Patricia McLellan's Blog – Personal thoughts, memories, walks, craft projects and book reviews

2024-04-222024-04-21

Evening walk at Rostad, Inderøy

One of the nice things about April is the light evenings which allow me to get out for a walk. This week I met a girl friend at about 6 pm and we took a 50 minute walk that we have done many times before, but this was the first time in 2024.

“Rostadrunden” means that the trails go in a circle and one can walk either way.

During the summer months, we can often get points for going to certain parts of this trail, but it is too early in the season yet for that. But it was a nice sunny evening, though there was a very cold wind blowing. The temperature was about +5 degrees centigrade, but there was a big difference between being in the sun or being in the shade. There is public parking near these signs, which holds five or six cars. We each drove a car as this location is halfway between where we live and we come from opposite directions.

The property at Rostad was originally a wealthy family’s farm. The house has been well-preserved and is often used for meetings. The farm continues to be used as a farm. However, for about the last one hundred years, a residential school has existed on the property. Over the decades the type of school has changed and who has run the school has changed. The first school was an orphanage which started in 1902. The property is currently run by the CRUX Foundation. CRUX Rostad is an institution for teens aged 13-19 who need a place to live when their parents are not able to function. The institution has 12 residential places. The children live in other newer buildings on the estate.

At the parking spot there is information about Rostad. A former prime minister of Norway, Ole Richter, grew up here and later represented Norway during its union time with Sweden. He inherited the farm but had no descendants so at his death the estate was sold. Ebba Astrup became the first director of the orphanage that opened in 1902 and she worked there until 1918. In 1927, she gave money to start the Rostad Foundation. It is still run by a foundation.

The mausoleum where Ole Richter is buried.

There are not many mausoleums in Norway, but on this property there is one. Ole Richter was buried here after his death in 1888, along with his wife who had died a few years before.

The gate posts on the road up from the fjord

Though today this estate is easily reached by paved road, in the 19th century, access to the estate would have been from the fjord. There is a gravel, tractor road that we followed down the hill. The gate posts in the picture would have been the formal entrance to the main building. We decided to take the walk in the counter-clockwise direction, so we started by going downhill, about 500 meters towards the fjord. It was very windy on the water, so we avoided going right down to the fjord.

A lot of the walk goes through the woods. It goes up and down quite a bit, but there are no very steep sections. Most of it was quite dry, though the streams had plenty of water in them. The trees are quite bare still and the ground is covered with the leaves that came down in the fall. It is evening, so there are small patches of sunshine, but at times the woods are quite dark. It stays light until about 9 pm now.

There was only one section that was muddy, so here there is obviously water that drains off the hillside that is not put through a pipe. It was a very short section and very easy to get around.

The white anemone is an early flower that comes out on the forest floor before the leaves come out on the deciduous trees and take away the sunshine. These were the first ones that I had seen this year, so it must be a spot that is both sheltered and sunny. Note that the moss seems to be growing quite well here as well.

There is a stream that runs through the property. Where it comes out at the fjord, there is quite a drop and it has been used to power a grain mill in the past. It doesn’t look like a very large stream here, but it is nice to have a bridge to cross it. At this point the trail divides and if one wanted to walk to Undersåker (approximately 2 km to the east by the trail), one could take off on a trail that goes off to the right from here. We are coming from the foreground, will cross the bridge and head off to the left. You can see directional signs, but there are also a lot of information signs on this part of the trail, primarily about dwellings in the past.

Farm field at Rostad, looking toward Trondheimfjord

As we came out of the woods, we looked across a farm field to see the fjord in the distance. This is a working farm with grains and grasses being grown.

It didn’t take us long from here to get back to our cars. It was lovely to get out. For me it is also a social time with a girl friend. I enjoy springtime, with sunny days and nature just starting to turn green again. The air can be cold still, but with no leaves on the deciduous trees, one can see more in the distance. I hope you can enjoy a walk today too.

2024-04-17

Regular Walks

Most weeks I walk once or twice up to a local dairy farm, Åsvang, to buy fresh milk in bottles. And by “up” I mean a 25 minute walk uphill, and a little more than one and a half kilometers. According to Google Maps we live at 32 meters above sea level and the farm is 129 meters above sea level, meaning that there is an altitude difference of 97 meters. It is good exercise.

When one does the same walk many times, it may seem a bit repetitive, but as the seasons change, it is interesting to see what changes have happened since the last walk. Especially in spring, there can be quite a few changes, just in a week. We’ve recently had plenty of rain and the walk today was sunny, so nature is coming to life again after winter.

Where just a few weeks ago, these first yellow flowers were hard to find, they are now coming out in large clumps and quickly spreading along the sunny road banks. All pictures in this blog were taken on 2024.04.16.

View from Åsvang, looking west, 2024.04.16

As one looks over the fields, some of them are just starting to turn green. The snow has disappeared, but it will be a while before the trees have leaves on them. If you look carefully, you can just see the tops of the two towers of Skarnsund Bridge.

I love it when the new growth is starting to be more visible. Even the deer are starting to find enough grass in the fields to eat. There is still a lot of dry grass from the last year, but the new growth will soon be tall enough that one won’t see last year’s growth which becomes fertilizer for the new growth.

Though the fields are still mostly brown with dried grass, some of the fields have been plowed, often in the fall before the winter came. The road bank to the right of the road is just starting to show the promise of green grass. In the distance can be seen an island, Ytterøy, which means the outer island. We live in Inderøy, the inner island, which is actually a peninsula.

Along the road to Vangshylla, 2024.04.16

In the ditch, where there is still plenty of dampness from the heavy rains a few days ago, the leaves of flowering plants are showing that it won’t be long before there will be more flowers to be seen.

In a previous blog I mentioned people cutting down trees for firewood. Here’s an area that has been attacked by such a person. There is a field to the left, but in the center of the picture quite a few trees have been cut down this spring, making the hillside look bare. The small branches are left to rot, which is fine, but it doesn’t look very good.

For many, spring is a problem with pollen. The birch tree is one that can cause quite a bit of problem, both for myself and many others. Already, the trees are putting out their pollen producing catkins, but it will be a month before the leaves come out on birches. There is a sharp difference in color between deciduous trees, like the birch, and the evergreens, either pine or spruce, which you can see in the background of this picture.

Willow trees put out their flowers long before the leaves come out. The pussy willows on this tree are just starting to come out and will soon be shedding their pollen. Checking today’s pollen warning shows “moderate” for willows, or salix.

Trees are always hard to photograph close-up, in my opinion. What I see with my eye, is not always what appears in the photograph. Eyes are really much better devices than cameras in many ways, even older eyes. This year there have been a lot of spruce shoots from the ends of branches lying on the ground as if there has been too little food and animals have been eating the shoots. The new growth has not really started but at the very ends, there are signs of new growth just coming. The spruce trees did not bloom last year, and there are very few cones left for the squirrels to munch on, so I hope the trees bloom this year.

