Author: Trish

Retired English teacher living in Norway
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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.

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Skjærvøya

This building on the quay on Skjærvøya has a waiting room for passengers.

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.

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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.

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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.

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“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.”

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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.

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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?

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Limitarianism by Ingrid Robeyns

After not writing a blog for a long time, I have decided that I would like to share some of the things that I have been reading about, as I am concerned about the state of the world. This is something that I have always been interested in, especially since I first studied economics in my early 20s. Over the years since then, that is, over about 50 years, I have read various books and articles about the state of the world. I still have this interest and I would like to share some of the things that I have learned.

This blog is primarily about the book pictured below. As with many books, the author covers a limited topic and one must remember that the world we live in is complex. Many problems in the world have been solved and in later blogs I will come back to some of the things that we have actually managed. We must not be pessimistic, but we must also be aware of what problems there still are to solve. We must take ideas from many authors and researchers and put them together into our own view of the world, which is also influenced by where we live, how we have earned our living, the people we have known and what sort of childhood we had. I am currently retired, in my 70s, and was a high-school teacher for over 30 years. I have lived in Norway since 1980, but grew up in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

I would like to recommend this book which explains one of the problems that we are facing in the world today. I found the prose easy to read. There was some jargon, but not so much that I couldn’t understand what the author was getting at. Ingrid Robeyns lives and works in the Netherlands and works at the Utrecht University. She is concerned about inequality and injustice in the world. Her training is in philosophy and economics and in 2012 she decided to work on answering the question: “Can a person be too rich?” This book, a result of her research, was published in 2024 by Allen Lane (Penguin Books) and has been dedicated “To all activists who are fighting against injustice”.

The concept of limitarianism is that nobody needs an excessive income or to accumulate excessive wealth. When one is poor, getting a higher income improves one’s standard of living, but when one is wealthy, a higher income doesn’t really change one’s lifestyle at all. The author discusses how limiting extreme wealth is both a moral issue and an economic issue. She quite realizes that this idea is not easy to put into practice, but she would like people to become more aware of how this idea of limiting wealth would help everyone.

I agree with the author that inequality in the world has been increasing, as the poor stay poor, but the rich get richer and richer. Extreme poverty in the world has decreased in recent decades, but in relatively well-off countries, such as Norway where I live, there is still a proportion of the population where people do not have enough income to meet basic needs, including having sufficient food to eat. Local governments do not get enough income to pay for the services that they are expected to provide. Public investment in infrastructure, such as schools, healthcare and transportation are under-funded. And yet, the rich amass huge amounts of money and then feel that they have to store their money in tax havens and even move out of Norway to countries where they feel that their wealth is treated better, that is, not taxed as much. Why do they not want to contribute to the country that has helped them amass their wealth?

What is it that Ingrid Robeyns is really trying to promote in her book? She feels that there are too many super-rich people, that either avoid taxation or evade taxation, so that governments have less money than they need to provide the services to their population so that everyone can have a reasonable life. There should not only be a minimum wage, but there should also be a maximum wage. In addition, neither individuals, companies nor institutions should be allowed to accumulate extreme wealth. Wealth over a certain limit should be returned to the country in which it was “earned”.

In the last chapter, the author includes several ideas about what could be done, but also realizes that her suggestion of limiting people’s wealth is not something that will be accomplished easily or within a few years. However, it is something that activists should be working towards.

This book is meant to make you think about your own place in the world, and also about the people who live in the world with you. Will you make any changes in your life? What? When? This is highly individual. Below is a summary of the 10 chapters in the book.

Chapter 1 How Much is Too Much?

The author discusses her reasons for the limits that she suggests.

Chapter 2 It’s Keeping the Poor in Poverty While Inequality Grows

When the super-rich, the upper 1% or 0.1% of society do not share their wealth, it means that the distance between the rich and the poor increases. Because the rich don’t mix with the poor, the rich don’t understand the problems that the poor face. I feel that too many politicians, those who are making the rules and policies that we live under, have no understanding of what it means to not have enough. There are many authors who have written about inequality, but Ingrid Robeyns tries to show the reader about what happens to the top group.

Chapter 3 It’s Dirty Money

Not all wealth has been created by honest labor. Much inherited wealth was generated centuries ago based on slave labor. Some wealth is stolen, such as leaders in countries that steal the income generated from the country’s natural resources that belong to all in the country. Some wealth is created from criminal activities. The author gives some interesting examples of how wealth is generated or actually stolen from the poor.

Chapter 4 It’s Undermining Democracy

Having money means having power, both economically and politically. The wealthy have been undermining democracy by getting the rules changed to favor themselves. This is a serious problem in many countries where only the wealthy end up with the political jobs of making the laws in a country and administering these laws.

