There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.Aristotle

Inner Life Directions

Expanding Reality

February 2022

  • Saving Birds and Porpoises

    If you love animals, and most of us do, you have to feel sad for the way human activity affects them. That’s why when I read about new ways to help counteract what we do, it makes me smile. The first instance I’ve recently came across is about birds. We are glad for wind power and the way it can help us with climate change.  There is a downside to wind power, however: birds, including eagles, and bats run into the blades and die. But now there’s a camera with special sensors that can sense the birds coming and turn itself off. It’s called Identiflight and it can detect bird flights more than 5 times better than human observers and with a 94% accuracy. The system is able to calculate the birds flight speed and trajectory and if there is a conflict, it shuts  the blades down.

    The other innovation is with fishing nets. They kill thousands of porpoises,  cetaceans and other aquatic mammals including whales. The simple insertion of plastic beads in the nets makes a crucial difference. These animals use echolocation to orient themselves and find their prey. They cannot sense the nets, but the insertion of beads alters the whole equation, because the beads can be sensed by the acoustic signals of the animals. They are made of  acrylic glass with  the same density as water and do not add weight to the nets.  What’s even more important is that they can also be adapted to the different frequencies of different species.  Daniel Stepputtis a marine biologist in Rostock Germany, is the innovator behind the beads, and for that we thank him.

    Neither system is foolproof, particularly the beaded nets, but they are saving animal lives, and their existence makes us, me at least, look forward to other such innovations to help other animals affected by humans—Bees perhaps?

  • A Nuclear War Agreement

    Sometimes we get so enmeshed in the news of the moment, that important news passes us by. Five of the countries  who signed the  Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968,  the US, China, Russia, the UK and France came to an agreement.  They understand that there is no way to win a nuclear war, and further  their pledge includes that a nuclear war must never be fought. Indeed it is agreeing to the obvious. Yet because what may be obvious to the general public and what’s seen by government as in their best interest does not always coincides, it took several months to work out the agreement, often amidst difficult discussions.  And yet, regardless of whether it was agreeing to the obvious, it’s still remarkable that it was agreed upon and issued.

    Given the current tensions between the US with both China and Russia, agreeing on anything is certainly noteworthy.  It’s not a panacea and  it’s not going to keep China from invading Taiwan when it wants to or Russia from going further into Ukraine, but perhaps such an agreement could be a factor to at least create a pause for everyone to think through the consequences of aggression, of how far they are willing to provoke. Of course so many nations are after nuclear weapons, and India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea to name but 4 already have them.  That’s a fact that cannot be glossed over. The danger still exists, and the agreement no matter how important it may be does not solve the problem of nuclear arms and nuclear proliferation.

     The agreement is nonetheless an accomplishment, How often in ordinary parlance do we use the phrase ”if we don’t blow ourselves up first.” But for some of us, despite the existence of weapons and of several countries having them, it would seem that when 5 major powers openly declare that nuclear war is not winnable,  we are that much safer.

  • Trust in Science

    We’ve all had to make so many adjustments to  Covid, not all of them to our liking. And yet Covid has brought out a few good things, the change in the 8 hours work day for one. Another is our trust in science.  The Wellcome Trust, a charitable organization based in London,  commissioned an international  survey of how people viewed science and scientists. One of their areas of interest is public health, one reason being that public health policy and programs  which usually come from governments cannot succeed without the public’s trust in science. What was surprising to many in view of some of the reactions to Covid  was that as a whole  trust in science has increased.  The report that was issued showed that 80% of people from 113 countries trusted science either a lot or some. Roughly the same, about three fourth of the people surveyed  (119,000), said they trusted scientists also either a lot or some. The percentage of people who said they trusted science a lot rose about 10% in East Asia, including China, Latin America, Eastern Europe and South East Asia. In the United States, as one would expect,  the picture is more complex. 54% of people said they trusted scientists a lot, an increase of 9% over the previous Wellcome Trust poll in 2018. While to no one’s surprise, trust in science follows party line, an important factor here is that more people trust science and scientists than trust government and what government say or ask.  While that finding has big implications for policy makers, and I hope they will pay attention,  the point is that trust in science is making small inroads despite our polarization.

    That’s why I wanted to share this with you, because it’s easy to look at our divisions and not see the cracks where the light gets in—if I may borrow a Leonard Cohen’s lyric.

Subscribe and Be Notified of New Posts

* indicates required

Intuit Mailchimp

We will never sell or share your information, we promise.