I am always eager to see what is coming up in my garden. Once the sprouts are showing from the bulbs, growth can happen amazingly quickly. Here are both tulips and daffodils coming up and there is also a peony plant that will emerge as well. The tulips don’t do very well anymore as the deer tend to eat them. But the daffodils do well as the deer don’t eat them.

Our house is called “Fjellheim” and we translate that as “Cliff Cottage”, though a more direct translation would be “mountain home”. The above plant is a wild orchid that comes up every year. When we first moved to the house, it was growing in a ditch, as it needs lots of water. I carefully moved it one year so that it didn’t get destroyed by people digging in the ditch and I managed to find a place where it thrives. It comes up early, and already the flower stem is starting to show in the middle. This one will have a dark purple flower.

The lilac bush’s buds are starting to open out in the sunshine. We still have frost at night, but the daytime temperatures can be up to about 10 degrees. This bush gets lots of sunshine and will be one of the first ones on our lot to put out its leaves and flowers.

Crocuses are the first bulbs to bloom and these ones are enjoying the sunshine under the lilac bush. These come up in a bed where we have been putting snow when clearing the driveway in the winter, so there are always a lot of stones in the bed. Eventually the largest of them will be put back on the driveway, though that is a tedious job.

These were some of the delights of nature this week. But the joy of this time of year is how things change quickly. The earliest flowers disappear, the leaves come out on the trees, and new flowering plants emerge. I hope you can get outdoors and enjoy the nature that is around you.

2024-04-102024-04-10

Air Pollution

When one lives in a rural area in Norway, one sees people cutting down trees for firewood. It is almost the end of the heating season, but many people still have wood stoves for heating their homes. Those who cut down trees themselves are often out at this time of year to get the wood necessary for the next heating season. Personally I am very glad that we have cut out burning wood inside our house. We’ve removed one old wood stove from our living room. No more bad air there.

I have read quite a bit in recent years about climate change and what we have done right and what still has to be done. I’d like to quote Bjørn H. Samset who writes in The Climate Book (published by Allen Lane in 2022):

“If you light a bonfire and look towards the sky, you will see a rising column of smoke. Spreading upwards and outwards, it twirls and thins until it fades to invisibility. But it’s not gone. Smoke particles – one example of what we call aerosols – can remain airborne for days, and in that time they can travel both far afield and high up in the atmosphere. And while there, they have a strong effect on both the weather and the climate.” (page 57)

Picture taken in Straumen, Inderøy, on 2024.04.03 at 18:55. Smoke stack from a wood-chip burning, central heating system at the busiest intersection in Straumen, our local municipal center.

If I am out walking, I can smell when my neighbors are heating their homes with a wood fire. A lot of the electricity in Norway is made with hydro power and some is made with wind. Neither of these types of energy production pollutes the air, though there may be other disadvantages. In this blog, I’m wanting to mainly focus on air pollution. With the rise of electricity prices in the last year or so, heating homes with wood has again became popular, as people are trying to reduce the cost of heating their homes. Their electricity bill might be lower, but is burning wood a good alternative to using electricity produced by water or air power? Electricity can be used for heating, either using space heaters or a heat pump.

If we look at historical methods of creating energy, burning wood is one of the oldest methods. Open fires inside homes for cooking food was still common in the 19th century. Baking ovens were used, but meat was usually cooked in large fireplaces over an open fire (i.e. roasted). In countries like England, wood became a scarce resource as trees were cut down and not replaced. The discovery of coal made possible the transition to burning coal instead of wood. But coal also pollutes the air when burned and was one of the causes of very bad air in London, England during the 19th century.

When I was small we had a furnace in our house that burned coal in a closed stove in the basement and sent heated air throughout the house. There was a storage space for coal inside the basement. Coal is very dirty to handle and there was an automatic feeder to get the coal into the furnace. This was replaced, probably in about 1966, with a natural gas furnace.

The house I grew up in was built in the 1920s and at that time, the City of Vancouver was piping natural gas to new housing as a cleaner alternative to coal or sawdust. As far back as I can remember, we had a gas stove and oven in the kitchen when I was a child. There was a constant flame, a pilot light, which then lit the burner that one wanted to use. As I think about this now, I am surprised that people accepted an open flame in the kitchen. Though gas is a cleaner burning fuel than either wood or coal, it is still a fossil fuel that creates air pollution.

I have always had a sniffy nose and though I now think of it as primarily a reaction to pollen. As I have been writing this, I have been wondering how much my physical development as a child was affected by the burning of “dirty” fuels in my home. When I was about 10 years old, I suffered a lot from constant coughing. Was it indoor air pollution, or pollen from the fruit trees in our yard?

Looking at Our World in Data, they separate air pollution in two categories, indoor and outdoor. Let’s look at some of the information that they have on these two categories.

Indoor Air Pollution

“Indoor air pollution is caused by burning solid fuel sources – such as firewood, crop waste, and dung – for cooking and heating. Burning such fuels, particularly in poor households, results in air pollution that leads to respiratory diseases, which can result in premature death. The WHO calls indoor air pollution “the world’s largest single environmental health risk.” (from OWID)

Note that indoor air pollution primarily comes from cooking and heating, and its severity would depend on what was actually being burned and how good the ventilation was. There is a distinction between solid fuels, such as dung, wood, charcoal, and coal, and non-solid fuels, such as kerosene, methanol, natural gas and electricity. Access to clean cooking fuels, such as electricity, improve as a family’s income improves and as the standards within a country improve. I see this also in my childhood, where heating was first coal, then natural gas, and cooking was natural gas, then electricity. The change came about as my parents were able to afford a better standard of living in the 1960s than in the early 1950s.

Looking at the charts available at Our World in Data, Europe and North America come out with the least indoor pollution as here there is better access to clean cooking and heating fuels. If you find looking at charts interesting, I suggest you go browse their website.

Outdoor Air Pollution

According to Our World in Data, outdoor air pollution is one of the world’s largest health and environmental problems. Outdoor air pollution is a risk factor for several of the world’s leading causes of death, including stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases, such as asthma. Is the rise of asthma in European and North American countries attributable to worsening outdoor air pollution? I don’t know the answer, but I imagine there is a connection.

Some of the sources of outdoor air pollution can be:

industrial plants that put pollutants in the air
burning solid fuels to make electricity
vehicles that burn gasoline or diesel
wild fires which put a lot of small particles in the air

Many air pollutants contribute to the small particles that float in the air. As we age, our exposure to these types of pollutants accumulate and can affect our health. At the moment I live in an area with relatively low air pollution, so that most of the year I enjoy sleeping with a window open so that I get fresh air while I’m sleeping.

