Don't ever say we didn't see this coming!

In a Thanksgiving post/column in 2014, I wrote:

While we in the US might feel sheltered from such an listing—however incomplete it is—of less than pleasant developments around the planet, the Ebola virus was a nasty reminder that we live in an interconnected world and that what happens in a remote part of West Africa will not necessarily stay in West Africa. The military conflicts around the world will force the US to act—a burden that comes with being the sole global superpower. Economic slowdown in Europe will affect us, given the highly interdependent economic web that links us to countries that we might not even be able to identify on a world map.
An old idea that is often mentioned, especially in academia, is that “war is God's way of teaching Americans geography.” We need to update that for the contemporary contexts. Now, any crisis is apparently how we Americans learn geography. Thus, thanks to Boko Haram, we were forced to look up Nigeria on a map. With Ebola in the news, there is a good chance that a few Americans were suddenly thrust with narratives about the historical connection between Liberia and slavery in the US. But then, if history provides any guidance, we perhaps passed on all the chances to learn geography.

That was in 2014.

In a post in 2015, I wrote:

In the NY Times, Gates had authored an op-ed:

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has killed more than 10,000 people. If anything good can come from this continuing tragedy, it is that Ebola can awaken the world to a sobering fact: We are simply not prepared to deal with a global epidemic.

More than 10,000 dead.  From a disease. Caused by a virus. Yet, we--in the US and the rest of the world as well--pretty much don't care.  Which is all the more why Gates reminds us even if we care not about the 10,000 dead, and the epidemic that continues to infect people, well, perhaps we will at least take notice if we think that we too might get affected by some global epidemic.

Of all the things that could kill more than 10 million people around the world in the coming years, by far the most likely is an epidemic. But it almost certainly won’t be Ebola. As awful as it is, Ebola spreads only through physical contact, and by the time patients can infect other people, they are already showing symptoms of the disease, which makes them relatively easy to identify.
Other diseases — flu, for example — spread through the air, and people can be infectious before they feel sick, which means that one person can infect many strangers just by going to a public place.

Are you listening now?

I believe that we can solve this problem, just as we’ve solved many others — with ingenuity and innovation.

As committed as he is to the cause, it requires more than well-funded nonprofit organizations and foundations.

That was in 2015.

The global pandemic has arrived now in the form of COVID-19.

If even I from a small town in a valley far away from the places of power and fortune could have been worried about a strange disease that can quickly spread all over the world and, therefore, contemplated about the urgency for a global structure to deal with it when it arrives ... well, shame on the US for being so under-prepared for this Coronavirus!

One more thing that 63 million Americans need to be think about for having elected as their Dear Leader a sociopath who is nothing but a narcissist with an orange face paint! 

An organic way of life

We didn't have a refrigerator at home when we were kids.  In the near-equatorial conditions, and in a vegetarian household, that meant buying vegetables practically every other day.  Because potatoes are more tolerant than most other vegetables, they were stored in a dark corner and were often the option if a guest showed up un-announced--after all, those were also the days before emails and telephones, and relatives did knock on the door without a heads-up.

For whatever reason, I liked involving myself in the kitchen affairs.  Not that I cooked back then.  But, I think I had far more interest than the typical boy did in how the food preparation happened. Perhaps my mother has forgotten me asking her questions like why we needed half-a-kilo of the vegetable and not more.  Like my grandmother, I too was always impressed with how my mother seemed to cook the exact quantity for a meal; rare was a day when we ended up with more food.

In that kind of an old lifestyle, only the needed fruits and vegetables and milk were purchased, and they were all consumed.  Food was never wasted.  Never.

I wonder if my interested involvement with those household affairs is also why I continue with some of those old practices.  Even in my life on the other side of the planet from the old country, I seem to do grocery shopping every other day.  But, hey, I rarely ever have to throw food into the trash can!

