A Long Walk to Water - Linda Sue Park

2020 Reading Challenge

August 30, 2020

Book 63 - A Long Walk to Water
Linda Sue Park

I got the title of this book off of another diversity reading list and was surprised when it came from the library. It's quite a short book and actually comes from the Junior reading section at the library.

It tells the tale of two children from southern Sudan separated by about 20 years. The first story follows Salva, a 10-year old boy, who is displaced by the civil war. Chased away from his school by soldiers and fighting, Salva wanders with other refugees, eventually ending up in Ethiopia and then in Kenya. At the age of 20, he is one of the lucky ones sent to the United States to begin a new life. Once there, he receives word that his father is alive and eventually is reunited with his parents a few of his siblings who survived the destruction of his village. Salva wants to do something for his village and settles upon the idea of digging wells to supply clean drinking water.

The other story follows Nya, a young girl in South Sudan in the early 2000s. Nya walks two hours to a pond to carry muddy drinking water back to her family (four hours round trip). Once home, and after having eaten some lunch, she repeats the trip in the afternoon.

The two stories, told in parallel connect when Salva's drill rig comes to Nya's village to dig a well for the village. And... with the children no longer needing to walk eight hours a day to bring water to their families, a school is built as well so all of the children (boys and girls) can be educated.

This was a charming story, at least Nya's part. Salve's story obviously has much more darkness in it and I wonder if his story has been told elsewhere, the unsanitized version.

Out of Nazi Germany and Trying to Find my Way - Irene Matthews

 2020 Reading Challenge

August 28, 2020

Book 62 - Out of Nazi Germany and Trying to Find my Way
Irene Matthews

I bought this book off of an online bookstore after getting a recommendation from a Norwegian contact. The book is written by Irene (nee Hagen) Matthews who was born in 1927 in Berlin, Germany. It is a short book (109 pages) and tells the tale of her childhood in Berlin. Her grandfather owned a bank and was Jewish. Slowly, over the course of the book, the "normal" activities of daily life are curtailed for the Jews by Nazi regulations. Eventually Irene's parents send her out of Germany to England, to a Jewish refugee school. Her parents follow a year or two later but Irene spends her youth in boarding schools as her parents don't have space in their tiny apartment during the school breaks. It is quite a touching book and a very interesting point of view, that of a child, growing up in Nazi Germany. My own mother was born in the early 1930s in Berlin, so the stories that she told me are quite similar to Irene's... with the exception of the Jewish point of view. Similar childhoods but so very different as well.

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

2020 Reading Challenge

August 26, 2020

Book 61 - Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe

I was looking for books that would diversify my reading - books from other countries, or other races. This one kept popping up on the lists that I could find so I ordered it from the library.

It was written 60+ years ago and tells the story of a late eighteenth century village in Africa. The main character is a strongman who gets banished from his tribe for seven years after accidentally killing a fellow villager. Fast forward seven years and the strongman comes back to his village after religious missionaries have been at work.

The style of writing was quite fascinating, a circular spiral that kept reinforcing things but then adding in new bits of information. It was a great read and I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to get a different perspective on the world... and on the impacts of European colonization of sub-Saharan Africa.

Atomic Habits - James Clear

2020 Reading Challenge

August 24, 2020

Book 60 - Atomic Habits
James Clear

Hah. So much for my great plans for restarting this reading challenge... interrupted first in 2017 and now, again, after a month in 2020. Ah well... Two things happened. One, the library couldn't quite keep up with my reading requirements and I've had to wait for books to arrive via their hold system. And, more importantly, two... once again, while the reading (50 pages/day) is definitely doable... reading and taking notes and then reading the notes and crafting a coherent blog about what I had read... every day... was a bit too much. I was spending 2-3 hours on this book reading/blogging challenge and that, unfortunately, is just too much. Sooo... back to the drawing board. I have been reading... just not taking notes... so these remaining 2020 book blogs are going to be more scattered and just a one blog post/book deal. Sometimes, things just have to shift.

Sooo... Atomic Habits. It came out in 2018 and I heard about it then because I follow James Clear on his blog. I put my name down on the hold list at the library and... voila... two years later, I received a copy of the book. It's very good and there are lots of little tidbits I could share but... the big takeaway is that habits are not so much driven my goals as they are about identity. I want to lose 20 lbs... that's a goal. But... far better is to alter my identity... I am the person who walks every day and chosen a whole-food, plant-based diet. That's who I am and that, then, makes everything else fall into place. The weight then just comes off as a side-effect of the altered identity.

Clear also laid out the four steps in habits: Cue, Craving, Response, Reward. Something happens (the cue) and we need to do something (craving) which is followed by us doing that something (response) and then receiving the reward. So... the cue is seeing my toothbrush on the bathroom counter and remembering that I am brushing me teeth in the evenings... which means I then brush my teeth and have the reward of squeaky clean, minty fresh teeth as I go to bed. I am the sort of person who brushes their teeth morning and evening.

Clear also provides some guidance on how to form good habits and alter bad habits. The trick is this:

For Good habits:
Cue - make it obvious - toothbrush on counter - in plain view
Craving - make it attractive - nice toothpaste
Response - make it easy - toothbrush and toothpaste are right there
Reward - make it satisfying - going to bed with squeaky clean teeth

So... seems pretty easy but... it takes a bit of work to figure out what makes something attractive or easy or satisfying. There are lots of aids... like habit stacking and altering your environment, etc.

For Bad habits:
Cue - make it invisible - like not keeping chocolate in the house
Craving - make it unattractive - if I want to buy chocolate, I have to get it from the corner store where it is more expensive
Response - make it hard - I have to leave the house, walk down to the corner store and buy the chocolate there
Reward - make it unsatisfying - the whole process is unsatisfying! And maybe weighing myself before I go...

 So... those are the things that stuck with me so far... I also listened to a two hour podcast interview with James Clear which was also quite fascinating and helped reinforce some of the key messages.