Chapter 5 It’s Setting the World on Fire

Climate change and global warming are being worsened by the super-rich who are not concerned about anyone but themselves. They can survive the changes and it is the poor who suffer the most. The author explains how the super-rich are contributing more than their share to this particular problem.

Chapter 6 Nobody Deserves to be a Multimillionaire

Personally, I think everyone deserves to have three decent meals a day, but I have to agree with the author that being a multimillionaire is not something that anyone “deserves” or has earned. Usually the super-rich have underpaid the people that work for them. In my opinion, the workers in any company “deserve” decent wages and living conditions.

Chapter 7 There’s So Much We Can Do with the Money

When the super-rich don’t pay their fair share of the taxes, then that money is not available to keep the infrastructure in a country in good health. Think of education, highways, healthcare and a lot more that governments provide for their country.

Chapter 8 Philanthropy is Not the Answer

There are rich people that share their wealth after they have spent years accumulating it. But letting the rich decide where their “extra” money should go, does not necessarily mean that the money gets used wisely. This chapter gives some examples of what happens, and also what doesn’t happen.

Chapter 9 The Rich will Benefit, Too

Being rich does not make people happy. Having less, may let them have a better life. The author is particularly concerned about children who grow up with rich parents, but are starved of the things that matter to children, including love and attention.

Chapter 10 The Road Ahead

Here Ingrid Robeyns comes with lots of suggestions on what can be done to make limitarianism more feasible and how it can be combined with other ideas to make the world a better place for everyone to live in.

I hope I have encouraged you to read this book, but even if you don’t, I hope my comments have made you think.

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Spring 2023 is around the corner

Today I went for my first walk in the woods in 2023. I’ve been wanting to do it for quite a while, but both in February and March we have had quite a bit of snow which required removal from our long driveway. So, there was no energy left for pleasant walks in the woods.

The snow is not gone, but today is the vernal/spring equinox, (at 22:24 our time), so the feeling is that spring is just around the corner. The weather today has been a mixture of sunshine, rain and sleet, with plus degrees. But underfoot there is still snow or mud. I didn’t see any flowers yet. Here the first wild ones are usually seen at the beginning of April, so there is still two weeks before that sign of spring should appear.

For safety sake, I often carry a walking stick with me. It helps give me better balance both when it is slippery or I’m on slopes. I’ve accepted that I’m not so young any more.

Animal Tracks

With snow on the ground, it is easy to see where wild animals walk. We are used to seeing deer, squirrels and birds in our yard, usually near the bird feeder which has sunflower seeds. But once I got away from our own property, it was interesting to see other tracks in the snow.

These are definitely the tracks of a human who uses a walking stick in her right hand.
These tracks are deer tracks, the most common tracks I see near us, often across our lawn and through the flower beds.
These tracks are much larger than the deer tracks and belong to a moose. Moose are common in the woods in Inderøy, but I seldom see them on our lot.
I’m not positive, but I think these are the tracks of a wolverine. They were seen in the woods, away from the cabins. Wolverines are often nocturnal animals.

The Trail

In the summer months, this is a road that can be driven on by car, but it is not cleared in the winter. Most of the tracks were animal tracks, but some were human bootprints. The snow was not so deep that there was any problem walking.
In some places there were even few tracks from before.
As I went away from the road and into the woods, there was even less snow. It was almost muddy.
This section of the trail is often a small stream. The ground was soft and it was thawing, but there were no problems with running water or large pools, yet.
The turn-around point of my walk, “Bjønnbrottet” or Bear Cliff as I call it in English. Inside the lean-to there is a box with a book in it, so that visitors can write the date and their name. I like to count how many times I write my name in the book. Today was the first time for 2023. There were a few names before mine, but not many yet in 2023.
Here is the book that is used for walkers to register their visit, if they wish. Over the years, the book itself has been decorated as well.
The view from the lean-to, looking south to the island of Ytterøy.

Changes

When I haven’t been to a place for a while, it is always interesting to see if there are changes. In the woods, winter storms can blow down trees. Near the cabins, humans can also make changes.

This tree looks like it just rotted and fell over. This has happened during the winter as the trail used to go on both sides of the tree.
Suddenly I came to an open area which used to be dark from the trees. The cabin up the slope on the right has probably wanted a better view.
The view from the open area where the trail goes. People in the cabin up on the hill would probably see over the trees. The view is looking south-west out over Trondheimsfjord. When I got farther along on my walk, the wind was blowing up from the fjord in that direction.