But, of course, I have the organic waste to deal with.  Everything from banana and orange peels to coffee grinds and more.  A few months ago, our garbage collection service introduced collecting food waste for recycling.  M bought me a stainless steel compost bin for the kitchen.  Into that bin goes the banana and orange peels and coffee grinds.  Thanks to all that, the regular trash bag rarely gets filled anymore even for the biweekly service!

So, of course, I was immediately drawn to this essay in The New Yorker.  It is all about recycling organics.  You know, like the food stuff and more that affluent societies casually throw out.  "South Korea recycles ninety-five per cent of its food waste."  That.Is.Amazing!!!  At the other end is New York City, for instance:

recycling of organics—food waste, yard waste, pretty much anything that rots—remains voluntary, even though such material makes up about a third of New York’s trash. All but five per cent of the city’s organic waste goes to landfills.

There is a reason that we worry about the organics that go to landfills:

Organic waste doesn’t just stink when it’s sent to landfills; it becomes a climate poison. Yes, we’ve been schooled again and again in the importance of recycling—by friends, by pious enemies, even by “Wall-E.” But the recycling of organics is arguably more important than that of plastics, metal, or paper. Composting transforms raw organic waste into a humus-like substance that enriches soil and enhances carbon capture. In landfills, starved of oxygen, decomposing organics release methane, a greenhouse gas whose warming effects, in the long run, are fifty-six times those of CO₂. The United States has greater landfill emissions than any other country, the equivalent of thirty-seven million cars on the road each year.

USA! USA! USA!

The thirteen thousand tons of food waste produced daily in South Korea now become one of three things: compost (thirty per cent), animal feed (sixty per cent), or biofuel (ten per cent). “People from other countries ask me very often, ‘How did South Korea achieve this success?’ ”

Read the essay to find out how South Korea managed to do this.  And what every one of us can do about this important issue, irrespective of where we live on this pale blue dot.

PS: The essay ends with a wonderful note on the globalized lives that we lead.  The South Korean interpreter, Lucia Lee, laments about her boyfriend's problem that there's not much that he can eat in South Korea because ...  He is a Jain.  Yes, a Jain. From India.  Isn't life beautiful!

I hate losing time

All of us do, I know.  I am not referring to the one-directional time that all of us live through.  Not at all.

I am pissed off at the loss of an hour tomorrow, when we will be forced to switch to daylight savings time.

Pissed am I!

I am not the only one.  Here in Oregon we passed a damn bill that the governor signed off as well, and it was to have only clock all through the year.  No bloody "fall back" and "spring forward" crap.

But, we have to wait for those neighbors south of us to also agree to a year-round clock:

But to take effect, all three West Coast states have to make the same decision and get approval from Congress. Washington legislators approved the change this year. In California, voters have approved year-round daylight saving time, but legislators have not signed off yet.

After the ok from Californians, the Feds have to approve as well.

Why go through this rigmarole of resetting the clock twice a year?  Because we are stupid!  As simple as that.  If anybody believes that this is somehow an energy efficiency approach, they surely are smoking something awesome for them to overlook the facts, or they are like tRump who creates his own alternative facts:

Despite the fact that daylight saving time was introduced to save fuel, there isn’t strong evidence that the current system actually reduces energy use — or that making it year-round would do so, either. Studies that evaluate the energy impact of DST are mixed. It seems to reduce lighting use (and thus electricity consumption) slightly but may increase heating and AC use, as well as gas consumption. It’s probably fair to say that energy-wise, it’s a wash.

We can try whatever tricks we want, but the reality is that the tilt of the earth means that the farther one is from the equator, the more the days get longer after Christmas--in the northern hemisphere--and vice versa.  Straightening the tilt is the only real thing to do ;)

Let's suppose that our reasonable preference is for the sun rising, according to the clocks that we keep, at 7 am or earlier or setting after 5 pm.  (Keep in mind that this is all an accounting game--the sun is gonna do what the sun is gonna do!)  If Daylight Saving Time were abolished, then this is what we will look at:

Source

Abolish the damn DST already!