Our integrity, our desire to walk our talk, faces the strongest assault when it is not us but the ones we love who have to pay for the consequences of our choices.
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After the Storms
Posted on March 1, 2011
We were socked with two big storms over the past two weeks. On the tail end of the first storm, we celebrated Maya’s birthday for the first time in the US. We hosted the largest party we’ve ever held at our house. Some 20 odd people including kids showed up. Overall, the party was a success I’d like to think.
The next day we went for a hike. The air was crisp and fresh after the almost four days of continuous rain. Maya had been demanding that we take her to climb a hill and so we eventually did. Gray rain clouds still clung to the sky, but co-mingled with snow white clouds and great patches of blue sky. The whole thing was quite atmospheric (pun intended).
After I got the iPhone, I hardly take the regular camera any more. The iPhone does a pretty good job most of the time. It is only in really low light conditions that I have difficulty getting a good picture (the picture is too grainy). I purchased a couple of apps a few months back and that coupled with a free app enhance the photographs taken with an iPhone quite well.
The first one is called Pro HDR. It simplifies the technique of taking HDR pictures. HDR (high dynamic range) is a technique whereby you combine two photos taken with different exposures to obtain a single photo that uniformly lights all the subjects. For example, if you’re shooting against the sun, the foreground is quite dark while the background is quite well lit. If you place the focus on making the foreground bright in such a condition, the background is too bright, a complete washout. But our eye can see both the background and the foreground quite well. To affect the same illusion, a HDR image is one that is created by combining two such images, one with the foreground dark and the background correctly lit and another with the foreground properly lit and the background a complete washout, to produce a single image that has a high dynamic range of illumination.
Pro HDR is one of the several HDR programs available for the iPhone. I picked it up on sale and because it was one of the higher rated HDR apps. With it I’ve captured several gorgeous pictures. Here is one taken on the hike with Maya up Rancho San Antonio County Park. Compare it with a similar photo taken without the HDR program.
Here is another good looking picture taken with the HDR program.
Notice the ghost at the far left, caused by an object that moved between the two differently exposed pictures.
Another program that I purchased is called 360 Panorama. This allows you to shoot panoramic pictures quite easily with an iPhone. When I had gone to my sister’s graduation, I was impressed by a camera that my cousin had, the Sony Nex 5. He just pressed the shutter and fired away as he swung the camera in an arc across the auditorium. The camera automatically composed a panorama out of these pictures. Compare that to the panorama mode in most cameras that I had seen till then with the panorama stitch assist mode. A few days later I ran into the 360 Panorama app which does pretty much what the Nex did, except that it ran on my iPhone and cost $1.99 (yes, less than $2).
Here is a panoramic picture taken with this program.
As you can see, the picture is not that great because of the poor light conditions. I’ve come to realize that the more professional cameras are more forgiving of adverse light conditions and poor photographers while the cheaper ones or like the one with the iPhone produce great pictures under a limited range of lighting conditions.
Hardly had the first storm abated than the second storm hit. This one came with far greater expectations than the first. A cold front from Alaska was bringing brrrr! temperatures. Snow was expected, snow so rarely seen in this part of the world. The excitement built up so much that a website called IsItSnowingInSFYet.com sprang up. The local paper carried the headlines:
“‘Coldest storm of season’ hits Bay Area; snowball fights in San Jose
still possible”.
Sure enough, the temperatures dropped to record busting lows. Oakland and San Francisco Airport had their lowest temperatures recorded for the month (34 and 35 degrees Farenheit, I know nothing Arctic, but hey, this is Silicon Valley). Nearby Mountain View and San Francisco had temperatures that tied with the existing record. But no snow came. The local paper this time said: “The much-ballyhooed Great Blizzard of 2011 was more like the Great Fizzle.”
But catching a break in the rain on a slow work day, I went for a trot on Friday morning. It was quite cold, but after a mile or so, I had warmed up enough to not notice it. I wanted to see Stevens Creek in spate.
The creek was a roar compared to its usual silent flow. In places where the path descended to the level of the creek, the creek looked like it’d overflow. The creek was a rich, chocolate milkshake brown, frothing white as it tumbled over rocks and sudden changes in gradient.
The second picture above is another image shot with the HDR app.
