The United Nations report on the failure of advanced nations to enact meaningful reforms to “ameliorate” (forget about “arrest”—it’s too late for that) climate change, comes amidst news of catastrophic flooding in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sicily. These foreign events are generally ignored in our parochial U.S. news outlets. It’s bad out there! There are few things that individuals can do that make much impact. I will list what I think is do-able without one having to become a Greta Thunberg. Maybe you’ll adopt one of them.
On reading the report of a Strath Haven senior student’s experiencing bullying (July 23rd Swarthmorean), I received evidence of significant prejudice right in our midst.
Give me liberty, or give me death
Despite all the costs incurred by abuses of personal freedoms, our Western culture still prizes the individual, and individual freedom, over the welfare of the group. Restraint and discipline and self-sacrifice are being overlooked in favor of an insistence on a superficial concept of untrammeled individual freedom.
Get over your pandemic fatigue!
Please get over so-called “pandemic fatigue” (a.k.a. laziness and moral dysfunction). Do some jumping jacks and stop reading toxic news!
Peter Pan is among us
I struggle to understand the spectacle of maskless, non-social-distancing hordes on beaches, and at gatherings in bars and other public spaces. The sight fills me with dread. I don’t expect the courtesy of a thanks, or an acknowledgment of my existence; but feeling invisible in this age of COVID-19 is disconcerting.
Different kinds of leadership
Leadership is generally conceived of as something honorable and noble. We think of such people as Winston Churchill and MLK. But leadership is not always positive and benign in how it leads our thinking and behavior. It involves compellingly powerful ideas. The theme from our administration has been one of fear and divisiveness. It has emerged from a phalanx of strong voices, not just that of the president, and not only of people currently in the news.
Drowning in Plastic
I assume that most Swarthmorean readers are familiar with the problems caused by plastic pollution: the great Pacific garbage patch that is twice the size of Texas and growing; eight million tons of plastic being dumped into the ocean each year; Kamila Beach on the Big Island in Hawaii being abandoned by swimmers as volunteers pick up 15,000 pieces of trash on a weekend, 90% of it plastic. But I suspect few are aware that we ingest between 10,000 and 50,000 pieces of microplastic annually, some from the fish that we eat and some that we inhale, primarily from sources not yet fully identified. And that it accumulates in our bodies, with its bisphenols and other nasty chemicals.
I recognize the challenge to my “inner NIMBY” and my compassion fatigue, and I want to honor my connection to the human family. I want to honor it with action, however small and limited, in the face of the enormous challenges that are facing us as we peruse our morning papers over our coffees.
Welcome to the hockey stick world! Most sentient beings are aware of Al Gore’s 2006 movie which graphically displayed the accelerating pace of climate change as a graph that increases upward slowly for decades and then suddenly shoots up alarmingly – like a hockey stick. His “wake-up” predictions have come to pass with droughts, floods, and unprecedented severe and bizarre weather patterns. It is not going to return to normal, and reducing your driving and air travel isn’t going to arrest a very difficult future that is shaping up for our children.
I thought I could relax and no longer have to read all the labels on dairy products. But then I began reviewing some nutritional pages that talked about the toxicity of tofu and soy (never again) and dairy products. I learned that the milk sold at the Swarthmore Co-op and at Target was rBGH free. I also learned that each rBGH cow produces ten pounds more milk per day, and needs 10% less feed - a big profit incentive for the dairy industry. (Ten years ago they successfully lobbied Harrisburg to pass legislation — since rescinded — making it illegal to label dairy as rBGH free.)
Begone, vile weed!
[Garlic mustard] displaces nearly every other plant in its vicinity. We have spent countless hours over the past five years pulling it out, as have the garden staff at Pendle Hill. Garlic mustard is a biennial and after a light crop last year, has returned this year in full force.