However, there are three types of outdoor air pollution that still affect me.

Wood smoke, or the burning of dry grass or refuse. Both of these can be common in a rural area in Norway. In winter, there are people heating their homes with wood fires. In spring, dry grass or garden refuse may be burnt so that it disappears. In summer, there is the burning of charcoal in grills, by people who think that this is a great way to prepare food outdoors.
Gases from animal manure, particularly as it is being spread on the fields near me. The older technique was spraying the manure in the air so that it spread over a wide area. This technique was terribly polluting and created bad air for several days, until the field was either plowed or it rained heavily. Fortunately, farmers here have learned new techniques with new equipment, whereby the liquid manure is forced into the ground rather than up in the air. Now there is much less of a smell of manure which I’m sure also means that there is less pollution from it.
Pollen, from flowers and trees, can also affect me. I don’t react to everything and how much pollen there is in the air will vary from day to day. Some years can be quite bad and other years I am affected a lot less. Many people have it a lot worse than myself. However I have stopped drying clothes outdoors so that I don’t get pollen on my clothes. Filters on ventilation systems can also improve air quality indoors.

Conclusion

I grew up in a house built about 1926 so the standards that were relevant at that time, have hopefully been improved by 2024. In fact, I have read that Vancouver is no longer allowing natural gas installations in new housing. Heating with coal and cooking with gas should be replaced with cleaner fuels.

I live in a house which was built in 1963 and we have improved it since then. There is more insulation now and better windows with three layers of glass so that we use much less electricity to heat the house now than we did even 10 years ago. We also use electricity to cook, using an induction stove top which uses electricity much more efficiently than older styles of cook tops.

Even though I live in an area with little air pollution, either indoors or outdoors, I can still have problems. How much of my problem is a result of pollution in my childhood I will never know, but I do think it is a possibility. However, every individual has to adapt their living conditions to their own sensitivity to air pollution. Parents also have a responsibility for giving their children a good environment to grow up in. For myself, living in a rural area helps, and getting rid of local polluting devices, such as a wood stove and a diesel car, have improved my living conditions.

2024-04-08

Spring 2024 walking season has started

I have been quite lazy this winter, doing very little walking outdoors except when going specific places, like the dairy farm or the egg farm. But today, the temperature was finally a bit more comfortable, at 12 degrees centigrade, so my husband and I put on walking trousers, hiking shoes and went for our first walk in the woods.

We have a favorite location that takes us along some gravel roads and a path in the woods. It takes about 20 minutes to get to Bear Cliff (Bjørnbrøttet), where there is a book to write one’s name in and a small shelter to take a short pause. I have written blogs about this walk previously. You might like to contrast today’s walk with the one in 2023 when the weather was quite different.

The view from Bear Cliff taken at 16:31, looking towards the island of Ytterøy with Levanger in the background.

As you can see from the picture, it was cloudy and there had been rain showers earlier in the day. We did not have any rain while we were walking and we were out for about an hour. But shortly after we were home again, there was another short rain shower.

As this was the first time for this walk in 2024, it was interesting to see if there were any changes, either in nature, or to the cabins we walked by. There were a couple of trees that had been blown over, some that had been cut down. There seemed to be more open spaces as if cabin owners wanted more sunshine or a better view. At this time of year I am always looking to see what flowers are out. The two earliest ones here in Inderøy are coltsfoot (which is yellow) and anemone hepatica (which is blue).

Coltsfoot /hestehov) or tussilago farfara. The flowers come out from the rhizome first before any leaves appear. The leaves are very large but disappear during the summer. These flowers like the sunshine and appear first in sheltered, sunny spots and along the roadsides.

The blue anemone, sometimes called liverwort, (hepatica nobilis / blåveis) is a bit hard to see, but they are also very common in Inderøy and one of the signs of spring. They will eventually cover large areas as the days warm up. They are quite small and are often found under trees.

You’ll have to look closely in the photo to see the hepatica / blåveis, but it is in several parts of the photo.

Getting out in the fresh air is important. Getting walking exercise helps keep us in good shape. I was surprised that I was in such good shape as I did not labor up any of the hills. So that is a good sign. I also feel that it is important for our eyes to look far in the distance and not always to be looking at a screen or things close to us, for example, knitting projects.

Looking south-west towards Trondheim, through Norviksund, with Mosvik on the right and Ytterøy on the left. There are rain clouds in the distance but they didn’t get to us until after we were inside again. Looking at the small island on the right, we see that it was relatively low tide.

We live in an area with quite a variation in tides. When this picture was taken (at 16:46), the tide was still going out and low tide was at 18:40 and at 6 cm above the base level. At high tide, later this evening, the water level will be at about 324 cm, so the water level will be more than 3 meters higher than at low tide.

As we came up our own driveway, I looked to see if there was anything flowering yet. I have lots of bulbs, but the ground has been frozen until the last few days. Crocuses are just starting to show some color and only need a few days of sunshine to come out in full bloom.

Not wild flowers, but planted in my garden. Crocuses are the first flowers that bloom in my garden. These need a bit more sunshine before opening out.

I hope you too are able to get out for longer walks out in nature, now that we are in April. Enjoy the nature you have around you.

2024-04-03

Skjærvøya

It’s been Easter week in Norway and there are many days where everything is closed down, including Thursday, Friday, Sunday (Easter Day) and Monday. Many people take most of the week off and I’ve been enjoying having my son at home for the week. We were invited to visit a family that have a holiday cabin on this remote island. Wednesday was the only day we would be able to make a day trip there, that is, get out to the island and back to the mainland on the same day. The weather forecast was good for the end of March so we made arrangements to go visit our friends.

We started from home about 10 am and we had a two-hour drive to where we would get the ferry out to the island. We had an extra half an hour so we could take breaks along the way. The first break, after about 50 minutes, was to change drivers, stretch our legs and drink a cup of coffee. The second break was more interesting and we grabbed a little something to eat as well as taking some photos of the waterfall, Nordmelandfossen, on the Luna River.

Nordmelandfossen, on the Luna River, in the municipality of Osen.

One of the first wild flowers to bloom is colt’s foot (*hestehov*) and this was the first one I had seen this year. Otherwise there wasn’t much growing yet. Shady areas still had snow.

It wasn’t that warm, even though the sun was shining. There is still snow on the rocks that are mostly in the shade. There were still frozen sections on the river, and small chunks of ice floating downhill. We didn’t stop long as we still had a few kilometers to drive before parking the car for the day and taking a passenger ferry out to the island of Skjærvøya.