Dear Current Occupant - Chelene Knight - Part 4 of 4

   2020 Reading Challenge - Day 220

August 9, 2020

Book 59 - Dear Current Occupant
Chelene Knight
Part 4 - pages 91-129

This section has more poems and a prose section for an epilogue. The poems, again, were hard to follow, the Epilogue was more cohesive. In the Endnotes, the author notes that the book's narrative is rather like a quilt. She says that there are cracks in the narrative that are open for transformation. She admits that she sees herself in double - as a black woman writer and as a writer. And wants to be more than just a diversity hashtag. She's written a previous book, Braided Skin, which also got rave reviews and I might try that one at some point. Perhaps I'm just not savvy enough to appreciate the cutting edge style used by the author in this book but... I really didn't engage with it at all.

Dear Current Occupant - Chelene Knight - Part 3 of 4

  2020 Reading Challenge - Day 219

August 8, 2020

Book 59 - Dear Current Occupant
Chelene Knight
Part 3 - pages 71-90

More snippets of her life in letters written to the current occupants of the various places she lived during her childhood. I find these easier to read. The second section was Mirror Talk, a very brief section of short paragraphs of prose, I suppose spoken by her mother while putting make-up on in the mornings. Again, I didn't really connect with any of this and found it a frustrating read.

Dear Current Occupant - Chelene Knight - Part 2 of 4

 2020 Reading Challenge - Day 218

August 7, 2020

Book 59 - Dear Current Occupant
Chelene Knight
Part 2 - pages 41-70

Two sections of the book in his particular blog: Witness Statements and Cracks in the Sidewalk.

The section, Witness Statements, was a selection of poetry and... not being much of a poet myself, I found it hard slogging. This style of poetry doesn't appeal to me and I found it difficult to engage with it. The section, Cracks in the Sidewalk, were a series of photographs of the various places that she lived in during her childhood.

Dear Current Occupant - Chelen Knight - Part 1 of 4

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 217

August 6, 2020

Book 59 - Dear Current Occupant
Chelene Knight
Part 1 - pages 1-39

I'm reading this books as part of a book group and when I got it, I was a bit surprised at the slimness of the volume. But... I'm game for a short book! This book won the Vancouver Book award and has been written up in a number of newspaper articles. T'he author uses a variety of literary forms (poetry, letters, narrative) to reconstruct a sense of belonging after a very un-belonging childhood.

This first section of the book is written as short letters to the current occupants of the various accommodations that the author lived in during her childhood (around 20). The overall sense is of a very disjointed, fragmented life, with a mother who was a drug addict and sex-trade worker.

I can't say that I really connected to this section, having lived in one place my entire childhood.

Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth - Part 8 of 8

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 216

August 5, 2020

Book 58 - Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth
Chapter 7 - pages 207-249

In this chapter, Be Agnostic about Growth, Raworth questions the idea never-ending economic growth is the ultimate goal... or that it's even achievable.

We get into a bit of a conundrum right up front.. what happens if we have no economic growth? Is it even possible? What about Green Growth?

No country has ever ended human deprivation without a growing economy. And no country has ever ended ecological degradation with one."

Sooo... is that the trade-off... end human deprivation (with economic growth) or end ecological degradation (with no economic growth). Or are they mutually exclusive? Is there a solution? Raworth suggests that it is possible... that we can create an economy that makes us thrive whether or not it grows instead of staying in an economy that grows whether or not we thrive. It wouldn't be easy though... and would require us to transform political, financial and social structures that demand growth.

The problem with exponential GDP growth, as shown in the diagram is... where does it go? The curve just ends in mid-air and some have used the metaphor of a plane to describe it. But do planes just keep going up and up?

Many of the founding fathers of economics (including John Stuart Mill and John Maynard Keynes) thgouth that economic growth must slow to a stop eventually, so that it would look more like an S curve or a logistic growth curve. The same curve works for many other growth processes and would tie us in with the carrying capacity of the earth.

The question becomes, where are we on the growth curve? High income nations might be cresting the top of the curve while lower income nations might be down towards the bottom of the exponential growth. But... for every country to live as we do in Canada, the USA or Sweden... we would need 4 earths. And for everyone to live as they do in Australia or Kuwait... we would need 5 earths. Something has to give.

Already, in high income countries, we can see talk of the economy stagnating... interest rates have been near zero for several years and economic growth is tiny (and even less than tiny with Covid-19). Raworth suggests that (using the metaphor of the plane) we need to prepare for a landing and a post-growth economy. And Green Growth isn't necessarily a solution. The past 200 years of economic growth have been fuel by cheap fossil fuels which have had a deliterious effect on the environment. Right now, we need to ditch fossil fuels rapidly if we are to undo the impacts on the environment but renewable energy can't be built fast enough...

Moving into the safe and just ring of the Doughnut will require a strong contraction of all sorts of industries (mining, oil & gas, industrial livestock, etc) and we don't know what the GDP will do. But in order to stimulate economic growth, governments do all sorts of desperate things: deregulate, dismantle environmental protection legislation and privatize public utilities. We can see that happening in the US and it is not a solution.

Raworth argues that we need to create an economy that is not reliant on GDP growth but one that is steady-state.

What if, instead of being focused on monetary growth, finances was focused on other forms of investment, ones that had social and environmental benefits. What if there was a fee incurred for holding money, which would help make money less of a commodity.

What if, instead of tax relief and public spending... it was tax justice and public investment. What if, instead of taxing labour, governments taxed wealth (real estate and financial assets).

What if we reduced the workweek to 20 hours and offered all a basic income? What if we taxed no-renewable resources instead of labour.

Right now, countries are addicted to econmomic growth in order to maintain, or improve, their spot in the geopolitical world. But what if, instead of using money as a metric, we used human prosperity in a flourishing world. What if, instead of using GDP as a metric... we used the UN Human Development Index.

What if, instead of having consumerism and material possessions as something to aspire to, we focused on emotional abundance and relationships.

