've been duped by lies from, um big-Covid?? And I really, really hope the paper makes an impact on our nose-diving culture.

Here's co-author Trisha Greenhalgh's salty thread on this incredible paper in full below. Loud letters are hers, but anything bolded is my emphasis:

"13 authors, 38,000 words. 413 references. One conclusion: these devices work. 

On the Importance of Hobbies

I taught grade 10 Careers for a bit. I changed it completely from how it was typically taught, though, which was largely one Myers-Briggs-type test after another. Kids in other classes came out knowing what colour they are and what kind of job that might relate to. The biggest take-away that I heard from kids in other classes is that they can do absolutely anything they set their mind to do. My class went down a different path.

How does this help me find a job??

I did have them think a bit about who they are, their personality, goals, skills, passions, values, and lifestyle to start, but only for a couple days. Then we created the standard résumé and cover letter, but now there are templates that do the formatting, and I have no idea how teachers stretch that into more than a day or two (checklist here). Then we looked at the many, many types of jobs out there and requirements to get them with tons of guest speakers to help. But then we moved on. 

Transformation of the Self

Over thirty years ago I was in an on-again-off-again relationship that I just couldn't shake. After months of a variety of attempts of different types of therapies, I lucked into a therapist who walked me through a version of the Gestalt exercise of talking to a chair that ended my longing for this guy on a dime.

The exercise had me reimagine many ways he had enraged me, bringing all that to the surface. Then it raised any guilt I had around my own actions towards him, sadness around missing him, and finally ending with celebrating what I learned from him. It took just an hour, and I left feeling completely finished, excised of any clinging or craving, and able to effortlessly say "No thanks!" to his next late-night phone call. Pairing words and actions with emotions in a contained and structured time and space, that gives some order to the chaos, might do next to nothing -- but it might help to move through a difficult transition. I was so impressed with this power hour that I went to grad school to study ritual work. Gestalt psychotherapy is a far cry from cultural anthropology, but I perceived a connection to rites of passage that help neophytes transition from one state to another.

I recognize the cringe-factor in all of this, but it's worked for thousands of years to take children into adulthood, and we've kept at it when marrying and burying, so there's likely something useful in the process. And it feels like we need something transformative more than ever.

Harmful Misinformation

Two threads - one from a retired doctor on deducing misinformation and one from a current doctor frustrated with other doctors who ignore the information presented by patients. We have so many quality studies that vaccines help, that masks are effective, and that Covid can affect many systems long term, but we're loathe to acknowledge our current state of affairs.

Dr. Jon Meddings wrote: 

Thinking about that poor family with a child dead from measles. The penultimate cause of death was of course misinformation, fuelled by an appalling industry that profits from our public inability to separate truth from baloney. 

I've long been a fan of Carl Sagan - a wonderful scientist who died in the 1990's. He was the quintessential science communicator and I loved and read, all his books. One book in particular captivated me. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Well worth a read if you have time. Even today his ideas ring true. In particular he addressed the vaccine problem we have today with what he called his "Baloney Detection Kit". Let me paraphrase it here. 10 questions, and I'll use Anti Vax as the test case.

Covid and Crypto

 I was a bit confused at the connection between Covid and Cryptosporidium Parvum. 

Tern has shown a clear correlation in cases, as Covid rises, so does Crypto. But Crypto is a parasite causing diarrhea. How does that work?? Is it just more severe in people with Covid?? Then Daniel Brittain Dugger explained how Crypto affected people with AIDS as an opportunistic infection. This paper shows a connection between HIV and cholangiocarcinoma - bile duct cancer - that enables parasites to move in more easily and thoroughly. "Cryptosporidium parvum is the most frequently isolated pathogen in patients with HIV cholangiopathy." Back in 2017 it was reported that Crypto occurs in "up to 50% in AIDS patients" in less developed countries, but Tern is ringing an alarm that the rates are skyrocketing in the UK. The interaction appears to be from Covid, particularly people with Long Covid showing Crypto leading to weeks or months of GI distress on top of everything else. 

