Nature & Other Writings - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Part 4

Nature & Other Writings
Ralph Waldo Emerson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 31

 January 31, 2017 

Book 7 - Nature and Other Writings
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (2003)
 Part 4 - Pages 91-179

Reading Time - 75 Minutes

A few of Emerson's essays today:

• Compensation
• Spiritual Laws
• The Over-Soul
• Circles
• The Poet

I have to admit, his essay on Compensation needs a second, and probably a third and fourth read. He starts by referencing a sermon her heard on the Last Judgement in which the preacher said the evil may prosper in this world, and the good might suffer... but that in the next world, the tables will be turned. Emerson argues that the law of action and reaction is present in nature and that the effect of evil actions will appear in this world. Maybe not immediately. Maybe only after decades, but they will appear. There is a push/pull in nature that we can't ignore. We want to have the sensual without the moral. We want to eat our chocolate and not have to pay with our waistlines. We want to lose weight without exercising. We look for the easy way... and Emerson's message is... there is no easy way. His overall argument is - you cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. This reminds me of the Vulcan (Star Trek) philosophy... The Spear in the Other's Heart is the Spear in Your Own. If we are all One... then what we do to the Other will affect us... at some point. One quote stuck with me:

The exclusionist in religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in striving to shut out others.

 Definitely something for major religions to keep in mind as they consider the "criteria" for membership in their congregations... and who they judge as being "condemned".

Emerson argues that even Fear is a retribution for "evil" acts. And always for us to remember that "I am my brother/sister and my brother/sister is me".

The Spiritual Laws essay starts off with a provocative statement - our young people are diseased with the theological problem of Original Sin, etc. Emerson's thought is this... that we don't need to struggle and despair. We are born with power. There is something that comes easy to us and is good when done. Something that no one else can do. If we follow that... we will be great. But so often we fit ourselves into society, fit ourselves into a career path that is not that. We become a tool instead of a self-creating being of power.

Emerson argues that the "way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion is to speak and write sincerely". Love that sentence... ultimately it comes down to us being authentic. We need to Be who we are... not try to Seem to Be something that we are not. I also liked his thought that "he that writes to himself, writes to an eternal public". That's what I've learned about writing... is to write for me... not for someone else. If I write to me... I am being Me... being authentic to me... because I don't need to hide anything from me. Did I mention, I love Emerson?

The Over-Soul was a short essay and already I see how there is theme to Emerson's thought and essays. Our source is hidden, but we are part of the One, part of the divine. There is a distinction between some teachers/poets/writers... some speak from within, from their experience... and others speak from without, as spectators or what they received from a third party. Always with Emerson it is about first-hand experience. If we want to speak of God... we need to have an experience of God. "The faith that stands on authority, is not faith". Which makes me think... why are we so quick to shuffle off our own experience and grab hold of someone else's experience? We look for certainty... that someone has the "right" answer? That someone knows the "right" path to God? We doubt our own path? Or perhaps we think there is an easier path than self-discovery. "Just tell me what to believe, tell me what to pray, tell me what to do". We sell our souls, not to the devil, but to someone else's interpretation of the divine.

Circles was a very short essay but here's the gist... everything is circular. Life is always in flux, always in motion and we cannot see things from within things. If you want to see Christianity... better to see it from the pasture or the forest or the seaside. This resonates for me with First Nation spirituality... the circle is key to their understanding of the world and of life. We have turned linearity into the mode of being but... what if it's not.

The final essay, The Poet, almost awakened the poet within me! Nature speaks and the poets hear it. I have to admit, I've never been a great fan of poetry. I just remember Grade 8 poetry and trying to learn rhymes and metres and being completely frustrated with it. I wonder how many of us shut off our Inner Poet thanks to just such experience. Emerson has words of hope for us: "The people fancy they hate poetry, and they are all poets and mystics". Whhhaaaattt??? Gotta sit with that one for a bit.

Love Emerson... love, love, love him... I feel hope reading his words. I feel inspiration. I feel validation and want to share my own experience. What a thought

Next Book

A Complicated Kindness

Miriam Toews - 2007

Nature & Other Writings - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Part 3

Nature & Other Writings
Ralph Waldo Emerson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 30

 January 30, 2017 

Book 7 - Nature and Other Writings
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (2003)
 Part 3 - Pages 63-90

Reading Time - 30 Minutes

Today's essay is entitled Self-Reliance. I had come across a reference to this essay elsewhere, hence my desire to read it in full. Here's the overall gist of it:

"To believe your own thoughts, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all [people] - that is genius"

Hmmm... that could use a lot of unpacking. Here's the thing... your thoughts are just as great as another person's thoughts. The Great Ones (whoever they are) spoke what they thought... not what others thought. But we deny the validity of our own thoughts... we "capitulate to large societies and dead institutions". We continually reference that past and live in the past and the future... but not the present.

We have a great thought... an inspiring idea... and most of them die stillborn. Years later, we hear the same thought from some great speaker and realize... shoot... I had that same thought years ago. The difference... we didn't speak our thought... and they did.

There's a line in this essay that I love - "My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects". What a beautiful turn of phrase. Love it.

Here are some quotes that stuck with me:

"I must be myself"

"I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you"

"Insist on yourself; never imitate"

"Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much"

There's a Shakespeare quote that echos this

To thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Trust your gut. Trust your instincts. Trust, above all, your experience of yourself and the world.

Nature & Other Writings - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Part 2

Nature & Other Writings
Ralph Waldo Emerson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 29

 January 29, 2017 

Book 7 - Nature and Other Writings
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (2003)
 Part 2 - Pages ix-xvii, 1-63

Reading Time - 60 Minutes

I know... same batches of pages as yesterday but... I decided to do a post on each of his essays. They are that dense. Today it was the Divinity School Address. It echos his other work - we are all channels of the divine. Did I mention that he was the son of a Christian minister and actually became a minister himself? He left the ministry at some point, and I can see why. In fact... to pull a page from Emerson's book... I experience why! I think the reason why I love Emerson so much is that his experience is a mirror to mine. He just speaks it far more eloquently at this point... but my eloquence may come.