Raworth suggests that a better analogy than a plane, which isn't really suited to a lot of ups and downs in rapid succession would be a kite surfer, who is always adjusting to the wind and the waves in a dynamic flow of give and take.

Finally, she notes that so many transformative ideas are coming out of other fields: psychology, sociology, earth system sciences, geography, ecology, physics, history, complexity science... it's time for economics to stop playing a solo jig and join the chorus. Economics does not operate independent of everything else.. there is a context in which it works... and it's time for economists to recognize that and partner with other disciplines.

This was an excellent book and there is way more information in it than I can hope to share here. It's inspired me to do a lot more reading and dig more deeply into some of the topics and ideas

Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth - Part 7 of 8

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 215

August 4, 2020

Book 58 - Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth
Chapter 6 - pages 175-205

I took tonnes of notes on this chapter - Create to Regenerate - which is all about shifting from a degenerative linear economy (cradle to grave for material products) to a regenerative circular economy (cradle to cradle).

The current economic thinking is based on another Kuznets curve which, similar to the curve on inequality, seems to suggest no pain, no gain. Pollution will get worse  and worse but at some magical point in the future, it will get better as economic growth cleans up pollution and replaces the resources that it runs down.

This idea was based on some local air and water studies in the 1990s which seemed to show that pollution in those limited areas did go down as income went up. But... and it's a big but... this did not apply to global issues such as deforestation, land degradation, greenhouse gases, loss of biodiveristy, etc. Despite the limitations of the study, it has been turned into a widely cited economic mantra.

As you and I already suspect, the idea that pollution (at a global scale) will go down as income rises, is a myth. Growing the economy now and cleaning up later doesn't work. Ecological degradation is not a "luxury" concern and we need to create economics that are regenerative by design.

But.. then we have the traditional or classical economists who mock "alarmist" cries of environmental critics. They basically think that what is good for the economy will be good for the environment, placing their trust in the diagram above. The thing is... even if pollution peaks in some countries... at that level of economic growth, we would need three or more earths to bring other countries to that same level (e.g. the level of the UK).

Raworth argues that economics is not a matter of coming up with laws but of coming up with designs. Today, economics is based on a linear industrial model: Take Make, Use, Lose - which is inherently degenerative. It's a cradle to grave model in which resources are ingested at one end and waste spit out at the other end. She also calls it the caterpillar model...

Such a model, however, runs counter to how the natural world works - there is a geological cycle, a hydrological cycle, a biological cycle. Everything gets recycled and recirculated. Businesses could learn a lot from the earth and perhaps even try things differently. Raworth suggests there are five different responses from business:

1. Do Nothing - just keep doing the same old thing... but some businesses realize this is not a smart strategy
2. Do what Pays - some ecological measures cut costs and boost brands ("We are Green!") but some businesses deceive (e.g. VW and their diesel emissions fiasco).
3. Do our Fair Share -is self-determined by each business but can also slip into the mode of taking our fair share...
4. Do No Harm - design a business for zero environmental impact - but being less bad is not being good - if a business can be designed to produce its own clean energy... why not go even farther... why simply take nothing when you could give something?
5. Be Generous - create an enterprise that is regenerative by design and gives back to living systems - leave the world in a better state than how we found it - only generous design is going to get us below the ecological ceiling and into the doughnut. Rather than just stopping all CO2 emissions into the atmosphere... go further and actually remove it from atmosphere. Nature gives us the measure of how one organism's waste becomes another organism's food/fuel. We can do the same. Transform the caterpillar into a butterfly...

The butterfly is how Raworth describes the Circular Economy which still has the caterpillar at its core... but adds wings, one for biological and one for technical. The idea that various products (biological and technical) can be used again and again through cycles of reuse and renewal. She gives the example of coffee grounds which, instead of going straight to compost or the garbage can be used to grow mushrooms (then becoming mushroom compost) or to feed cows/pigs/chickens (then becoming manure). For the technical side of things, it's a bit more complicated in that products are often not built to be easily dismantled and disassembled, plus companies have a proprietary interest in not making them to be that way. But old cell phones have a lot of valuable materials in them and yet in the EU, 85% end up in landfills or the backs of drawers. In Japan, however, they have 95% capture of technical materials... which is pretty darn good.

As we might suspect, capitalism is the opposite of generous. It creates one form of value, financial, for one group, shareholders. But there are other values - human, social, ecological, cultural. The fact that many companies horde their proprietary knowledge means that a lot of them will only recycle their own products... but that isn't going to work. She suggests that open design, open standards, open source, open data and modularity are the key... all of which requires transparency. The idea that a phone could be easily dismantled by anyone and its components easily reused or recycled or refurbished... is a new one... and one that many companies resist.

Companies have been focused for so long on profits and returns that they don't know how to operate any differently. But what if a company had, as its goal, not increased profits, but that it could contribute to and be part of a community. To have a living purpose and contribute to a thriving world. That would be something different... and would require something else. Finance would have to look past dividends and focus on other values. How about investments that deliver long term social and environmental value? Things like community banks, credit unions and ethical banks have already started... but she suggests even having complementary currencies like the Torekes in Ghent, Belgium.

As for the State, Raworth suggests that instead of taxing labour (which increases job loss as companies work to reduce their tax bill by reducing employees), tax non-renewable resources (like steel). Use the tax dollars to invest in regenerative alternatives. China, for example, is investing billions in renewable energy companies. If China can do it... why can't we?

Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth - Part 6 of 8

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 214

August 3, 2020

Book 58 - Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth
Chapter 5 - pages 139-173

This chapter is called "Design to Distribute" and challenges the notion that "growth will even it up again". Rather, we need to look at how we can design the economy to be distributive.

The key graph here is one designed by Kuznets, who suggested that we need to push through gross inequality in order to create a richer, more equitable society for all. The idea could also be phrased as "no pain, no gain".

Raworth, however, challenges this notion and suggests that inequality is not a necessary phase.