I'm also seeing more people who have died of pancreatic cancer, something that once seemed relatively rare, but that could just be because I'm hitting that age. There is a connection to Covid, however. It targets the pancreas. Over two years ago there was a suggestion that "evaluation of pancreatic function should be increased in post-Covid-19 patients, both adults and children." 

Something else to keep in mind when considering whether or not to wear a mask to the shops. 

AI Enhanced

 This cartoon really helped me understand something.

My school board announced a new initiative, the mandatory grade 11 English class will now focus on Indigenous voices. I used to teach Indigenous Studies, and couldn't get more than ten kids to take the class as an elective, so it's not a bad idea. But here's how they explained it:

It's about 100 words - barely a full paragraph - but the school board required the assistance of AI to write it???

Nope, it seems that maybe they're bragging that they figured out how to use AI, as if having assistance from a computer program somehow makes it better. It's like someone writing out a bit of math - that a 20%-off sale means you'll get that $29.99 jumper for only $24 - and bragging that they used a calculator to figure that out. Will we get to a time that people are more impressed if you can write a paragraph or do some simple math without using a computer?? 

The ability to communicate - to be able to write a simple explanatory paragraph - is such a vital skill. I can understand acknowledging it's part of our reality as educators and that it's something we have to learn to work with, but I don't understand promoting its use to write a social media post.

We're entering truly bizarre times.

What is University For, Part 2

Does making it all easier make us lazier educators, or is neoliberal politics to blame?? 

The Quality of Teaching has been Strained: 

This is a back-in-MY-day story, but I think it's necessary to look at how far we've strayed. 

When I was in teacher's college, we had to make it through four practice teaching sessions spaced out over the year in which we took over an experienced teacher's classes while they took notes at the back of the room. Typically the first placement is sink or swim, and some bail at that point, but by the fourth one, at the very end of the year, student teachers have honed many necessary skills. It's tricky for people in History Departments because they also cover social science and humanities courses, and being proficient in one doesn't make you proficient in all. My very first placement was teaching social sciences, my teachable, but my associate also gave me an American History course to teach as well. I knew almost nothing about history at the time. He gave me the textbook, but I also spent hours in the public library night after night, scanning other books enough to give me answers to any potential questions. I worked my ass off for the weeks I was there to make sure I did the best job I could and to make sure I didn't look like a total idiot in front of the kids.

All for Health, Health for All

The World Health Assembly is meeting in two weeks for the 77th time. Their theme is in my clunky title up there as they claim collective solidarity around pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (PPPR), WHO financing, and emerging threats including climate change. They hope to adopt a new global pandemic accord to "leave the world better protected and prepared for future pandemics" with little mention of the pandemic we're currently normalizing.

A letter in the Guardian from Desmond Whyms reminds us, 

"With the new Office for National Statistics data showing two million people reporting Long Covid, we need to wake up to the need to improve indoor air quality through better ventilation, filtration or UV disinfection. This should be high on the agenda of the negotiating team crafting the pandemic agreement, to be unveiled at next month's World Health Assembly. But it remains silent on these essential public health protections. Without global commitment to action (and accountability) we will continue to be vulnerable to waves of deadly and debilitating diseases, with disastrous consequences for society, economy and health services."

Self Organizing Criticality: Slowly, then All at Once

 Alex Walker, Climate Finance Program Manager at Environmental Defence, wrote about spotlighting and mythbusting this week's government studies on climate change and finance:

"The Senate Banking commmittee had a study on Thursday of Senator Rosa Galvaz's amazing Climate-Aligned Finance Act. I wouldn't call all the witnesses experts on climate finance. Let's bust some of the less-than-expert myths that were said. 

Gina Pappano, CEO of an anti-divestment organization, who is so unaware of climate change that she asked Suncor to scrap their net-zero plan - which they rejected. If Suncor believe in climate change more than you, it's an issue. 

