Category: Book review

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Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

Author: Cat Bohannon

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, Penguin Random House

Copyright: 2023

This is not a book for everyone to read as there is a lot of scientific detail, but I think it is important to be aware of some of the author’s main ideas. In this review, I will give the main ideas of each chapter and if you want to know more, you’ll just have to read the book.

I have enjoyed the author’s writing style. Lots of scientific detail, but also analogies that helped me understand what she was writing about. She is also concerned about how long ago many of these characteristics of humans and in particular, women, developed. For me, this was not so important. In my description of each chapter, I have left all of the detail out, and many of the interesting sidetracks that the author takes, and I would really encourage you to read the book if you find that what I have written is interesting. I have used some direct quotes so that you get an idea of the way she writes.

I think the main message that I got from reading this book was the female and male humans are quite different, biologically, and far too seldom our modern society thinks that they are the same. There is a big difference in men and women being treated equally, and expecting men and women to either act the same way or to have the same characteristics. I feel that this book helped me understand these biological differences in a new way.

But first, a little look at the order that things developed in the human body, and the author is primarily concerned with the female body. The author is taken up with how long ago different characteristics in humans first developed. First comes feeding our young with milk, then comes the development of the womb and giving birth to live young. The way we perceive the world, through ears, eyes, and nose changes to reflect the changes in the way we lived. In particular the development of seeing color so that we could see the difference between ripe fruit and the leaves in the trees.

One of the major changes in our body came when we started walking on our “hind” legs and we could run, both to get food and to avoid being eaten. But even here, women and men have developed differently, with different muscle types. As humans evolved, they developed larger brains which we used to devise tools and language. Women developed menopause and societies developed rules for sexual relationships.

Introduction

Cat Bohannon is the mother of two children and is concerned that in health and medical research, most of the research is done with the male of the species, whether it is human or non-human. Dealing with the female of the species is just too complicated, according to the researchers. Unfortunately this leads to results that just don’t fit women, whether it is medication or diagnostics. In this book, the author puts together a lot of the most recent research results on how the female human body has evolved and how it works. She feels that the research into the female body has not been getting enough attention and this book is a result of her concerns – “how female bodies evolved, how they work, what it really means to biologically be a woman” (page 17).

How is the book organized? “Each trait will appear in the book in roughly the same order it first appeared in our evolutionary lineage. As such, each chapter builds on the last, moving forward in time and consequence, just as our bodies built later models of themselves on previous incarnations.” (page 20)

Chapter 1: Milk

“Women have breasts because we make milk” (page 31), which is essential for the survival of our babies. “Newborn animals face four essential dangers: desiccation, predation, starvation and disease” (page 32). When a mother feeds her newborn with her own milk she is preventing the baby from getting dried out (desiccation or dehydration). This is the first need of any living thing – water, which a mother’s milk provides.

But milk isn’t just water, it also has other things in it. Water carries disease and therefore a baby shouldn’t drink water until it is several months old. Babies are still developing their immune system so it is important to get their mother’s help through her milk.

“For the first few days after a woman gives birth, her milk is incredibly special – a hot shot of immune system for her newborn baby.” (page 35) This is called colostrum but after a few days the mother will produce something that looks a lot more like what we think of as breast milk. This colostrum helps the newborn resist disease, and help them get the good, friendly bacteria they need to digest the fat-rich milk that comes later.

To get their milk, babies suckle and they can do that because women have nipples (page 42). The author describes how a baby actually gets its “milk” from its mother’s breast. I found it fascinating to read and to get a better understanding of how everything actually works, with the baby sucking and the mother producing. She also includes a description of some of the problems that baby or mother may experience.

Chapter 2: Womb

“The majority of multicellular animals lay a clutch of eggs… Laying eggs is normal. What’s not normal is letting eggs incubate and hatch inside your body, where they can do all kinds of catastrophic damage.” (page 75) Giving birth to live young is something that mammals, including humans do. This has influenced the lives of women as “most women have periods, get pregnant and give birth.” (page 76)

This chapter explains how the uterus and vagina have been formed, but also how the placenta, which joins the mother and the baby, creates all sorts of problems, many of which she explains. When you read her explanations, it seems extraordinary how for most women things go right. Growing your baby inside of you is a dangerous project.

The author also compares humans to other mammals and explains what the risks are. She also explains the advantages. Given that we live in a world with an expanding population, birthing live young is more successful than one might have thought. Changes in how the female body is built, both placement of organs and the muscles surrounding them and supporting them, play an important role in the survival of women.

Why do women menstruate? The author explains the process and some possible reasons for why it is important. Some cultural taboos are also mentioned, but mostly she sticks to why menstruation is important for the uterus. But once a woman is pregnant, “the uterus and its temporary passenger are, in fact, in conflict: the uterus evolving to protect the mother’s body from its semi-native invader, and the fetus and placenta evolving to try to work around the uterine safety measures.” (page 100)

Though most pregnancies go fine, being pregnant can also make a woman deeply unwell. One common problem is preeclampsia where spikes in blood pressure affect the woman. Thankfully modern medicine can help many women who are experiencing problems.

Chapter 3: Perception

This chapter looks at several of our sensory inputs and looks at the changes between us and other animals. As humans developed to live in the trees, so the body needed to develop the sensory organs needed to live there. “We needed eyes that could see when fruits were ripening and distinguish when leaves were young and nutritious and tender. We needed ears that could hear our children in a loud, leafy landscape high about the ground… We needed noses that could handle a sex life in the canopy.” (page 122)

Ears – In order to handle communication in the noise of the forest, “the aural part of your sensory array is going to have to be adept at separating important noises from non-important noises.” (page 122) Primates are able to hear and produce much lower frequencies than many other mammals and they found ways to get louder. There also seems to be a difference in what males can “hear” and what females can “hear”. “Female-typical ears seem to be specially tuned to the range of frequencies that correspond to baby cries.” (page 125) The author also goes on to discuss hearing loss as we grow older, with men more likely to suffer hearing loss than women. But women will feel more distressed by loud environments. “Men can function more happily in noisier environments than women can.” (page 129)

Nose – Smell and taste, or olfaction, is “our ability to sense chemical gradients”. (page 131) Olfaction involves molecules and about a third of the volume of our face is used for olfaction. The importance of the nose is to tell you where it is safe and where it is not, what’s good to eat and what’s poison, who is nice to have sex with and who might kill you instead (page 133) and these skills influence your behavior. In addition, “a woman’s sense of smell is more sensitive than a man’s”. (page 137) This can explain part of why pregnant women are prone to food cravings and food aversions. (page 140)

Eyes – We have two eyes that face forward, which allows us to better able calculate how far away something is. Parallax is the overlap between the vision in the right eye and the left eye and makes it easier to see how far away something is. (page 144) This was important for finding food. Originally, humans may have been nocturnal, but as we changed our diets from eating insects to eating plants, we also changed our time of day when we were active. As we became more active in the daytime, our eyes developed the ability to see color, especially the difference between red and green (which is something color-blind people cannot do).

