Catching flies or on being nice to people (8/22/2016)

Of late I’ve seen very little civility in public life.  I’ve written about it before in various blog posts <here>, <here>, and <here>, or look at my label section under tolerance.  Right now with the presidential elections in full swing there is at least one presidential candidate who’s every word is being followed; journalists are trying to figure out what outrageous thing he has said today or who he is making fun of.  His allies are desperately trying to urge him to stick to the teleprompter, but he is telling everyone that he is not going to change, that the people like who he is, as abrasive and uncivilized as ever.  I don’t need to use names, everyone knows who I mean, whether you like him or not.

While privately I may need to blow off steam so now and in public I try to be civilized and well mannered.  That is partially because I am in front of so many people.  Most of my readers know what I do for a living, or at least you think you do.  I am a teacher, an instructor; I develop courses and I travel throughout the state to teach them.  Hopefully I am a nice guy when I do that (actually, I am told I am an OK kinda guy).  

Ah, but I do more.  We have a certificate program and people need to pass an exam.  Once they are certified, they need to take classes that are relevant to keep up their certification and submit them to us.  I have the unlucky task to make sure that these courses are relevant.  This is where I often cannot be Mr. Nice Guy, and that bugs the hell out of me.

We have almost 4000 certificate holders and so there are a lot of courses to track.  Thank goodness we do this with 3 people, but I have to email the certificate holders when there is anything amiss.   I am finally at the end of 350 questionable courses that were submitted for review these past few months and let me tell you, for me this was the worst job I had in a long time.  Don't you just hate looking for things people do wrong?  Well I do!  I rather look for things people to right and compliment them for it!  I finished the other day and had three aural migraine attacks in one day after being migraine free for months.  Just coming down from the stress of it all.

So when I have to email them and deny them credit for a class, I try to do this with a smile on my face or at least in a nice email. (It still stresses me out.)  Why make them feel bad?  Some people don't care, like an ex-colleague of mine.  He was very hard nosed and  I'll call him Harry.  "Harry" I said one day, "be nice to people, it is easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar." Harry looked at me and said: "But Jan, I don't want to catch flies."  The metaphor went completely over his head, he did not understand I actually meant people not, really flies.

The ultimate bug catcher, although he looks pretty docile, relaxed and friendly, he's a pretty fierce predator when you see him moving at night on our sliding door window.  This is how I see myself auditing people's re-certification efforts.

This is another way to catch flies.

But Harry is not alone, there are so many Harry-s out there.  The world is more and more lacking compassion.  Why is that?  Maybe part the explanation lies in what I read in this article about ecological economics.  In it Robert Costanza argues that the larger to difference is between income groups, the less cooperation we have between the groups, more competition, and less productivity.  The groups are spending a lot of resources on preserving what they have (sounds familiar, doesn't it? Our politicians are for sale to the highest bidders trying to preserve their wealth and class status.).  I think you could also conclude then that this is why we probably also have less compassion between groups, or just generally in this world.  We are more interested in protecting what we have than in helping each other.

Vinegar anyone?  It is an amazing world we live in, isn’t it?  

Is our blue marble turning green? (8/4/2016)

"Far above the world, Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do" 

- David Bowie -

This was the view from our cockpit the other morning watching the sun come up over the horizon during an early morning sail on the Chesapeake Bay.  The water in the Bay this winter was remarkably clean and clear.

But here on earth there is a lot we can do to keep that water blue and healthy.  Although it seems to get more and more difficult.  This week's newspaper reported that the drinking water in our area stinks and tastes bad.  Our water works blames the hot weather and the algae bloom in the lakes that supply our water.  It seems that the algae give the water a bad taste and smell.

The next questions hot weather and algae bloom, what can we do about that?

By now we should have all heard about global warming; it is real and there is probably not much we can do about in the short term.  But in the long term, yes we can.  We need to get serious about energy efficiency and renewable energy; it is not only good for the planet, but also good for our pockets.  But yes it is an expensive investment in the short term and the returns are slow to materialize (it will pay you back in so many years).  For example, we are saving $15.00 every two months on our water bill since we installed two $180 low flow toilets.  This means it will take us 48 months or 4 years to break even.

The hot weather has warmed up that wonderful nutrient rich water and made it the perfect breeding ground for all those algae.  Note the words nutrient rich!  How does the water get nutrient rich?  Oh yes, blame those farmers!  Well, not so fast.  We are to blame as well.  We over-fertilize our yards, or put fertilizer where it does not belong; people don't pick up after their animals; don't maintain their septic systems; dump their fall leaves in a ditch or in the woods where they don't belong; wash their car in the street and not on the lawn or at a car wash; or poor chemicals down the storm drain.  All that stuff eventually ends up in the streams and rivers where we all get our drinking water from or that end up in the Bay.  And the algae love it!  Look for the word eutrophication that's what scientist call it.  It means enriching the water with nutrients.

Last September we went on an evening sailing trip to watch the algae at night in their phosphorescent state.  It was quite the adventure and I wrote about it in this blog posting.  Who knows, I promised a few friends to take them out if it happens again, and I secretly hope it does not, although I love to sail at night.

But lets get back to the question, is our blue marble turning green?  The earth was first called blue marble by the space program on December 7, 1972, by the Apollo 17 astronauts when they took a picture of the earth on their return trip from the moon.  Subsequently, other satellites that flew much further from earth also looked back home and took pictures of the blue marble floating in space.  (I learned about this term from Wallace Nichols' book "Blue Mind" he actually started the Blue Marble Project). 

This is a copy of the original photograph taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts.   Picture was downloaded from NASA.

My question is with global warming and eutrophication, will the blue marble stay blue or will it turn the oceans green with algae, or will it turn the world green with people who think green and want to help save and protect the environment?  

That choice is ours isn't it?