One thing he said in this essay was that we have distorted Christianity... and that we need a new Revelation. Even that we need a new Teacher... Someone to show that God IS, not God WAS. We are relying on a Middle Eastern interpretation of the divine (Christianity, Judaism, Islam)... and that we need something from the West.

I would say... we have it... and we did not recognize it. It is First Nations spirituality. They see the Divine throughout Nature... but we told them they were wrong. That the only path to the Divine was via the "one-true-faith"... through Christianity. And even though Christianity has a tradition of Revelation through Scripture AND Revelation through Creation/Nature... the second has atrophied through lack of use. We froze Revelation with the death of Christ... or rather the Apostles who wrote the Gospels and the New Testament. That was it... that's all God wanted written. I think not. I know not. I experience the Divine revealed around me... in Nature, in the writings of people like Emerson and it is fresh and new and alive. Did I mention, I love Emerson... or rather his Writings?

Nature & Other Writings - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Part 1

Nature and Other Writings
Ralph Waldo Emerson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 28

 January 28, 2017 

Book 7 - Nature and Other Writings
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (2003)
 Part 1 - Pages ix-xvii, 1-63

Reading Time - 60 Minutes

"Nature is too thin a screen, the glory of the Omnipresent God bursts through everywhere"

That's Emerson in a nutshell. I found that quote decades ago and fell head over heels in love with the words. It resonated for me at a very deep level of Truth. But... I came across it as some disconnected fragment on a quote website. I knew it was from Emerson, but I didn't know from what work, or in what context he uttered it. I still don't. But I'm searching.

I chose this book of Emerson's Writings because it had a couple of his essays that I'd come across - Nature and Self-Reliance. Having read this slim volume... I want more!

Emerson was more of a speaker than a writer; an eloquent lecturer whose speeches were living things. In reading his words, you kind of lose out on the pauses, the emphasis, the searching for words that were apparently a trait of his. I also have to admit, his writing sometimes took a bit of getting used to. It is mid-1800s writing and he really knows how to use words and make them sing, dance and soar. He is a true Word-Smith. You have to sort of get familiar with his sentence structure and cadence first.

So, what did I learn about Emerson... well... I love him. His essay Nature is brilliant... especially if one has an environmental leaning like I do. Essentially, Nature is a primary mode of Divine Revelation. We don't need to read the writings of millenia-old writings to discover God. We can have our own Experience right now. That's a theme throughout his writings... the idea that Experience trumps knowledge or understanding. Experiencing something is far more impactful than reading about someone else's experiences. He also argues that science is only half the story. We study nature to death with science but lose sight of the spiritual truth contained within nature.

Even back in the mid-1800s, Emerson could see the signs of the times. Nature and humanity are inextricably linked. What came to me was this... we are more and more disconnnected from Nature... don't grow our own food, live in urban concrete jungles, deny climate change... and we can see the results in humanity - increase in obesity, depression... According to Emerson - "Nature is medicinal. We can find ourselves in its eternal calm." But where do we go? To the doctor for some more drugs.

Here are a few quotes that stuck with me:

Nature is our dowry and estate. (for all of us)

Religion and ethics degrade nature and suggest it is dependent on spirit

Nature is a remoter incarnation of God, but it is inviolable by us - a fixed point against which we measure ourselves.

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky - Part 4

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 27

 January 27, 2017 

Book 6 - Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations
by Clay Shirky (2008)
 Part 4 - Pages 161-211

Reading Time - 60 Minutes

The thing with Collective Action is that while it might be hard to get going... it is also much harder to stop. There are several stages to go through:

1. Everyone Knows
2. Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows
3. Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows

Confusing I know... the author gives the example of how tiny little protests in Leipzig, East Germany became incrementally larger. The government did nothing to crack down on them, because the protests were so small. Other people saw this and joined the protests and by the time the government tried to act, the protests were too large. That was 1989... and East Germany folded like a house of cards.

Today, Facebook and Twitter help people to coordinate and organize. The huge number of people who participate mean that even if individuals just contribute a little bit, they can be enormously effective as an aggregate. You don't need every protestor to be a star-contributor... you just need a whole bunch to contribute below the average, and it makes a huge difference.

Back in 2000, a researcher suggested declining participation in community and group activities. This was of particular concern since they form the vehicle for creating and sustaining social change. The study was a little premature and community groups are not quite a dying breed. While bowling leagues may not be popular, people are finding each other online and meeting in the real world. MeetUp is a site that helps people find each other based on geography and affinity. Interested in hiking? Check your area and you're likely to find a group that is interested in hiking. Or maybe it's HO trains? Or writing? Anyone can start a MeetUp group and if there are people interested... you can all get together. The possibilities are endless.

The thing is... what works for protest groups also works for terrorists and criminal gangs. Wikipedia can survive vandalism because enough people care to undo it. But what about in the real world? Interesting question...

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky - Part 3

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 26

 January 26, 2017 

Book 6 - Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations
by Clay Shirky (2008)
 Part 3 - Pages 109-160

Reading Time - 50 Minutes

The star of this section is the online encyclopedia - Wikipedia. Under the umbrella of a non-profit organization, Wikipedia is almost entirely written, edited and corrected by an army of volunteers around the world. The reader who notices a spelling mistake can login and correct the error. People can add bits of new information, correct out-dated information or create entirely new articles. The key to Wikipedia is the people who use it and who care for it. There are vandals out there who try to delete things or add erroneous information, but their changes are usually undone within 2 minutes. It's a crazy system when you think about it... but it works. It is a never-ending, ongoing organic process.

But... there is an interesting dynamic that comes into play with Wikipedia, and other human endeavours. It's called the Power Law distribution curve. Bear with me... cause this is important!

