loving art, science and creative kids
2/25/2023 12:55:35 PM
Diamond Crater
Julie Anderson sings about her favorite things in the Sound of Music. Do you have time to enjoy yours?
The Four-day Workweek.
Two days ago, ten inches of snow fell by my home in the hills of Portland. The forecast is for more snow next week. It took double the time and triple the effort to shovel my drive than it did last year. I found it to be invigorating. As I worked, I stopped to chat with the dozens of men and women walking dogs or carrying sleds by my house. The best hill in my neighborhood is across from my property. Yesterday, the hill rang with the screams and laughter of children. I too was counted as one of the crazies, speeding downhill.
Without having to work, fathers and mothers were having fun with their families. Gone was fear and worry that the pandemic wasn't over. The world was as it should be with people having a good time.
I was reminded of a trial conducted in the U.K. It tested the four-day workweek where employees received the same pay for a thirty-two-hour week as for forty-eight hours. The results were so positive that most of the sixty-one firms involved say they will continue the policy. Fifteen percent of supervisors and employees agreed that no amount of money could convince them to return to a five-day workweek.
Contrary to expectations, corporate revenue increased and absenteeism and resignations fell. Participant well-being registered high on the list of reasons. With less fatigue and more time to spend with children and elders, people felt less stressed. They had fewer guilt feelings from being away from their children. People who worked in nonprofits and professional services spent more of their free time exercising. Those in construction and manufacturing jobs reported declines in burnout and sleep problems. Having a better work-life balance was the main reason sighted for the trial's success.
After reading anthropologist, Yval Noah Harari's book, Sapiens, I thought about how work-life balance was an advantage for prehistoric foraging groups. According to Harari, hunter-gatherers worked fewer hours than people do today. Foragers had more nutritious varied diets, stronger immune systems, and more time for leisure. It wasn't until the agricultural revolution that diets became limited due to the variety of crops that could be successfully farmed. Agriculture ushered in a need for permanent housing that in turn affected population growth and the spread of disease.
Growing out of a desire to make life easier, farming had the opposite effect. Planting crops and harvesting them was hard to do and less nutritious than foraging. Female foragers breastfed children until four or five years, limiting how often they were conceived. Village and city women weaned infants earlier, giving birth annually. They needed the labor. The need to feed, clothe, and shelter large families, required more work hours than before.
The industrial revolution didn't make life easier. Most laborers worked twelve-hour days. In 196, Illinois became the first state to pass a law for an eight-hour workday. It didn't get much traction elsewhere until Henry Ford adopted the eight-hour, 5-day work week for his employees in 1926. Ford touted that workers need time to spend with their families. It took another twelve years for labor unions, advocates, and lobbyists before President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, requiring employers to dispense overtime pay for working more than 40 hours a week.
Despite current laws on the books, a 2022 Gallup World Poll shows that the average worker spends 41.36 hours per week on the job. Those who switched to remote work, spend even more hours working. Clever employers find ways to get around the law by classifying employees as exempt or independent contractors not entitled to be paid overtime pay. Other tricks include; working off the clock, averaging hours over a two or four-week pay period, and misclassifying workers by calling them salaried. Many immigrants and illegal migrants, work dawn to dusk, six or seven days a week--some two several jobs to do so.
Long hours are common for executives as well. Thinking they will work hard and retire at thirty-five, executives are surprised when mortgages, cars, and college tuition don't allow that to happen. Harvard Business Review reports the fifty to seventy-hour workweek to be common, though a slippery slope that can lead to disaster. The U.S. has fewer days off for vacations and holidays than any first-world county.
Following is a list of professions that tend to require long hours; Health care providers, corporate executives, sales managers, commercial hunting and fishing workers, teachers, lawyers, truck drivers, firefighters, water transportation workers, construction workers, derrick operators, agricultural workers, mining and extraction workers. Feeling the pinch of extended work hours, and on their way to burnout, many are asking, "Is this all there is to life?"
The thirty-two-hour workweek is being discussed worldwide. But will it work in the U.S.? It was tried in Iceland to great success, the Spanish government will shortly start a three-year trial run. Belgium's new reform package, entitling workers to a four-day, thirty-eight-hour workweek, gives workers the right to turn off devices and ignore work-related messages after hours without fear of reprisal. Maryland's legislature is considering a bill incentivizing 32 hours, and California has a stalled one in its state legislature. Does it make sense?
