Do we really affect the ecosystem?

Of course.  In any closed system, everything affects everything.

... the giraffes are happy   

Want an example?

The wildebeest population is booming!

• Giraffes on the Serengeti are flourishing in greater numbers these days.
• That's because the acacia trees they feed on are spreading in greater numbers.
• That's because the fires that would normally consume the acacia seedlings have declined.

• That's because the grasslands that would burn have been kept short by grazing.
• That's because the wildebeest population has increased from 200k to 1.4m.
• That's because the rinderpest (cattle-plague) virus has been ended worldwide.
• That's because it was killing our cows, so we developed a vaccine and spent decades on eradication.

Human intervention.  We were just tending to our cows; we didn't know the broader impact it would have.

Another example?

• Along the 1200 mile coastline for Africa's Gulf of Guinea, folks have a hard time getting enough to eat; a balanced diet is difficult, but it used to be easier.
• That's because there used to be plenty of fish in the coastal waters, and fishermen could do well close to home, but not now.
• That's because fish populations are down about 90% in recent decades, and fishermen now have to go far offshore to catch anything worth the effort involved.
• That's because of pollution from the Niger Delta oil fields and pipelines.  Most of the fish worth eating are gone and the indigenous fisherman are going hungry along with their families.
• That's because the oil industry in Nigeria is corrupt enough and poorly managed enough to spill as much oil as the Exxon Valdez into the gulf.  Every year.  For fifty years.
• That's because folks care more about oil and money than about people starving to death, apparently.  BP Shell and their customers and partners are doing that still today.  Nuts.
• Illegal overfishing (IUU) by boats from China, Japan, and others is devastating as well.  If both problems were resolved, recovery would still take a century or more.  About 40% of the region's families depend on fishing for survival.

Bright, hardworking people, they struggle against
local and international policies that favor the
wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

On the Gulf of Guinea are the countries of
Ghana, Benin, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea,
Gabon, and the island nation of Sao Tome & Principe.

Annobón Island at the gulf's southern extreme

Our friends live there, and we've seen it up close.  About 25% of the children are undernourished, underweight and under height for age (stunted); they'll have health problems for the rest of their lives.  Working with local agencies, we're attempting to help families rise above the maze of neglect and disenfranchisement in which they have lived for centuries.

Everything affects everything.  In case there was any question.

And the glaciers are melting.




More science insights that will probably have worldwide impact are available in The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters by Sean Carroll

The Trump Message

The words?  You'll recall that communication is perhaps 15% verbal content.  The rest is heard but not said, the non-verbal portion of what is in fact conveyed to the 'listener'.  It's the meaning conveyed by body language and gesture, by expression and tone.


It's possible then that those gathering around the Trump stump don't care nearly so much for what he's said as for what he might mean in some larger context.


So then, what is Trump conveying apart from his inflammatory verbiage?  Particularly, what might be resonating so well with his primarily working-class and conservative supporters?


Possible non-verbal content, what some might be echoing in their own mind as Trump speaks:

• "I'm tired of taking care of everything and everybody except our folks who work for a living."
• "I've pretty much had it with Congress and with politicians in general."
• "Trade deals are made for the benefit of the rich, and I get the shaft."
• "Government has gotten sleazy and stupid, and I've had enough."
• "We're paying the bill for everything, stupid or otherwise."
• "Our tax system is incomprehensible unless you're rich."
• "Politically correct is for the brainless and gutless."
• "Politicians are bought, they're pawns."
• "Quit talking about it and crush ISIS."
• "Quit giving my jobs to China!"
• "Because f--- you, that's why."

Those aren't things Trump said, but his followers have the impression that's what he means.  True?

Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya -- how would Trump have handled those issues?

The Great Recession and the crooked players on Wall Street -- how would Trump have followed up?

NAFTA plus the Atlantic and Pacific trade agreements -- what would Trump agree to?

Ferguson?  San Bernardino?  Sandy Hook?  Aurora?  Columbine?  Ft. Hood?  Blacksburg?  Violence is part of our lives.  How would Trump respond?

Climate change and the global ecosystem -- would Trump have an opinion?  Would he act?

Can we tell from the persona we see portrayed?  Would things improve?

From one step back and watching the free-for-all, it perhaps looks like something we've been warned about.  Give us government of, by, and for the people, or we'll trash your house, slash your tires, and kick you down the road.  

Have so many actually reached that stage of 'had enough'?

It makes perfect sense, at least from the long view of history.  It's all happened before, but only a few times has it gone well.