Wikipedia Contributors - Power Law curve

What they noticed with Wikipedia is that you get a few people who contribute a LOT - of articles, of edits, of whatever. Most of the people might only contribute one or two things. There's an equation that you can use which basically says, your most productive contributor is a superstar, your 2nd most productive contributor contributes half as much as the first, your 3rd contributor contributes one third as much as the first... and your 10th contributor contributes one tenth as much as the first... On a graph, it looks like this... (see right). You get a few people who are responsible for the most work. It's similar to the Pareto Law - you know... 20% of people contribute 80% of whatever.

Power Law curve vs. Bell Curve

It apparently happens with employees as well... In the graph at right, they've flipped the axes but it's essentially the same as the Wikipedia contributors. A few of your employees are your star performers and make the biggest contribution. The vast majority are operating below the median...

The thing is... we still think human performance operates on a bell curve. You know... you have 16 super productive employees, 16 slackers and the rest are somewhere in the middle. Not true. The funky thing with the Power Law curve is that the Median and the Average are not the same (as on a bell curve). This means that most of your employees and most of the Wikipedia contributors are below average (gasp).

The thing with Wikipedia is this... it doesn't have to operate efficiently... if 1000s of people only make one edit, that's fine... because there are 1000s of them. It might not be efficient... but it is effective and that makes a huge difference.

On the heels of Wikipedia, Shirky also looked at how the reaction to pedophile priests in Boston differed from 1992 to 2002. In 1992, there were several news articles about priests being moved around after abusing children. The articles generated some uproar but it quickly fizzled. In 2002, however... the protests and outrage took off and generated Voice of the Faithful, the resignation of Cardinal Law and a shake-up in the Catholic Church. What was different? In 2002... people could share information very quickly via email, blogs and websites. It was also much easier to organize and find groups that were outraged. Organizing is no longer limited by geography and the laity finally have an opportunity to make their voice heard in a cohesive and coordinated way.

Social tools don't create collective action... they remove obstacles to it. It's not that people haven't wanted to organize in the past... they were stymied by time and space. Those barriers have fallen.

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky - Part 2

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 25

 January 25, 2017 

Book 6 - Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations
by Clay Shirky (2008)
 Part 2 - Pages 55-108

Reading Time - 1 hour

Here's a thought... the traditional newspaper is a dying breed. Think about it - eBay, Craigslist and other free online outlets are siphoning off traditional classified ad revenues. People are getting their news from other sites - Facebook, Twitter, counter-cultural sites. It used to be that those who had the publishing equipment (printing presses, fancy cameras) controlled the news. That is no longer the case. Nowadays, anyone can whip up a blog on the internet, or a website or share something on Facebook or YouTube. "If everyone can do something, it is no longer are enough to pay for, even if it is vital".

How many of us subscribe to the Encyclopedia Britannica? Or any Encyclopedia for that matter? Whether as physical books or online. Not me. If I need to look up info, I can search on the internet, use Wikipedia as my jumping off point and find tonnes of information on whatever topic I am interested in.

Which leads to the a completely different problem. There is a lot of junk out there! People are posting all sorts of things online - but most of it is not intended for general consumption. Some blogs are only for the friends on the poster. Yes, it is available for general viewing... but that doesn't mean it's intended to be read by everyone. It is in public, but not for the public.

In the olden days of newspaper and magazine publishing - the editors decided what to print - they decided what was good and what was bad. The model was... filter, then publish. Today, there is tonnes of stuff being published by so-called amateurs. The model now is... publish, then filter! In essence, we have gone from being consumers of media to creators of media. Some people publish and share blogs just for the love it. Whether it is is minimalism, HO trains, horses or gardening. People write and photograph and share because they love their topic. Think back to 30 years ago... and a lot of what is happening today would have seemed impossible. But when the impossible becomes possible... things can change... and we can get a revolution.

Today, at Standing Rock in South Dakota, First Nations and their supporters are engaged in a protest to preserve traditional territory and water rights against an oil pipeline. You'd be lucky to find anything about Standing Rock in the traditional media. The news of Standing Rock happened on Facebook and Twitter... only after it was weeks old, did traditional media show up to "cover" the event. Journalists aren't everywhere. People are everywhere. And today, people are equipped as mini-reporters... with smartphone cameras and social media apps. We have our pulse on the world... not the media. Who knows what can come out of that?

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky - Part 1

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 24

 January 24, 2017 

Book 6 - Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations
by Clay Shirky (2008)
 Part 1 - Pages 1-54

Reading Time - 1 hour

This is kind of a cool book. The premise is that the internet is changing media and changing the way in which we communicate. "When we change the way we communicate, we change society". Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube - all of these are changing the way in which information and events get shared. It also changes the way in which people can organize as groups.

In the olden days (before the internet) people were limited in their abilities to organize. Communication could take a long time and distances separated us. Organizations and companies were the essential directors of our ability to organize. But all of that has change. The internet and social media have provided us with communication tools that are flexible enough to match our social capabilities.

The author gives the example of Flickr, a photo sharing site on the internet. People upload photos and then tag them. When the London bombings happened, people on the ground took photos and shared them to Flickr and tagged them. All of a sudden, there was a huge pool of photographs of the event, taken from a variety of perspectives. Anyone with a camera could share photos and tag them with the event. It used to be that a reporter with a cameraman would be sent to the scene of an accident or a disaster but now, there are hundreds of people who can easily share their photos and their thoughts on an event. Flickr doesn't coordinate them... it just provides them with the tools to self-organize.

In the olden days, organizations would group and coordinate people but the organization could get so large that it no longer became profitable. Today... we can achieve large scale coordination at very low cost. Think Wikipedia - an online encyclopedia that is almost entirely run by a huge cadre of volunteers. The author suggests there are three stages to any group undertaking:

• sharing - e.g. sharing photos on Flickr
• cooperating & collaboration - e.g. engaging in conversation or producing wikipedia
• collective action - this one is the hardest - there needs to be a commitment to action - this is a little harder to achieve - there needs to be a common vision that binds everyone even when not everyone agrees

The idea that we are in a time of societal change/upheaval is kind of exciting. The old way of doing things is in a state of flux and what the new will be has yet to be revealed. It used to be that we were rather limited in the people with whom we could interact - the people from our workplace, our local community, our town, our region. Today... we can easily connect with people in Thailand, Iceland or Russia. We can find "our tribe" almost anywhere in the world. The internet has made it much easier for like-minded people to find each other, to share information and to organize themselves. Exciting times!