As these sensors in our body changed, the brain also had to change to accommodate the need to process all these sensory inputs. This is where the difference between what we “see” and what we “perceive” comes in. “The social context of our perceived worlds influences how we interpret and act on the signals brought to us through our sensory array.” (page 154)

Chapter 4: Legs

At some point in the development of humans, we moved from living in the trees, to walking and running in the savanna, perhaps because the forests were shrinking. Walking on our hind legs, freed up the hands and arms for grabbing and carrying things, such as food. This change resulted in a lot of physical stress on feet, knees and hips, not to mention the spine, as the center of gravity changed. Pregnant women also experience physical stresses, primarily on the spine, as the baby increases in size.

Bunions are discussed at length as it affects primarily women and comes from the weight of our bodies being put on our feet. In addition, the wear and tear on knees is also discussed. “Women’s femurs come into the knee joint at an angle… so our knees are closer together to help balance that differing center of gravity.” (page 162) This results in more knee replacements done on women than on men.

But most of this chapter discusses how the muscles in our body are both different between men and women and how these muscles work. Of the three different kinds of muscles in our bodies, striated skeletal muscle is what we use to move our bones around. As our bones grow so do the muscles that are attached to them, so exercising the muscles strengthens the attachments to the bones. (page 171) We have retained the brachiating shoulders that allow us to move our arms in ways that a dog never could. But again, “somewhere in puberty, men’s and women’s average body plans diverge, with men’s shoulders and chests broadening and bulking up, while women’s hips widen and their breasts develop.” (page 172)

In addition, there is the difference between being a good sprinter (often men) and being a good endurance runner (often women). “Women of reproductive age may be better at utilizing that metabolic switch. They’re not only better at getting to their second wind, but once they’re there, they last longer than men do.” (page 174) The author also discusses the way our skeletal muscles are built, some are fast-twitch which contract very quickly and generate a lot of power, and some are slow-twitch which contract more slowly, but are much slower to tire. (page 181)

Chapter 5: Tools

This chapter isn’t really about what one is expecting, if one is expecting stone axes and spears. It is about the tools that women use to survive childbirth. The best way to survive a pregnancy is to not get pregnant. The next best way is to have a woman or group of woman who support you through your pregnancy and help with the childbirth. Then there is bringing up the child until it can produce its own children. Women have it tough and this is dangerous work. On the other hand, there are now over 8 billion of us on the planet, so something is going well, though it is only in the last 60 years or so that the population on the planet has exploded.

To make stone tools, humans had to work together, to cooperate, and pass the knowledge down from one generation to the next. Using tools is a set of behaviors, rather than something biological, but it is an important part of our relationship with the world around us. “Tool use is fundamentally about solving problems.” (page 200) The problems in the past would have included hunger, predators, disease and despair. In addition our babies are very vulnerable and are needy for an extraordinarily long time. “Some kind of cultural revolution around child care must have occurred.” (page 200)

The author discusses childbirth, improving fertility and preventing the conception of children. She uses the term “gynecology” for this body of medical knowledge and practices which are found around the world. Many women have continuing health problems six months after giving birth. Midwifery was an important tool that helped both a woman to survive and the newborn child to survive.

People have migrated, when an environment gets too tough to survive in, and adapted to the new environment. Creating enough children for the population to survive and grow in a new location is not always successful. Building what’s called a minimum viable population (page 217) is necessary to have a chance of survival and this means that the group needs to produce babies, and babies that survive and produce their own babies.

Chapter 6: Brain

The brain is used to solve problems, whether it is to find food, protect oneself from predators or protect one’s young. Human brains are very large so we have a great capacity for solving problems, but also becoming more social. Why have we developed such a big brain, which is costly both to grow and to maintain? It is what most people think of that makes humans different than others in the animal world. We use our “brains to survive just about anywhere, at any temperature, in any environment.” (page 258)

The author admits to finding this chapter difficult to write as she wanted to show the difference between male and female, and the research so far shows that “the female human brain doesn’t seem to be all that functionally different from the male.” (page 239) She compares humans and many animals where there are significant sex differences. The discussion covers mental disorders, including depression, anxiety and bipolar; what being “smart” means, including IQ, testing, math skills, and language skills. She looks at some of the stereotypes and looks at what the research has shown so far.

We use our “brains to survive just about anywhere, at any temperature, in any environment.” (page 258) The planet we live on has changed many times in the millions of years that have elapsed, and humans have adapted along with the changes and can be found in every type of environment on the earth. Being omnivorous helps us adapt, so that if one particular food disappears, it isn’t going to kill us. (page 260)

There is also a considerable amount of space used to explain how our brain develops. Though a lot develops in the womb, most of the development of the brain happens after birth, with a “newborn drinking 16% of their weight in milk every day for the first six months of their life.” (page 261) Our brains reach 80 percent of their adult size by the age of two and then we use a long time to “build” the rest of it. It seems that at this point there are some differences between the sexes. In addition to the “hardware” development of the brain itself, there is also the learning of one’s role in the social environment that one lives in. These roles can change as one grows older. (page 264)

Pregnancy will affect how a woman’s brain develops. I found this part especially interesting as women who give birth will have different developments in their brain, than either men or women who have not given birth. All those hormones do affect how we develop, even as adults. “Human women’s brains seem to have evolved a process, unique to pregnant women and new mothers, that helps them adapt to the deeply ancient, ever challenging sociality that comes with human motherhood, and that this process is neurologically violent.” (page 270)

The author also discusses the topic of “girlhood” which is the way a girl learns her role in a “sexist environment”. (page 276)

Chapter 7: Voice

Humans have language and can talk to each other. By using our voice, we can tell stories and instruct others on how to do things. Humans have also learned to write so that what has been said, or thought, can be kept for later generations. The author is interested in how males and females use their “voices” differently, both in what is said and when it is said.

The way the human larynx and vocal chords are formed are a prerequisite for the way humans form words and sentences, not just sounds. There are differences between males and females. Males have longer and thicker vocal chords, deeper voices, larger lungs and a larger chest for resonance. Females’ voices are higher pitched and don’t have the same lung capacity for volume. Women strain their vocal chords more than men do. (page 297)

The author thinks that language was first used as a way for a mother to communicate with her child, and it developed from there. Talking at any age is hard work and requires breath control, so it takes a long time for young children to start talking and to have the breath control needed to talk for long periods.

“Exactly zero human babies are born with the ability to speak, but most are language ready. Our human genes have preprogrammed our brains to be capable, hungry even, for learning language. But learning to speak involves a lot of data. It involves a lot of rules. It requires an incredible amount of highly specific, lightning-fast problem solving… Human beings have learned how to speak primarily by interacting with their mothers.” (page 306) “When babies babble, they are testing out their vocal apparatus to see what sound they can make.” (page 307)

Motherese, the way that a mother talks to her newborn baby, is universal and independent of the actual language that is spoken. It has been proven that this way of speaking helps a child learn their first language. (page 313)

“Everything humans care about is possible because we have language. The same sorts of logic paths that rule language, that combine known things into new ideas, that puzzle out the code of others’ communication into knowable thoughts and desires, also write stories and build meaning and tease out the finest, strangest features of the universe. They make us what we are. That’s why grammar is one of the most important things your mother ever helped you learn.” (page 316)

Chapter 8: Menopause

Why do women have menopause, where she stops producing eggs and becomes infertile? After a description of what menopause entails, most of the chapter discusses why menopause may have developed and the effects on the social community of having older women who are not producing their own children. The first hypothesis, the grandmother hypothesis, is that older women help look after their grandchildren.

