New Release: Not A Scientist

Ugh, you guys. When I picked up Dave Levitan's Not A Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science three weeks ago, I didn't expect it to be so ridiculously relevant by the time I read it. I sat here last night until 3 a.m. and read the entire 200 page book, filling it with post-its and scoffing out loud. This is a must read for anyone struggling to understand exactly how politicians manage to convince their constituents to ignore real science, regularly prefacing their stupidity with the "I'm not a scientist, but ..." line. Levitan purposely does not go into "why" because motive is near impossible to assign. He doesn't needs to discover motives though because what matters is that, let's be real, today's GOP politicians are presenting lies, half-truths, and misrepresentations of science to further their political agendas and they are harming our nation in countless ways.

This book is short and, because Levitan is a journalist, it reads like a nice, long article, very clear and easy to read. It assigns each tactic a chapter, twelve in all (with names like THE OVERSIMPLIFICATION, THE CHERRY-PICK, and THE BLIND EYE TO FOLLOWUP), that expose clear examples of each infraction and provide quick methods on how to spot them. It gives examples of politicians opposed to climate change action, wetlands preservation, and timely vaccines, just to name a few. It also shows how politicians use fake science to do things like further their anti-immigrant agendas or defund essential government programs. Levitan also includes 30+ pages of sources at the end in case you want to double check anything. All of your favorite science-denying idiots are in here -- Inhofe, Cruz, Paul, Bush (all three) -- and he even throws in a couple of Obamas to show how even a well-intentioned bad statistic can be harmful to a political cause. The only one that isn't included in the book is Trump because the book was completed before last November. The Foreword does acknowledge Trump's main tactic though, which he dubs "THE FIREHOSE", basically blasting us with an endless stream of utter crap so that we can't possibly notice/reply to it all. Yay.

This is the bottom line though -- 

Vigilance is the only antidote against a flood of misinformation, deception, and backwardness. If you spot any particularly egregious misuses of science from the President or any other politicians, call your senator or House representative--let them know that you want Washington to curtail its anti-science ways.

You don't have to be a scientist to notice when the "science" a politician uses seem fishy or incomplete. Though answers aren't always easy to come by on the internet, there are always actual scientists and experts out there to point you in the direction of the correct data/interpretations/studies. Let's stop letting politicians and constituents get away with being willfully ignorant of science. Regardless of what some believe, the only way to attain a safe, healthy nation and world is through the proper application of scientific research.

Done lecturing (for the moment),
K

#Resist : What We Do Now

When I heard about What We Do Now: Standing Up For Your Values In Trump's America, I knew I needed to read it. After the election, I not only had to figure out how to clearly define my values but I wanted to be an active resister agains the things that were sure to come out of this presidency. This is a short, 200 page volume with many high-profile contributors. The essays are short but powerful (as you can see by my plethora of sticky notes). Here are some of the highlights, starting with the definition of our values--

And that marks Democrats' first job in this new era: We will stand up to bigotry. No compromises ever on this one. Bigotry in all its forms: we will fight back against attacks on Latinos, on African Americans, on women, on Muslims, on immigrants, on disabled Americans--on anyone.
--Senator Elizabeth Warren

But know this: whether you actively engage in the violent culture of hate or merely step out of the way to give it permission to persist and room to grow, you are complicit. And white people, you give permission to this culture every day you do nothing more than have "conversations on race". You don't get to just have conversations anymore. You don't get to just wear a safety pin and call yourself an ally. You don't get to just talk while the rest of us fear for our lives ... Let's be clear: White supremacy harms all of us. It strips humanity from both its victims and its beneficiaries.
--Brittany Packnett

I want you to keep telling yourself: "THIS IS NOT NORMAL. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. Repeat until it sinks to the deepest of your core. The minute you decide this is normal, this is just how it is, the minute you decide that appointing a white supremacist to one of the highest, most influential positions in the White House...--that is the minute that you give up. Stay vigilant. Stay focused. Stay OUTRAGED. Perpetual outrage is what's going to fuel our movements right now. In the face of this crisis, the time is now to follow your heart. You know what feels right. Think. Contemplate. Don't just follow blindly. Stay informed, read articles, verify sources, diversify your news intake. Knowledge is power. Ignoring what's happening is not going to help you or anyone else.
--Linda Sarsour

As for concrete actions:
Brittany Packnett suggests that those of us who are not in marginalized groups become not allies but accomplices, the difference being actions and not just ideals.
Ilhan Omar wants us to strengthen our communities and build a coalition and Cristina Jiménez wants us to make sure that the coalition crosses social, religious, and racial lines. We must work together to be successful.
Linda Sarsour suggests using our own skills and knowledge "for the greater good". If we all focus on what we are best at, we will be most effective.
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum thinks it's essential that we "continue building a full and meaningful and joyous life."
And we, of course, need to fight for a new, strong Voting Rights Act to combat voter suppression and gerrymandering. We need to demand action to mitigate climate change and to promote a clean energy economy. We need to tell/remind our representatives that we will not tolerate the targeting of an entire group based on their race or religion. We need to fight every unlawful and discriminatory action that comes out of this administration.