Almost Green: How I built an Eco-Shed - James Glave - 2008

Almost Green - James Glave

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 23

 January 23, 2017 

Book 5 - Almost Green: How I built an Eco-Shed
by James Glave (2008)

 Part 1 - Pages 1-204

Reading Time - 4 hours

I picked this book up at a thrift store before Christmas and thought it would be something different than it was. It was interesting, just not what I expected. Author James Glave lives on Bowen Island and in the mid 2000s decided that he wanted to build an eco-shed, a little office for himself, combined with some guest space. He wanted to build it as a Green structure.

After many trials and tribulations, he produced a 280 sq ft eco-shed to the sweet price of $100,000. While I commend the author for building something so eco-friendly, I do wonder at the cost of this structure. Maybe things have gotten cheaper in the last 9 years... but $100,000 is no small potatoes! Something about the project didn't sit right with me. Perhaps it was getting a $70,000 Line of Credit to build the place? Perhaps it was the necessity of getting "clear" lumber for the rafters.

Or maybe it's just the impossibly high hurdle of "going green" that is presented, at least from the financial perspective. Surely there must be easier and cheaper ways for us to lower our carbon footprints?

Next Book

Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations

Clay Shirky - 2008

The Upcycle - McDonough & Braungart - Part 4

The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability -
Designing for Abundance
by William McDonough &
Michael Braungart

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 22

 January 22, 2017 

Book 4 - The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--Designing for Abundance
by William McDonough and Michael Braungart (2013)

 Part 4 - Pages 183-217

Reading Time - 40 minutes

This is a book of hope - hope for the future, for our planet, for humanity. It inspired me even though I'm not a designer of anything, other than my backyard garden. But even there, I think now of the ways in which we could upcycle things.

For example, we salvage wooden pallets from the liquor store. Normally, we cut these up to burn as firewood in our fireplace. But what if we could find a way to cut the slats off the frames more efficiently. We'd have an endless supply of wood to use for our various building projects. It's one additional stage of life for the pallet.

Ultimately, the authors envision a world in which we can go from surviving to thriving. That we can make the world a better place than when we came into it. Which is one of the first lessons one learns when going into the woods. Pack it in and then pack it out (your garbage). But... if you see someone else's garbage, pack that out too. Making the world a better place. It can't just be governments and non-profits and environmental groups though. It has to be businesses and companies. They are the ones who can really make a difference. The question is... how to engage them to see that this can make their companies more profitable AND make the world a better place. Would be nice to have a win-win scenario!

Next Book

Almost Green - How I built an Eco-Shed

James Glave - 2008

The Upcycle - McDonough and Braungart - Part 3

The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability -
Designing for Abundance by
William McDonough &
Michael Braungart

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 21

 January 21, 2017 

Book 4 - The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--Designing for Abundance
by William McDonough and Michael Braungart (2013)

 Part 3 - Pages 123-180

Reading Time - 60 minutes

Our topic of today, or at least part of it, is Soil. I had heard about the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s when overenthusiastic tilling of soil and near drought conditions led to a crazy amount of soil being lost to the wind. What I didn't know was that 75% of the soil in the US has been lost - destroyed by monoculture, over-tilling and salinization (due to over irrigation). The authors argue that we can't keep taking out more than we put in. Which makes total, perfect sense.

They use the example of phosphate. Plants need phosphate to grow and normally it returns to the soil when the plant dies. But we tend to harvest plants and so the soil gets deplete in phosphate. So we add fertilizers but phosphate is hard to put back as it tends to bind very quickly with other elements. It then ends up out in the ocean creating algal blooms that benefit no-one.

So, here's their bright idea... let's upcycle sewage. It can be done! Toronto, for example, accepts diapers (full ones), kitty litter (normally a biohazard), soiled paper and feminine hygiene products. These things are composted for a good 7 months and then... voila... compost for gardens! In some cities, they harvest phosphate and nitrogen from sewage and sell it as slow-release fertilizer pellets. Makes sense, no? We've become so squeamish about our biological waste though... yet all it requires is safe and careful handling and it can be put to good use, rather than spewing all those beautiful nutrients out into the ocean.

They've got all sorts of cool ideas on how we could upcycle our waste. For example, plastic pop bottles, which are made from food-grade plastics are now recycled, batched with other plastics and turned into fleece. But that is really a downcycle because fleece can never again be turned into food-grade plastic. Why not keep the pop bottles in a separate stream so then can be recycled over and over again into new pop bottles rather than "end-of-the-line" garbage cans or speed bumps. Why not install roof-top gardens everywhere... as a way to insulate the building and filter the storm water run-off?

I do like this book but so much of what they are suggesting seems beyond the scope of the individual citizen. We're talking change on the level of companies and municipalities. I guess we could lobby for change, demand that stores take back their packaging for materials. Small steps... but a much more hopeful book than Silent Spring.

The Upcycle - McDonough and Braungart - Part 2

The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--
Designing for Abundance
William McDonough &
Michael Braungart

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 20

 January 20, 2017 

Book 4 - The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--Designing for Abundance
by William McDonough and Michael Braungart (2013)

 Part 2 - Pages 53-119

Reading Time - 70 minutes

I love this book. Love it... It's such a sparkly book. These guys foresee a world in which regulations simply indicate that there is an opportunity for a redesign. We just have to identify the Need, have some Imagination and find the Materials.

For example... we all know incandescent light bulbs (the old ones) wasted a lot of energy. Then they designed CFL light bulbs... the curly ones. Not an Upcycle though cause CFLs have mercury in them. We're saving energy but polluting the environment with a highly toxic substance every time one of those ends up in the landfill. LED lights on the other hand... huge improvement over incandescent and CFL bulbs. The trick is... plan a clean product from the start, rather than cleaning up waste at the end. If we identify our values first... then we can start off on the right foot. If you don't... you end up creating bigger problems.