A second hypothesis is that “mammalian eggs may have an expiration date” (page 334) and therefore a woman will not produce eggs once she has gotten to a certain age. Old eggs would be susceptible to genetic damage.

A third hypothesis is that older women are wise and can remember things that happened many years ago. So in a crisis, they can come up with solutions, something that has been done before and worked.

The author then goes on to discuss what it means to be elderly. Having a longer life span, means avoiding death. Statistics show that women are better at avoiding death than men. “Throughout the world, women are simply better at not dying than men are. so long as we manage to survive the ridiculous death ride our reproductive system takes us on, we usually live longer, healthier lives than men do.” (page 345) The author continues with a discussion of what kills us (cancer, cardiovascular disease and lung disease) and shows how the female body is better at outrunning these diseases. (page 348)

Chapter 9: Love

The last chapter is about bonding, or not bonding between the sexes. The author discusses matriarchies and patriarchies. There are definitely biological differences between the female and the male human bodies. The female body takes the burden of reproduction, both with a gestation period of nine months and up to several years of breast-feeding. “There’s something distinctive about our species today… It’s the unusual way we love one another: our distinctive, complex, often bizarre and overpowering love bonds, and the way we’re able to extend those love bonds to people we’re not related.” (page 361) In all cultures there are mating strategies. The idea of women is usually connected to the idea of raising children.

“Every human culture is steadfast in feeling that their particular way of dealing with love and sex is right while others are wrong.” (page 362). The author goes on to look at what other primate animals do and to look at the human body to see how it has evolved. Her conclusion is that humans have developed to be mostly monogamous, where one man and one woman join together both in sex and in daily living, bringing up the children which are the product of this union. Advantages for the female include someone who will help her feed her family and defend them from predators. (page 373) Advantages for the male is that he knows who his own children are.

There is also a discussion of “sexism” where men and women are treated differently and the culture expects different behaviors from men and women. “If pregnancies are dangerous and babies are needy, you need work-arounds. For example, birth spacing to control how many of the the girls in your troop are pregnant… You can also create cultural rules around when and where the males get access to female bodies, and then create punishments for those who break the rules.” (page 382) “That’s the core of what sexism is: a massive set of rules that work to control reproduction.” (page 383)

But the author is also concerned about “what happens when a culture’s sex rules start to reduce the overall health, fertility and competitive viability of a population?” (page 386) Problems today include being less healthy (spread of sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies) and reduced access to maternal health care. (page 387) For example the maternal death rate is actually going up in the United States.

Poor health is expensive for everyone and lowers how wealthy a community will be. “How much money a child’s parents have access to shapes not only how much wealth that child is likely to have as an adult but also how likely that child is to reach adulthood with fertility left intact.” (page 394) “The easiest, cheapest, and most reliable way to increase a community’s wealth is to invest in its women and girls.” (page 392) Women are more likely to spend money on food, clothing, health care and children’s education. Men, meanwhile, are more likely to spend money on entertainment, weapons and gambling. (page 395)

Being wise is “your ability to solve problems, … to form deep relationships with other people,… to contribute to your community,… and to keep your kids safe.” (page 397) How smart you are will affect how likely you are to stay alive. Here the author discusses how we become smart, as our brains need a lot of energy to work. So feeding pregnant women and their children once they are born, is very important to their development and their “smartness”. Children also need education about all sorts of things such as keeping healthy, sex education, etc. In many countries, girls are not given very much education, so already the next generation is starting at a disadvantage. “Our societies seem to be at our best… when we’re educating girls.” (page 401)

Some conclusions from the author: “We could use some guidelines. For example, while eradicating sexism seems pretty impossible, we can become more deliberate about the choices we make around sex rules. We can actively choose to create social institution that combat the negative effects of sexism. We can reinforce the need to be more egalitarian. And above all, we can choose to support and defend the advance of gynecology.” (page 406) By gynecology, she is meaning things like safe contraception, abortion and proper prenatal and postnatal care. The author also recommends contributing to children’s hospitals, and research that helps make the world easier for women and girls. (page 410)

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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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“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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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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The Climate Book – An Overview

Created by Greta Thunberg and published by Allen Lane /Penguin Books in November 2022.

Greta Thunberg was born in 2003 in Sweden. In 2018 she started a school strike for the climate outside the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm. Since then she has traveled to many places in the world and spoken at many gatherings. She is a person that cares about the planet Earth.

The book is divided into five parts. Greta Thunberg writes an introduction to each part and some comments in between. All her articles are written on blue paper which is to symbolize the blue planet that we live on. In addition there are many experts in various fields to write articles about the science involved in this problem. There is a lot of information in this book which has 446 pages. The main purpose, in my opinion, is to get the reader to think about their own lifestyle, to acquire some knowledge of the problems and perhaps make changes in their own life.

In this first blog I am going to give an overview of what the book covers. In later blogs I will be going into some of the issues that are taken up in this book.

I recommend reading this book, though it can be a bit heavy reading. I am reading it in very small doses and so it is taking several months to get through it. Perhaps it is best this way as then I have time to reflect on the different topics as they are taken up.

Part One How Climate Works

The science of how our climate works is explained in this part. The fact that our climate is changing, and that our weather is getting more extreme, is not debatable. But do you understand how it all fits together? This part of the book is to help the reader get a basic understanding of the science behind it all.

Greta Thunberg has written three articles for this part:

  • To solve this problem, we need to understand it
  • The science is as solid as it gets
  • This is the biggest story in the world

In addition there are six articles:

  • The Deep History of Carbon Dioxide by Peter Brannen
  • Our Evolutionary Impact by Beth Shapiro
  • Civilization and Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
  • The Discovery of Climate Change by Michael Oppenheimer
  • Why Didn’t They Act? by Naomi Oreskes
  • Tipping Points and Feedback Loops by Johan Rockström

Part Two How our Planet is Changing

The science behind the changing climate has been known for a long time. I live in a place where most people think that it is fine if the weather was a bit warmer. But warming is not the problem everywhere. More extreme weather which causes storms and floods, rising sea levels and air pollution are all part of the problem. I found these articles interesting as they explain problems that other parts of the world are experiencing.

Greta Thunberg has written three articles for this part:

  • The weather seems to be on steroids
  • The snowball has been set in motion
  • It is much closer to home than we think

There are 21 articles in this part, most of them are quite short, about two pages, though some are longer. These are experts in their fields giving information on what is actually happening.

