Oh Gawd, microbeads..

If you haven't noticed, there's a plethora of products containing this unnecessary ingredient (usually listed as polyethylene or polypropylene). Shampoo, toothpaste, melon infused exfoliating gunk.

Microbeads themselves are not just unnecessary, they're stupidly harmful to waterways and the entire marine food chain. There are millions of them in every jar/tub/tube and they're impossible to clean up or remove once released into the environment. They don't degrade, and bio-accumulate in the food chain, poisoning marine wildlife along the way.

Finally, bans are starting to happen worldwide, but this whole saga really does epitomize human stupidity, selfishness and callous disregard for the natural world.

I almost struggle to understand how this could happen or became a thing in the first place. Surely when you're designing these products, you'd consider that:

• it could potentially be used by millions of people, and
• it will eventually end up going down the drain, one way or another.

On the other hand, if "skincare" product adverts are anything to go by, these guys obviously have a pretty tenuous grip on reality - I'm not sure you can expect them to have much in the way of common sense, let along any kind of understanding about the environmental impacts of their products.

From the 7:30 program:
GREG HUNT, ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: I have to confess, it's one of those issues which emerged later than it should've.

Uh, the environmental concern was loud and clear back in 2008. NGOs were well and truly raising the alarm in 2011 and it's now 2016. Anyone who follows and/or has an interest in y'know, environmental issues has known about this clusterfuck for a long time. Hell, I remember trying to convince a hair salon back in 2012 that they should stop stocking some bullshit microbead-exfolidating-nonsense shampoo.

CRAIG BROCK, INDUSTRY SPOKESMAN: Once you go into a process of trying to establish new laws or new regulations, you get into an adversarial type of process sometimes. That's not what we want to be about here. We're a responsive and responsible industry and we want to actually work with the Government to solve this problem.

Are you fucking kidding me??! A "responsive" industry would no longer have microbead containing products on the shelf. A "responsible" industry would not had introduced them in the first place. There is only one sensible way to address this problem (that you created by the way) - ban the goddamn things. And impose fines/levies on the companies that created the problem to help with the cleanup. Oh wait, this is no way to clean this shit up... then have them pay for R&D into how to better protect and improve the health of waterways and oceans. Sound reasonable?

Insect bourne solastagia

My family spent Christmas out at the farm house that we grew up in. It was a typical hot summers night like many we've experienced there over the years. But I noticed something different this time - there were no insects. No flies. No beetles. No mosquitoes. No midges. None of the other weird and wonderful bugs that I don't even know how to classify.

We had the lights on. On a warm night in the middle of summer this would usually attract an enormous variety of flying critters from miles around. They'd crash against the window and swirl around the light globes once they found a way inside. Christmas beetles so thick they almost blacked out the the screen door. This year... nothing.

And I think about the insectivorous birds that are (were?) always around and my heart sinks. The beautiful blue wrens who boldly hop and flittter around the garden. The welcome swallows darting and weaving around the varandah posts. What will they be eating? Can they survive?

Hopefully this lack of insects is just a temporary result of the drought - El Nino is biting hard. But it's been dry before and I don't ever remember there being no insects. I don't have data on that though.. just an impression that things are not right with the world.

There's actually a great word for this: Solastagia. It describes the melancholia or psychological distress caused by observed environmental changes. And it's obviously exacerbated by a sense of powerlessness or lack of control over the unfolding events.

My wifes grandfather is 93. He's never been what you'd call an environmentalist,  but he has recently been asking questions. Maybe he's looking back on his life and memories. Why don't you see that type of bird around here anymore? Why don't they catch that type of fish anymore? Why haven't I seen that animal since I was a kid?

My wife explains the basics of biodiversity loss as best she can. But we don't mention that we're inside the Holocene extinction event. He's already depressed enough.

Have I become a techno-optimist?

Working in the tech industry, I often feel like a fish out of water. I'm usually surrounded by people who are even more enthusiastic about technology than the general populace. It's not that I'm anti-tech - it's just that I don't think technology is the answer to all of our problems. Or to put it another way, any individual piece of technology may be positive, negative or neutral, and which one may depend on your perspective. 

For example, chemical pesticides could be seen as a positive by a farmer using them, but negative if you are one of the critters being killed directly or indirectly. Likewise, something that seems like a good idea initially like using the CFC Freon as a safe refrigerant, becomes a terrible idea with the benefit of hindsight and additional knowledge of its role in damaging the ozone layer.