The EU countries want to use 20% sustainable energy by 2020. Some bright chipmunk decided that burning palm oil would be a good way for the EU to reach that goal. So, now the EU imports palm oil from Indonesia. Which means Indonesia is chopping down its native forests and planting palm oil trees by the thousands. Deforestation = increased erosion = less foliage = increased CO2 in the atmosphere. End result... worse for the atmosphere than what the EU has been doing. Humble apologies to all real mammalian chipmunks (but not the human ones).

If we're talking renewable energy then wind and solar are the ways to go. As the authors says "is changing to solar too big or are human invention and daring too small".

Back in 1992, there was a big conference in Germany that came up with the Hannover Principles for designing and creating the future. I present them here because they really spoke to me. There is hope.

The Hannover Principles (1992)

1. Insist on right of humanity and nature to coexist in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable conditions.
2. Recognize Interdependence
3. Respect relationships between Spirit and Matter.
4. Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems and their right to coexist.
5. Create safe objects of long-term value.
6. Eliminate the concept of waste.
7. Rely on natural energy flows.
8. Understand the limitations of design.
9. Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge.

I could sign on for that! One last note... which I need to ponder... The way to do this is NOT to berate and scold companies... but to encourage them.

The Upcycle - McDonough and Braungart - Part 1

The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--
Designing for Abundance
William McDonough &
Michael Braungart

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 19

 January 19, 2017 

Book 4 - The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--Designing for Abundance
by William McDonough and Michael Braungart (2013)

 Part 1 - Pages xv-xvii, 1-49

Reading Time - 60 minutes

I actually wanted to read another book that these guys wrote - Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way we Make Things - but... I couldn't find it in the library. So... I had to make do with this one. Here's the definition of an upcycle from the authors:

The goal of the upcycle is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world with clean air, water, soil and power - economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed.

Now... that is a really nice change from Silent Spring by Rachel Carson! Makes me think that 50 years later... we have learned a few things and there is hope for the human race.

The basic idea is this... when we create something, we design them so that they can create more things, rather than just ending up in the landfill. Take for example... the pop can. A beautifully designed piece of aluminum that can be endlessly recycled and turned into other things. Now take the tetra pack... you know, like a juice box. Horribly designed. It has a layer of thin aluminum, some plastic and some paper. Trying to disentangle those from each other leads to very poor quality material. Not a great upcycle.

Cradle to Cradle - The Upcycle Chart

So often we are trying to minimize the negative impact of something - whether it's pollution or energy waste or whatever. The authors say... what if we took it even farther and rather than just reaching zero... that we design and create things that actually make the world a better place. So rather than just reducing the pollutants in water from a factory, we could actually make the water cleaner than when it entered the factory. Wouldn't that be cool??

And it can be economically viable... more than that... it can make companies even more money cause if they're not polluting the environment, they can save all sorts of bucks!

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson - Part 6

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 18

 January 18, 2017 

Book 3 - Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson (1962)

 Part 6 - Pages 264-297, 357-363

Reading Time - 50 minutes

In some ways, reading this book is a bit like reading some ancient prophecy. In this section, she speaks of how insects are becoming resistant to chemicals. Try DDT one year, and it works for a year or two and then is ineffective. Then try another one, which also becomes ineffective. After a while, you just run out of chemicals to use. One of the reasons... insects reproduce so quickly that their resistance builds very quickly as well. This is kind of frightening when you're talking about insects that are disease vectors - like mosquito that carry malaria. Or the Tsetse Fly. Nowadays we read in the news about how cockroaches and bedbugs are getting harder and harder to eradicate due to their chemical resistance. Carson knew what she was talking about. One entomologist said "the resort to weapons such as insecticides to control it is a proof of insufficient knowledge and of an incapacity so to guide the processes of nature that brute force becomes necessary". In other words, rather than understanding the complexities of nature and finding a way to work with it, we invariably try to use brute force, which inevitably fails.

Finally, in the last chapter, Carson gives us some hope. There are biological solutions, such as irradiating male flies (to make them sterile) and then introducing them into the wild in large enough numbers that they out-compete the fertile males. It has worked in isolated geographical regions. Another method is where you find a bacteria that is specific to the annoying insect - e.g. Bacillus thuringiensis which can be used against a variety of bugs. Carson spoke specifically of the Gypsy Moth which made me wonder... Vancouver sprays for the Gypsy Moth... so what do they use? Well... I looked it up and they spray with Foray 48B:

"Foray 48B® is a water-based product containing a bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis variety kurstaki (Btk). Btk is a bacterium found in soil. It is known to affect only caterpillars, such as the gypsy moth larvae, if it is ingested while they are feeding. In addition, Foray 48B® contains a number of inert (inactive) ingredients which improve the performance of the Btk. Many of these ingredients are approved food grade additives. No petroleum products are used.
Foray 48B® is not harmful to people, dogs, cats, fish, birds, reptiles, or insects such as honeybees, beetles or spiders. Btk pest control products have been registered for use in Canada for about 40 years. It is now the most widely used pest control product in the world." (HealthLink BC)

It is heartening to read that... although... we still have a long way to go. Railway companies, for example, still spray their right-of-ways along the train tracks with toxic chemicals that include, among other things, the same components as Agent Orange (the defoliant used in Vietnam).

I can't say that I found this book enjoyable although it was highly educational. A bitter-sweet pill to swallow. Some improvement in the last 50 years but a long way to go as well.

Next Book 
The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability - Designing for Abundance
by William McDonough and Michael Braungart

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson - Part 5

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 17

 January 17, 2017 

Book 3 - Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson (1962)

 Part 5 - Pages 219-261

Reading Time - 50 minutes

As you might expect, Carson makes the connection between pesticides (or rather biocides) and their carcinogenic effects. Their effect on the liver and other cells in the body can generate tumours. She does admit that the long-term effect of pesticides is, as yet, unknown. It could take decades before the effects will be seen. She points, specifically, to the exponential rise in childhood cancers like leukemia, a cancer which was virtually unknown in the early 1900s. My question would be... perhaps the doctors of the time just didn't recognize it back then? Hard to say. The idea that pesticides can influence an infant in the womb is kind of scary. Nowadays, though, it seems like common sense to recognize that whatever the mother ingests will make its way to the fetus at some point. Its effects will vary depending on the fetal stage of development. Another reason why it's hard to pin down cause and effect.