Lies about love - Part II

in·sip·id
   inˈsipid/
adjective

• lacking vigor or interest; meaningless
• "many artists continued to churn out insipid, shallow works", "insipid pictures"

synonyms: unimaginative, uninspired, uninspiring, characterless, flat, uninteresting,lackluster, dull, drab, boring, dry, humdrum, ho-hum, monochrome,tedious, uneventful, run-of-the-mill, commonplace, pedestrian, trite,tired, hackneyed, stale, lame, wishy-washy, colorless, anemic, lifeless

in·sip·id love a relational context  a shallow relationship and of little value; lacking significant investment; meaningless "insipid love, just a warm feeling without meaningful commitment, durability, cost, involvement, load sharing" English is a poor language for discussions about love. In today's common usage, the word conveys a sense of affection, good feelings associated with being together, and perhaps a measure of admiration. It has to be embellished in order to be other than small and soft-edged; e.g., great love, earth-shaking love, crazy love, etc. There is, however, a mountaintop where we find the real thing, and everything less pales in insignificance.  In classic literature, love (agape [Greek], caritas [Latin], charity) is perhaps the most powerful of all personal choices and actions.  It means making a place in one's life for another, forgoing self-interest in favor of another, it means doing what is right because it affects another, and it means personal sacrifice up to and including one's own life in doing well for another.  The one who loves will adjust their goals and refocus their life for the sake of another.  Real love costs all one has, and it's worth it. To suggest that a person is loving or that a community or even a nation is loving (yet they remain far below the mountaintop) is inaccurate.  Short of the real thing, it's insipid, is it not. An imperfect heart exists in us all, and the price is high if we hope to perhaps reach a life of genuine love.  It is, as it turns out, a lifetime of learning and changing.  To love truly is to live with the deep pain of caring and the immeasurably greater joy of lifting another up.   One can truly love another. One can truly love a people. One can truly love their country. One can truly love the world.   In fact, that's the good news for us all, and it's not a gentle breeze.  More a cat 5 hurricane, perhaps.

If you've read this far, you might appreciate Part I.

Get a job! Part II

Persistent poverty and economic inequality are with us.  Not everyone has a choice about being short at the end of every pay period. Not everyone has a choice about where they live or go to school or even about an adequate diet.  No one chooses poverty, of course; it's done to you.  Skills and a job and maybe a hand up would be a big help for many.

So what goes wrong when we attempt to help?

Every large program is a generalized solution applied to many, and it works for perhaps 80%.

Public education works well for most, perhaps, but a portion of the children are bored to tears and must wait for it to be over before they can do anything meaningful.  It's actually time wasted for them.  Common core and standardized tests serve well enough in most circumstances, but not all.

Public health programs do well enough, perhaps, but they're now managed by insurance companies for profit rather than for efficiency or essential health benefit.  Ever had office visits you didn't need, tests that weren't relevant, or follow-up that wasn't needed?

The poverty rate in the U.S. has not improved
significantly in the fifty years since the
War on Poverty began.

Moving on then to poverty and inequality.

Public assistance, like other programs, serves well for most.  Perhaps.  Then there are those who are trapped by it, or worse, and there are those who abuse and defraud the program's intent.

Building a bigger government agency hasn't given better results.  The War on Poverty, begun in 1964, has had mixed results.  

"For the past 50 years, the government’s annual poverty rate has hardly changed at all. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 15 percent of Americans still live in poverty, roughly the same rate as the mid-1960s when the War on Poverty was just starting. After adjusting for inflation, federal and state welfare spending today is 16 times greater than it was when President Johnson launched the War on Poverty. If converted into cash, current means-tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all official poverty in the U.S. How can the government spend so much while poverty remains unchanged?"  ~The Daily Signal

From the Brookings Institute

There are still about 47 million Americans, including 15.5 million children living below the poverty line.  We have seen fifty years of persistent poverty, welfare policies that have encouraged abandonment by fathers, and financial dependence rather than personal advancement.

 
The questions before us as the election approaches, do we want a 'big government' solution, a privatised solution, a competitive solution, a state rather than federal solution, an austere solution, an incremental solution, ...?  The candidates have offered their various positions, some with greater clarity than others.

Any of them look to have a good plan?  Any appear to understand the problems faced by those living in poverty?

No one chooses poverty; it is done to you.  Do you see a candidate that understands?

















In case you missed it, here's Get a job! Part I

Get a job! Part I

It's such a common thought, it doesn't occur to us that it might not work out.  Jobs are a relatively new idea, incidentally, and not yet fully fleshed out for many.  Curious?