As I ran down the trail, my mind raced over some news that I had been browsing in the past few days. The East Coast of the US had been hit with one of the worst storms in its recorded history, Australia had suffered devastating floods. I remembered that my friend at the non-profit that I work with had titled an essay on how weather is affected by global warming as: “How the 100 Year Flood Became An Annual Event”. If that sounds too dramatic, NYT blogged back in 2007 that:
“Floods that happen every 100 years could come as often as every 10 years by the end of this century, Long Island lobsters will disappear and New York apples will be just a memory if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.“
2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year in recorded history (since record keeping began in 1887). The weather all of last year was quite irregular. So what, you say ? Here is a chart put out by the BBC on world food prices:
According to the article, titled “Q&A: Why food prices and fuel costs are going up“:
“… in 2010, severe weather in some of the world’s biggest food exporting countries damaged supplies.
That has helped to push food prices almost 20% higher than a year earlier, according to the FAO. (The 2010 figure was slightly below the annual measure for 2008 as a whole.)
Flooding hit the planting season in Canada, and destroyed crops of wheat and sugar cane in Australia.
In addition, drought and fires devastated harvests of wheat and other grains in Russia and the surrounding region during the summer, prompting Russia to ban exports.
As a result, wheat production is expected to be lower this year than in the last two years, according to US government estimates.”
Meanwhile, in the US, we voted Tea Party led Republicans to power and what have they started ? Attacking EPA and climate change regulations that they claim hurts business. Yahoo had an article titled “Congress Begins Assault on EPA’s Climate Change Regulations“. In Montana, there’s talk of passing a bill that would declare that global warming is good for business! Discover, the popular US-based science magazine, said that the number 4 science story of 2010 was: “Climate Science Wins a Round, But the Campaign Goes Poorly“. This was after the so-called climategate scandal, in which some conservative hackers hacked into University of East Anglia and retrieved more than 1000 emails that they said showed how scientists were distorting the evidence and that there was no scientific consensus on global warming. There was no evidence of distorting evidence, of course, but that didn’t help the cause, especially in the US. Pew Research found that the percentage of Americans who believe that human activity is causing global warming fell sharply to 34% in 2010 from 50% in 2006. Only 13% of conservatives believe human activity as the cause for global warming.
As I ran, I wondered how we would come together on such a divisive issue. The US especially is so deeply anti-science and anti-global warming that I find it alarming. Even friends who seem to accept the problem, do little to change their lives to act in a way that reduces their carbon footprint. Of course, I’m no saint when it comes to reacting to global warming either. I may do a little, but there is not as much integrity or depth to my responses.
Last year, Time magazine carried an article titled: “Climate-Change Strategy: Be Afraid — but Only a Little”. The article said that research by two Berkeley psychologists showed that: “when people are shown scientific evidence or news stories on climate change that emphasize the most negative aspects of warming — extinguished species, melting ice caps, serial natural disasters — they are actually more likely to dismiss or deny what they’re seeing. Far from scaring people into taking action on climate change, such messages seem to scare them straight into denial. … The results, Willer and Feinberg wrote, “demonstrate how dire messages warning of the severity of global warming and its presumed dangers can backfire … by contradicting individuals’ deeply held beliefs that the world is fundamentally just.” (WEIRD warning alert, of course).
I think like recycling and driving less, some minimal actions that can help the cause is how we shop for food. Buy local produce. Avoid purchasing goods that have been produced and shipped from across the country or worse, from across the world. If you have farmers’ markets, shop there, especially if you can afford it. Run the heater a little less in the house. Do these really help or are they only feel good actions ? I think that once we decide to factor carbon footprint and sustainability into our decisions, even just a little, there is a potential to affect a larger change. I also hear Gandhi’s quotes, “Be the change you want to see in the world” and “My life is my message”.
I finished my run in good time and my legs felt good. I was glad for the lull in the work schedule and the rain that I could go for a run. My mind harked back to the Derrick Jensen quote that I have written about: “We are really fucked. Life is still really good.”
The Way To Eat Now
Posted on February 3, 2011
On Monday morning, I woke to the news that the US government agencies USDA and HHS had released their latest dietary guidelines. The emphasis this time seemed to be about reducing our salt intake. On average, Americans consume 3,500 mg of sodium every day. The new guidelines recommend reducing this to at least 2,300 mg per day for the not-at-risk population (at risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, children etc.) and 1,500 mg per day for the at-risk population.
So, how bad are we Americans in our eating ? I liked this graphic from the report.
The USDA and HHS put out these guidelines every five years. This year’s report has been praised for their bluntness compared to the complicated and less accessible reports of the past (not that most of us even read these reports, including the current USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, who said that he has never read the report till he got this job). For example, on page 66, they explicitly advocate reducing the amount of pizza and warn that many foods that are labelled “Whole Grain” or “100% Wheat” may not be whole grain at all. One applauded that they explicitly said “fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables” instead of the more vague “eat more vegetables”.