MS Osen, operated by the transport company AtB, at the quay in Sandviksberget, in Osen Municipality. This was the passenger ferry that we took, both out to the island and back again later in the day (in the dark).

I love taking ferries and it has been quite a while since I have taken one. This is a small passenger-only ferry which can hold up to 48 passengers, though there were not that many on it when we took it. It was warm enough to stand outside the whole time as long as one was in the lee of the boat itself. The trip out to the island takes about 20 minutes, depending on whether there are other stops on the way.

The engine was powerful once we were out of the harbor and there was a fascinating stern wave to look at and photograph.

Looking back to where we had come from, Sandviksberget, on the mainland. There is a small community here which also has a school. The rural municipality of Osen has about 900 residents.

These islands are very rocky and this little bit was extra rocky. I wondered if the waves had moved some of the large rocks during storms. This is the end of March, so there are no leaves on deciduous trees and most things have not started to grow at all. So what will be green later in the summer, is still a winter brown.

Here the ferry is coming into Ramsøya to pick up one passenger. There seems to be a farm here and about 8 houses or cabins. There aren’t many trees on these islands that are quite open to the storms from the North Sea.

It was high tide when we went out to Skjærvøya, but there were a lot of markers sticking up from the water. I presume that these mark rocks that are dangerous to navigation. They would be lighted at night.

Skjærvøya is really two islands joined by a concrete wall that one can walk or drive over. The only vehicles are small electric cars, motorcycles, tractors or all-terrain vehicles. There seem to be several small farms on each island and I did see some sheep out grazing. All the housing is primarily on the south and south-east sides of the islands, protected from the worst of the storm winds. There are still a few people that live her year-round, but there is no longer a school or a store here.

Ytre (outer) Skjærvøya is on the right, in the middle of the picture, and has a tall mast on its highest point. Indre (inner) Skjærvøya is on the left and has two lumps. They are joined by a concrete wall, which provides a sheltered bay for boats.

On the mainland, there are wind farms producing electricity, however that has been a lot of disagreement on whether the owners of the windmills had a right to build on the land that is used for reindeer grazing.

The quay on the outer island with the boat that we came on.

We were met at the ferry by our friends and we had a 25 minute walk to their cabin. The above picture is taken from the concrete wall that connects the two islands. Our destination is a cabin on the inner island. Most of our walk was on the sheltered side of the island and was quite pleasant. Though there was a little uphill section, most of the walk was reasonably flat and on a road.

Photo taken by Simon Gulstad from the mast on the outer island. From here you can see the concrete wall between the islands. We walked across the wall, around to the left in the picture and around to the other side of the rocky hill on the far island.

These islands are quite isolated, especially in bad weather, so the numbers of people living there full-time has decreased over the decades. However, from Easter week and through the summer, Norwegians enjoying coming to out-of-the-way places to get away from the cities and towns. Note the houses in the pictures, which look like they were built in the 1950s. In the past, when fishermen rowed out to the fishing areas, one wanted to be as close as possible and therefore many families lived on these rather remote islands. Today fish farming has become very common in the Norwegian fjords and employ quite a few people.

A local fish farm accessed from Inner Skjærvøya. The mainland is in the background.

Our friends’ cabin, nestled among the rocks. Photo courtesy of Alasdair McLellan, who was also on this day trip.

When one looks at the houses that were built 50 to 100 years ago, they were always nestled so that they were sheltered from the worst of the wind. Having a view over the water was less important than staying protected. This cabin was built about 15 years ago. It was sunny and about +10 degrees centigrade, so we kept our coats on and sat outside for at least an hour or more before going inside to eat. The small building on the left was used by a nine-year old as a place to make things and hide away from the adults. At the back of the house is an annex with more sleeping places. Upstairs is basically a lot of sleeping places, often as bunk beds. They could probably sleep 15 people there without problems.

The cabin has modern conveniences, including electricity, running water, a hot water tank, shower, and small laundry machine. Life is kept simple and the idea is to relax and enjoy just being with the people who are there with you.

I have always liked walking around on rocky coastline like this, though on this trip I noticed that I’m not as young as I used to be. The rocks were dry and easy to move around on, but my balance isn’t as good as it used to be and I had to be much more careful than I would have been 10 years ago. Where I live now, there isn’t this sort of rock to walk on much, so I’m out of practice.

As the sun was setting, suddenly the Coastal Express Ship from Hurtigruten came into sight in the distance. Richard With was sailing north through an inside channel, giving its passengers an interesting view of the coast of Trøndelag. It was actually quite far away, but the sun was shining on the ship, so it showed up quite well. Usually I have been on the mainland to see the ship pass by on its northward journey. Those traveling south travel at night and do not take the inside route, but would head straight to Trondheim.

The Hurtigruten’s *Richard With* sailing north. Photo courtesy of Alasdair McLellan.

I enjoyed my visit to the island of Inner Skjærvøya. Being on the island was relaxing. We enjoy being with the people we visited. We got a bit of a walk each way to the ferry and we were fed a very nice meal while we were there. The ferry ride back to the mainland was in the dark, so not nearly as interesting as the outward trip. I did not enjoy the two hour drive each way to the ferry, so it will probably not be a trip that we take very often. As I get older, I do not enjoy driving on windy, bumpy roads any more. The experience of being on a different island was very rewarding.

2024-03-272024-03-26

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

This non-fiction book tries to explain how poverty exists in the USA and why the number of people living in poverty does not decrease. It was published by Crown/Random House in March 2023. My daughter read this book and recommended it to others. It is a topic that I find interesting, though disturbing.

Poverty, as I define it, is not having enough money to have a decent life standard. By that I mean being able to afford sufficient food, a roof over one’s head (and one’s family’s heads), and the regular costs of staying alive, such as energy and clothing. If you live below the poverty line, you do not have enough money to do the above and something gets left out of the equation.

During my life I have had different levels of income. I grew up in a middle class family with one parent working for wages. We did not have a lot of money, but there was summer camp for me, music lessons for both my sister and I and holidays away from home. There was never a lack of food, and my parents owned the house that we lived in.

When I started living on my own, I worked in a shoe store and had a very low wage, but I wanted an apartment of my own, which cost me half of the money I earned. Thankfully, after a couple of months my wages went up and I had a bit more money for food and activities. But my first furniture was all taken from my parents’ home. I did not think of myself as poor, but I would have been on the threshold. Over the years I got better paid jobs, partly because I took more education at night school. One reason for me getting more education was seeing 50-year old women getting paid the same wages as me, that is minimum wage, and knowing that I should be able to do better for myself.

When my husband and I moved to Norway, we had to live very cheaply as we had no regular income. We lived on love and my ability to make the little money that we had stretch to cover house rent, food and electricity bills. There was no telephone or car the first five years of our life in Norway.