From 1979 to 2020, the productivity of the typical U.S. worker increased sixty-two percent, while the average pay only increased seventeen percent. Company profits weren't shared with most employees. Instead, profits went into the salaries of the top 20 percent, and to shareholders who make money from owning company stock. It is why the young people I speak to, are redefining what they want from life. I hear, "If I'm not seeing the benefit of increased productivity, what motivation is there to keep putting in 40 hours a week?" They may have a point. What do you think?
Sledding by my house
My Favorite Things
composed by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II for The Sound of Music,
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver-white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad…
2/18/2023 10:56:58 AM
Pawpaw Tree Maritime Pine Tree
Update on trees
I love trees, especially old-growth ones with limbs twisted and knarled like elders. I was even more enthralled after discovering they communicate for protection against insects and nurture young seedlings. I'll go out of my way to walk past maritime pines with bark like the plates on an armadillo. I'm fascinated by the holes woodpeckers make in rings around pawpaw trees. How do they manage to keep them in line?
Forests are calming, unique places to go to view the variety in nature and to be filled with inspiration. I become upset when returning home and read they are being decimated. I decided to dig into the current state of tree growth worldwide. What I discovered surprised me.
The United States accounts for 8-10 percent of the world's forests, with approximately 228 billion trees. According to the North American Forest Commission, that number is two-thirds the amount here in 1600. As cities grew and acreage was added to their boundaries, farmlands and forested areas were converted to cement and asphalt pavings and housing. With 89 percent of the population projected to live in urban areas by 2030, it is likely that urban forests will be decimated by then.
The east coast began adding back forests in the 1940s where woodlands had been heavily logged. Reforesting succeeded when the forest department gained control over how much timber could be cut annually. Designating national parks played a role in preserving woodlands teeming with biodiversity. Though the U.S. replants its forests, the story worldwide is different.
Dr. Thomas Crowther, while a fellow In Forestry and Environmental Sciences at Yale (2015), organized crews to count trees in given geographic locations around the globe. He compared the information his team collected with satellite imaging and came up with the best survey known to date. His estimates show approximately 3.04 trillion trees on the planet today, half as many as when homo sapiens first appeared.
Though Dr. Crowther's numbers make it seem like there are a lot of trees worldwide, there's a huge catch. Demand for wood is continuing to grow along with the population. We currently harvest 15 billion trees annually but only re-plant five billion. With a net loss of 10 billion a year, our forests will be gone within the next 300 years. Deforestation is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity as agricultural expansion in the tropics swallows up vast parts of the rainforest.
Climate change, however, is allowing trees to grow in places previously too cold for their survival. Russia added 790,000 square kilometers of trees and China 324, helping to balance the number lost in Brazil if you ignore biodiversity. Foresters remove eight or more species in clear cuts but replant with a single species. Their methods erode the ecosystem, degrade soil, and make forests susceptible to disease and fire. Activists label monoculture tree plantations to be "green deserts." Such plantations have expanded fivefold since 1980, killing the flora and fauna in tropical forests and savannas forever.
Trees grow faster as global temperatures rise and growing seasons lengthen --not good news. A study of central Europe's forests shows that pollution and higher temperatures make wood weaker. The trees break more easily in storms, the lumber produced is less dense and less durable, and the amount of CO2 given off drops. Trees are soaking up less CO2 from the atmosphere each year.
Oregon lost 1.1 million acres of trees in 2022 due to drought and extreme heat. At first, it was thought that the deaths were due to fungi and insect infestations. Scientists now agree it's because of climate change. Though more obvious in fir trees where they die from the tip of their leaves and roots inward, all species show signs of stress. The western red cedar's range will soon disappear at lower elevations west of the Cascades and western Washington and move north. Forest entomologist, Christine Buhl warns to start shifting expectations of what tree species to plant in the state. for those common in California will move to our region.
It is a lot to take in, but following are a few additional tidbits of information.a) Trees are the world's longest-living species. Some of California's giant sequoias and Bristlecone pines are between 3,000 and 5000-years-old.
b) Planting trees in urban areas lower vandalism, graffiti, and littering.
c) The earth will receive an additional 260 million tons of oxygen and remove 10 million tons of CO2 by planting 20 million trees.
d) Trees that grow in the sun have thicker bark than those in the shade.
e) Patients with a view of green trees from their hospital bed, spend 8% less time in the hospital than those who don't.
f) Customers spend more money in shopping districts with trees. They stay longer and perceive products and stores as being of higher quality.