The Unhealthy Ecosystem
Another graphic that I liked from the report is this:
While we may quibble over the size of the individual factor compared to the rest of the factors, the ecosystem we live in is a major contributor to the unhealthy lifestyle that we’re a part of.
By now, many of us know that they cannot just put out scientifically sound advice without facing the wrath of the food industry. I first found out about this via Michael Pollan, a lucid writer and a leading journalist probing behind the malaise of our contemporary eating culture and the unhealthy practices of the American food industry and their effects. In an illuminating and insightful article titled “Unhappy Meals” back in 2007, he wrote the following about a defining moment in the advent of our current eating fad:
“No single event marked the shift from eating food to eating nutrients, though in retrospect a little-noticed political dust-up in Washington in 1977 seems to have helped propel American food culture down this dimly lighted path. Responding to an alarming increase in chronic diseases linked to diet — including heart disease, cancer and diabetes — a Senate Select Committee on Nutrition, headed by George McGovern, held hearings on the problem and prepared what by all rights should have been an uncontroversial document called “Dietary Goals for the United States.” The committee learned that while rates of coronary heart disease had soared in America since World War II, other cultures that consumed traditional diets based largely on plants had strikingly low rates of chronic disease. Epidemiologists also had observed that in America during the war years, when meat and dairy products were strictly rationed, the rate of heart disease temporarily plummeted.
Naïvely putting two and two together, the committee drafted a straightforward set of dietary guidelines calling on Americans to cut down on red meat and dairy products. Within weeks a firestorm, emanating from the red-meat and dairy industries, engulfed the committee, and Senator McGovern (who had a great many cattle ranchers among his South Dakota constituents) was forced to beat a retreat. The committee’s recommendations were hastily rewritten. Plain talk about food — the committee had advised Americans to actually “reduce consumption of meat” — was replaced by artful compromise: “Choose meats, poultry and fish that will reduce saturated-fat intake.”
A subtle change in emphasis, you might say, but a world of difference just the same. First, the stark message to “eat less” of a particular food has been deep-sixed; don’t look for it ever again in any official U.S. dietary pronouncement. Second, notice how distinctions between entities as different as fish and beef and chicken have collapsed; those three venerable foods, each representing an entirely different taxonomic class, are now lumped together as delivery systems for a single nutrient. Notice too how the new language exonerates the foods themselves; now the culprit is an obscure, invisible, tasteless — and politically unconnected — substance that may or may not lurk in them called “saturated fat.”
The linguistic capitulation did nothing to rescue McGovern from his blunder; the very next election, in 1980, the beef lobby helped rusticate the three-term senator, sending an unmistakable warning to anyone who would challenge the American diet, and in particular the big chunk of animal protein sitting in the middle of its plate. Henceforth, government dietary guidelines would shun plain talk about whole foods, each of which has its trade association on Capitol Hill, and would instead arrive clothed in scientific euphemism and speaking of nutrients, entities that few Americans really understood but that lack powerful lobbies in Washington. This was precisely the tack taken by the National Academy of Sciences when it issued its landmark report on diet and cancer in 1982. Organized nutrient by nutrient in a way guaranteed to offend no food group, it codified the official new dietary language. Industry and media followed suit, and terms like polyunsaturated, cholesterol, monounsaturated, carbohydrate, fiber, polyphenols, amino acids and carotenes soon colonized much of the cultural space previously occupied by the tangible substance formerly known as food. The Age of Nutritionism had arrived.”
And this emphasis on nutrients hasn’t vanished. As Marion Nestle, a professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU notes in her blog:
“They still talk about foods (fruits, vegetables, seafood, beans, nuts) when they say “eat more.” But they switch to nutrient euphemisms (sodium, solid fats and added sugars) when they mean “eat less.” They say, for example: “limit the consumption of foods that contain refined grains, especially refined grain foods that contain solid fats, added sugars, and sodium.” This requires translation: eat less meat, cake, cookies, sodas, juice drinks, and salty snacks.”