Before our modern world of businesses and jobs, 90% of folks lived self-sufficiently.  Crops and herds on the home farm plus hunting and fishing, it was everybody's job, everybody's source of income, everybody's home and retirement plan.  Today, more than 70% of folks in the world still live that way.

In the U.S., the 20th century gave us the largest changes as the industrial revolution and two world wars reshaped the national economy.  Innovation brought efficiency to the agricultural realm and farms grew in size while the workforce became a smaller percentage with each passing year.

Workers migrated to the industrial areas and the denser populated areas hoping for a better standard of living. That worked fairly well although there were and still are difficulties with fair wages.  In the early days, the robber barons became obscenely wealthy on the backs of abused laborers.  Government got involved with a minimum wage intended to ensure a decent living.  That hasn't worked out particularly well, and there's a new problem emerging with the obscenely wealthy.  It's called the GAP.

When the country was populated by just a few million, there were unlimited resources and unlimited growth opportunities, or so it seemed.  As population increased, and particularly as population density increased, resources often fell behind the demand.  Employment wasn't as easy to come by as many hoped, and business policy wasn't particularly concerned as long as there was enough labor to exploit.  Jobs that pay a living wage aren't automatically available even if you've got skills.

In periods of recession, reasonable wages for reasonable skills decline, and under-employment blossoms.  In the same periods, big businesses shed personnel and demand more from those who are retained.  That's the way capitalism works, and it's gotten progressively more ruthless since the 80's when business schools set the bottom line of profitability as the only goal of management.

Wages have been generally flat for more than four decades.  The majority of households have lost ground financially, and most single wage-earner homes are now led by a single mom; 30% of them live with their children in poverty.  Greater indebtedness, less saving, and increased costs for pretty much everything are the norm.  The top quintile has done well enough, and the top decile has done spectacularly well.  That's where the GAP shows up.  The wealthy have good progress and expect it to continue, while the average household is struggling to keep up with the basics of housing, food, and education for their kids.  The numbers are an insult to Americans and everything they stand for.  Economic forecasts suggest it will get worse quickly as governments continue to serve business rather than citizens.

Telling someone who is struggling to 'get a job', or criticising someone who gets assistance because their full time employment plus a part-time gig don't provide a living wage, that's the sort of comment that comes from someone who is privileged, uninformed, and perhaps selfishly uninvolved in the real world.

That's the informed conservative perspective.  The liberal narrative on the subject is a bit more harsh.

Everything has changed.  This is not the 50's when everyone was expecting a step up for their kids.  You could work your way through college, you could be a stay-at-home mom while your kids were in elementary school, you could own your house, and if you both worked, you could have two cars, perhaps.  Neighborhoods were safe, doctors and hospitals and medicines were cheap, and upward mobility was the norm.   ... and nobody wanted a government handout.  Everybody wanted to make it on their own, no matter how hard they had to work.

Can we see  with clarity what's changed, and more importantly, can we see why?

_________________________________________________

- Candidates' thoughts on the subject of persistent poverty.
- Workforce decline and forecasts.

Proof-texting

1Ti.5:23  "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities."  I've actually heard that one used as justification for inebriation.  :)

Offering a bible passage as justification for anything is not particularly well received these days, and there's a reason.  Called cherry-picking or proof-texting, it usually offers an out-of-context or incomplete answer.  And it often sounds like ignorance.

The passage above about wine is the advice and permission from an older brother to his friend and fellow worker.  Timothy was probably rather strict about alcohol for cultural reasons.  Alcohol abuse was a problem then as it is now, and the safe path was to perhaps avoid it altogether.  Paul, maybe recognizing some physical problems Timothy was dealing with, gave his advice on the available help for the times.  

Now, if we were to suggest that this is permission to drink wine with meals, or beer at parties, or mixed drinks at the end of the day, we'd be both out of context and incomplete, would we not?

Some have strong convictions about not drinking as an extension and expression of their faith, and some with similar faith have no such convictions. It's fairly easy to find a bible text or three for either side, but there's more to the subject than just do or don't.  There's a larger context, of course.  And then there's dancing!  And manner of dress and swimsuit styles and skirt length and and appropriate sports for girls and who can be your friend ...

The real task at hand is not to persuade the world to our group's particular set of rules, but to be personally and continually refined by the author of our faith.  Our hope is represent Him brightly and graciously and to serve His purposes well, not to impose and enforce rules.  Even a kid or a young teen can do that, right?  So how might we go about that ... today?


... he said, reminding himself yet again.  :)  Perhaps it's a question we might ask ourselves at the beginning of each day.