My viewpoint on technology has sometimes been mistaken for cynicism but I don't think that's accurate. It's just that I'm a little less "gung-ho" and a little more skeptical about each new technological advance or proposal. Which is to say I agree with the general theme of Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation - our faith in technological fixes will not save us from the reality that awaits. At least not in the long run.

Having said that, I must admit that I'm at least a little bit excited and hopeful about the Tesla Powerwall. It's going to be fascinating to see just what impact it will eventually have. Are wall mounted lithium-ion batteries going to become ubiquitous in the modern home? Or in the developing world? Will it transform consumer energy usage in unpredictable ways? Will it kill off numerous businesses and spawn new ones in the process? Maybe not overnight, or in the first generation of devices. Eventually however, I actually think the chances of it doing all of that are fair to good - and that's from someone who tends to be a bit of a doomer :) 

Trawling to extinction

The battle to keep large fishing trawlers out of Australian waters continues, as mentioned here.

Commonwealth Fisheries Association director, Brian Jeffriess, said there would be nothing to fear from the arrival of the new fishing trawler. "There's much bigger boats than this operating all around Australia and have been for 10 to 15 years," he said.

10-15 years huh?  It's also more than 10 years since The Empty Ocean was published, which was around the same time that studies showed that the number of large predatory fish in the worlds oceans had crashed by 90% due to industrialized fishing. It was made perfectly clear back then that tuna, swordfish, marlins, sharks, rays, and a host of others will likely be victims of a human caused mass marine extinction if destructive fishing methods were not curtailed.

And it's also perfectly clear to me that as a civilization, we've made our decision. We don't care. Or at least not enough to stop this madness.

Dealing with Climate Change Deniers

The fact that *anybody* still denies climate change blows my mind. But unfortunately, I do know a few people who are dubious that climate change is happening, or if it is happening they think it's not caused by human activity and there is hence no need to change our collective behavior.

Something I've often pondered is how to best approach the topic, or conduct a discussion with a denier so that you have a reasonable chance of changing their mind - assuming such a thing is possible.

Now instinctively, I often get frustrated and angry in the face of such willful stupidity. But showing that anger (by yelling "you stupid fuck" for instance) obviously does not actually help.

And it's natural to want to use facts to shoot down and refute their arguments. But that doesn't work either. It doesn't work for lots of reasons, some of which are discussed here. In fact, not only are facts ineffective, they can actually make the existing wrongheaded beliefs stronger! This is due to something called the "Backfire Effect", the implications of which are really quite frightening.

So if a rational, fact-based discussion doesn't work, what does? My recent thinking is that you have to let that person come to their own realisation and understanding of the truth. You can do that by encouraging them to actually think about the issue, and I think the best way to do that is to ask questions. They don't necessarily have to be leading questions, or overly combative. 

For example, "Where do you think the science is wrong?". "Do you believe co2 is a greenhouse gas?". Do you believe co2 levels are now 40% higher than at the start of the Industrial Revolution? Why / Why not?"

Just reasonable questions that encourages them to *think* through the issue. And often, believe it or not, that's actually enough.

And we're back..

It's been a while. Six years in fact. This blog has always remained at the back of my mind over that time. Something I always planned to return to one day. Naturally, I've had plenty of environmental and political thoughts and issues I wanted to blog about but never quite managed to find the time to flesh them out or do them justice.

But it's a new year, a time for resolutions and hopefully I can resume where I left off, just a little older and wiser. Or maybe not.

I really only post here for my own benefit anyway - it helps me clarify ideas, positions and views that I've been thinking about or have read about recently.

So what have I done over that last six years? I no longer live in suburbia. We built an eco-friendly home, and grow a lot of our own food. We now live in a community that seems to care about the environment. I've changed jobs a few times, including a stint at a mining company (I'm not sure if that is ironic or hypocritical given some of the views I've expressed here). All of these things I plan to blog about soon. Stay tuned...

Retrospective 2007 reading list

On numerous occasions while reading Derrick Jensen's Endgame: Resistance, I had to stop, put the book down and think hard about what he was saying. His impassioned calls for action - "why aren't you doing more?" left me seriously questioning my commitment to change the world. Easily the best book that I read this year. Be warned that buying it will get your name on all types of lists. I recommend using cash.

Endgame: Resistance

Cloudstreet

Man's search for meaning

Flow my tears the policeman said

Perdido Street Station

Zodiac

Against the Grain: How agriculture hijacked cizilisation

The ethics of what we eat

The simulacra

The Weather Makers

Dr Blood Money

Great Escapes

The Future Eaters

The singing line

Greeneology

Comfortable with uncertainty

The Da Vinci code

Chart Throb

Triumph of the airheads

Ask and it is given