Glad to be on a Lucky Planet

Across the universe, the atoms and molecules are abundant. Our planet Earth is less than 1% of all of the matter that we see. A lot less than 1%.

So my body is made up of the same atoms and molecules that exist on billions of other stars and planets, but we have no evidence as of yet that there are other bloggers on other planets at this perceptible time. 

Time is a feature, not a bug. 

Time and space are understandable, thanks to Dr. Einstein, through the theory of relativity. I'm very fortunate that my late mother, Janeth K. (Fisher) Ingenthron, tried to explain Einstein's theory to me in like the sixth grade. And explained the concept of "infinity" to me even earlier, at 4 years old perhaps. 

Thinking about Infinity and the theory of time - that it is relative to the intelligence ability to receive it, like our human ability to read a book which exists in total on the shelf, a page or word or sentence at a time. We have little mouths to eat the Elephant of Time.

Back to Mom... she pushed me to learn other languages (her Major Degree was in German) and to visit other places. Murren Switzerland was my first work-vacation, with IBG which organized projects with 25ish volunteers from 12ish countries to do manual labor - YCC like - to carve hiking trails etc.

Hans Rosling of Gapminder Recognized

A few years ago my son, then a student at United World College, sent me a link to "The Best Statistics You've Never Seen", a TED talk by Swedish doctor and statistician Hans Rosling.  I shared it pretty widely.  In recent years, Dr. Rosling (who still seemed quite young) was increasingly turning over presentations to his own adult son.  Last Friday, we learned Rosling had died of cancer [NYT Obituary]

Over Facebook and Twitter, Rosling has not exactly been a celebrity like Prince or Bowie, but you start to observe really really smart people are all noting his passing.

Here's a short 2015 interview with Rosling with Engish subtitles.   If you haven't seen it yet, go to one of his longer 2006 TED Talk video in English.



It isn't the 1970s.  It has not been the 1970s for over a decade.  The talk about "third world" and "lesser developed nations" and "primtive" and dystopian descriptions are being kept alive by a type of white nostalgia that seeks to leverage exoticism into a kind of nuture-instinct currency.  I do it even now - returning from Africa I find far more photos on my card of grass roofs than of metal ones.  We are attracted to documenting poverty, leveraging schadenfreude, gaining a fantasy of heroicism in the process.

 "Herrschaftskritischer Ansatz" is another good German expression to describe it.

Here is my observation about how Rosling's Gapminder can bring us together.  Yes, this is political.  The wealthier blue state democrat demographic and blue collar red state demographic are both guilty of portraying the rest of the world as seriously far more "other" than it is.

Open Postcard to E-Waste Watchdog Jim Puckett

 "You Are Here"  -DealeyPlaza_RoomWithaView

Dear BAN,

Two New articles appear this week from Chicago reporter Christopher Paicely, centering on Basel Action Network's role in accusing Intercon Solutions of shipping "toxic e-waste" overseas.

1) Protecting the Earth, Or...
2) Heights Company Builds Case Against Seattle Watchdog
3) Where E-Waste Lands: Stigmas, Laws and Truths (added)

It has come down to a lawsuit.  Why did it come down to this?

For Me:   Because of Gordon Chiu (common export shipper to the Indonesia CRT refurbishing factory for both BAN accussee and BAN donor ), I had to defend the honor or the voiceless importers overseas.  Because of Joseph Benson, the Nigerian arrested for shipping used electronics - which were later found to be 85% good.   I was forced to choose friends I didn't want to choose between.

My hotel has a view of Oswald's Book Depository window.  Dealey Plaza wasn't about character assassination, but I know people who deserve an apology, and if you ever want to find them and express your regrets, you know where to find me.  Character assassination isn't as bad as "poisoning people", you may say.  But character genocide has a different name, when the accusation is based on race and nationality.

Sincerely,

Robin

Washington DC Testimony on E-Waste Rare Earths

I have to catch the 5A Bus to Dulles, and don't have many good pictures of the US Trade Commission hearings.  But I'll mention this:

The last panel of shredders and recyclers said that rare earth metals are not recoverable, and kind of waffled on the question whether hand disassembly provides better quality.

Here is an article by Bloomberg Reporter Adam Minter, who visited our Fair Trade Recycling partner in Malaysia.  They hand-disassemble hard drives there, and sell the rare earth magnets directly back to a company like Seagate in Singapore for direct reuse.  I'll show these magnets in a future post.

Here is an article recently posted by Fair Trade Recycling researcher Adelaide Rivereau, who is in Vermont from Marseilles, France, to study "e-waste" policy.  She has found definitive third party research showing that hand disassembly has greater value, creates more jobs, and has twice the environmental benefit when reuse components are recovered.

So how can someone testify under oath that rare earth magnets are not recoverable and hand disassembly is not preferable?

If you repeat the words "toxic e-waste", "toxic e-waste", "toxic e-waste" as many times as our shredder competitors said it, you can become entranced.  They made reference to an article from 2008 by National Geographic, talking about the dirty children burning waste computers from the city of Accra.

The photographer, Peter Selleck, ALSO visited the fair trade recycling company visited by Minter, and showed pictures of the reuse operation there.   But there were no children in those photos, so if I say "remember the really great operation in National Geographic?  That's the one where I learned to hand disassemble hard drives for magnets".   No one remembers the National Geographic in that context.

Toxic "ewaste" + Shredder = small pieces of toxic "ewaste" = $$$

Earth Population to Exceed 7 Billion: Video

According to recent statistics, the human population of planet Earth will exceed 7,000,000,000 (seven billion) in another month to two months.   In perspective, there are now fewer Tigers in the wild than there are in zoos in the USA... around 5,000.   The line of extinction blurs with loss of habitat, replaced by of vibrancy of the DNA (preserved in umbilical stem cells)... 


The best video on the subject of population growth remains BBC's Hans Rosling's, 

200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes

The key to his video is that no country (USA) is declining.  Neighboring countries are catching up.  In terms of international comparison, there is less difference between poor and rich nations today than there was 75 years ago.  

 


The plan is that as the statistics on international well being level out, that the birth rate will level out, and that we may be approaching a "soft landing" as far as survival of humans and life on earth.  If we are going to survive this "soft landing", then we should start to protect the other species and planetary diversity.   Otherwise, we may survive Noah's flood, but we may have nothing but picture books of coral reefs and rain forests and savannahs to show our kids.


I for one think that internet access is important to the soft landing. The video shows that human progress helps humanity on the whole.  As the old threats to our lifespan decline, we invent new concerns about "toxics" and "vaccinations".  


The key measure is not population, but the net common sense of the population.