Richard Zurawski

Almost two weeks ago we weekend we, in Halifax, again had a taste of the raw power mother nature. Twin forest fires in Tantallon and Porters Lake let us know that forces of nature are not just what we see on TV or what we read in the newspaper. They happen to us as well. We are not exempt. We are certainly no strangers weather related events and flooding. If we were, Hurricane Juan, Extra Tropical storm Noel and this past winter’s record snowfall and ensuing spring melt and flooding, laid those misperceptions to rest.

Forest fires on the other hand are something that most of us have little experience with. We are used to seeing their effects in California or in Australia or in British Columbia. And while we have forest fires each and every year in many rural areas of both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, all, in my experience, have been at a distance and far removed from the large urban regions. This past weekend brought home quite viscerally the fact that no one is immune and that there no safe haven from the unexpected ravages of nature.

It leads me to believe that perhaps we have been living in a bit of a perception bubble. Perhaps we have underestimated the chances of disaster. It is too late to mitigate the damage after the disasters have happened. The reason that we have governments is to protect us and to provide planning for bad times when the come. And to do that we have to have planning, the foresight to see what will affect us adversely.

We have lived through a remarkably stable time these past two millennia. And that has made us complacent. As a  result, our expectations are that the stable, unchanging times will continue. And that is unrealistic. For generations we have been able to rely on constant conditions and circumstances and that coupled with relatively short life spans we have come to think of the weather and climate as unchangeable.

That perception also extends to the other major disasters that befall the Earth from time to time. Even though in some areas of the world, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and severe storms are common place, disaster happens infrequently in a given area. We have grown used to the idea that things on the Earth are reliable and by and large safe. It shakes our understanding of what is “common sense” when we think and consider the massive changes that we have ahead of us as we leave this remarkably stable reliable period and enter a period of turbulence, chaos and upset. How we treat changes that are counter to what we have experienced will determine how easy or how hard those changes will be. Underestimating the probability of change and the likelihood of disaster makes us vulnerable and unprepared. Just talking about it is a valuable and useful beginning.

When people talk about science writers they most often think about the people who write articles for print; books and magazines and newspapers. But there are other wordsmiths, people who craft ideas and concepts for what is probably the  most influential and most pervasive medium of all time, television. And in spite of what the proponents and gurus of new media have to say, the dominant place of television in the media pantheon is unlikely to change much in the near future. Television is still king of the block.

As as independent producer of predominantly science programming, I attend many conferences each year in order to keep current, sell my shows and to get new science programming off the ground. And in the past few years, this is what I have noticed. Science commissioning has fallen off dramatically. Production of programming itself has not fallen off, but science production seems to have.

The thin edge of the science television programming wedge happens in the newsroom. Journalists seek to cover science the same way that they might cover City Hall or political news, but in general there is very little interest to cover science, unless its the spectacle type, tornado devastates the midwest, or NASA launches a new mission to Jupiter. The reason is pretty simple and should come as no surprise. Most journalists have little background in science and see little of interest, unless it anthropomorphized. Put more simply, science stories need to pass the “who cares” test. 

If a scientist makes the claim that a great breakthrough in the study of Higgs Bosons has been made, the first thing a journalist would seek to do is find someone who could explain to him or her what the hell a Higgs Boson is and why it is important. This is even before the for cross referencing and verification to make sure that what the first scientist claims to be true is in fact true. The journalist, having very little backing in science is not able to make even the smallest inroad to understanding what the scientist is talking about. This should not be surprising, because science is not the part of the colloquial language. Even common terms like force, energy, gravity are confusing to the science illiterate. These terms are very specifically defined in science and mathematics, but may have multiple and even vague meanings in common parlance.

We seek to anthropomorphize science. And if we cannot then its relevance and importance is questioned. The science itself takes a back seat while the human interest story becomes the primary reason for the story.

In long format science documentaries, most of the commissioning editors, the gatekeepers of programming, cut their chops in television news rooms, and for the most part, come from a journalistic approach, not a scientific one. It means they are long on method and short on science. Their knowledge and understanding of science is generally quite low. They are interested in a primarily ratings and whether the programming will grab viewers. Because the level of understanding of science in journalists and the general population is low, what is considered to be entertaining, interesting or relevant and at the same time is science is also low. And its a trend that seems to be accelerating as all broadcasters discover the cash cow of reality programming, shows where the people and their behavior become the central thrust rather than the science. Shows like Junk Yard Wars, Monster Garages and American Chopper being equated as science programming, while real science and relevant and interesting science is passed over as being too esoteric and boring.

