The Bugs And The Bees

Apparently, the global political chaos we are experiencing is only one of humanity’s problems–and perhaps not the most threatening.

The Washington Post isn’t the only media outlet reporting on what is being called an “insect apocalypse.”

Scientific American has an equally alarming–if somewhat more measured– report.

Around the globe, scientists are getting hints that all is not well in the world of insects. Increasingly, reports are trickling in of unsettling changes in populations of not only butterflies and bees, but of far less charismatic bugs and beetles as well. Most recently, a research team from the U.S. and Mexico reported a startling decline between 1976 and 2013 in the weight of insects and other arthropods collected at select sites in Puerto Rico.

Some have called the apparent trend an insect Armageddon. Although the picture is not in crisp enough focus yet to say if that’s hyperbolic, enough is clear to compel many to call for full-scale efforts to learn more and act as appropriate.

Insects have always outnumbered other life forms–by far. According to scientists, nearly a million species have been described to date. (That compares with 5,416 mammals.) Entomologists suspect there could be two to 30 times as many actually out there.

Or were. And a steep decline would have significant consequences for humans.

Insects pollinate a spectrum of plants, including many of those that humans rely on for food. They also are key players in other important jobs including breaking dead things down into the building blocks for new life, controlling weeds and providing raw materials for medicines. And they provide sustenance for a spectrum of other animals—in fact, the Puerto Rico study showed a decline in density of insect-eating frogs, birds and lizards that paralleled the insect nosedive.

All told, insects provide at least US$57 billion in services to the U.S. economy each year.

How steep is the decline? The Post reports

In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees had decreased by 45 percent. In places where long-term insect data are available, mainly in Europe, insect numbers are plummeting. A study last year showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves.

The article quoted two scientists who had worked in the Puerto Rico rainforest forty years ago, about what they found when they recently returned.

What the scientists did not see on their return troubled them. “Boy, it was immediately obvious when we went into that forest,” Lister said. Fewer birds flitted overhead. The butterflies, once abundant, had all but vanished.

Other research has confirmed the loss of insects–and the dramatic reductions of insect-eating frogs and birds.

Lister and Garcia attribute this crash to climate. In the same 40-year period as the arthropod crash, the average high temperature in the rain forest increased by 4 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperatures in the tropics stick to a narrow band. The invertebrates that live there, likewise, are adapted to these temperatures and fare poorly outside them; bugs cannot regulate their internal heat.

Pesticides and habitat loss are also culprits.

Most of us of a “certain age” can remember catching fireflies–lightning bugs–as children. We recall having to clean smashed bugs off windshields, and seeing swarms of insects around streetlights. I haven’t seen a firefly in years–and my windshield stays pristine even on long drives. Last summer, I didn’t have a single mosquito bite, although for years I was sure mosquitos found something about me irresistible.

Nice as it is not to spend summers scratching, the implications for the ecosystem are frightening.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that this really isn’t a good time to be governed by aggressively ignorant people.

Comments

A Different Kind Of ‘Great Awakening’?

Religion News recently headlined the closing of every one of Lifeway Christian Resources brick and mortar stores.There are 170 of them. They will go entirely online.

The digital shift comes amid declining customer traffic and sales, according to LifeWay.

And it follows the closure of other major Christian retailers, such as the United Methodist Church’s Cokesbury stores, which closed in 2012, and Family Christian Stores, which closed its stores in 2017. At the time, Family Christian was considered the world’s largest retailer of Christian-themed merchandise.

LifeWay had acquired another chain, Berean Christian Stores, in 2013.

LifeWay adhered to a fundamentalist Christian approach, and dropped several popular authors’ books  over ideological differences. It banned author Jen Hatmaker’s books after she expressed support for LGBTQ Christians, and it threatened pastor author Eugene Peterson when it appeared that he was going to officiate a same-sex marriage. It also dropped Rachel Held Evans’ book “A Year of Biblical Womanhood” in 2012 after a similar dispute over the book’s content.