g) Tree limbs are not exactly spherical. They feature an upper (compression) and lower (tension) side that allows them to sustain their own weight as well as the weight of the leaves, nuts, or fruits dangling in mid-air.
h) Utah is home to the world's oldest clonal tree cluster. According to DNA tests, the Pando group of quaking aspens is roughly 80,000 years old, wishing over 6,000 tons. . It features over 40,000 stems that are branches of a single tree. It is only the world's oldest living creature but also the biggest.
i) A 2022 threat assessment of 881 native tree species in the U.S. shows that 11-16% are threatened with invasive pests and diseases. The most threatened are Oaks and Hawthorns.
j) The tallest in Redwood Mountain Grove is as tall as a 31-story building, the Widest is in Kings Canyon National Park with a circumference the length of two Toyota Priuses, and the Biggest Tree in Sequoia National Park weighs the same as 107 elephants.
Please share your observations of trees in your area and let followers of this newsletter know about your favorite parks. Comment below on my blog site.
I do hope you find time to enjoy outings to national and state parks and forests. If the weather is too cold or wet, you are invited to "Walk in the Woods with me this April at Lake Oswego Library. Twenty-six of my tree paintings will be on display during the Arbor Month exhibit.
16" X 20" Canvas prints of the originals are on sale and delivered to your door for $99. Choose your favorites to make your own forest walk. Go to https://www.eichingerfineart.com/collections/182747. Click on the ones you like. Purchasing is easy.
References:
How Many Trees are in the World Today vs 1000 Years Ago? retrieved from The Environmentor.https://blog.tentree.com/fact-check-are-there-really-more-trees-today-than-100-years-ago/#:~:text=Changes%20in%20the%20Last%20Hundred,had%20in%20the%20year%20160
Supriya, L. (2018) Climate change is making trees big, but weaker. Science.
Earth-has more trees than it did 35 years ago- but there’s a huge catch. World Economic Forum . retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/08/planet-earth-has-more-trees-than-it-did-35-years-ago/
Firmageddon” Researhers find 1.1 million acres of dead trees in Oregon.News. retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/firmageddon-researchers-find-11-million-acres-dead-trees-oregon-rcna59671
Kilgore, G. (2022) How Many trees Are in the United States? Shocking Stats. RForestry, Trees, and Tree Planting. retrieved from https://8billiontrees.com/trees/how-many-trees-are-in-the-united-states/
NatureSuErve website. (2022) Researchers complete first comprehensive threat assessment of all U.S. trees. retrieved from https://www.natureserve.org/news-releases/researchers-complete-first-comprehensive-threat-assessment-all-us-trees
Hance, H. (2008) Monoculture tree plantations are “ green deserts” not forests, say Activists.Mongabay; news and inspiration from Nature’s Frontline. retrieved from https://news.mongabay.com/2008/09/monoculture-tree-plantations-are-green-deserts-not-forests-say-activists/
2/11/2023 11:45:46 AM
Connections
Ethics, religion, and today’s society
Why do ethical people do bad things? Most companies have compliance policies that are signed by all employees. Families and schools instill behavioral guidelines for children. Churches preach moral precepts to parishioners, and societies develop informal and formal ethical rules that guide daily intercourse.
When I listen to the news, I find so many of the moral precepts I was indoctrinated with as a child are routinely broken. People barely lift an eyebrow when someone curses or gives them the finger. Men don't open the door for women or give up their seats on a crowded bus.
The commandments in Jewish and Christian theology say "Thou shalt not kill," yet prisoners are put on death row and soldiers kill those we call enemies one minute and friends the next. Gun ownership of military-style weapons keeps multiplying and homicides continue to escalate.
"Thou shalt not steal," is given a wink, with theft so rampant. We deal with it by paying more for insurance, for we don't know how to make thieves feel guilty. Government offices are filled with employees who have committed adultery, lied, stolen, and accepted bribes. It is hard to think of the U.S. as a moral country. We have many friends and family who have suffered from the absence of societal values.
Ethics is a value system based on humanistic assumptions (morals). It appeals to reason based on widely shared sentiments, many of which are written into law. As a tool for right and wrong, ethics is inclusive of all religious persuasions including atheists.
The difficulty with ethics, is that good or bad are complicated by circumstances. Moral decisions can depend on finances, gender, age, culture, personal beliefs, and experiences. Morally right decisions can have negative consequences. If your Sudanese children are starving due to years of drought, is it wrong to steal food or is it better to let them die? Federal Prosecutor Serina Vash says, "When I first began prosecuting corruption, I expected to walk into rooms and find the vilest people. I was shocked to find ordinarily good people I could well have had coffee with that morning. And they were still good people who'd made terrible choices." Doing right can be harder than doing what is convenient.