Carson devotes an entire chapter to the fact that insecticides are worse than useless. In killing all insects, both good and bad, most pesticides actually make the insect problem worse. Nature does a great job of keeping populations in check - through competition, food, climate and predator. When we tinker with that... things get off balance very quickly. She says "chemical control is like a treadmill" because once you start spraying, you can't stop. A great deal for chemical companies... many of whom support the research programs of entomologists (insect researchers).

It seems to me that we humans think we're pretty smart. We think we can fix things in nature, improve on nature. But we tinker with systems that we don't fully understand and therein lies the danger. While we might be able to tweak nature in one direction, what happens if that makes everything worse? Can we put it back the way we found it? It's almost like we are cavemen taking apart a machine. Sure, we can take it apart... but can we put it back together so that it works again? And what if that machine is what is keeping us alive? Nature is an extremely complex, multi-faceted, interconnected organism - which we tinker with at our peril.

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson - Part 4

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 16

 January 16, 2017 

Book 3 - Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson (1962)

 Part 4 - Pages 155-216

Reading Time - 70 minutes

More sad news. Back in the 1950s, the US Department of Agriculture decided that it would be a good idea to eradicate the Gypsy Moth and the Fire Ant. It didn't go very well. Apparently, someone later said it was "ill advised, hastily conceived, poorly planned and a glaring example of riding roughshod over the responsibilities of other public and private agencies". Maybe the Department had extra cash floating around at the end of the fiscal year? But their multi-year spraying program did nothing to the Fire Ants or Gypsy Moths. In fact, that seems to be the case with most of these mass spraying stories. Spraying millions of acres to kill one species is just crazy. Particularly as the damage to farms, orchards and livestock is massive.

The author notes, however, that it's not just mass sprayings that are a problem but innumerable small-scale exposures over time - the cumulative effect of biocides in the environment and in human bodies. All of a sudden, I'm wondering what exactly is in bug dope and how long I've been using that stuff. Bug dope that dissolves varnish but is safe for human skin. Right...

Makes me wonder about store-bought veggies and fruits... especially things imported from Mexico or elsewhere in the world. If pesticides sit within the skin and outer leaves... we should really discard that stuff. But if we throw the peels into our compost bin... and then spread the compost over our garden... are we not poisoning our garden? Makes me wonder.

Ultimately, the answer would appear to be to use less (or no!) toxic chemicals and/or try non-chemical methods.

Beyond the garden though, the scarier thought is what happens to the human body after years of exposure to various biocides. We might not see results for decades and there may be no obvious cause/effect. Plus, individuals will have individual tolerances and reactions. But it does affect that liver and the nervous system... Right... I read those words and thought... what about the upsurge in depression in the last few decades. What about autism? What about Alzheimers? All these illnesses that have seen a marked upsurge in recent decades.

Oh... and in case that wasn't enough... all those pesticides will have an affect on our cells, affecting their ability to produce energy and function. Muck with a little cell and it might turn into a cancer cell. Or maybe it will cause infertility. Recently, there have been studies which suggest that the health of our gut bacteria has a direct impact on our physical and mental health. Depression may be linked to a wonky gut flora.

I'm thinking in a few hundred years, humanity, if it still has accurate history (thank you George Orwell), will look back on the 1900s and call it the Great Poisoning.

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson - Part 3

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 15

 January 15, 2017 

Book 3 - Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson (1962)

 Part 3 - Pages 103-152

Reading Time - 60 minutes

Every chapter of this book is like a body blow. It makes me wince and shake my head. For example - Dutch Elm Disease. We've likely all heard of it. Back in the early 1900s, city planners decided that elm trees were "the" tree to plant along city streets. Exclusively. Not variety. No diversity. Just elm trees. An epidemic just waiting to happen. Somewhere along the line, a fungus was introduced into North America from Europe. It is spread by the Elm Bark Beetle. Elm trees started dying by the hundreds. The solution... DDT sprayed across cities in the late 1950s. The result... wholesale destruction of the song bird population. You see... birds eat bugs... even dead bugs. So, killing bugs means you end up killing birds. Oh... and all that DDT ended up in the leaves, which fell to the ground in the fall, and were eaten by worms who were then eaten by songbirds in the spring and... more birds died. Let's not even mention the death toll of cats who are fastidious groomers.

The result on the Elm Bark Beetle? Well... the spread rate of the beetle increased because the beetles natural enemies (e.g. birds) were destroyed. Crazy, no? Especially when you consider there are other options. NY State for example removes diseased trees and has had a great success rate in keeping the beetles and disease under control. Other places have imported the European Elm which is resistant to the fungus. Other cities have planted a variety of a trees rather than one species.

I really get that the biocides seemed like a panacea back in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. It seemed convenient and quick. But the results have been deadly. Not just for mammals, reptiles and birds but also for fish. Because the poison will find its way into the groundwater and eventually streams, lakes, ponds and rivers. Not good... cause fish are super-sensitive to chlorinated hydrocarbons. Plus... the biocides kill the mosquitos (for example) but then the fish have nothing to eat.

We are a crazy species... trying to save trees by killing insects, birds, mammals and fish. All because the trees look nice, or have an economic value. Very sad.

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson - Part 2

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 14

 January 14, 2017 

Book 3 - Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson (1962)

 Part 2 - Pages 52-102

Reading Time - 60 minutes

Every new chapters in this book hits hard and hits home. Herbicides, Pesticides, Insecticides - they all ultimately end up entering the soil. And what's in the soil? Little insects and mammals and fungi that are vital to the productivity of the soil. Carson notes that back in the 1940s, the tobacco growers in the southern US stopped using arsenic insecticides. Decades later, their tobacco is still contaminated by arsenic that is in the soil.

