Leaves caution behind

Dear Stephen,

I refer to your latest column (Finweek, August 27, subscribers only, 700MB pdf), and wish to challenge some of your contentions.

“It’s beyond belief how many events and dangers can now be laid at the door of climate change brought on by man’s emissions of noxious fumes into the atmosphere.”

I would agree, but must assume from the context that what you in fact meant was, “It’s beyond belief how many events and dangers are being laid at the door of climate change brought on by man’s emissions of noxious fumes into the atmosphere.”

If the fumes we are emitting into the atmosphere, are indeed, as you say, “noxious”, surely that’s a good reason to stop emitting them?

“emissions by cattle are greater than those of all human activity”

a) Is keeping cattle not a human activity?
b) Do you have a reference from a peer-reviewed scientific journal for this fact? (I have seen reputable references (the FAO) to cattle producing 18% of human activity related greenhouse gases, but certainly not for cattle producing over 50% of these gases, as you suggest.)

“floods are natural”

Not necessarily. Not that this directly relates to whether or not global warming is real, or if so, caused by human activity, but floods are in fact very often Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a calculator for working out the impact of your flights on the planet.

According to this calculator, a flight between Cape Town and Johannesburg – a frequent Incite trip – produces approximately 120 kg of carbon dioxide. A return trip would use 240 kg. But you can’t calculate the impact of flying by the mass of CO2 produced alone. One has to account for radiative forcing, which increases the climate impact of aviation by a factor of 2.7, according to the IPCC.

Bear in mind that to be properly sustainable, we should all be producing little more than one tonne of carbon dioxide annually.

Though the South African per capita average is around 9 tonnes per person, middle class folks like us probably use something closer to the 18 to 20 tonnes per person of people in the US or Australia. It seems that a single return trip to Johannesburg consumes most of our annual capacity for sustainably trashing the climate.

Estimates on the impact of flying do vary wildly. One carbon calculator I looked at even suggested that the consumption of 120 kg of jet fuel could lead to the production of over 300 kg of carbon dioxide. Which rather defies the laws of physics. Climatecare allows you calculate your impact, and purchase offsets all at once.

So what’s your annual burden on the planet, in tons of aviation CO2, and how often do you buy offsets?

Despite the fact that the warnings raised by the science of climate change are unfortunately becoming more stark, and despite the fact that they’ll affect us more directly here in Africa and South Africa than in many developed countries, we have yet to see the issue make it onto our newspapers’ front pages in quite the way it has in the United Kingdom, thanks to these pioneering front pages from The Independent.

The humiliating thing about depression, when it shuts down your ability to work, is not being able to explain why you can’t work.

“It’s like there’s this glass wall between me and my computer.”

“It’s like trying to hold together the south poles of two strong magnets.”

“It’s like trying to commit suicide when you’ve forgotten to take off the bungee cord.” (Phew, that analogy came steaming out of the dark side.)

None of this would make sense, I suspect to many people. But then many people also do not understand that there is a huge difference between being depressed and being absolutely miserable. I rather enjoy being miserable Read the rest of this entry »

The ancients believed firmly in omens, a belief which need not be interpreted in supernatural terms. It is often said that animals flee in advance of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. In Australia last week, it seems animals reacted as distinctly to the extraordinary heat that heralded the country’s awful fires. Reason no. 762 to take climate change seriously: a love of small, furry creatures. From the Sydney Morning Herald: The end of climate certainty | smh.com.au

When hundreds of small, grey-headed flying foxes began falling from the sky at Yarra Bend in suburban Melbourne, for some it heralded the awful events that would later unfold. It was Wednesday, January 28, one day into the ferocious heatwave that would wax and wane before returning with terrible intensity last weekend.

That first day, calls began pouring into Wildlife Victoria. As the bats were dying en masse in the city, ringtail possums were falling out of trees in the bush and distressed kangaroos, too weak to jump, were baulking at fences.