This is a walk I usually take many times in a year, and I will certainly be doing it many more times in 2023. It takes about an hour and has several uphill sections so that I get good exercise. I was lucky with the weather when I was out today. Shortly after I came indoors, it poured with rain.

How would you define spring where you live? I think of spring as the first wildflowers blooming, the snow disappearing, the farmers ploughing fields, the temperature being above zero degrees and more hours of daylight. So spring is still around the corner here, but I don’t think it will be long. We have plus degrees in the daytime, many more hours of daylight than we had in January and the snow is slowly disappearing.

I hope you are also starting to get out for walks in nature. It is said that being near trees is very good for our mental health. Have a good week and a good spring.

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Emotional Intelligence (EI)

I came across this concept in an article in The University of British Columbia Magazine for its alumni, Fall/Winter 2022. The article is called “Mind Matters”, is written by Roberta Staley and is found on page 44 of the magazine.

Why is this concept important? To quote the author of this article, “EI facilitates better stress management and decision-making, and emotionally intelligent leadership boosts employee engagement. This means improved worker morale and well-being, which leads to greater individual and organizational effectiveness.”

In 1995, Daniel Goleman published a book called “Emotional Intelligence” and the term seems to have become popular since then. I have not read the book and will be referring primarily to the article in The UBC Magazine and to the article in Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, there are certain limitations in the research done on EI so many do not feel that the tests that are available are reliable. I think one has to be aware of the fact that many ideas and training available have been promoted to make profit for individuals. On the other hand, I feel that the concept is certainly valid, even if it is difficult to measure. For many years we have heard about IQ (Intellegience quotient) which tries to test how smart a person is. The tests are usually designed for only a certain portion of the world population and have biases and limitations. I’m sure the tests for emotional intelligence have similar weaknesses, but I want to explore the concept a bit, especially as it pertains to leaders in the business world.

EI is a skill that can be taught and learned. People who want to function well in the workplace need to work on acquiring these skills. “Developing EI can help people in all types of professions learn to work harmoniously in teams, build relationships with customers and clients and handle stress more effectively,” writes Roberta Staley. This certainly sounds promising.

David Cory, president and founder of The Emotional Intelligence Training Company, based in North Saanich, BC says that “many men don’t learn about emotions, they ignore and deny them and, above all else, don’t show them to others… However, when given the opportunity in workshops, participants experience greater levels of trust and deeper connections through sharing their emotions.” Cory is obviously running a business that offers courses to make a profit. However, this does not mean that the ideas he is promoting are not valid.

What does Emotional Intelligence encompass? According to the article by Roberta Stavely, it encompasses:

  1. Reality testing – checking one’s perceptions and biases
  2. Social responsibility – the desire to make the workplace and world a better place
  3. Empathy – paying attention to the emotions of others and the impact you have on them
  4. Emotional self-awareness – being aware of your emotions, problem solving by leveraging the emotions involved in the application of logic
  5. Impulse control – understanding when either stability or spontaneity is appropriate.

I am neither a psychologist nor a psychiatrist, though I have always found psychology an interesting academic topic. However, I was a teacher for over 30 years and I can relate to the importance of emotional intelligence in the maturing of teenagers. The teenage years are a time of change for all youth, both in physical development, intellectual development and emotional development. Most youth are aware of the physical changes that happen, but not all of them are aware of how the intellect develops in this time period as well. Many youth are also unaware of the need to develop their emotional intelligence as well.

Let me give examples, both from people that I know and from the fiction that I read. A child is often unfairly treated by his parents, by being told that they can’t do anything right. I was always a shy child, but was I taught how to hold a conversation? No, but I do remember being told what not to say or ask. I still have problems knowing what to say to strangers.

Children can have problems such as stammering or dyslexia. These problems can really hinder learning at school, particularly as the afflicted child will often be bullied by others. I am no expert on how to treat these problems, but I do know that methods have been developed to help children handle these handicaps. They are certainly not related to intelligence at all. The first student I had that told me she had dyslexia also got very good grades. She had been helped early enough in her schooling that she was able to work with the subjects (probably spending more time than many classmates) and coming out with good grades. Those who don’t get help become adults with large handicaps.

Learning emotional intelligence seems to not be something that our regular school system is encouraged to teach. As with any school subject, some people learn things easily and others strive with them. I don’t remember receiving any instruction in handling emotions, except to bottle them up and not show them. Even today, in my 70s, I would have problems putting the correct names on some of the emotions we regularly experience: anxiety, stress, anger, frustration, happiness, contentment, etc.

Emotional intelligence is something I would like to learn more about. I hope by sharing this concept with you, you too will both look at yourself and think about how well you have developed this type of intelligence. It is never too late to learn new things.