  • Heat, by Katharine Hayhoe
  • Methane and Other Gases by Zeke Hausfather
  • Air Pollution and Aerosols by Bjørn H. Samset
  • Clouds by Paulo Coppi
  • Arctic Warming and the Jet Stream by Jennifer Francis
  • Dangerous Weather by Friederike Otto
  • Drought and Floods by Kare Marvel
  • Ice Sheets, Shelves and Glaciers by Ricarda Winkelmann
  • Warming Oceans and Rising Seas by Stefan Rahmstorf
  • Acidification and Marine Ecosystems by Hans-Otto Pörtner
  • Microplastics by Karin Kvale
  • Fresh Water by Peter H. Gleick
  • Wildfires by Joëlle Gergis
  • The Amazon by Carlos Nobre, Julia Arieira and Nathália Nascimento
  • Boreal and Temperate Forests by Beverly Law
  • Terrestrial Biodiversity by Andy Purvis and Adriana De Palma
  • Insects by Dave Goulson
  • Nature’s Calendar by Keith W. LArson
  • Soil by Jennifer L. Soong
  • Permafrost by Ôrjan Gustafsson
  • What Happens at 1.5, 2 and 4 degrees C of Warming? by Tamsin Edwards

Part Three How It Affects Us

When the climate changes, it can affect our water and food supplies. It can affect our health. We are not all equally affected but usually the poor are hit hardest. This part helped me better understand how others are being affected, those who live in other parts of the world.

The three articles by Greta Thunberg are:

  • The world has a fever
  • We are not all in the same boat
  • Enormous challenges are waiting

In addition there are 17 articles:

  • Health and Climate by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
  • Heat and Illness by Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera
  • Air Pollution by Drew Shindell
  • Vector-borne Diseases by Felipe J. Colón-González
  • Antibiotic Resistance by John Brownstein, Derek MacFadden, Sarah McGough and Maruicio Sentilland
  • Food and Nutrition by Samuel S. Myers
  • Life at 1.1 degrees C
  • Environmental Racism by Jacqueline Patterson
  • Climate Refugees by Abrahm Lustfarten
  • Sea-level Rise and Small Islands by Michael Taylor
  • Rain in the Sahel by Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim
  • Winter in Sápmi by Elin Anna Labba
  • Fighting for the Forest by Sonia Guajajara
  • Warming and Inequality by Solomon Hsiang
  • Water Shortages by Taikan Oki
  • Climate Conflicts by Marshall Burke
  • The True Cost of Climate Change by Eugene Linden

Part Four What We’ve Done About It

It has been quite depressing reading about what has actually been done, as it is so little. Emissions are increasing. Governments and businesses are avoiding the changes that are necessary. Some of these articles are about some of the fancy ideas that are being tried, but aren’t necessarily working.

The five articles by Greta Thunberg are:

  • How can we undo our failures if we are unable to admit that we have failed?
  • We are not moving in the right direction
  • A whole new way of thinking
  • They keep saying one thing while doing another
  • This is where we draw the line

In addition there are 22 articles:

  • The New Denialism by Kevin Anderson
  • The Truth about Government Climate Targets by Alexandra Urisman Otto
  • The Persistence of Fossil Fuels by Bill McKibben
  • The Rise of Renewables by Glen Peters
  • How Can Forests Help Us? by Karl-Heinz Erb and Simone Gingrich
  • What about Geoengineering? by Niclas Hällström, Jennie C. Stephens and Isak Stoddard
  • Drawdown Technologies by Rob Jackson
  • Our Imprint on the Land by Alexander Popp
  • The Calorie Question by Michael Clark
  • Designing New Food Systems by Sonja Vermeulen
  • Mapping Emission in an Industrial World by John Barrett and Alice Garvey
  • The Technical Hitch by Ketan Joshi
  • The Challenge of Transport by Alice Larkin
  • Is the Future Electric? by Jillian Anable and Christian Brand
  • The Cost of Consumerism by Annie Lowrey
  • How (Not) to Buy by Mike Berners-Lee
  • Waste around the World by Silpa Kaza
  • The Myth of Recycling by Nina Schrank
  • Emissions and Growth by Nicholas Stern
  • Equity by Sunita Narain
  • Degrowth by Jason Hickel
  • The Perception Gap by Amitav Ghosh

Part Five What We Must Do Now

If we are to prevent the earth becoming severely affected, we have to do an awful lot more than is being done. There are still too many people in places of power who are not doing what it takes to prevent global warming on a significant scale.

There are four articles by Greta Thunberg:

  • The most effective way to get out of this mess is to educate ourselves
  • We now have to do the seemingly impossible
  • Honesty, solidarity, integrity and climate justice
  • Hope is something you have to earn

In addition there are 17 articles:

  • Individual Action, Social Transformation by Stuart Capstick and Lorraine Whitmarsh
  • Towards 1.5 Degrees C Lifestyles by Kate Raworth
  • Overcoming Climate Apathy by Per Espen Stoknes
  • Changing Our Diets by Godon Eshel
  • Remembering the Ocean by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
  • Rewilding by George Monbiot and Rebecca Wrigley
  • Practical Utopias by Margaret Atwood
  • People Power by Erica Chenoweth
  • Changing the Media Narrative by George Monbiot
  • Resisting the New Denialism by Michael E. Mann
  • A Genuine Emergency Response by Seth Klein
  • Lessons from the Pandemic by David Wallace-Wells
  • A Just Transition by Naomi Klein
  • What Does Equity Mean to You by Nicki Becker, Disha A. Ravi, Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, Laura Verónica Muñoz, Ina Maria Shikongo, Ayisha Siddiqa and Mitzi Jonelle Tan
  • Women and the Climate Crisis by Wanjora Mathai
  • Decarbonization Requires Redistribution by Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty
  • Climate Reparations by Olúféemi O. Tálwò
  • Mending Our Relationship with the Earth by Robin Wall Kimmerer

I have a paper copy of the book which uses 446 pages to share these articles, some pictures and graphs and an index. There is a web site for looking up where the references come from.

At the moment I am reading Part Four and will share my reactions and more detailed comments about each part of the book in future blogs. I am enjoying the book and it is making me think about the conditions in the world. We are all very quick to criticize what others do, but I want to work out what I can do in my life. I cannot change other people, but I can change the way I live and what I do.

I hope you will also read this book and work out ways that you too can be part of the solution and not just part of the problem.

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“What Happened to You?” – Book Review

This book is written as a conversation between the two authors, Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey. The subtitle is: “Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing”. This book was published by Flatiron Books, New York, in 2021.

I would like to recommend this book to anyone who works with or has children. It may also give you insights into yourself. I found the presentation of the material easy to understand. The use of examples from the authors’ work, as well as explanations of the science behind the working of the brain, made it easier for me to relate to the material being discussed. I ended up reflecting on a lot of the material, perhaps almost too much, but there were several times while reading the book that I felt that I had really learned something new which I wished I had known a long time ago.

Dr. Bruce D. Perry is a clinician and researcher in neuroscience and psychiatry. He has worked primarily with traumatized children. His role in the book is to explain what is happening in the brain both when a child experiences trauma or neglect and how what happens in the brain affects a person’s experiences later in life.

Opray Winfrey is primarily known as a talk show host with her own show from 1986 to 2011. Growing up in rural Mississippi she experienced much trauma in her childhood and brings personal experience to the book. She has also interviewed many people who have experienced trauma and encourages the reader to understand what has happened to these people that make them the way they became as adults.