All of those biocides (to use her term) also damage other lifeforms - mammals, birds, fish. Cats apparently are highly susceptible to biocides because of their grooming of paws and fur.

I know that things have gotten better though. I was just looking up the European Chafer Beetle infestation that has taken hold in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver. People probably wouldn't even know that the beetles are there, except that the grubs are delicious (to other animals). Raccoons, skunks and birds happily dig up the lawn in search of these tasty morsels. In doing so, they are helping to stop the spread of the beetle. This is a good thing. But tell that to the homeowner who sees his pristine green lawn as a necessary part of life or status or something. The City of Vancouver, and many municipalities in BC, have banned insecticides for residential use (but not for commercial or industrial use). They say that the chemicals don't really have an impact on the beetles. They recommend buying nematodes and applying them to the lawn during a certain window in July when the nematodes can attach the grubs at a vulnerable time. This is good to know.

It seems, that in some ways, we have come some distance in the last 50 years. It is all a matter of perspective as well. We see something as a "weed" because it is growing somewhere where we don't want it to grow. Dandelions are fine in ditches, but not in our front yards. Even though they are a vital food for bees in the early spring. Carson gives an example from Holland of a rose garden doing poorly due to nematodes in the soil. A bit of research and they planted marigolds in with the roses. The marigold roots make a secretion that kills the nematodes. Guess what... the roses with marigolds at their feet did amazing.

It seems to me that we, as humans, are trying to fix something in nature that we see as being "broken" or "undesirable" or "different than we want it to be". In some cases, this is because we have introduced insects or plants to continents where they are not native. Without natural predators, these plants and insects become invasive.

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson
"The questions is whether any civilization can wage
relentless war on life without destroying itself,
and without losing the right to be called civilized."

Chemicals aren't going to solve the problem though. In fact, chemicals need to be applied year after year, much to the delight of the chemical manufacturers. spray machine manufacturers and companies that spray the stuff. They make tonnes of money while communities, nature, pets and people pay the price. In some situations, parasites, insects or native predators have been imported from a plant or insect's native land. They are usually chosen because they have a narrow field of operation. They like to eat the grubs of the Japanese Beetle or something similar. Using natural predators seems like a smart idea... although I do wonder what would happen if the introduced "predator" did its job too well and killed off the invader. Would it turn its eyes to some local victim?

Carson leaves us with this: "The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself and without losing the right to be called civilized." Good question.

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson - Part 1

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 13

 January 13, 2017 

Book 3 - Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson (1962)

 Part 1 - Pages x-xix, 1-51

Reading Time - 80 minutes

I wasn't born in 1962 when Rachel Carson published her book on the dangers of chemical contamination of the environment. Somehow, this book also never crossed my path in university - possibly because I didn't take a lot of biology and/or chemistry classes. Having read the first 50 pages though, I am appalled.

I know that nicotinoids are bad for bees. I know that they are sold by Home Depot under a variety of names. I know that RoundUp is bad for the environment. We don't fertilize our lawn or use weedkiller or mosskillers. We prefer to take out little stabbing tool and tear each weed out of the ground. On the other hand... we have used rat poison and we have used wasp spray. That is going to change.

I just find it hard to believe that 50 years after the publication of this book, we can still get our hands on pesticides and insecticides? How can that even be possible? Knowing how these man-made chemicals accumulate in our bodies. Knowing how they have polluted our waterways. Why do we keep using these things? Why do I still see "Sprayed with Pesticide" signs along railway right-of-ways or highway right-of-ways?? The questions that come up just boggle the mind.

We're concerned about oil pipelines polluting our waterways because that's a Big issue. But, honestly, the amount of pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers being pumped out onto farms, orchards, fields and forests is way more than the oil that would spew out of a ruptured pipeline. Pipelines are Big though... whereas Farmer Joe spraying his crop of apples is Small. The thing is... even Organic isn't safe anymore. Carson quotes studies that found DDT in water supplies that were miles away from any spraying. It's everywhere... even in places that haven't been touched.

Oh... and I learned about systemic insecticides that you put on plants to make them toxic to insects. Or that you put on your pet dog to make its blood toxic to fleas. Seriously? We do this??

I think one of the most telling points she brings out is this:

We shouldn't be calling them insecticides or pesticides...
We should be calling them biocides.

I'm going to have a whole new appreciation for gardening and pest-control by the end of all this, that's for sure.

1984 - George Orwell - Part 6

1984 - George Orwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 12

 January 12, 2017 

Book 2 - Nineteen Eighty Four (1984)
by George Orwell (1948)

 Part 6 - Pages 341-407

Reading Time - 60 minutes

Winston's re-education is almost complete. He likens it to a shift in perspective. Rather than swimming against the current and fighting it, he simply turns around and goes with the flow of the current. His intellect has been subdued. He can believe that 2+2=5. He can recognize his "false" memories from the past and not dwell on them. But deep inside his heart, he still harbours a deep hatred for Big Brother. He visualizes the day when he will be executed and how he will be able to let his hatred shine in that split second before the bullet takes his life. In that way, he will have won.

Alas, for poor Winston, he has a dream in which he cries out "Julia, I love you, Julia". He is taken to Room 101 where he faces his most abject terror - rats. At the crucial moment, when he believes the rats will be released to devour his face, he cries out "Let them have Julia, not me". His emotional submission is complete. He is a destroyed man, a burnt out husk with nothing remaining. He is released back out into the world. At some time in the future, when the Party feels the time is right, he will be re-arrested, re-tried and executed.

What a depressing end to the story! Good does not triumph over evil. It is a true dystopian future in which hope is gone. According to O'Brien, the Proles were never rise up. The Party will survive for hundreds/thousands of years. Sounds rather like one of Dante's levels of hell - "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". O'Brien told Winston that the reason the Party will survive is because it craves Power simply for the sake of Power. Not to make a better world or to care for the less fortunate. Power for Power's sake will ensure it's survival. And yet... there is another quote that comes to mind - "Power corrupts and absolute Power corrupts absolutely". At one point... one would think... something would crack within the Party. Perhaps. But in having wiped away all traces of the Past, of destroying and rewriting books and plays and histories... one would wonder if humanity would be able to recover. It would almost have to be a complete reset... starting from Level 1 so-to-speak.