Some ruthless people do good for others after amassing their fortune. John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, built an empire by removing competition at any cost. He was accused of being a "snake-oil salesman, bigamist, and rapist. Labor activists, politicians, and demonstrators hated Rockefeller. Several people tried to kill him. Yet he did a lot of good in the community. He gave $540 million away to charity during his life and established a foundation that catalyzed the Green Revolution. He once said, "Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it's my duty to make money and to use the money I make for the good."
Most religions are based on revelation, not ethical precepts. The Bible, the Torah, the Koran, and other religions embrace a moral order coming from a higher power, a deity, or some other force. Religions claim that their belief system is the best guide to follow. Though some religions are more liberal, most traditions preach that their faith is a path to enlightenment and salvation. The "thou shalt nots," moralize ethics by coming from God.
Though many values are shared by religious and non-religious people, the punishments for not following the ethical rules differ. In Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism, religious tribunals are reinforced by depictions of suffering in hell. Being good leads to eternal life.
As people turn from religion, traditional inhibitors stop working.
Moral purity restrictions around diet, dress, and sexual behavior are questioned by followers. A Jewish Kosher diet, Hindu vegetarianism, Muslim restrictions to pork, tattooing, body pricing, and hari-kari are no longer in secular law. The French people remain conflicted over wearing Islamic coverings in public. Their debate embraces the question of the role of women in French society. Islamic doctrine and tradition conflict with the French policy of minority assimilation.
According to a 2021 Gallup Poll, Americans say moral values are declining, and moral confusion has led to a dysfunctional chaotic mess. The reasons for the decline are, "an anything goes" attitude, less distance between right and wrong, greed, rejecting God, and redefining morality to suit one's own self. Still, there are those who say that moral norms have improved by being more transparent than in the past. It is harder to hide indiscretions, and we are a more caring compassionate, philanthropic society than before.
Pastor Dawn Blundell wrote for the Reno Gazette, "I think we make major mistakes when we judge other people's actions according to our own criteria, as though morality was all about behavior. Much of what we might look at from the outside and call "immoral" is driven by the need for love, connection, hope …whereas the true immorality is in the systems that cause such lostness and despair."
What do I think? Take good care of yourself so you have the strength to do the right thing and care for others.
What about you? Do share your opinion on my blog site
References:
Carucci, R. (2018) Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices. Harvard Business Review. retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/12/why-ethical-people-make-unethical-choices
Arthur W. Page Center website. (2023) The Difference Between Ethics and Religion. retrieved from https://archive.pagecentertraining.psu.edu/public-relations-ethics/ethical-decision-making/yet-another-test-page/the-difference-between-ethics-and-religion/
Donahue, J. (2006) Does Ethics Require Religion? Greater Good Magazine; Science-based insights for a meaningful life. retrieved from https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/does_ethics_require_religion
Dictionary. com. What’s the difference between morals and ethics? retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/e/moral-vs-ethical/
Parr, S. (2016)The Epic Rise of John D. Rockefeller. The Hustle. retrieved from https://thehustle.co/the-history-of-john-d-rockefeller-standard-oil/
Zed, R. (2022) What’s the status of morality in our nation today? Reno Gazette. retrieved from https://www.rgj.com/story/life/2022/02/03/whats-status-morality-our-nation-today-faith-forum/6653207001/
2/3/2023 10:10:47 PM
Limitless Possibilities
So many people, so many ways, so many paths. It isn't very clear. Should we use our minds and set boundaries or physiology to let biological instincts lead the way?
Oh, Rats!
Is the human species so messed up that people now behave like rats in a cage? Considering that we are biological animals, it isn’t surprising that the aggressive and deviant behaviors we see on the street are responses that mimic rat behavior in crowded situations. The world’s population grew dramatically since Thomas Malthus wrote his 1798 Essay of the Principle of Population. He thought the problems Industrial European society suffered from —poverty, malnutrition, and disease—all attributable to overpopulation. If growth were left unrestricted, the population would grow at an exponential rate, exceeding its ability to produce resources to support itself. He cautioned that if action wasn’t taken, the growing population would self-correct through war, famine, and disease. Social scientists say his prediction didn’t come true because humans have the foresight and the ability to plan for the future. New agricultural technologies put Malthus’ theories on the back burner for the next two-hundred years.