However, after a while, as we got more education in Norway and learned the language, we were able to get jobs that paid a living wage. When our two children were young, we did not have a lot to live on, but an inheritance allowed us to buy a house and with steadfastness and patience we now have a good life as retired people.

Many people may have periods in their lives when they are relatively poor, for example when studying full-time or when children are small and one parent is looking after them. However, this book by Matthew Desmond puts the light on how many people in the USA are systematically kept poor in spite of political efforts to reduce poverty. It can be a very disturbing book to read as it shows how everyone in the country contributes to keeping the poor poor. I was never poor like the examples that the author gives.

Organization of the Book

The book starts with a prologue, has 9 chapters and an epilogue. My summary is meant to show you what the book includes and I would encourage you to read the book and understand the examples that the author uses. He uses examples from different areas of the USA and makes comments about how things are different in other countries, especially European countries which have much lower poverty rates. I recently read a letter in the Norwegian national newspaper where the author was wanting us to think about who was actually paying for the “cheap” t-shirt one could buy. She too was concerned about poverty and those not making a decent income.

Chapter 1: The Kind of Problem Poverty Is – In this chapter, the author explains what poverty is for those who experience it – getting evicted from your apartment, not having enough food for three meals a day, not being able to pay the bills, etc. If you’ve never experienced real poverty, this chapter can be an eye-opener for how others experience life.

Chapter 2: Why Haven’t We Made More Progress? – Why does poverty continue to exist in the USA, in spite of attempts to lessen it. What has worked? What hasn’t worked over the decades? Why does a rich country like the USA have so many millions of its citizens still in poverty? Other countries have a much lower percent of their populations experiencing poverty.

Chapter 3: How We Undercut Workers – When we buy cheap goods, somebody has been paying for us to get it cheap. Many workers are grossly underpaid. Even working full-time may not give a person, or their family, enough to live on. Minimum wage may not be enough to live on. We all need to think about how we contribute to this problem by wanting to buy cheap things.

Chapter 4: How We Force the Poor to Pay More – From expensive rental housing to exorbitant interest rates on pay-day loans, the poor are forced to use a lot of their low wages just to get from pay-day to pay-day. Hopefully you have never had to experience this sort of exploitation, but it exists everywhere. The rich get richer by stealing from the poor.

Chapter 5: How We Rely on Welfare – I found this a very interesting chapter as the author shows how the rich take advantage of government handouts, which are often called “welfare” when given to the poor. But the government also gives welfare benefits to the middle class and wealthy people with things such as tax deductions for interest payments on mortgages. Tax avoidance and tax breaks, primarily used by the rich, is a type of welfare as the government “gives” money to the rich. It also reduces the amount of funds that governments have to create buffer programs for the poor and for upholding the infrastructure of the country. There were some very interesting examples in this chapter.

Chapter 6: How We Buy Opportunity – As mentioned above, I may have had periods in my life where I was relatively poor, but it was always a very temporary situation and most of my life I have had a middle class life. The author explains in this chapter how this works, or doesn’t work for the poor.

Chapter 7: Invest in Ending Poverty – The author does not think that it would actually take that much to end poverty, especially the type of poverty that people can never get out of. He shows where the money could come from and how it could be used.

Chapter 8: Empower the Poor – This chapter gives examples on what could be done to help the poor have a better life, including having better health and better education for children.

Chapter 9: Tear Down the Walls – Integration between the different levels of income would benefit everyone. However, many want to build walls around themselves to keep the less fortunate out. The author would like us to tear down these walls and gives examples of how this can be done. I have read other books which confirm that large differences in incomes is detrimental for everyone, both rich and poor.

My thoughts on poverty

I recently read a book about the rich, Limitarianism, so this book was a good contrast by looking at the opposite end of the income scale. There have been many suggestions as to how to end poverty over the decades. First of all, the poor need sufficient money to get out. Many have suggested a minimum monthly allowance that allows people to have an apartment, have sufficient food to eat, have healthcare and schooling. Living in Norway, where there is a welfare system that tries to do this, has given me insights in how much of poverty can be avoided. People that have a regular income from the government, in spite of poor health, will usually use most of their income and the money keeps circulating (which is what keeps the economy going).

I feel lucky to have lived in Norway for over 40 years as in Norway, people have a health care system that covers everyone. Though dental care for adults is not covered, it is for children. Getting the health care that is necessary, improves one’s life, especially if one has any long-term illnesses. Poor health as a child usually means that the child does not get a good education and therefore does not get a good job.

In Norway, schooling, even at university level, does not charge large fees. So to get an education, one may have to pay for school books and other supplies, but the tuition is mostly free. The key to getting a decent job is getting an education, whether it is a hands-on job such as carpentry or plumbing, or an academic job such as teacher or doctor. Though many people may be poor while they get this education, and one may have periods of one’s life where it is difficult to make ends meet, the chances of getting out of poverty are good.

Who are the poor in Norway? Young people that are studying. Immigrants that don’t have the knowledge skills to get a job that pays well. Those who have health problems, both physical and mental problems. Those who have problems getting a full-time, well-paid job because they are looking after children. Those who have not been able to get an adequate education. So, yes, there are poor in Norway, but for some it will be a temporary stage of their life. For others, there is at least a system that will help most of them live a reasonable life, even if they cannot afford many extras.

The last year or so in Norway, prices have risen immensely and this affects the poor the hardest. Headlines about families needing food hand-outs from volunteer organizations is the most distressing for me to read about. It means that those at the lowest income levels are getting trapped into poverty by a society that doesn’t care enough about them. Governments are usually run by the relatively rich and they don’t understand how the poorest people have economic problems. Things have to change so that those who have the lowest incomes do not starve or are taken advantage of. There will always be differences in income, but those at the lowest level should be able to make ends meet.

I would like you to think about your interaction with the poor. How much do you support a society that systematically underpays many of its workers? What could you change in your life? What do you buy? Who do you vote for? What volunteer organizations do you support? All of these can make differences in other people’s lives. We do not need to support the rich who take advantage of all the rest of us. I hope you reflect on this problem in our world today.

2024-03-202024-03-18

Earthstorm

I am fascinated by the weather and particularly extreme weather. I have watched this series of four episodes from 2022 on Netflix and recommend it to others. Our climate is changing, no matter where we live. In most places, weather is becoming more extreme than it used to be. Those that get a lot of rain may be getting a lot more. Those in dry areas may be experiencing longer droughts. Everywhere the air is on average warmer and the oceans are becoming warmer as well. These changes affect plants, animals, humans and our daily weather.

Taken on 2015.08.11 on the road between Straumen and Vangshylla in Inderøy, Norway. One can see rain showers in the distance but it was the storm front that was unusually clear as it moved in over Inderøy.