These two authors use personal experience and explain the science of what happens in the brain when a person, especially a young child, undergoes a traumatic experience, whether it is short-lived or goes over years. When things go wrong for someone, they are both concerned with what happened to this person in the past, whether it was a week ago, or several decades ago. Using examples and stories of people, the book both tries to explain what happens in the brain, but also what can be done later to heal the person and help them learn a better way of living.

The book is divided into an introduction and ten chapters and I would like to give a very brief summary of what I found most important in each chapter. I recommend this book to everyone, as it will give you a new perspective on the people you either work with or live with and give you, hopefully, an aha experience about yourself and why you are like you are.

Introduction

Our brains are very adaptable and are changing all of the time. “Understanding how the brain reacts to stress or early trauma helps clarify how what has happened to us in the past shapes who we are, how we behave and why we do the things we do.” (Page 9) We must also remember that good experiences also shape the brain.

Using the phrase, “What happened to you?” puts the emphasis on how experiences, both good and bad have shaped us. It made me think of personal things, for example, how my sister and I had very different early years, and how my two children also had very different early years, in spite of growing up in the same family.

Chapter 1 Making Sense of the World

When a baby is born, it begins trying to make sense of their surroundings. “The developing infant acts and feels, and these actions and feelings help organize how they will think.” (Page 19). The child’s individual history influences the way the brain develops with the result that every individual is unique. Everyone sees and understands the world in a unique way.

Through examples and diagrams of the brain, Dr. Perry explains how these unique experiences influence the way the brain develops. “Moment by moment in early life, our developing brain sorts and stores our personal experiences, making our personal codebook that helps us interpret the world. Each of us creates a unique worldview shaped by our life’s experiences.” (Page 21)

The brain grows very rapidly in the first few years of life and the child’s early experiences have a very large impact on the infant and later the child. A worldview is already being formed from day one, whether the child has responsible and good caregivers, or is abused or neglected.

Chapter 2 Seeking Balance

“Rhythm is essential to a healthy body and a healthy mind.” (Page 31) Something rhythmic will help us calm down, whether it is walking, swimming, knitting or dancing. Rhythm is regulating and regulation is about being in balance with ourselves and our world. “When we get out of balance, we become dysregulated and feel discomfort or distress. When we get back into balance, we feel better.” (Page 32)

Babies need to learn self-regulation from the caregivers around them, but much can go wrong if they do not have good caregivers. Babies that grow up in a nurturing, supportive and caring environment are being regulated when the caregiver responds to a cry of distress. “A consistent, nurturing caregiver builds an internal view that people are safe, predictable and caring.” (Page 34) But not all babies are lucky in the caregivers in their lives. The opposite is also discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 3 How We Were Loved

“Belonging and being loved are core to the human experience.” (Page 48) Social interactions are an integral part of being human and it is our earliest relationships that set the pattern for the rest of our lives. “To the newborn, love is action; it is the attentive, responsive, nurturing care that adults provide.” (Page 48) The actions that a baby experiences sets the way the brain develops and the child’s worldview is formed.

Chapter 4 The Spectrum of Trauma

Instead of asking someone or yourself, “What’s wrong with you?”, we need to ask the question “What happened to you?” What we experienced as a child, whether good or bad, influences how we live our lives as adults. This chapter is designed to help you recognize if you have experienced any trauma in your early years. According to Dr. Perry, almost 50 percent of children in the United States have had at least one significant traumatic experience. (Page 62)

This chapter includes a discussion of what the word, “trauma”, means and how it is used. An example is given to show how the same event will be experienced quite differently depending on how the person is involved in the event.

The specific effects of a traumatic event on a person’s health is influence by a variety of factors including genetic vulnerability, the age of the person at which the trauma event happened and any history of previous trauma. Having healthy relationships will also influence positively the effect of a traumatic event. Trauma plays a major role in many mental health disorders, but not all.

Chapter 5 Connecting the Dots

“We absorb things from previous generations and pass them on to the next generation.” (Page 78) This can include a fear of something, for example, dogs. This chapter discusses how fear can be transmitted between generations, “What happened to us?” We inherit more than genes from our parents.

For an individual to make intentional change, he/she must identify what has happened either at the individual level or at the cultural level. Values and beliefs are learned and absorbed from the adults around us and then taught to the next generation. “If we want to enrich the transmission of humane, compassionate values, beliefs and practices, and minimize the transmission of hateful, destructive beliefs, we need to be very mindful of what we’re exposing our children to.” (Page 82)

“Developmental adversity increases the risk for all kinds of health problems, including heart disease, asthma, gastrointestinal problems, and autoimmune disease.” (Page 86) Treating physical health problems has to take into consideration experienced trauma. “Many trauma-related health problems are dismissed, missed, and misunderstood.” (Page 87)

Chapter 6 From Coping to Healing

“Neglect and trauma can co-occur but they cause very different biological experiences and can have very different effects on the brain and the developing child.” (Page 100) There is still a lot to learn about how the brain develops, but research is being done.

It can be that one important area of development, for example, emotional development, is relatively ignored or understimulated. “The key to having many healthy relationships in your life is having only a few safe, stable and nurturing relationships in your first year.” (Page 104) This builds the foundation that allows the child to continue to grow healthy relational connections. Parents have to be fully engaged and present with their children. It matters who is raising a child in its first years.

Dissociation is a coping mechanism that occurs when an individual feels that a threatening situation is inescapable. The child retreats into an inner world and avoids conflict. “People-pleasing is a classic coping mechanism that is part of the compliant behaviors seen with dissociation.” (Page 113)

You can’t get rid of the past, but therapy is about building new associations, making new, healthier default pathways, building a better alternative. (Page 117) But building new alternatives takes repetition and time.

Chapter 7 Post-Traumatic Wisdom

“We are always changing. We change from all of our experiences, good and bad. This is because our brain is changeable – malleable. It’s always changing.” (Page 120) It is impossible to go back to the way things were before a trauma. “Adversity impacts the developing child.” (Page 121) This chapter includes a discussion of what has been learned about how the brain changes when exposed to stress. The experiences a child has had during its first year will influence how it can react to stress situations later in life, even the learning situation of a classroom at school.

“Healthy development involves a series of challenges and exposure to new things. And failure is an important part of the process.” (Page 124) But the challenges have to be reasonable for the child’s, or adult’s, level of development. You can’t learn to write paragraphs until you have learned to write words. “A child in an environment where they feel loved and safe will choose to leave their comfort zone.” (Page 124) Safety and stability are the keys for healthy growth.

Using several examples of how communities offer healing, it becomes clear that a child needs more than one stable adult in their life to be able to experience healthy development.

Chapter 8 Our Brains, Our Biases, Our Systems

“Your past is not an excuse. But it is an explanation” (Page 137) of how we have become the person we are. Healing begins when we can look at the past and work towards a better future. There are still very few professionals and organizations that understand how much trauma people have experienced.

“The complexities of trauma impact all of our systems, from maternal-child health to child welfare to education, law enforcement, mental health and more.” (Page 138) The old ways of doing things take a long time to change, even when it has been acknowledged that they weren’t really working. The term “trauma-informed care” is a term that is used regularly in this chapter to indicate that health care and education need to be more aware of how trauma has affected so many people. The term can be used differently depending on which system you are in, and treatments that are offered can vary widely. The study of trauma is a very young science.