The conversation returned to the forefront when Stanford University Professor Paul Ehrich wrote The Population Bomb with environmental issues part of the discussion. In 1968, 3.55 billion people occupied the globe, increasing by 2.09 percent a year. Ehrich was an optimist though. He too thought that human foresight and emerging Ag technologies would keep the population safe from disaster. After revisiting his predictions fifty years later, he said that the most serious flaw in his writing was that it was too optimistic about the future. Fresh water is one of the greatest limitations facing the world. Today there are over 8 billion people on the globe, and though the rate of increase has dropped to less than 1 percent, the base number is high. The UN predicts that in seven years the earth will have to support 600 million more people.
Rats! Where will they all go? What will happen to the United States? An estimated 83 percent of the population already resides in urban areas, increasing urban land by 15 percent. That’s up from the 64 percent recorded in 1950. By 2050, metropolitan occupancy is expected to reach 89 percent, causing double the need for urban land by 2060. More than 300 urban areas today have a population of over 100,000. The average urban population density is 283 people per square mile. New York, a city with 8.8 million inhabitants, has 27,012 people in every square mile.
Oh, Rats!
Back in 1962, animal ecologist John Calhoun foresaw a future of overcrowded cities and devised a population experiment by introducing five pregnant rats in a quarter-acre pen that could accommodate as many as 5000. The animals were given adequate food, water, and shelter. To his surprise, the rat population grew rapidly at first, but over time subsided and leveled off at 150. Following is a description of what he saw.
“Dominant males became aggressive, some moving in groups, attacking females and the young. Mating behaviors were disrupted. Some became exclusively homosexual. Others became pansexual and hypersexual, attempting to mount any rat they encountered. Mothers neglected their infants, first failing to construct proper nests, and then carelessly abandoning and even attacking their pups. In certain sections of the pens, infant mortality rose as high as 96%, the dead cannibalized by adults. Subordinate animals withdrew psychologically, surviving in a physical sense but at an immense psychological cost. They were the majority in the late phases of growth, existing as a vacant, huddled mass in the centre of the pens. Unable to breed, the population plummeted and did not recover. The crowded rodents had lost the ability to co-exist harmoniously, even after the population numbers once again fell to low levels. At a certain density, they had ceased to act like rats and mice, and the change was permanent.”
Since Calhoun’s experiment, social scientists and biologists in the fields of ecology and mental health continued studying issues around urban crowding. They investigated prisons, mental health hospitals, refugee camps, and slums. Recent research focuses on destination communities where the quality of life for the residents plummeted as tourism increased.
Though there is some variation in results, overall studies show that crowded conditions increase the risk of the spread of infectious diseases, cause stress, and create mental health problems and sleep disorders. Home injuries multiply since many crowded areas are in poor repair. And, urban sprawl brings traffic congestion, air and water pollution and in some cases flooding. The demand for energy rises and water quality decreases. An urban heat effect from so much cement and high- rise buildings, causes temperatures to rise and greenhouse gas emissions to get trapped in the atmosphere. The average annual temperature in metropolitan areas is 1-7 degrees higher than in rural regions.
Given these conditions, it is not surprising that there are so many mass shootings, suicides, and unsheltered people. Wealthy families reside in dwellings with adequate per-person space. They live near parks and shop in neighborhoods that are relatively safe. Since the pandemic, they’ve taken even more control over their lives by demanding their employers let them work from home on flexible work schedules.
The majority of the population is not so fortunate. Their wages are low and they have little control over their hours and work week. They arrive at their jobs stressed by living in crowded apartments in crowded neighborhoods. Some become disturbed and exhibit behaviors like those in Calhoun’s experiments. They self-medicate with drugs and alcohol, become aggressive drivers, develop deviant sexual behaviors, commit suicide, join gangs, steal, riot, and murder. Their aggression crosses neighborhood boundaries to impact others who live and work in the city. They create fear throughout the nation and sometimes the world.
Human brains are capable of designing housing and community areas for dense populations. Theoretically, we should be able to build livable cities that don’t impact the environment. We should understand the impact eight billion people have on global resources and the psychological problems that occur when it is too crowded.
We should, but we don’t. The wealthy don’t want to foot the bill to make cities equitable for all. And, I don’t see our citizens as having the will to tackle problems caused by urban living. I don’t see them making the leaps needed to protect the environment.
I am hopeful that we’ll wake up and change. Since the world’s population is still growing and ever more people are migrating to urban areas, cities will become more dysfunctional, putting more pressure on residents to remain sane.
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