We have to accept the weather we get and there is little we can do to change what we get on a day-to-day basis. However we have to build infrastructure and housing that can withstand more extreme weather happenings. In Norway, these extreme events bring floods, rock slides and avalanches. Some areas are also experiencing drought that is bad enough to affect crops. We can have bad storms that rip roofs off buildings and floods that damage housing areas. So these increases in extreme weather affect us here. Thankfully, our house sits on rock and so far as withstood the weather that has been thrown at it.

This documentary series is very obviously American, and focuses primarily on what happens in the United States of America. The one exception is the episode about volcanoes, as there have not been any recent volcanic eruptions in the USA. One thing I did like about the series was how they interviewed people who had experienced the bad events but had survived. I felt that one of the purposes of the series was to show how these events affect people and the extent of the damage that was done.

Episode 1 – Tornado

We follow storm chasers as they try to document various tornadoes. There is an explanation of how tornadoes are formed and where in the USA they are primarily found. There are hundreds of tornadoes during the tornado season, but very few last very long, or are very large. However we did see the damage with one very large tornado that destroyed a large area housing area.

Included in this episode is some advice for those who live in tornado areas. Usually there will come general warnings, but where a tornado will hit can be difficult to predict. The winds in a tornado are very strong and one needs to protect oneself from flying debris and being trapped in a collapsed building. Everyone needs a “safe zone” where they can seek refuge if a tornado is headed their way.

Episode 2 – Volcano

This episode visited four locations, none of which were in the USA. They explained the different levels of explosivity and we started with the lowest one and ended with the most explosive one. Locations include Iceland, the Canary Islands, Nicaragua and Guatemala. The volcano they looked at in Iceland was a tourist attraction and at the time of recording did not affect human habitations, however in January 2024 a new eruption in a nearby area affected the town of Grindvik and there was another eruption on the 16th of March.

The volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands destroyed a lot of housing, though I don’t think there was any life lost. Evacuation was successful, but many lost everything to the lava flows. I remember seeing pictures of this volcanic eruption at the time it happened and feeling very sorry for those affected.

The volcanoes in Nicaragua and Guatemala affected a lot of people. Volcanic soil is very good for agriculture and in many countries people live very close to the volcanoes. This is fine until the volcano erupts and ruins everything in the path of the lava flows. These volcanoes have the highest explosivity, which means that you cannot outrun the ash flows and they cause the most deaths.

Episode 3 – Earthquake

This episode was primarily about Los Angeles in California and various places in Japan. There are many other places in the world that experience earthquakes, often with very fatal consequences. Earthquakes are very difficult to predict. Though where they will occur is known, it is difficult to know when. The recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland have been preceded by small earthquakes, so the occurrence of earthquakes can help predict volcanic eruptions.

One consequence of earthquakes is the production of tsunamis, large waves that can travel long distances over the ocean. Often it is the tsunami which is the killer, rather than the earthquake itself. When one looks at the pictures of the tsunami waves, one sees the destructive power of water.

Japan has done a lot to improve building standards, so that buildings do not collapse during an earthquake. I grew up in an area that had earthquakes every now and then, though none that I experienced every did more than shake the building and I never experienced any damage.

Episode 4 – Hurricane

This episode was about Hurricane Ida in 2021 which created a lot of damage in Louisiana in the USA. The storm continued for several days as it headed north creating a trail of damage. We see two storm chasers and their experiences during the storm and their efforts to document what actually happens during a hurricane. We also saw a lot of the damage that was done during the storm.

Hurricanes are usually predicted up to several days in advance so that people can either evacuate or find safe places to sit out the storm. However the storms are getting stronger and more often. More places are being damaged and lives are often lost.

My conclusion

Watching documentaries like this make me think about the safety of where I live. In the past we have experienced hurricanes here and our house has survived without any major damage. We recently watched a film about the bad flooding in England in 1953 where most people did not realize that there was bad weather out in the North Sea. Thankfully, weather forecasting has improved a lot in the last decade, so that when a major storm is expected, one can at least be prepared for the storm. In the summer of 2023, “Hans” created a lot of damage in southern Norway, flooding areas that weren’t used to being flooded. In January 2024, a storm in our area took the roof off a building on a farm not that far from us.

It is important that people have housing that tolerates the new types of weather we are going to get. We have to be prepared to be without electricity for up to several days. We have to keep a supply of food in the house so that one doesn’t have to go to a food store every day.

We all have to be prepared for extreme weather events. Where we live will determine what type of extremes we will experience. It is important to know the dangers and how to protect oneself during these types of events.

2024-03-132024-03-12

“Not the End of the World” by Hannah Ritchie

Subtitle: “How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet”, published by Chatto & Windus, London, 2024

This is a newly published book and my husband read it first. He gave me all sorts of interesting information from the book as he was reading it, so I decided to read it myself. It has taking me a while to read it, as I find the author is a bit wordy, though interesting to read. Her message is that the problems that the world faces are not hopeless and that lots is going well with the world. Reading the media can be discouraging as they want to publish sensational stories, rather than the facts. But there is still lots going right and more to do.

The book is composed of an Introduction, 8 Chapters and a Conclusion.

Introduction

Hannah Ritchie is a relatively young person born in 1994 and she feels that she grew up in a media environment that tells “kids that they are going to die from climate change”. It might be a heat wave, a wildfire, a hurricane, a flood or mass starvation. This has created a great deal of anxiety. Young people are hesitant to have children. Many feel helpless, but the author wants to use this book to show that things are not as bad you might think. We haven’t solved all of the problems, but many things are better than they used to be.

She credits much of her change of mind to watching a television show with the Swede, Hans Rosling, showing how the world has gotten healthier and healthier. I wrote a bit about Hans Rosling in my blog, Gapminder, Hans Rosling was very concerned about how much of what we think we know about the world is actually wrong. With this new information, Hannah Ritchie changed the way she thinks about the state of the world and this book is a result of that change of thinking.

Hannah Ritchie is Head of Research at Our World in Data which is based at the University of Oxford, England. She feels that her job is to make use of what we already know, get that information out to the public and help people realize that things are not as bad as we might think. The world needs optimism in order to work with the problems that are facing us today. To do this, we need to know what is going right and what we need to work on next. She feels that “we can be the first generation to achieve a sustainable world”.

She has 6 things she would like us to keep in mind:

1 We face big and important environmental challenges
2 The fact that our environmental issues aren’t humanity’s largest existential risk doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work on them
3 You will have to hold multiple thoughts at the same time
4 Non of this is inevitable, but it is possible
5 We cannot afford to be complacent
6 You are not alone in this.