In other words, its approach to Christianity had a lot in common with Mike Pence’s.

Fortunately, it’s an approach–and a religiosity– that is rapidly diminishing.

A number of recent polls have documented a significant reduction in the number of Americans who are religiously affiliated; so-called “nones” are now 35% of the population. Among younger Americans, the percentage is greater.

For Millennials and even GenXers, the most common religion is no religion at all. The Nones claim 44% of the 18–29 age group, and nearly that (43%) among those who are 30–44.

This is more than twice their market share among Americans older than 65, just 21% of whom say they are atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular. However, even that 21% is a five-point rise from where the over-65 group was in 2015, when just 16% identified themselves this way.

Other findings: Barely a third of Americans believe it’s important for married couples to share the same religious affiliation (36%), but majorities do believe that couples should share the same social values (76%) or feelings about children (81%). And it will come as no surprise to learn that Republicans are much more religious than Democrats.

In school, most of us learned about the Great Awakenings of early U.S. history. (Great Awakenings were a series of religious revivals in the then-British colonies and the early days of the country during the 17th and 18th Centuries.) These were episodes of religious fervor that swept through the country before eventually abating. A number of religion scholars have also dubbed the late 20th Century rise of Christian fundamentalism from which we seem finally to  be emerging as a latter-day “Great Awakening.”

America has been fertile ground for these periods of excessive and ostentatious piety, and a number of sociologists have attributed the outlier religiosity of the U.S–we are far more religious than other Western democratic countries– to the personal insecurities that characterize societies with an inadequate social safety net. (Scholars have documented a significant correlation between personal insecurity and religiosity.)

Since our social safety net hasn’t improved, I don’t know how they might explain the current declines in religious affiliation. I personally attribute it to  the excesses of judgmentalism and appalling lack of humanity displayed by the Christian Taliban. The religious right makes religion look pretty repellent.

Whatever the cause, if I were choosing nomenclature, I’d save the label “Great Awakening.” for the current rise of the “nones.”

Comments

The Trump Effect

The more I learn about Trump’s Washington, the more nauseated I become.

I recently came across an article in the Washingtonian, looking at the ways in which Trump’s Presidency has changed lobbying.The lead-in to that discussion was a report detailing another “Trump effect”–his negative effect on tourism.

The development, Dow explains, was rooted in several forces, including a stronger US dollar, economic weakness in Latin America, and dirt-cheap airfare in Europe. But there was another factor, Dow says: “the Trump effect.” The 2017 executive order blocking entry to citizens from six majority-Muslim countries, and the President’s hostile proclamations about immigration, had signaled to foreigners they weren’t welcome here, even if they only wanted to spend money in Times Square and go home.

Understandably, travel agencies and their lobbyists wanted to “change the rhetoric.” In previous administrations, the lobbyists would have started with the bureaucracy, whose officials the lobbyists usually knew.

In Trump’s government, though, the rhetoric came from the President’s own gut. Sharing policy insight with an agency functionary wasn’t going to help. They had to plant their talking points in front of POTUS himself. But how?

The coalition hired S-3 Public Affairs, one of the many DC lobbying-and-media-consulting firms scrambling to adjust to the city’s new power structure. In prior years, says S-3 partner Amos Snead, the firm might have designed an “outside-in” approach—collect letters or petitions from industry backers around the country, bring them to Washington, and use the testimonials to influence lawmakers, agency officials, and other thought leaders. Trump’s Washington, Snead believed, required a different approach. He sensed there might be a more direct path into the President’s head, via one of his favorite mediums: Twitter.

They followed Trump’s movements and sent their ads to IP addresses that covered wherever he was. This is what’s known in the industry, as the “audience of one” strategy—and according to the article, it’s become a staple of the business of Washington under Trump.