Three quarters of the world's poorest no longer live in poor countries but in middle-income countries.... not because they have moved but because their countries have been reclassified as middle-income (e.g. China, Indonesia, India). But... what's really happened is that their countries have become more unequal with a growing super-rich category that has dragged the country from being classified as "poor".

Kuznets came up with a curve while trying to figure out inequality (see curve at left). He based it on a lot of assumptions and admitted that his conclusions were 95% speculation but... his curve was treated as a law for decades. In 1990, it was actually put to the test and found to have no basis in reality. There is no law that says we need to pass through a period of gross inequality to get back to equality. We already know that capitalism increases inequality and tends to divide society into two groups: those that own capital (land, housing, financial assets) and those that own only their own labour (only make wages). Wealth, very quickly, becomes concentrated in the owners because capital returns grow faster than the economy. The success to the successful rules unless the government takes action to offset it.

Inequality matters because it has systematically damaging effects on social, political, economic and ecological realms. It damages the entire social fabric of society and jeopardizes democracy by concentrating power in the hands of the few (wealthiest). Inequality does not make the economy grow faster but rather causes it to stagnate.

Raworth says that we can't wait for economic growth to reduce inequality because it won't. Rather, we need to create an economy that is distributive by design... and not just of income, but rather of wealth, time and power. Which means we need a network with structure and balance that flows in a system of efficiency and resilience. Diversity (no monopolies) and Distribution are key. Large scale business and monopolies make the economy fragile and we need to revitalize small-scale fair enterprise.

We also need to look at who controls land, who makes the money, who controls enterprise, technology and knowledge.

Land generates wealth but there is a limited supply so need to look at land taxes.

Our system of currency is only one of many possible currency designs. Right now, money is created (out of nothing) by banks offering loans or credit that are not backed by savings. I know... I thought they took my savings and loaned it out as mortgages too but no... they just create it out of nothing. But there are other ways too... Switzerland has an elder-care time bank... there is block chain which allows all sorts of digital currencies (not just Bitcoin).

Wages have been stagnant for decades while executive pay has ballooned. Right now, there are three players in business, worker, owner and shareholder... and the shareholder holds all the power. That is juts one design... what if workers were co-owners or shareholders? What about member-owned cooperatives.

Robots are putting jobs at risk - what if we taxed non-renewable resources (like steel) not labour? What about having a guaranteed income for all (we are already flirting with this thanks to Covid 19). What if everyone had a stake in robot technology, must of which is based on research done by the publicly funded government institutions. Look at Norway and what they have done with oil revenues.

Knowledge and ideas are also key but the current system of patents and copyrights is getting a bit ridiculous. Amazon patented their "one-click to buy" system. On the other hand, there is hope with Free Open Source options. Better to teach students social entrepreneurship, problem-solving and collaboration to prepare them for the new world.

Global inequality is still a problem but what about throwing a personal tax on extreme global wealth. What about closing tax havens and taxing global, multinational corporations. That would generate quite a bit of wealth that could then be distributed where needed most.

Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth - Part 5 of 8

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 213

August 2, 2020

Book 58 - Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth
Chapter 4 - pages 111-138

I have ditched the "Reading Time" metric in my titles because it's getting too hard to track that as well as everything else!

This chapter is entitled "Get Savvy with Systems" and demonstrates how economic models based on mechanical equilibrium need to shift to dynamic complexity. The market is not so much a mechanism as an organism. The market is described as if it were a stable, mechanical system but it's really a complex adaptive system.

Our brains tend to cope best when things are near, short-term and responsive. We do well with linear change, not so well with exponential change (just look at the Covid-19 numbers and graphs).

Early economists tried to make economics as mathematical as physics but their models were based on a bunch of flawed assumptions that aren't even real. Raworth points to the traditional supply vs demand graph as a perfect example. That diagram doesn't work for the economy as a whole. Economics is really an area of organized complexity which is one of the least understood areas of science... and requires systems thinking.

In the dance of complexity, there are three things to keep in mind: stocks and flows, feedback loops and delay - these are at the heart of systems thinking. The interplay of these three gives rise to complex adaptive systems which are unpredictable and evolve over time. What might look like a sudden event (like what happened to the financial markets in 2008) is really built up over time.

The two curves of supply and demand need to be twisted into feedback loops and things that are called externalities (external to the traditional economic models) prove to be key. The problem with the financial markets in 2008 was that regulators missed some key indicators, like the fact that it wasn't just about what individual banks were doing... it was the entanglement of individual banks.

On top of that... there is the dynamics of inequality in which success goes to the successful or the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This leads to monopoly not competition and isn't so much based on merit or talent as it is on luck at key points. Raworth introduces us to the real story behind the game of Monopoly, which blew my mind. It was designed by a woman in 1904 who wanted to show the unfairness associated with land ownership. The game could be played two ways, one in which a tax on land purchases and rents is distributed among the other players and the traditional way that we all know (and hate) so well. The success to the successful is a feedback loop and it needs to be weakened if we are ever to deal with the acceleration of inequality.

Similarly, with climate change... we're into a feedback loop and it is not enough to just stop the rising CO2 emissions, we actually need to cut emissions in half if we hope to have any impact. If we don't... systems thinking shows us what will happen.

The twin dynamics of social inequality and deepening ecological degradation have played out before.... just look at Easter Island and the Greenland Norse. "Today's economy is divisive and degenerative by default. Tomorrow's economy must be distributive and regenerative by design."

The shift needs to be from economists as mechanics, to economists as pruners or gardeners. And... it needs to evolve over time with little experiments. Most systems have a healthy hierarchyand are resilient with self-organisation. We would do best to avoid jumping in with both feet but rather ease in and test and evolve.

Raworth concludes with suggesting that economists need the equivalent of a Hippocratic Oath - to act in service, to respect autonomy, to be prudential in policy making and to work with humility.

Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth - Part 4 of 8

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 212

August 1, 2020

Book 58 - Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth
Chapter 3 - pages 81-110

Reading Time - 60 minutes

This chapter examines how we can Nurture Human Nature and switch from economics being focused on the cartoonish character of the rational economic man to something more inclusive of our human nature.

The rational economic man has its roots in Leonardo daVinci's image and, in current economic theory, is the smallest unit of analysis (kind of like the atom in chemistry). The rational economic man is solitary, calculating, competing and insatiable. But, if we keep that image, at the core of our economics, we are in serious trouble. We need a new portrait of humanity.

This cartoonish image of man is rather arbitrary and comes from John Stuart Mill who wanted something that would work in economic mathematical modeling. In his definition, man wants wealth, dislikes work and loves luxury. The image was exaggerated even more later and the model man was calculating his utility, insatiable in his wants and endowed with perfect knowledge and perfect foresight. Again... all for mathematical modeling. Obviously, this is a ridiculous model and yet... as time went on... it was seen not just as a model but as how the real man (human) should behave. It went from being a model of man to being a model for man. This new man has less empathy and is focused on wealth and status. The shift is also reflected in the shift from people being citizens to people being consumers. Language matters.

Raworth suggests that in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) societies, five broad shifts are required.

From Self-Interested to Socially Reciprocating

The rational economic man model has this idea that self-interest is our natural state and optimal strategy... yet that is patently not true. We are the most cooperative species on the planet and there are umpteen examples of people throwing self-interest aside and jumping into rivers to save strangers, or even pets. We trade, we give, we share, we volunteer, we reciprocate. She gave a rather interesting example of the Ultimatum Game to show that reciprocity differs around the world, in different cultures and societies. In the West we tend to have conditional cooperation - you cooperate with me, and I'll cooperate with you. We cooperate as long as others do and punish defectors. In the Ultimatum Game, two days worth of wages are given to the Proposer who has to offer some percentage of that to the Receiver. The Receiver can accept or reject the proposal. If they accept, then they get the money. If the Receiver rejects the proposal, then both walk away with nothing. Not surprisingly, in the West, anything less than a 30% cut for the Receiver is usually rejected. In other cultures however, some Receivers will accept 10% of the cut. In other cultures... some Proposers offer 60% of the cut... Obviously not motivated purely by self-interest

From Fixed Preferences to Fluid Values

Who we are is not fixed... it alters not only over the course of our life, but over the course of a day. We shift as our roles shift from worker, to spouse, to parent, to caregiver, to volunteer, to friend.

From Isolated to Interdependent

We are not isolated but tend to go with the herd. Social networks, who we hang out with, shapes our preferences, purchases and actions. No human is an island and we just have to look at the notion of keeping up with the Joneses to see how we are influenced by others.

From Calculating to Approximating

We have dozens of cognitive biases which hamper our ability to act rationally. But... with nudge policies... we can be directed to make rational choices. We are much more heuristic (mental shortcuts) than rational (evaluate the pros and cons of 50 options). Unfortunately, heuristics is not so good for our current situation in which climate change is largely invisible, delayed, gradual and distant. Something like that does not compute for our heuristic processes...

From Dominant to Dependent

The idea that humans have dominion over nature has caused all manner of problems in the world. And is completely false - we are not at the pinnacle of the pyramid of life but rather woven into nature's web. We need to transform how we see ourselves. Even shifting our language from thinking as nature's bounty as resources to relatives would help... And we are related in the web of Life... so that oak tree outside is not simply a resources, but a relation... would that alter how we interact with the world? We need to rethink how we belong in this world and our role in it.

Raworth also asks the question... how would the Ultimatum Game be played if it was food, water, healthcare or time that was being proportioned out? She also gave a few examples of how monetary incentives (getting monetary rewards to finish school, read books, pick up litter, etc) really doesn't solve anything. It just shifts from intrinsic motivation (I do it because it's the right thing to do or I want to do it) to extrinsic motivation (I'll do it to make money). Once the monetary incentive is gone... what then? For example, in the US, blood donors are paid for their donations. But in the UK (and Canada) blood donors volunteer their time and blood. Which system works better? The volunteer system. Money erodes social norms and values and replaces them with market norms... where everything has a price and everything can then be bought and sold. There are other ways to encourage behavioural change... like Nudges, Networks and Norms. They connect with people's values and identity...

Raworth has asked numerous groups and conferences what a new portrait of humanity would look like and the three same images kept cropping up: community, sowers, acrobats. We are not one thing... so how do we re-draw ourselves?

Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth - Part 3 of 8

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 211

July 31, 2020

Book 58 - Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth
Chapter 2 - pages 53-80

Reading Time - 60 minutes

This section looks at how we can See the Big Picture and move from a self-contained market to an embedded economy.

Raworth starts this chapter by comparing economics to a Shakespeare play... one in which there are characters. And like in a play, where the characters usually have small descriptions, those descriptions become self-fulfilling.

Traditional economics works on the circular flow model in which there are two primary actors on centre stage - the household and business. There are a few supporting actors like banks, governments and trade. But... the circular flow diagram, ubiquitous as it is, is deeply flawed, for it makes no mention of energy, materials or society.

In the circular flow diagram... these are the characters and their brief descriptions:

Market - efficient so give it free rein

Business - innnovative so let it lead

Finance - infallible so trust its ways (we all know how that turned out in 2008)

Trade - win-win so open your borders

State - incompetent so do't let it meddle

Household - domestic so leave it to women

Commons - tragic so sell it off

Society - non-existent so ignore it

Earth - inexhaustible so take all you want

Power - irrelevant so don't mention it

Putting blind faith in the Market however, means that we have ignored the living world and society and allowed the banks to have runaway power. Leaving us on the brink of ecological, social and financial collapse.