Marginalization, being excluded, minimized or shamed, is also a trauma that dehumanizes many people. Marginalization can occur because of race, gender or sexual orientation. A child with traumatic experiences will often have difficulty learning, often overreacting to the feedback and criticisms that come in an ordinary classroom. (Page 140) This leads to behavioral problems that are often misunderstood. Many children may be diagnosed with ADHD because of their response to stress, but it is really a coping technique that the child has developed based on previous experiences.

“When schools do learn about the effects of trauma and make some simple changes in how they evaluate, support and teach, they see dramatic improvements in academic achievement and decreases in challenging and disruptive behaviors.” (Page 145)

“One of the most important aspects of healing is recognizing that it can involve multiple therapeutic techniques and approaches.” (Page 147) This chapter goes on to explain some of these techniques and how they help. Not everyone can afford or have access to professional help, but having access to several caring people gives better outcomes after trauma. These caring people can be family or community groups.

Chapter 9 Relational Hunger in the Modern World

“We live in environments where we see fewer people, and even when we do see people and engage in conversation, we’re not really listening to each other or being fully present. And this disconnection is making us more vulnerable.” (Page 164) “Our ability as a people to tolerate stressors is diminishing because our connectedness is diminishing… Many people are overly reactive to relatively minor challenges.” (Page 164) It is normal that people miscommunicate but then they repair things This builds resilience. If you walk away, everybody loses. “We all need to get better at listening, regulating, reflecting. This requires the capacity to forgive, to be patient.” (Page 164)

Our modern life gives fewer opportunities to relate to others. We live in smaller family units, or alone. Spending time in front of a screen also reduces the time spent communicating with other people. People have become more self-absorbed, more anxious and more depressed. “I believe we don’t have enough quiet conversational moments listening to a friend with no other distractions.” (Page 170)

Chapter 10 What We Need Now

This last chapter in the book brings an optimistic note to the end of a long conversation between the two authors. Understanding what has happened to people, and knowing the source of a problem, gives a better understanding of how to fix the problem. In addition, a teacher or parent needs to be aware of when a child is in a teachable moment and is able to understand what is being said. These moments may be very short.

“It is never too late. Healing is possible. The key is knowing where to start the process. And matching the developmental needs of the person.” (Page 182)

“When you’ve lived through adversity, you can come to a point in your life where you can look back, reflect, learn and grow from the experience. Adversity, challenges, disappointment, loss, trauma – all can contribute to the capacity to be broadly empathic, to become wise.” (Page 184)

I have given a few excerpts direct from the book with the intention of encouraging you to read the book for yourself. Some of the stories in the book are very disturbing and perhaps you will need to put it aside or hop over parts of it. But the authors are optimistic that healing is possible for those who have had traumatic experiences.

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The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast by Andrew Blum

Particularly in the winter months, I am one of those people who are constantly checking the weather forecast. Is it going to snow or rain? How cold will it be? Can I get out for a walk when there is no precipitation? How much clothes do I need to wear? I consult my weather app on my phone daily, if not several times a day. I’ve also noted that the weather forecasts are much more detailed (it will rain for the next 90 minutes and then clear up) and more accurate (it actually does rain for 90 minutes then stop).

I found this book by Andrew Blum very interesting as he goes into the history of weather forecasting and how it has come to the point it is now, with very reliable forecasts for the next 24 hours. If you find this topic interesting, I recommend this book. It is relatively short (about 130 pages of text) and well written. The language is simple so that anyone can understand what he is writing about and he has stories of people which make it easier to connect to the history he is telling. If you don’t like spoilers, you can hop over the rest of this blog. If you want to learn more about the book and its contents, continue reading, as I will summarize the main points of the book. Many of the expressions that I use in my own text are taken from Blum’s book.

Much of the book is about the history of how weather forecasting developed and as a resident of Norway, I found it interesting how much Norway was part of this history. The Prologue gives his reasons for investigating this topic, then the book is divided into four parts:

  • Part I: Calculation – two chapters
  • Part II: Observation – four chapters
  • Part III: Simulation – four chapters
  • Part IV: Preservation – one chapter

Part I: Calculation

The book starts off with a visit to the Norwegian Meteorological Institute in Oslo in June 2015. Because Norwegians are at the mercy of the cold and the wind, and is a relatively rich country, forecasting the weather and understanding the mechanics of the atmosphere has had a long tradition in Norway.

With the invention of the telegraph in 1844, communication between various points in a country became much easier and current weather conditions could be compared with places far away. People’s understanding of weather began to develop and it wasn’t just what people were experiencing right then. A map could be made of what the weather looked like. Seeing a map of what was happening allowed people to start thinking about probable changes and therefore how the weather might be in the future.

So the collection of weather observations became part of the weather service. The collection and sharing of this information was the next development. In 1873, the first congress of what later became the International Meteorological Organization took place in Vienna with representatives from twenty governments. Standards, protocols and rules were developed.

By 1895, just the collection of weather observations was not enough, it had to be put into a new system of understanding how the weather worked. Vilhelm Bjerknes, a Norwegian, took this understanding one step farther by suggesting that the weather could be calculated using physics and mathematics, making meteorology a modern science: verifiable, repeatable and mathematical. Bjerknes’ equations weren’t easy to solve, but it was a start towards understanding the connection between the atmosphere and the weather.

This led to the idea of a weather factory where calculations were made, based on weather observations, that could lead to a forecast of what the weather would be like in the future.

Part II: Observation

The first chapter in this part of the book is about how weather observations are made. Some weather stations are manned as there are some observations that only a human can do. Some observations are made on land, some on the sea, some on aircraft and some from satellites. The author decides to visit a manned weather station and visits the island of Utsira off the west coast of Norway, between Bergen and Stavanger. This has been a weather station since the 1860s. Things that Hans Van Kampen must record, several times a day, include type of precipitation, sky height, visibility and cloud type.

The second chapter in this part is how the view of the weather changed, driven by technological developments and military needs, primarily in World War II. Among other developments was the sending up of rockets with cameras mounted on them, taking pictures of the earth that they were leaving. Now came the idea of having instruments up in the atmosphere, above the clouds, to get a larger view of the weather systems. Such was the start of weather satellites that are now used as one type of weather observations. The World Weather Watch was born and was to be used for peaceful purposes only, as the atmosphere is borderless.

The third chapter in this part describes the two types of weather satellites, geostationary orbiters (which appear motionless as they follow the earth’s rotation) and polar orbiters (which fly lower and circle the planet from north to south and from south to north). Most of these satellites are owned by governments. In Europe, EUMETSAT, the European meteorological satellite agency is an independent organization funded and overseen by the meteorological services of thirty nations.

The fourth chapter in this part gives more information about satellites, how they are made and what they do, including a visit to Vandenberg, in California, to see the launch of a satellite.

Part III: Simulation

In the first chapter in this part, the author visits the Mesa Lab, outside Boulder, Colorado, where we are given information about how the weather models work, how the observations are used and turned into a forecast of what most likely will happen in the future. Supercomputers are now used to take the observations and make calculations, and provide reliable forecasts of what will happen in the near future. These weather models are constantly being tweaked to improve them.