Hannah Ritchie is very concerned about “how we got to now”, “where we are today”, what to do next and “things to stress less about”. Each chapter takes up one problem, and I’m going to give you a very brief summary of the main points of each chapter. If you want to know more, you’ll have to read the book yourself.

Chapter 1 Sustainability – A tale of two halves

First of all the author maintains that the world has never been sustainable, and then she goes on to define what sustainable means: “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The author believes that both halves of this definition ( the present … the future) have never been satisfied at the same time, except in very small groups of people.

About the present, she writes that “there is no better time to be alive than today,” and lists 7 things that have been greatly improved in recent years:

child mortality is lower
fewer mothers die in childbirth
life expectancy has increased
there is much less hunger and malnutrition
access to clean water, energy and sanitation has improved
more children get basic education
extreme poverty has been reduced.

However when writing about future generations she writes that there are seven areas that we need to work on and these seven topics comprise the remaining chapters in the book.

air pollution
climate change
deforestation
food production
biodiversity loss
ocean plastics
over-fishing.

Chapter 2 Air Pollution – Breathing clean air

Many places in the world still have very poor air quality and there are lots of historical examples of cities and industrial areas with air so polluted that it was difficult to breathe. Air pollution, in general, is caused by burning things, which generates small particles in the air. Over the centuries we have burned different things to provide heat, light and energy, but the main ones have been wood, coal, crops, oil or gas.

There are many examples of how air pollution has been tackled and the battle has been won. London’s air is much cleaner than it was a hundred years ago. Acid rain, which I remember as a big problem in Norway in the 1980s is no longer a major problem. In the 1970s there were holes in the ozone layer that was causing great concern, and there was international agreement to fix the problem.

Air pollution is falling in many places but there are still millions that die from air pollution every year. What do we need to get air pollution even lower?

Give everyone access to clean cooking fuels
End winter crop-burning
Remove sulphur from fossil fuels
Drive less; cycle, walk and take public transport
Ditch fossil fuels for renewables and nuclear

Chapter 3 Climate Change – Turning down the thermostat

This is one topic that gets in the media regularly. Already average temperatures are rising everywhere, some places more than others. How much the temperature will rise depends on what we do, or don’t do. Most of the discussion revolves around how much carbon dioxide is in the air. Carbon dioxide emissions come primarily from two main sources: burning fossil fuels and changing the use of land, for example, cutting down trees.

The author writes that total emissions are still rising, but that emissions per person have already peaked. In other words, things are on the brink of getting better. Many countries have already reduced their emissions as well as growing their economies. There are alternatives available and they are getting cheaper. Committing to change is the first major step for any country. Work needs to be done on how we produce energy, how things and people are moved around the world, what we eat and how it is produced, reduction of food waste, and reduction of over-consumption.

In addition we need to pull people out of poverty so they are less vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We need to improve the resilience of our crops to drought, floods and a warming world. We need to adapt our living conditions to deal with sweltering heat.

Chapter 4 Deforestation – Seeing the wood for the trees

Deforestation is not a new problem. Humans have been cutting down trees for centuries. Today’s rich countries lost their forests a long time ago. In some places, the forest is being allowed to grow back, but in many places the forest is being removed to create agricultural land. So deforestation and how we produce our food are linked together.

The author writes again that eating less meat, especially beef, would be good for the environment. Raising animals for their meat is a big driver of deforestation and is an inefficient way of producing food for humans. Crop yields can be improved with better seeds and better fertilization habits.

Chapter 5 Food – How not to eat the planet

Though in the past there was always a struggle for most people to get enough food, now the world produces enough food to give everyone at least 5 000 calories a day. In recent decades a lot has been done to reduce hunger. Though hunger and famine still exist, they are political and social in nature.

The use of artificial fertilizers, improved seeds, better irrigation and machinery have increased crop yields on agricultural land. We are able to produce more food on less land. However, much of the food that is produced is used to feed livestock and to fuel cars. This is not sustainable. Eating meat is a very inefficient way of making tasty food. I learned this back in the 1970s, when I learned about how meat was raised, using food that humans could use for themselves. Since then I have reduced the amount of meat that I eat to perhaps once a week. I actually prefer eating vegetarian dishes.

The main problems that producing food creates is in how much land is used. As the amount of land increases for agriculture, we lose forests with their biodiversity; greenhouses gases are produced, particularly from raising animals; there is a great demand on fresh water; and there is an over-use of pesticides which leads to water pollution.

The author recommends that to have a sustainable world we should eat less meat, improve crop yields in all parts of the world and waste less food with better storage and refrigeration. She does not think that eating local food or organic food which has lower crop yields per hectare will help. Plastic packaging lowers total food waste and is therefore good.

Chapter 6 Biodiversity Loss – Protecting the world’s wildlife

In the past, humans have hunted large mammals and many have been extinct for a long time. Agriculture has changed ecosystems. However whenever we meddle with ecosystems, things may not change the way we want them to. “You can never merely do one thing.” There is an intricate web of prey, predator and ecological connections.

The biggest threat to wildlife is connected to how we feed ourselves, and also how our population leads to urbanization, disease, pollution, etc. In order to protect what is left we need to have well-managed protected areas. We need to limit deforestation by being better at growing crops on the land that is already in use and we need to slow global climate change which is also changing ecosystems.

Chapter 7 Ocean Plastics – Drowning in waste

Plastic is a wonder material as it is sterile, waterproof, versatile, cheap, useful and easy to shape or mold. It makes things lighter. It prevents food waste. Most plastics can only be reused once or twice. The problem is how we dispose of plastic. Only a very small fraction, perhaps 0.3%, of the world’s plastics ends up in the oceans.

Rich countries have good waste-management systems. Most of the plastic in the oceans comes from Asia, where waste plastic gets into the rivers and ends up in the ocean. What is needed is better waste management, even in poor countries. Landfills must be sealed on top so that things don’t blow or wash away. There should be fines for fishing vessels that lose or dump waste. Floating debris can be intercepted in rivers before it ends up in the ocean. We need to clean up our beaches and shorelines.

Chapter 8 Overfishing – Pillaging the oceans

We really don’t know how many fish there are in the oceans. Some fish stocks are doing well, and some aren’t. Two thirds of the global fish stocks are being managed sustainably, and fish farming produces more fish than is caught wild. So things are not hopeless.

The problem of overfishing is reduced by implementing strict fishing quotas. This requires management and research to know what quotas the different fish stocks will tolerate.

The author takes up the problem with whaling which reduced the number of whales in the oceans drastically. In 1967, a global moratorium on whaling has helped whale stocks increase again.