Last week, I was standing on my outside deck, enjoying the valley. A small bug alighted on me, and I was pretty sure it was a firefly as I’d recently managed to capture one on video. I thought it might interest a friend who was coming to dinner that evening, and I went inside to find an empty plastic yoghurt tub in which to keep it till she arrived that night.

But when it came to actually sealing the tub, I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I imagined this small creature with a short life going around and around in circles on the smooth plastic, forced to breathe the subtle fumes that most plastics emit (you can smell them; you’d smell nothing if they were not there). I feared I might that evening open the tub and find a dead firefly.

I released it again. Read the rest of this entry »

Basically, it’s harmless.

Addictive yes, but worst side effect is constipation. (Visions of heroin addicts storming shops stocking senna and liquid paraffin.)

Black market heroin becomes poisonous and dangerous because unscrupulous dealers cut it with all kinds of pollutants. — Nick Davies

The available evidence indicates that heroin, when provided in pure form, is a relatively safe drug. Hence it is primarily the illegal nature of the drug, rather than its pharmacological properties, which leads to the health and social problems associated with its use. — Ostini, Bammer, Dance and Goodwin. 1993. ‘The Ethics of Experimental Heroin Maintenance’, Journal of Medical Ethics

In other words, we f**k up heroin addicts; the drug doesn’t.

In the late 1960s, there were a few hundred heroin addicts in the UK, mostly living in central London. They got their heroin not from dealers — but on prescription from psychiatrists.

Then, following an outburst of media hysteria and pressure from the US, the authorities forced the doctors to restrict the supply. A black market was created. Addicts began turning to crime. New supply chains to the East opened up. Thatcher completed the disaster, shutting down legal heroin altogether in favour of methadone. Twenty years after the clampdown had begun, that stable population of a few hundred users had expanded to 300,000 criminals and basket cases, linked to around 70% of all break-ins, shoplifting and robberies in the UK.

[This is a precis from chapter one of Nick Davies' book, Flat Earth News (find it on Amazon UK or Kalahari.net), and you can read more about the heroin story on his blog.]

On Boxing Day, a friend and I headed out beyond Hangklip (which needs to be climbed, I realise) to the Kogelberg Nature Reserve to run and walk a 24km circuit, which was lovely, though more trees here and there would have been welcome; great pools in the Palmiet River, though, long and deep enough for serious training should one be thus inclined; and so many flowers I’ve not previously seen outside of Kirstenbosch.

. . . oh crap, WordPress have broken their dashboard (and I see, the css for galleries is dodgy too) and I can’t see what I’m typing properly, in Safari. Okay, mostly everything does still work in the html view. . .

With substantial breaks for at least two swims, it took us five and a half hours. A long, slow sustained climb at the start, but frustratingly, there were no obvious ways to ascend any of the peaks. The reserve map provided is woeful, showing no topography and is an invitation to get lost. I’m still not sure whether we followed the ‘proper route’ or not, though that’s of purely academic interest. Read the rest of this entry »

I saw him outside in the night; a few kin were hanging around. I tried to take a photo up close, but it was very dark, even though he had brought his own flash. I gave up and went inside, only to find him clinging to my camera.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Standard Bank

I have been one of your customers for nearly 10 years, making use of a Blue Bean credit card account.

Today, I got an sms telling me that I was in arrears on the account, and should contact you to make payment parrangements. I was amazed because the card was paid up to date the last time I looked. I phoned, and discovered you had charged me a hefty service fee, pushed my account into the red, and then opted to treat me like some kind of bad debtor. No apology was offered when I phoned up.

I cannot say my time with Standard has been happy. Your organisation is slow and bureaucratic. Many of your staff are keen to help, but your systems are so unwieldy that very often they cannot.

If your organisation was truly “inspired” and “involved”, you would have customer management systems that involved your staff taking responsibility, rather than treating us as smelly problems that need Read the rest of this entry »