Raworth, however, has a different scenario, a new show, as it were, in which the economy does not simply float in a white space and concern itself solely with the flow of money and income. She sees the economy as embedded within society which is itself embedded within the natural world. And... at the heart of the economy is the household... The characters in this play would then be:

Earth - life-giving so respect its boundaries

Society - foundational so nurture its connections

Economy - diverse so support all its systems

Household - core so value its contribution

Market - powerful so embed it wisely

Commons - creative so unleash their potential

State - essential so make it accountable

Finance - in service so make it serve society

Business - innovative so give it purpose

Trade - double-edged so make it fair

Power - pervasive so check its abuse

Raworth then examines each character in more detail, well worth a read. Some key points that struck me...

The economy is not a closed loop (like in the circular flow diagram)... it is an open system that depends on the Earth to be a source (of materials and energy) and a sink (for waste). Right now... our economy is exceeding the Earth's regenerative and absorptive capacity through over-harvesting sources and over-filling sinks.

The Economy has four means of production and distribution - market, state, household, commons - and works best when all work together.

Mainstream economics is focused on the Household as the productivity of waged labour but completely skips over the unpaid work which makes waged labour possible. The Household is the core economy (original meaning in Greek) and sustains social life.  But... with the gendered division of paid and unpaid work... household work is undervalued and exploited. If every stay-at-home mom was paid for her labour... she would get $120,000/year. A working mom would get an extra $70,000/year. And yet the traditional economic models make no mention of this huge contribution to the economy.

The Market coordinates buyers and sellers but only for things that have a price tag and for those who can pay. The Market can become dangerous if it gets out of control and we can see that with widening social inequalities and economic instability. And the notion of a "Free Market" is a pipe dream. It doesn't exist. All markets are embedded and no market is a "Free Market"... think government bailouts of failing companies.

The Commons is the shareable resources of nature or society - forests, fishing, digital commons. Traditional economics has deemed the Commons to be tragic or doomed to fail  but... that doesn't have to be the case.

The State should support the household, market and commons in order to promote the common good... not just defend borders and enforce laws.

The 2008 financial crisis busted a bunch of myths about Finances. It is not infallible. Today's Finance has a dominating role but that needs to be flipped where Finance plays a supporting role.

Business needs a bigger purpose than making money and we need to look at the inequality between workers and owners.

Trade can be problematic as when manufacturing moves overseas resulting in domestic job losses. Raworth argues that there is no such thing as a "free market" or "free trade".

When 1% hold the same wealth as the other 99%, there is a power imbalance. We see this clearly in the US where the wealthy can reshape politics and economies in their favour. Money funds elections.

This chapter was fascinating and gives me hope that we can redevelop the world so that it is more equitable and just and safe for all concerned.... not just humans, but nature as well.

Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth - Part 2 of 8

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 210

July 30, 2020

Book 58 - Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth
Chapter 1 - pages 27-51

Reading Time - 60 minutes

This chapter takes a look at how we can Change the Goal. For decades, nations have focused on the GNP (Gross National Product) or GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to measure economic health and growth. But this has come at the expense of climate change which does not compute for the GDP economists. Using GDP is simply using a very narrow, single metric to measure a nation's economic health.

Raworth asks... what is our goal... she suggests... prosperity for all, within the means of the planet. And then she looks at how the goals have changed over the last few hundred years.

In the 1700s, the goal of economics was secure living and jobs for all. In the 1800s, with John Stuart Mills, that changed to the production of wealth and figuring out the laws of economics... laws that would make economics one of the hard sciences. Today, economics is the study of how society manages its scarce resources bu there is no mention of goals.

If we look at GDP... the goal is simply exponential growth upwards and forwards... words that are taken to mean something is "good".. but is more better? Is unending growth desirable? Focusing on GDP as the sole indicator of economic health omits a number of other indicators. In addition... it raises some interesting questions: growth of what and why? growth for whom? growth for how long?

Rather than a goal of unending growth... what about having this as a goal: advancing the richness of human life. What about enlarging people's capabilities so that they can be healthy, empowered and creative. The doughnut model looks at two areas... the area that humans need and the area that the planet needs. What if our goal were to provide for every person's needs and safeguard the world at the same time.

Shortfalls in the Social Foundation and Overshoots in Ecological Ceiling

If we look at the indicators of the social foundation and the ecological ceiling... we can see that we are not doing too well... Millions of people still live without the basic necessities of life. And the planet is under immense pressure as we blow past the upper limits of things like biodiversity loss and climate change.

We live in a precious time, the Holocene ,which has seen a remarkably stable climate... but we are now moving into the realm of human-induced climate change and we don't know what that might do. We live in a complex socio-ecological system and human thriving depends upon planetary thriving. In the same way that Copernicus rocked the world when he said that the Earth was not the centre of the solar system... we need to understand that we are not the centre or the pinnacle of the ecosystem. We are highly dependent upon everything from water to air to worms and bees.

Raworth argues that we don't need onwards and upwards... we need to come into dynamic balance. We could even map out our own lives on the doughnut model... are we living a doughnut life? Companies and cities can do it as well. To live in a society that is equitable and sustainable.

Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth - Part 1 of 8

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 209

July 29, 2020

Book 58 - Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth
  Introduction - pages 1-26

Reading Time - 60 minutes

I've been wanting to read this book for a while and finally got it from the library. It's amazing and well worth a read! One might expect a book about economics to be boring and/or dense... but it's not. And it makes so much sense. I admit to falling behind in the blogging department with this book, so am going to catch up by doing a chapter at a time, rather than 50 pages at a time.

Introduction

I had not idea but... apparently a lot of economics students are rebelling against the narrow and biased ideological perspectives of traditional economics... perspectives that are out of touch with reality. It's pretty clear to these students that the earth, and humanity, is headed for a day of reckoning and they want to reprogram the doomsday machine that is capitalism.