Conclusion

In general the author feels that we know what to do to combat the problems mentioned in the book, and there are many countries doing it already. These problems are interconnected and much is connected to how we feed ourselves. Changes in how and what we eat will be necessary to reduce the impact on the world. Who you vote for, how you spend your time, and who you donate your money to are all ways that individuals can influence the changes that need to come. “We are not doomed. We can build a better future for everyone.”

2024-03-062024-03-05

Being an Introvert

This photo was taken during a walk in Mosvik, looking west over Trondheimsfjord.

In 2017, I read a book by Susan Cain, “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking”, published in 2012, by Crown Publishing/Random House. I found this book to be excellent because it helped me realize that introverts are probably one-third of the population. There are a lot of people like me, that prefer quiet times to noisy parties. Shortly after I read the book, I wrote a blog about it, which you can read here. I hope I’m not going to repeat myself too much, as this time I would like to write about my world as a 74-year old introvert with a hearing disability.

As my hearing gets worse, and it gets harder to be part of large groups, I find that being an introvert helps me cope with my disability. Hearing aids work to a certain extent, but all of the background noise of the world we live in is also increased in volume, not only the voices of the people that I would like to converse with. This has resulted in several types of changes in my behavior.

In particular, towns and shopping areas have a lot of noise pollution. The other day, I noticed that a neighboring child had an electric motor to his play tractor and I found that noisy too. Walking on gravel is noisy under my feet and can drown out conversation with the person I am walking with. I actually like doing things by myself as then I don’t have to use a hearing aid and I can enjoy the peace around me.

I now avoid almost all activities that include large groups of people in an indoor room. People are always talking, or at least some of them are, and when more than one person is talking, I hear nothing and it becomes very frustrating to not hear what people say. I still enjoy being with people, and enjoy having discussions about serious topics, but maximum four people in the room, with no background noise, is what I manage best.

One activity I really enjoy is walking in nature, either by myself or with someone. I have one girl friend who I walk with regularly. We avoid the places with the most car noises and in the summer months we often take some of the Inderøy walks where one can get points for getting to a particular place. Most of these walks are away from roads with cars on them. I also do a lot of walking with my husband, mostly in the summer months, but also in the winter. The photo above was taken in Mosvik on one of these walks.

As a retired person, I don’t have to go out to work every day, but there are still lots of things to fill my time. I enjoy cooking and often spend one to two hours a day on food preparation. I have to use hearing protection when using noisy kitchen machines, but that is usually just a few minutes of the processing time. I avoid using my hearing aids while working in the kitchen as even chopping vegetables is a noisy activity.

I love knitting and always have one to three projects on the go, plus all the ones that are in the planning stages in my head. Keeping my fingers busy while creating something useful gives me something meaningful to do. Knitting gives me lots of time to think while my fingers keep busy. To cut down on the overload in my head, from thinking, I often read while doing simple knitting.

A recently knit sweater for my husband who loves bright colors.

Reading has always been a favorite activity and I read both fiction and non-fiction. Most books are read on an electronic reader, but I have also started reading a few books on paper. The latter are not so easy to read when knitting, but newer non-fiction books are good for stimulating my mind. This has also been a reason for starting to write a few blogs again, at least until the gardening season starts. I’m currently reading a book about the state of the world, but the blog about it won’t be ready for another week, hence today’s topic.

Gardening is another hobby, which does not require much interaction with other people and which doesn’t require me to hear well either. In fact, with a lot of traffic on a nearby bridge, it is better to not be wearing a hearing-aid while outdoors working. I have a garden that is really far too big to keep in very good condition, but I have the rule, “what gets done, gets done” and I don’t worry about what doesn’t get done.

One of my favorite plants is the rhododendron.

Shopping is a necessity, but I choose to do my shopping when there are relatively few people in the stores, either in the morning, or the evening. It pays to learn when there are fewer people in the stores that one uses a lot. I started this in particular during the pandemic, but have found that whether I’m buying food, building supplies or yarn, the time of day, and the day of the week makes a big difference to how many people are in the stores.

Being an introvert has made reducing group activities easy for me. Contact with others is still important, but the situation has to be something I can handle. There are lots of meaningful activities for introverts and for those with a hearing disability. Life is for living and I hope to have many years yet.

2024-02-282024-02-26

Gapminder.org

When I think of the changes that have happened in my lifetime, I often think of television, jet planes, computers, the Internet and electric cars. These are the things that have affected my life the most. However, when we think about how others’ lives have changed in the last 70 years, there are more important topics to think about. For example, what is the life expectancy of people living in India? How many children are vaccinated against common childhood diseases, such as measles? How have these figures changed in your lifetime and in mine?

I first came across Hans Rosling (1948-2017) a Swedish statistician and doctor, when I was teaching high-school English in Norway. He has made several videos that help explain how inadequate our view of living conditions in other countries is. I think the most important thing I have learned from watching his videos is that we have come a long way in solving some of the largest problems in the world. His statistics encourage optimism that we can make the world a better place.

Gapminder was founded in Stockholm in 2005 by Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, and Hans Rosling. They developed interesting ways to visualize statistics and make it easier to understand the statistics and how they have changed over the years. Gapminder is an independent Swedish foundation with no political, religious, or economic affiliations.

This video illustrates how we often get the facts wrong. The link is to a Gapminder video and a TedTalk from 2014 held in Berlin: How not to be ignorant about the world, is about 19 minutes and features both Hans Rosling and Ola Rosling. Please note that this video is now almost 10 years old, so the numbers will have changed and things will have improved even more since then.

Another example: the book I wrote about last, Limitarianism, was concerned about the differences between the rich and the poor, but what is your understanding about how many rich there really are in the world. Look at this short video at the Gapminder website and see how Hans Rosling explains it. I find that he is very good at explaining things that we might not have understood correctly. Had you understood that most people have an income in the middle range? There are some extremely poor, and some extremely rich, but most aren’t.

Gapminder’s mission is to “fight devastating ignorance with a fact-based world view everyone can understand.”

Now look at a third video about how income relates to life expectancy and enjoy the bubble diagrams that Gapminder is known for.

Gapminder’s Projects

Gapminder has three main projects. The first one (“Find your misconceptions”) is to help educate people so that their knowledge is kept up-to-date. If you are reading this, you have lived a few years and things have changed since you went to school. Depending on your age and how long it is since you went to school, your knowledge about the world may be out of date.

Their second main project (“Understand a changing world”) show how the numbers have changed over time. In general, things improve. Humans are good at making things better.

Their third main project (“See the reality behind the data”) or “Dollar Street” is a large collection of pictures to show what the terms extreme poverty and poverty mean and what the differences are. We often understand things better with pictures.

Using their three projects, I would like to encourage you to explore the Gapminder.org website. I especially recommend looking at “Dollar Street”.

What would you like to learn about today?