Some great quotes include “energy is our economy…our economy is energy”. Seems to have missed the stat that Canada’s largest economic sector is real estate.
* “Investment [in oil and gas] leads to emissions reductions because investment leads to innovations”.  Lie. Reports found $10 billion+ loans made to O+G companies to reduce emissions, but every single one increased production. Investment = more oil and gas.
* “This bill would undermine the Canadian economy itself”. Also false. Not sure she actually read the bill. CAFA is designed to protect the Canadian economy against the systemic physical and transition risks of climate change.
* Finally “Nobody is doing any costing on what net-zero means to our economy”. False! Extensive modeling exists on the cost-savings of reaching net-zero over letting climate change run rampant. Climate change will cost Canada $5.5 trillion by 2100. Net-zero looking a lot cheaper now, huh?

Funding Applicable Covid Research

Almost a year ago, the WHO put out a report clarifying the unpredictability of the viral evolution of SARS-CoV-2. But there's so much that remained unsaid.

The report doesn't mention the economic burden of Long Covid, despite that it's linked to a worsening labour shortage or costing the US economy up to $200 billion/year. This morning, David Joffe, respiratory physician, wrote:

"We are being outpaced by the virus. Doing nothing is proving to be very costly indeed!! . . . The WHO are nothing more than the paid mouthpieces of the governments that fund their largesse provide troughs for their snouts. Assuming they have any interest in those, other than themselves... Nah!!" 

More Evidence the WHO is Complicit in Spreading Covid

More damning evidence that the WHO knew that Covid is airborne right from the get-go:

Maarten De Cock wrote,

"At the time when WHO was assuring the world: "Covid-19 is NOT airborne" a 'return to office--document for WHO staff in Geneva stated: Ventilation system has been modified - increased volume of external air - no recycling of air - filters rated as high as we can go."

Conspirituality

 George Monbiot has a compelling theory to explain what makes people believe conspiracies.

"Those who believe unevidenced stories about hidden cabals and secret machinations tend to display no interest in well-documented stories about hidden cabals and secret machinations. Why might this be? Why, when there are so many real conspiracies to worry about, do people feel the need to invent and believe fake ones? These questions become especially pressing in our age of extreme political dysfunction. This dysfunction results, I believe, in large part from a kind of meta-deception, called neoliberalism. The spread and development of this ideology was quietly funded by some of the richest people on Earth. Their campaign of persuasion was so successful that this ideology now dominates political life. It has delivered the privatisation of public services; the degradation of public health and education; rising inequality; rampant child poverty; offshoring and the erosion of the tax base; the 2008 financial crash; the rise of modern-day demagogues; our ecological and environmental emergencies. But every time we start to grasp what is happening and why, somehow this understanding is derailed. One of the causes of the derailment is the diversion of public concern and anger towards groundless conspiracy fictions, distracting us and confusing us about the reasons for our dysfunctions. It’s intensely frustrating."

He spoke to one conspiracy theorist, Jason Liosatos, who called Covid a fraud and "called doctors promoting Covid vaccines 'Mengele medics'." Yet Monbiot aligned with him in some ways: 

Yup. Still Here. Still Need to Clean the Air.

Covid has been implicated in creating more cases of PANDAS - pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections. A 9-year-old girl dramatically changed personality after a viral infection she didn't even know she had! It was only after years of treating her symptoms as a mental health condition that they turned to a 44 day course of antibiotics which had fantastic results. 

"PANDAS presents in patients with sudden extreme anxiety and some can develop ticks or even can't walk. Others have regression in their speech, and it is all caused by the inflammation of their brain due to an infection. . . . Covid can also cause it. Both times the infection Ava had was missed as she was asymptomatic."

Current work on Long Covid from Akiko Iwasaki, PhD who works as a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at Yale and was named one of top 100 influential people by Time Magazine. She explains that there are four hypotheses on different causes of Long Covid and all have growing evidence. Covid does all the things!