In the second chapter of this part, the author travels to the Weather Centre in Reading, England, actually called the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which opened in 1979. (This is also the source of the weather forecasts used in Norway by yr.no.) We are given information about the history of this centre, plus we get insights into how it works. What is impressive is how the model that is being run here becomes more accurate as time goes on. This chapter gives interesting insights into how such a weather center functions and how forecasts are created by supercomputers.

The third chapter of this part discusses how weather forecasts have become available to us users since the first forecast appeared on the internet in 1991. The importance of forecasts is in being able to use them. The introduction of smart phones changed the need to have forecasts available constantly, and not just once a day for the evening news on television.

The four chapter in this part is about what makes a good weather forecast as well as what a weather forecast is good for. The weather forecast is being primarily generated by computers, but humans are still need to get the information out to users, whether it is an individual needing to know whether it’s going to rain, or the media that can warn the general public of a major storm that is coming, or emergency services that have to be prepared for the big storm that creates problems.

Part IV: Preservation

The last chapter of the book is concerned with the future of weather forecasting and who is in control of it. Though forecasting has improved a lot in recent years, there are still a lot of hurdles in the way. One of the concerns is who owns the data that is being generated, whether it is individual observations or observations made by private networks. International cooperation has been the basis of the work so far, but will this cooperation continue into the future?

To quote Blum’s conclusion: “The weather machine is a last bastion of international cooperation. It produces some of the only news that isn’t corrupted by commerce, by advertising, by bias or fake-ness. It is one of the technological wonders of the world. At the beginning of an era when the planet will be wracked by storms, droughts, and floods that will threaten if not shred the global order, the existence of the weather machine is some consolation.”

I really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to all of my readers. Enjoy!

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Book: There’s No Such Thing As Bad Weather (Touchstone, 2017)

My daughter came across this book and I decided to read it. I enjoyed it so much that I want to share some of my ideas after reflecting about the book.

The book was written by a Swedish woman who lives in the United States and has two children. Having grown up in a village in Sweden and surrounded by people who enjoyed being outdoors, she was disappointed that where she was living in Indiana, children had little chance to play outdoors. She took her kids to live in Sweden for six months and wrote about many of the differences between the two countries as relates to bringing up children.

The book is primarily for parents and gives tips on how to raise children in a Scandinavian fashion. Here she includes information from Norway, Denmark and Finland as well as Sweden. I could relate to much of the information that she had gathered about the advantages for children spending at least some time outdoors, every day, no matter the weather.

At the moment of writing this, it is a dark December day in Norway. There are only a few hours of daylight every day, and though I try to go outside most days, some days it is just not appealing to be outdoors. But while reading this book in December it made me think about the importance of being outdoors, not only for children, but for adults.

Summary of the book by Linda Åkeson McGurk

  • Introduction: A Swedish Mother in Rural Indiana
  • Chapter 1: A Right to Nature
  • Chapter 2: Fresh Air is Good for You
  • Chapter 3: Just Let Them Play
  • Chapter 4: We Must All Take Care of Nature
  • Chapter 5: A Little Dirt Won’t Hurt
  • Chapter 6: Freedom with Responsibility
  • Chapter 7: Outside, There is a Better Connection
  • Chapter 8: It Takes a Village

The author starts by explaining the American trend (based on her experiences in Indiana) that parents are concerned that if their children aren’t reading by the age of four, that they will not get anywhere in life. To my mind as a parent, that is not understanding the stages of development that children go through. It is common in Scandinavia that children start school at six or seven years of age (both my children started at seven and they both have master’s degrees ) and they might go to a kindergarten or preschool before that. Both my children started at kindergarten (barnehage) at the age of three.

The author refers to several other authors who have written about different aspects of children and parenting (see the list below) and has found the facts which I will be making references to here. You will need to read the book to get things exactly right. The author is concerned that children need to get “fresh” air every single day. Of course, not all people are lucky enough to live where the outdoor air is actually good for you. But by going to parks and other areas of nature, you can get fresh air into your lungs.

Children do not need to have activities constantly organized for them. One of the things children need to learn is how to organize their time, how to be bored, how to take suitable risks, how to socialize with others. In addition, they need time with adults who actually talk to them, as that is how they build up their vocabulary. Curiosity about the world around us leads children to learn how things work, either through their own investigations or by asking adults appropriate questions.

The author is also concerned that if the next generation is going to learn to take care of nature, they need to come in contact with it and learn to love it. Looking at trees only on a screen does not give the same learning or loving attitude as a walk in a park with tall trees. Children like to investigate things and usually get dirty doing it. Research has been done that indicates that we are too clean now, and we don’t get some of the good bacteria that we need to live a healthy life. Playing in the dirt or sandbox is not a health problem.

Small children need quite a bit of supervision when they are outside. They need to be protected from dangerous situations, for example a car whizzing by on the road, but they also need to learn to take responsibility for themselves, for example, learning to cross roads at crosswalks. As children grow older, the borderlines of where they are allowed to be on their own should expand as they are able to handle longer distances from the house on their own.

It has been shown in many research projects, that being outside in nature is good for mental health, not only in children but in adults.

A Scandinavian Mother’s “Get Up and Go Outside” Manifesto includes the following points (mostly directly quoted from pages 209-211):

1 There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes. Whatever the weather, children must be dressed appropriately, whether it is sunshine and warm, rainy and wet, or snow and cold. Learning to dress yourself and your children appropriate to the weather is important for the parent to learn. Make sure footwear is appropriate too. There are, of course, certain types of weather which do not suit outdoor play, such as thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, or flash floods.

2 Fresh air is actually good for you. It reduces the risk for common infections, near-sightedness, vitamin D deficiency, and obesity. It will also lessen the symptoms of ADHD, anxiety and depression.

3 Unstructured outdoor play has everything kids need for healthy physical, social, and cognitive development in the early years. Older kids need time to play too.

4 Our modern indoor lifestyle has made kids too clean and likely triggered an epidemic of immunological disorders. To bring some beneficial germs back into your child’s life, ditch that hand sanitizer and let him sink his hands deep down in dirt.

5 Kids need risky play to learn how to assess risk and prepare for adulthood. Activities can include climbing trees, sliding on frozen puddles, using real tools and walking to the park without an adult.

6 If we want our kids to keep a foot in the natural world, we need to pry them away from their screens sometimes, and do things outdoors as a family. The adults must leave their screens behind too.

7 Find some like-minded people and figure out how you can get kids back outside in your community. Working with others makes it easier.

8 Children and nature make a really good fit. By immersing kids in the natural world early, we’re increasing the chances of them wanting to take care of it later in life.