We may be critical of bureaucracy, but individual bureaucrats typically know a great deal about their particular area of governance. Lobbyists who want to be effective have to pitch their arguments to people who can immediately spot the weaknesses, ask pertinent questions, and “vet” proposals before sending them on up the chain of command.

Not in Trumpworld. He Who Knows Nothing responds only to flattery, so lobbyists now bypass informed underlings (to whom Trump doesn’t listen anyway.) Now…

During at least the first seven months of the new administration, staffers in the White House communications department compiled flattering news stories about Trump into packets, which they delivered to the President twice a day. According to a former White House aide, as the packet made its way to the Oval Office, additional officials inserted other news articles they wanted the President to read. “It would typically be, like, Stephen Miller putting his latest race-baiting story in there,” the former White House aide says.

When consultants and lobbyists learned about the folder, they saw a fresh opportunity. One Republican consultant told me he was able to plant stories favorable to his corporate clients in Breitbart News—the far-right outlet once run by Trump’s former strategist, Steve Bannon—and then pass those stories to a friend in the White House, who in turn slipped them into the daily packet destined for the Oval. “If you have a friend in there who can get something on the Resolute desk,” the consultant says, “it doesn’t really matter what the source [of the information] is anymore.”

And then there’s television…

The cornerstone of the audience-of-one strategy, though, is Trump’s love affair with television. After the election, consultants began buying commercial time during Fox & Friends, the conservative morning show that the President is known to watch religiously. But how do you get a 72-year-old man with no interest in policy to watch a commercial on ethanol subsidies? Well, the influencers decided, you find old footage of Trump discussing the issue on the campaign and make him the star of the commercial.

“The President’s favorite topic is himself,” says a Republican consultant. “What better way to get him interested in a message than by providing him with the thing that he’s most obsessed with?”

There’s much more along these lines in the article. Those of you with strong stomachs should click through and read it. I’ll just warn you that the policy process in Trumpville looks nothing like the one I’ve been teaching for twenty years.

As for me–I’m just going to go throw up now.

Comments

Mayor Pete And The Long Shot

My husband keeps telling me he’s not falling in love with any of the Democratic candidates for President until the field is narrowed. I know he’s right–and I also know that no matter who emerges at the top of the Democratic ticket, I’m going to work my you-know-what off to get that candidate elected.

I’d vote for my cat if it was running against Donald Trump–and I don’t have a cat.

That said, I’ve been blown away by Indiana’s own Mayor Pete Buttigieg. I was first impressed by him several years ago, when I attended a South Bend hearing on the addition of sexual orientation to the city’s human rights ordinance, and heard his eloquent, off-the-cuff testimony. I’ve been even more impressed by his recent performances on CNN and in various interviews.

And I just finished his book: Shortest Way Home. 

Most books by politically ambitious politicians are predictable “PR” efforts. Here’s why you should vote for me; here’s why I’m a good guy/gal. Here are my somewhat-fudged-in-order-not-to-piss-people-off policy positions. See my somewhat forced smile on the book’s cover?

Mayor Pete’s book isn’t like that. (For one thing, it’s readable and enjoyable–I finished it in less than two days.)

Not only is the book extremely well-written (wouldn’t it be nice to have a President who actually is familiar with the English language? the other seven languages Mayor Pete speaks are just icing on that cake), but it avoids both the typical “look at me” approach of such books, as well as the equally common phony modesty. It is basically the story of a learning curve, as he recounts lessons learned through his academic life, business and military experience, and personal tests.

Because I once was part of a city administration, I particularly liked the discussions of the challenges and rewards of his years as South Bend’s mayor, and the growth in his understanding of both the technical, data-driven aspects of the job and the  symbolic value of appearances that he had initially viewed as time-wasters. In large part, the book is the story of his success revitalizing a city that had been left behind by previous economic trends, with plenty of examples that other struggling urban areas might adopt. (Smart sewers, anyone?)