In a column on NYT, Mark Bittman provides some other suggestions to change the ecosystem, suggestions such as reducing government subsidies on processed food (what!, I didn’t know we subsidised the manufacture of processed food), subsidising sustainable meat production and farming, taxing unhealthy foods and their advertisements, and enforcing truthful labelling of food products. One of the interesting ideas he lists is the breakup of the USDA and a greater empowerment of FDA. He writes:
“Currently, the U.S.D.A. counts among its missions both expanding markets for agricultural products (like corn and soy!) and providing nutrition education. These goals are at odds with each other; you can’t sell garbage while telling people not to eat it, and we need an agency devoted to encouraging sane eating.”
And The Reactions From The Food Industry
The reactions from the food industry has been predictable. The US Beverage Association has lashed out against the report:
“To suggest that Americans ‘drink water instead of sugary drinks’ fails to be grounded in the totality of the science,” Dr. Maureen Storey, senior VP for science policy for the ABA, told just-drinks. “If consumers are seeking ways to reduce caloric intake, our industry provides myriad no-and low-calorie and smaller-portion beverage options, in addition to bottled water. While many consumers may enjoy tap or bottled water, beverages with no- and low-calorie sweeteners are more appealing to others and may in fact help people lose weight or maintain a healthy weight,” Storey added. “This is a position supported by health organisations including the American Dietetic Association.”
And the American Salt Institute calls the report “Drastic, Simplistic and Unrealistic”.
But they don’t need to worry. With the emphasis on sodium, I see a future filled with “reduced sodium” versions of products, much like the “carb free” or “sugar free” versions that now hound us. One more choice. And by the way, does “reduced sodium” automatically include reduced sugar or will we have all sorts of combinations of products to choose from. And if you think this is just a spoof, here is what the report in NYT had to say:
“David S. Smith, a vice president at Campbell Soup who oversees research and development, said his company was offering reduced-sodium versions of hundreds of its products, in some cases replacing regular salt with smaller amounts of sea salt.”
Other References:
The Season of Ignorance
Posted on October 14, 2010
When history books are written, John McCain’s may be remembered most for his role in catapulting Sarah Palin to the national stage.
The midterm election season is heading for the final stretch and what has disturbed me the most are the reports that seem to herald a race to the bottom that is appalling to say the least. Sarah Palin seems to be just one of a myriad of the people spewing ignorance and hate. Mostly women, all white and all Tea Party. Their trumpets of ignorance include stating that Muslim law is taking over parts of the US, masturbation is adultery, that the healthcare bill creates government death sqauds and a twisting of facts and spewing of hate (against Latinos, Muslims, gays, almost anyone not Christian and white), dehumanizing anyone not like them. It is as if Jerry Springer‘s cast is standing for election. And reason and critical thinking are scarce in this debate.
Are we living in the US in the 21st century or some country at the edge of the dark ages ? We laugh at Ahmadinejad and Holocaust deniers and tune in to Rush Limbaugh’s denials over Obama’s religion and birth (polls in August by the Time magazine and the Pew center show anywhere from one-third to almost half of the Republicans saying that they think Obama is a Muslim). Religion is at the forefront now more than ever and every year, the power of the religious right grows ever more. And to think that I used to laugh derisively at people in rural areas of India voting almost solely based on the caste of the candidate. Obama also seems to have brought out the latent racism in the country. No one talks about it as such, of course.
I worry about the declining lack of adherence to even the most basic of facts and the almost retarded level of reason and critical thinking. In a world that is changing so rapidly, resources depleting and conflicts rising, how can address the issues if people seem incapable of even uttering a coherent sentence ? I can understand people are angry about the economy, but are these angry people incapable of understanding how the very ideas they champion have been the cause of their state ? How can more deregulation fix the problems of Wall Street or the harm caused by companies such as BP ? How can they not see the designs of the people who are pouring money that is turning their fears into something that can only make matters worse ? How can they not see the link between the people who lied about the Iraq War and how it very costs are a big reason for the mess we’re in economically ?
Enough has been written about all of this that I don’t want to spend too much time writing about it. But, I worry about what the future holds for Maya and all our children in this country that is their home. This is how atrocities like the Holocaust or slavery or Native American genocide come to pass. Bit by bit, with people like me going about their daily lives with their worries cocooned by some personal well-being and an inability to act. Am I as deluded as they are in seeing the outcome of the slippery slope we’re sliding down ? A part of me says that all this is more media hype than anything else. After all, didn’t Bill Clinton, the man liberals loved for his intellectualism and charisma, fire the Surgeon General, Jocelyn Elders, for saying that masturbation was normal human behavior ?
Let me end with a link on a more humorous note, to a satirical take on the current season of madness:
“Man oh man, I’m mad. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. Take what? I don’t know. And that makes me mad too.”
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