Buckminister Fuller once said that one can never change things be fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. And that's what this book is about. Rather than capitalism's existing model of endless growth (which is ridiculous on a finite earth)... Raworth suggests a new economic model... the doughnut model. The book offers seven mind-shifting ways to think like a 21st century economist... rather than a 19th or 20th century economist. Part of the drive to a new model is what is happening on the earth and within society:

• gross, and growing, inequality - 1% of the population owns more wealth than the other 99% of the population
• deepening degradation of the planet
• rising population and a growing middle-class (globally) that wants the same things other middle-class groups have had

Economics will play a defining role in addressing these issues as everything has now been assigned a monetary value - from parks and rivers to fisheries and forests. But... traditional economics, that is running the world today, is rooted in textbooks from the 1950s which are themselves rooted in theories from 1850. These theories are based in flawed assumptions and have common blind spots which, if left to continue unchecked, will spell disaster for the 21st century.

The author studied economics and began to wonder... what would happen if it was flipped on its head... what if we started with what humanity's long-term goals are and then seek out the economic thinking to make that happen?

What if the lower boundary is the social foundation... above which there is a safe and just space for humanity and below which there is human deprivation.

And what if the upper boundary is the ecological/environmental ceiling beyond which planetary degradation takes us into disaster territory, but below which, we can live within the boundaries of earth's bounteous generosity. Voila... the doughnut model...

Within those two boundaries, there is a safe and just space for all of humanity to enjoy life. The question then becomes... if this is our goal... how do we get there. What ideas and theories would help to achieve this ultimate goal. Raworth decided that images hold a lot of power and many of the traditional economics diagrams are based on deep assumptions. So, Raworth came up with a bunch of diagrams that can reframe how we understand the economic world... moving from diagrams that are out of date, blinkered or just plane wrong... to diagrams that offer us hope for a different world.

She comes up with seven areas in which we can think like a 21st century economist:

1. Change the Goal from GDP to Doughnut model - shift from a model that fosters inequalities and destruction of the planet to one in which we can thrive in balance
2. See the Big Picture - move from the circular flow diagram (economics is just consumers spending money to business which pay money to consumers for labour) to a model in which economics is embedded within society and within the natural world
3. Nurture Human Nature - move from the image of the "rational economic man" to social, adaptable humans
4. Get Savvy with Systems - move from a simplistic supply and demand model which is based on mechanical equilibrium to systems thinking which is dynamic and fluid
5. Design to Distribute - move from inequality (the rich get richer and the poor get poorer) to one in which there is a network of flows designed to distribute wealth (not just income) equitably.
6. Create to Generate - move from pollution to regenerative by design - a circular economy
7. Be Agnostic about Growth - move from the idea of endless growth (impossible) to economies that may not grow but allow us to thrive

Let's go...

How to Give up Plastic - Will McCallum - Part 4 of 4

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 208

July 28, 2020

Book 57 - How to Give Up Plastic
Will McCallum
 Part 4 - pages 160-206

Reading Time - 60 minutes

This last section covers different ideas for giving up plastic in your community and is mostly focused on activism. McCallum offers tips on how to start local groups, campaign for a reduction in plastic production and, as a second-choice, arrange things like beach clean-ups. As we've learned from this book, recycling and clean-ups don't really address the problem which is indiscriminate production with no end-point in view.

McCallum says that when we are united, we can really make a difference. He suggest that instead of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, we should aim for Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It's always good to remember that "Recycle" is at the tail end of the long chain of plastic...

How to Give up Plastic - Will McCallum - Part 3 of 4

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 207

July 27, 2020

Book 57 - How to Give Up Plastic
Will McCallum
 Part 3 - pages 44-159

Reading Time - 60 minutes

Ahhh... grocery shopping, so much fun... and such a huge source of plastic. Apparently some people say that plastic packaging actually reduces food waste but... when they have done studies, they've found that as plastic packaging goes up... so does food waste. The problem is that we are now buying things in bigger containers (with more packaging) and even going whole hog with BOGO offers which also leads to more waste.

Some options for reducing waste in the kitchen, and its associated grocery store run are:

• make a list and stick to it
• ditch the plastic bags - over 1 million plastic bags are used every minute... surely we can find a better solution - like reusable shopping bags
• go to local markets, delis and butchers - ask your local store to reduce its use of plastic
• pick loose veggies over plastic wrapped ones
• avoid non-recyclable plastic - like styrofoam and polystyrene - and avoid black stryofoam like the plague - it is cheaper for the store to buy but... its black colour means the machines can't sort it in the recycling stream (because the black colour blends with the black conveyor belts)
• take-away food is a huge culprit - talk to your favourite take-away about other options (one of ours still uses styrofoam) - we can make a difference... remember when burgers used to come in styrofoam shells?
• use bee's wax wrappers instead of plastic wrap (we do this now!)
• use dish and floor cloths that can be reused rather than paper towels... and stay away from microfibre cloths (darn... we have a bunch of these!)

There's a bit of overlap between the different chapters because the same culprits keep showing up again and again. So the next chapter was on Giving up Plastic on the Go... Here are some top tips:

• bring your own water bottle (try metal) - plastic bottles are horrible... 20,000 sold every second
• if you need a disposable drink - aim for a glass bottle, can or cardboard container - pick a brand with more recycled (cloudy) plastic - dispose of it responsibly
• bring your own reusable coffee cup
• carry your own cutlery (I do this!)
• make your own lunch rather than buying a pre-packaged sandwich or salad

Another big area of plastic use is in the nursery or kids' rooms... and the biggest culprit is disposable diapers. In the US alone, 27.4 billion nappies are used every year and 90% of those end up in the landfill where they take over 500 years to break down. Try going for reusable nappies or biodegradable ones. Some other tips:

• buy pacifiers made of natural rubber
  
• avoid glitter like the plague... all it is is tiny bits of plastic...
• for parties - try to go for plastic-free decor and use non-glossy wrapping paper (cause it is coated with plastic)
  
• for toys - look for quality hand-made, sustainable toys... or go for second-hand toys

If you are at work... McCallum recommends encouraging colleagues to give up the top five: plastic bags, plastic bottles, coffee cups, plastic straws and single-use plastic cutlery

How to Give Up Plastic - Will McCallum - Part 2 of 4

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 206

July 26, 2020

Book 57 - How to Give Up Plastic
Will McCallum
 Part 2 - pages 49-93

Reading Time - 60 minutes

All is not lost... if we begin to give up hope. McCallum gives us some stories of hope in the global movement against plastics. Cities and countries that ban plastics... it can be done. And when you think that the average plastic bag is used for just 15 minutes and yet will take 500-1000 years to break down... you know we have a choice to make.