In fact, the book is a chronological story through which Mayor Pete shares life lessons–including forthright acknowledgments of what he learned from mistakes made and losses experienced.

If the book was written with his current Presidential campaign in mind, it doesn’t show.

I know that Mayor Pete is the longest of long shots for the nomination. But I’m so hungry for authenticity, for intellect, for someone who is smart enough to know what he doesn’t know, and human enough to demonstrate compassion and self-awareness. It helps that I agree with every forthright (non-fudged) policy position I’ve heard him take. It helps that he understands the issues of urban governance and the conservative Midwest. It helps that he so clearly understands the complexities of policy. It helps that his book reflects a thoughtfulness, emotional maturity and value structure that is so obviously missing, not just from Trump, but from most members of the current political class.

I know my husband is right–that it is too early to fall in love with a candidate. But I’ve certainly fallen in passionate like with this one….

Comments

Trump, The Not-Just-April Fool

Tomorrow is April fools Day, which raises the question: how many fools are there? (Does the apostrophe go between the l and the s, or after the s?)

Among the many, many detestable things that Donald Trump and his “best people” have done is shake my former faith in the good sense of most Americans–and increase my estimate of the country’s percentage of fools.

If the last two years have taught me anything, it is that approximately a third of Americans are unable or unwilling to recognize stupidity and incompetence when they see it. I’m not talking about bad ideas, unworkable policies or even the venality and self-dealing that has characterized this administration; I’m talking about the special blend of arrogance, ignorance and limited intellectual capacity that Trump demonstrates anew every day.

Take these remarks reported by The Hill.

Trump touted at an event in Ohio that the U.S. was the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas in the world. He suggested that would not have been the case had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election.

“Hillary wanted to put windmills all over the place,” he told workers at a tank factory in Lima, Ohio.

Trump then mimicked a man telling his spouse to “turn off the television” when the wind doesn’t blow in order to save electricity. The joke was reminiscent of a similar line he delivered earlier this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference in which he derided the Green New Deal.

“Put the windmills up, and watch the value of your house if you’re in sight of a windmill — watch the value of your house go down by 65 percent,” he said Wednesday. “Wonderful to have windmills. And solar’s wonderful too, but it’s not strong enough, and it’s very very expensive.”

How incredibly dumb do you have to be in order to believe that if you use wind power, its availability will be intermittent–that when the wind isn’t blowing, the energy isn’t available? Does he really think the enormous growth of wind power use would have occurred if that was the way it worked?

Has he ever heard of batteries?

And solar is not weak and “very expensive.”One megawatt-hour of solar-produced electricity in North America currently costs $50, compared to $102 for coal-originating power, according to new analysis.

Alternative power generation is much cheaper now over the lifetime of a plant than when working with traditional fuels like coal, according to a report by investment bank Lazard.

I’ve posted before about this administration’s war on science; much of it is being waged by former lobbyists who’ve been installed at the EPA and Department of the Interior to protect the bottom lines of fossil fuel interests. Those officials probably know better and simply don’t care–maybe they have grandchildren who don’t have to breathe air and drink water.

But I don’t think Trump does know better. (One of the reasons I never thought he actually colluded with Russia is that he lacks the mental capacity and self-discipline for collusion–he was simply Putin’s useful fool.) Trump is a walking, talking illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effectis a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority comes from the inability of low-ability people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.

I think that is a perfect description of Trump.

The more important question is: what explains those Americans who–two years into this disastrous Presidency–still support him and cheer him on? A lot of it, of course, is simply racism/white nationalism. He hates and fears the same people they do, and in return, they’re willing to overlook the fact that he is an embarrassing idiot. But some of it may also be attributable to their own Dunning-Kruger effects.

Either way, the rest of us need to get off our duffs, soundly defeat him and them in 2020, and begin to reclaim and rebuild our country.

Otherwise, Fools Day won’t just be in April.

Comments