References to Other Books

  • Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv. Algonquin Books, 2008.
  • Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children, by Angela Hansom. New Harbinger, 2016
  • Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting, by Carl Honoré. HarperOne, 2009
  • Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education, by David Sobel. Orion Society, 1999.
  • Let Them Eat Dirt: Saving Your Child from an Oversanitized World, by B. Brett Finlay and Marie-Claire Arrieta. Algonquin Books, 2016.
  • Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without going Nuts with Worry), by Lenore Skenazy. Jossey-Bass, 2010
  • Unplugged: 15 Steps to Disconnect from Technology and Reconnect with Nature, Yourself, Friends, and Family, by Jason Runkel Sperling. Kindle Edition, 2016.
  • Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life, by Richard Louv. Algonquin Books, 2016

Personal Thoughts on Being Outdoors

We all have our personal experiences from childhood which will depend a lot on where you actually grew up and how your parents were with you. I was fortunate to grow up in the 1950s and 60s in an urban area where everyone owned their own house and there was a yard at the front of the house, and a yard at the back of the house. Most houses with children would have had at least some grass to play on though we also had vegetables and fruit in our garden at the back. The back yards were usually fenced, so separate from the neighbours and the front yards were usually unfenced. There were a lot of houses with children my age so I had people within easy reach to play with. Particularly in chapter 8, Linda McGurk takes up the situation that for children to play outdoors a lot, it has to be what everyone else is doing too.

The message I remember hearing was “Go out and play”. I was expected to be outside the house and either play by myself or find someone else to play with. If the weather wasn’t that great, I could use blankets under a roof and make myself and my dolls a nice place to play house. When the weather was good, I might play with one of my girl friends out in the sunshine. But I also remember sitting on a blanket in the shade (and having to move as the shade moved) playing with my dolls. I remember climbing trees, using roller skates on the side walk, playing Annie Oakley, riding a tricycle and pulling a wagon, or playing hopscotch marked out on the side walk, all usually with one or more friends.

Elementary school was a five-minute walk from the house and I went home for lunch almost every day, giving me time to stretch my legs as well as get a warm meal in the winter months. The school had a very large outdoor area, with various types of areas to play in, including several areas with a lot of trees, some of which we could climb up a few branches. There were playing fields as well as paved areas for skipping rope and playing hopscotch. The children spread out over the large area giving those who had a need to run around lots of opportunity to do that. Occasionally the weather was so bad (usually heavy rain), that we had to play indoors during recess, in very noisy basement areas that nobody really enjoyed. I think having a long lunch hour and a recess with outdoor play helped us to sit still when we were in the classroom.

My children were primarily brought up in a rural environment, living in a single family dwelling with farm fields beside us and no playmates within easy walking distance. When they were young, I spent time outdoors with them and they were given more freedom to be outside on their own as they grew older. They were both fortunate to have their early years before computers were very common and long before hand-held devices were available. The limits of physical freedom were defined by the size of our lot, which eventually expanded as they were encouraged to walk to a friend’s home or to cycle somewhere on their own. Unfortunately we parents were also obliged to drive them a lot. However, they would be encouraged to play outside even when visiting friends.

Both of my children attended kindergarten from when they were three years old until they began school at the age of seven. Kindergartens in Norway still have several hours of outdoor play, usually in a fenced-in area around the main building. Here they can dig in a sandbox, play on swings, ride tricycles, or make up their own games. They learn to socialize with others their own age. They learn to follow the rules set by the staff. For my children as well, the kindergarten was where they learned Norwegian as we used English at home.

Once my children started school, the elementary school was five kilometers away and they got a bus to school. Catching the school bus was part of the regular routine of learning responsibility for one’s own activities. Even at elementary school, there was always recess with outdoor play, no matter the weather. The children were expected to wear appropriate clothing to school to be outside both during recess and lunch hour. Sometimes adults would organize activities, but mostly they were outside to prevent bad behaviour and to mediate disputes between the children.

As an adult, I like to spend time outdoors. I can get discouraged if the weather does not look good from inside. I don’t like being outside in the dark, which makes limitations on when I can be out in the winter months. We live in a part of Norway where it seldom rains non-stop for hours at a time. It is more likely to be showers on and off all day, so it is easier to get outside while it isn’t raining and even stay outside with whatever I’m working on even if another shower comes along. In the winter, I like shovelling snow off the driveway as it gives me both fresh air and exercise as well as being useful. In the summer, I have a large garden to work with, though it can be discouraging to work when it is pouring with rain, which it often does in the summer. Not all summers here are warm and dry. But that just means that one has to learn how to dress suitably for the weather.

I have always found that going for walks is a good remedy for a bad mood. It gives me time to think through problems. If I am walking through the woods, I have to concentrate on where to put my feet and problems seem to melt away. I have also heard that having trees visible from the windows in your house is good for mental health.

The municipality that I live in has had a summer program called InderøyTurer (Inderøy Walks) where trails are marked in the wild areas. There are usually about 30 different walks and one gets points based on how long the walk is and how difficult a trail it is. There are always some easy walks for those in wheelchairs, so that handicapped people are encouraged to get outside too. I read just recently in the local newspaper that this summer there was a record number of visits to these posts. We use an app on our smartphones and are able to check in using our phones. This is an encouragement to get people out of their houses and take their children with them.

I would like to encourage everyone to spend time outdoors, preferably in nature or near trees, every day. Whether you spend half an hour or several hours, being outdoors will give you fresh air, exercise and time away from the screens in your life. Enjoy!

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The Boy Who Felt Too Much

Lorenz Wagner writes about a neuroscientist, Henry Markram and his son, Kai, who have contributed to a new understanding of what autism is. Henry Markram is currently involved in the Blue Brain Project which is trying to create a digital simulation of the human brain. One of the purposes of the project is to try to understand better how the brain functions so that we can better understand such conditions as autism. Kai has autism. Having a son who reacts to the world differently lead Henry Markram to want to understand better how the brain functions in such people.

In addition, Henry Markram, Tania Rinaldi and Kamila Markram have published an article about the results of some research, The Intense World Syndrome – An Alternative Hypothesis of Autism. To put their hypothesis in simple terms, some people react too much to the environment around them and this can make their life difficult.

“… excessive neuronal processing may render the world painfully intense when the neocortex is affected and even aversive when the amygdala is affected, leading to social and environmental withdrawal. Excessive neuronal learning is also hypothesized to rapidly lock down the individual into a small repertoire of secure behavioral routines that are obsessively repeated.”

Reading the book by Lorenz Wagner has given me a different understanding of autism and Asperger’s syndrome. I first read about Asperger’s syndrome because I was going to teach a pupil with this diagnosis. It was scary because everything on the list applied to me as well, even though I was a functioning adult with a job as a teacher. Today it is often referred to as being “on the spectrum” because every person who has autism or been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome is very different. Some have more severe reactions due to this neural processing, some have less severe reactions and many have learned how to cope with the way they have been put together.

One of the main things I have gotten out of reading Wagner’s book is a better empathy for those who have this ultra-sensitive reaction to the stimulus that we all receive in our daily lives. We are all built differently and we have to accept how others are, without wanting to change them. Though autism is considered a “disorder” (autism spectrum disorder or ASD), it is, in my opinion, just a different way of reacting to a world filled with a lot of action, sound and light stimulation. For some people, there is just too much to make life comfortable.

Everyone has their own way of coping with the stresses of the real world. Those who have been labeled as having autism also have to cope with the label they have been given.

I would recommend reading this book to anyone who has a family member who has autism or who comes into contact with those who have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. It may give some insights into how they see the world and why they are the way they are.