We can make a difference... McCallum says that we if we just looked at the Big 4 Plastic Pollutants, each of us can make a difference:

• single use cups & lids
• straws
• bottles
• bags

Reduce our consumption of any of those and... we are making a dent in the problem. He also has some specific tips for different areas of our households...

In the bathroom... OMG... there is a lot of plastic! Think of all the bottles and containers and jars for shampoo, conditioner, lotions, make-up, etc. And let's not even talk about diapers or feminine hygiene products... Some tips that stuck with me:

• buy in bulk - shampoo and conditioner - bigger bottles are better
• try soap, shampoo and deodorant bars that come in non-plastic containers
• keep an eye out for microbeads and avoid any products with "poly-anything"
• get lip balm in a tin not a plastic tube
• try to get toilet paper in a box not a plastic package

Some ideas from the bedroom where, honestly, I thought I didn't have a lot of plastic. But... hello micro-fibre sheets and clothing! This includes polyester and nylon clothing... as well as fleece. Some tips to reduce plastic include:

• wash less frequently and wash in cold water with liquid soap and fabric softener
• buy fewer clothes
• buy fewer new clothes
• buy fewer synthetic clothes
• aim for cotton or silk sheets (not polyester or micro-fiber)
  

How to Give Up Plastic - Will McCallum - Part 1 of 4

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 205

July 25, 2020

Book 57 - How to Give Up Plastic
Will McCallum
 Part 1 - pages 1-48
Reading Time - 60 minutes

I ordered this book, and several other eco-books, from the library as they had zero wait time while some of the ones I really want to read have a lonnnnggg wait list. I take what I can get and this seemed kind of a pertinent topic. Mind you, with Covid-19... everything seems to be going backwards and single-use plastics are making a huge come-back.

The author, McCallum, is a Greenpeacer and one of the most common questions he gets is "what can I do to help". His standard answer is to make informed choices about plastic and to look at single-use plastics to start with: plastic bags, straws and coffee cups. Getting rid of those would be one way in which we can, individually have a big impact. But it's more than that as well... our entire society (Western society) is built on a disposable model, or as McCallum says: "We have developed a throwaway culture around single use that is not healthy, for society or for the oceans."

In the Introduction, we learn that Greenpeace ships have found plastic in every single ocean in the world, even around Antarctica, thousands of miles from any human habitation. By 2050, plastic might outweigh fish in the oceans. If there's one message he wants us to take away - it's this - plastic affects all of us and we all share responsibility, both individually and collectively. We created this problem and we are going to have to be part of the solution.

In Chapter 1, the author introduces us to a short history of fighting plastic and touches on a few key areas, like micro-beads and plastic bottles. The root of the problem, ultimately, is that we produce too much plastic and we have no plan as to what to do with it afterwards. Less than half of all plastic bottles in the UK will be recycled. We need to move from a throwaway culture to one where we minimize our footprint.

In Chapter 2, we learn about some of the problems with plastic... it never decomposes... it just keeps breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. And because colourful plastic looks so inviting... 90% of seabirds have plastic in their guts. And it also ends up in, or tangled around, turtles, seals and whales, to name a few high-profile animals. Plastic isn't inert either... it's a petroleum product, so it releases toxins... which means that it migrates its way up the food chain as little fish eat little bits of plastic and bigger fish eat the smaller fish, etc. Not only that, plastics can soak up toxins from the water... like PCBs... nice.

There are 150 million tonnes of plastic in the oceans and clean-up efforts are a drop in the bucket. Clean up a beach one day and return the next day to see it covered in plastic again.The problem needs to be handled at the source. Five to thirteen million tonnes of plastic are being added to the oceans every year. What boggled me is that one third of the plastic is micro-fibres from our clothing. It's making me take a good, hard look at the micro-fibre sheets that we bought... every time we wash them, we are releasing more plastic in to the water system.

And while I might feel good that we are doing our bit with recycling stuff into our blue bin... the recycling system is broken. We all heard a few years ago when China started turning away recycling from western nations. And the Philippines... and other countries. Because, really, so much of what we send is garbage - things like coffee pods and single-use sachets... like ketchup packets. Companies just produce these things because they are useful but... there is no concern for their disposal... and that is the problem. Indonesia has actually banned single-use plastics and... it works. Maybe it's time to take that on here... The biggest resistance, of course, comes from the plastics and petrochemical industry... but we can make a difference too...

We Have Always been Here - Samra Habib - Part 4 of 4

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 204

July 24, 2020

Book 56 - We Have Always Been Here
Samra Habib
 Part 3 - pages 149-217
Reading Time - 60 minutes

Well, I finished this book last week and apparently took zero notes on this last section! I am only writing about it now, as I fell behind in the blogging.

I have to say I rather enjoyed this book. The echoes of my own life made it easy to relate to and yet it was different. Different context, different life path... but I find it interesting that these intersections of commonality gave me an engaging window into a different life.

I was intrigued that Samra found a queer-friendly mosque in Ontario, one that flies under the radar, since death threats are common. It made me wonder if there might be some faith community in my own city that is more open and welcoming than the faith of my birth. I mean... I know there are... but I've never looked for them... it just seems like too much energy to integrate into a new faith community... But I guess you never know.

There was one quote that stuck with me... after Trump won the 2016 election... Samra had this to say: "What they are trying to keep safe is white supremacy, what they are trying to protect is their own power." It rings sooo true.