David Cole gives us hope from our recent history--the eventual victory over George W. Bush's horrible policies after 9/11. Bush took all sorts of liberties in the name of protecting Americans, regardless of whether those things were humane or legal. But "they protested, filed lawsuits, wrote human rights reports, lobbied foreign audiences and governments to bring pressure to bear on the United States, leaked classified documents, and broadly condemned the administration's actions as violations of fundamental constitutional and human rights. ... As a result, the course of history changed." He also says "It won't happen overnight. There will be many protracted struggles. The important thing to bear in mind is that if we fight, we can prevail."

Finally, Linda Sarsour says it best:

I hope this election is our ultimate wake-up call--a wake-up call for the silent majority who have been silent in the face of so much injustice in recent years. Silence is violence. We cannot and will not be the generation that allows our country to live again the darkest moments of our history. We must remember that our work over the next four years is not just for us, but also for the generations to come who are counting on us.

Sending out strength to all fighters,
K

New-ish Release: The Great Derangement

After I decided to make climate change and the environment my issue, I searched "climate change" on my library system webpage and first got a lot of either kid books or books that looked overly alarmist. Then I was surprised to see a recent book by a well-known novelist, Amitav Ghosh. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, is based on four lectures that Ghosh gave at the University of Chicago in 2015. It's a short book--only 160 pages--but I'm still absorbing and thinking about its ideas weeks later.

The book is divided into three parts. The first, which takes up half the book, is called Stories and it mainly explores the current state of fiction and literature and why Ghosh believes it rarely addresses climate change even though this is something looming quite large on our human horizon. He wonders why books that work all-too-real future scenarios into their plots are immediately shunted off into the fantastical bin of science fiction. He also tells his own story of being caught in a freak weather event as a young man and how this underlying story in his life has occasionally surfaced in his own fiction. This section of the book was frankly completely unexpected but utterly fascinating as a reader and I can only imagine it would be even more so for a writer. The details are explored in both his home country of India and his adopted home of New York City and it was eye-opening to explore the problem of climate change perception from opposite sides of the globe.

The second part of the book is called History and was equally fascinating. Finding out little known tidbits about Asian history (like the history of oil production in Burma) and exploring the effects of colonialism on emerging carbon-based economies was yet another aspect of climate change that I had never considered. One tends to gloss over the past and look to the future for solutions but an understanding of the past enhances the picture of what we are facing and why.

The final part of the book is Politics and was every bit as disheartening and frustrating as you might imagine. I was honestly in tears while reading one passage that voiced the futility of many of our efforts as individuals and citizens because of the far-stronger forces of corporations whose interests do not line up with an effort to combat climate change. As I was making calls to my Senators denouncing a political appointee who obviously detested the organization that he was about to head, I was forced to acknowledge that my voice would never be as loud as the dollars that were flowing in to the opposing party from powerful fossil fuel barons. I honestly set down the book at that point and questioned my choice to choose this issue as my battleground. But eventually I picked it up again and found small glimmers of hope -- from the words of Pope Francis in his Encyclical Laudato Si' in regards to our stewardship of the Earth to the ability of the U.S. Defense Department to ignore the politics of the day and focus on the real effects climate change will have on our nation and world.

This book is not an easy read, probably more so because it doesn't delve into any of the unemotional science of climate change but rather into the souls, imaginations, and intentions of flawed humans. But, if we are to survive the Great Derangement--this time when we focus too much on self when a global viewpoint is essential to survival as a species--we need a change in attitude and focus as much as we need technological innovation. I am grateful to Ghosh for tackling this tough subject in a completely unique way.

Turning my inner eye outward,
K

New Release: The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit

Graham Joyce's The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit begins by introducing us to college student David Barwise, who has just arrived at a seaside resort in 1976 Skegness to start a summer job. He's ended up there because it's the location of the only photo he has of his father. He doesn't know much else about the man who died years ago but he has a strange notion that the answers are in Skegness. He ends up finding a lot more than he bargained for there -- unconventional relationships, ladybugs and a ghost in an electric blue suit.

Powell's has created a pretty cool companion playlist for the book. I wish I had found it before I read the story so that I could have listened along to Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Kate Bush and more while I journeyed with David through a summer of varied co-workers, vacationers and leisure activities. Even though it turned out to be a different type of story from what I would normally read, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. It took me to a time and place that I've never visited before, introduced me to people I wouldn't have met otherwise and made me think about memory and the past in a different way. The crafting of the story was superb, even in the most uncomfortable moments of David's summer.

I definitely want to read something else by Graham Joyce. Any suggestions?

Returning to shore and (relative) safety,
K

p.s. I received a copy of this book to review from the publisher.