In Unity is Strength - Aesop

The message I take away from this is... a human being is a frail thing... on their own. It is only in numbers that we are strong. Like the story of the bundle of twigs. It's easy to break a single twig, much, much harder to break a bundle.

1984 - George Orwell - Part 5

1984 - George Orwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 11

 January 11, 2017 

Book 2 - Nineteen Eighty Four (1984)
by George Orwell (1948)

 Part 5 - Pages 297-340

Reading Time - 40 minutes

All is not well for Winston and Julia. Turns out O'Brien was not a member of any conspiracy and that Winston was under surveillance for a long time. He and Julia are separated and tortured independently. It is not a pleasant process. O'Brien is one of the torturers and explains to Winston that they want him to be a true convert before executing him. They don't want any martyrs. Far better to convert the heretic than to have him go to his death unrepentant and defiant, even if only in his mind and heart.

The brain-washing or re-education of Winston is a long and labourious process. It takes a lot for him to agree with heart-felt truthfulness that 2+2=5. O'Brien tries to convince Winston that reality does not exist as an objective fact but is a construct of the mind. Everything is a construct of the mind. It is just too bad that Winston's mind struggles to grasp this. In the eyes of O'Brien, Winston is a lunatic.

It is a sad thing to realize how weak the human psyche is. It also makes one question the use of torture by any so-called democratic society. And yet... can any country claim to be untarnished by the stain of torture? While Orwell has portrayed a totalitarian state even beyond the likes of Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia... one wonders how much of what he portrays actually takes place in various countries around the world. Dictatorships are not an extinct species by any means. I had rather held out hope that Winston might survive or escape but this section tells me that he is doomed.

1984- George Orwell - Part 4

1984 - George Orwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 10

 January 10, 2017 

Book 2 - Nineteen Eighty Four (1984)
by George Orwell (1948)

 Part 4 - Pages 217-294

Reading Time - 60 minutes

This section was like watching a slow-motion train-wreck. Winston takes Julia to see O'Brien, the Inner Party member whom Winston thinks is part of a conspiracy against Big Brother. At first, it looks like O'Brien is on their side. He even manages to get a copy of a heretical book to Winston that documents the history of the Revolution and the workings of the world and Big Brother. Winston reads the book to Julia who quickly falls asleep during it.

Turns out the world is in a state of perpetual war between three competing world powers - Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania. The over-production of consumer goods which was a problem in the first half of the 20th century has been solved by War. "In principle, the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population."

Sad to say that does not seem that far off from today's society where billions of dollars go to the Department of Defence in the United States with a mere pittance going to Education and Health Care. But as Victor Lebow, a Retail Analyst said in 1955 "Our enormously productive economy . . . demands that we make consumption our way of  life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate." It would appear, we aren't consuming fast enough if all that excess productivity needs to still fund the war effort.

Later in the book Winston is reading, the author notes "the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival". Not so far off from today and our never-ending War on Terror which continues to chip away at individual freedoms and civil liberty.

Alas for poor Winston, turns out that he has been under surveillance by the Thought Police for at least the last 7 years. Their little secret nest has a hidden telescreen and the man they rented it from is a member of the Thought Police. They are caught.

1984 - George Orwell - Part 3

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 9

 January 9, 2017 

Book 2 - Nineteen Eighty Four (1984)
by George Orwell (1948)

 Part 3 - Pages 152-216

Reading Time -53 minutes

Ah, Winston, he has begun a romance with Julia, the dark-haired girl from work whom he initially thought was a member of the Thought Police. Love seems to agree with Winston - he is putting on weight and his health has improved. While he and Julia share a certain rebelliousness against the Party, they have very different views on how that is carried out.

Winston remembers pre-Revolution days. He thinks that there is a Brotherhood that resists the Party and Big Brother. He believes that if people could only gather together and rise up, they could topple the Party. Julia is 10 years younger than Winston and for her, politics is immaterial. She doesn't care that history is being modified everyday, that the Past is meaningless and changeable. What matters for her is breaking the rules while still staying alive. For her, revolution of the kind which Winston speaks, is stupid. She believes it has always been like this and will always be like this. Winston recognizes that many people like Julia likely exist: they speak the rhetoric of the Party but don't really understand it. It is "by lack of understanding, that they remain sane".

Poor Winston also believes that one of the Inner Party members at his workplace is a conspirator, a man by the name of O'Brien. Winston dreams of speaking to O'Brien and telling him about everything - about his journal, about Julia, about his rebelliousness. Deep down, Winston knows that his death is approaching him. He and Julia acknowledge though, that when they are arrested, tortured and induced to make confessions, as long as they retain their love for each other, they will have one. Confessions are meaningless as long as one's feelings remain pure. Optimistic folk they are.

I confess that I don't remember how 1984 ends. I can't remember if Winston and Julia survive. Perhaps they escape to Eurasia or Eastasia or join the Proles in the countryside? My normal tendency to read the end of a book is on abeyance because I don't want to ruin the suspense.

There are passing similarities between the world of Winston and our own world. Julia, for example, thinks that the rocket bombs that land on London are actually fired from within Oceania (their country) and not from an external enemy. It keeps the people scared and keeps the "War" front and centre. Today, while wars rage around the globe, we are faced with the War on Terror. We lose bits and pieces of our civil rights in the name of "Safety" and "Security". We give them up willingly in many instances, convinced by our government that Security is important in the War on Terror. At least in the world of Winston and Julia, surveillance is rather crude and rudimentary - limited to telescreens and microphones. Our world is slightly different - cameras are everywhere, GPS in our phones and Fitbits track us as we move through our day, emails and blogs are monitored.

I read a blog or a book a while ago that said that our world didn't really match Orwell's 1984 so much as it did Huxley's Brave New World. I'll be interested to read Huxley, another book that I read in high school of which I have only vague memories.