It is very tough to convince people, once they have made up their minds about what something is, but in the case of science and television, it is too important to let pass. Our societal, environmental and social problems have to be solved, if we are to survive the coming years. And education and understanding are the keys. If we abandon television to pure entertainment without content, we abandon an opportunity to change the perception that science is boring, hard to understand and needs to dressed and sugar coated to make it palatable.

Time to shine a light on science programming and take back the night.

In my efforts to lower my greenhouse gas and consumption footprint, I have decided that I am going look at food differently. Fast foods, prepared foods, processed foods are all out the window now for the sole reason that I am perfectly capable of buying local and doing things like peeling the potatoes and carrots, seasoning the fish, making my own fruit salad and sandwiches. It also means that I delete massive amounts of plastic packaging, energy consuming mass processing, shipping from all corners of the globe and waste. As a result, I have more compostable material and given the fact that vegetable and fruit peelings and ends accumulate quickly I have the opportunity to experiment.

I feel kind of silly hauling my waste scraps to the green bin and then having them trucked them off to some site for composting. In the old days, when I was a boy, we had a compost pile, in behind the garden, where all the peelings and vegie matter wound up. Whenever we dumped a bin of scraps on to the pile we were sure to cover them with soil to keep the inevitable scavengers at bay. We lived in the country so we had a big garden and everything, especially during the summer came from that garden. The preserve making ritual in the fall was a sight and kept us going through the winter. It was spectacular and for the life of me it doesn’t compare to what the supermarket has to offer…but more on that another time.

It is the compost that I want focus on. I don’t live on the farm anymore so I have to make a bit of effort to get the same result. I have decided that I will compost my own plant material with an indoor worm compost. I went on line, and I have to admit that the on line resources on just about anything are spectacular, and downloaded a number of site with instruction on what to do. All you need are a couple of large bins, one deep with a lid a shaded cool place and worms, lotsa worms! Apparently they can munch through a week’s worth of vegie and fruit cast-offs in a week and produce the best soil and compost you could imagine. Its simple, clean and efficient. And what’s better is that I get to elevate my “holier than thou” approach to life another notch!

Now that is the theory. The bins have been set up. I have chosen the location and now its just getting the worms, thousands of them, to munch through my waste and having the diligence to take their product to my garden. I promise to keep you apprised on the project. My wife and I wonder about things like smell, loose worms, dying worms and really how fast we can process all the vegie matter.

It will be fun and it will interesting. If all else fails and they don’t work out, you can catch me fishing. After all I do have the worms!

After this past winter’s heavy snowfall and melt, a boon to the low water tables of the Maritimes and to farmers who desperately need a wet season to get their crops started on the right track, we are now harvesting another crop, one that most assuredly does not gladden the hearts of those who partake of its bounty. I speak of the denizens of the glades and woodlands, the ubiquitous and infuriating insects we call black flies and mosquitoes. Numbering in the trillions in a normal season, I can only imagine what astronomical, near infinity, numefaction that would have to used to express their arithmetic value.

As in all things there is a Ying and Yang and so it is with the water and the tide of it bounty. With the still ponds and puddles, the rippling creeks and brooks, these biting critters have had a population explosion that beggars anything we mere mortals can inflict on the planet. A quick stroll through any of the rural regions of the Maritimes without benefit of chemical counter persuasion will have one beating a hastier exit than entrance to hill and dale.

Being one who having spent much of his youth in the rural regions of Canada, I am all too familiar with the buzz, whine, tickle, slap choreography that is required anytime one is outdoors during the late spring and early summer months, whether it be to sizzle a steak on the barbie or relieve the boredom of my hyperactive border collies with a brisk wooded ambulation. It is during these times that I must sing the praises of our modern chemical warfare against the gossamer lacewinged mosquito and the inexorable speck of black, aerial dust, the aptly and obviously named, blackfly. I speak of DEET, or N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, a chemical pesticide that stops them in mid flight and to quote an ancient TV commercial for one of the purveyors of a juice made of the stuff, “they don’t bite, they don’t even like!”.

Now every once in a while you hear about an amazing substance, either a skin treatment or a mouthwash, or a gizmo that miraculously clears the air of the pesky things. Invariably, I have found, the stuff if not pure hocum is hiding the facts enough to get away from being branded an outright fraud and is they only to part you from your money. The things work only for five minutes or under certain conditions or in the the case of the zapping gizmos, do not tell you that the populations of mosquitoes and blackflies are so big, no matter how effect the invention is at dispatching them, its akin to emptying a lake with a straw. Yes there are dead pests piling up, but nature abhors a vacuum and faster than you day say DEET, two more enter the fray proboscis at the ready.

Yes DEET is a toxic chemical, but after 40 years of use it is still the best way to avoid being an insect hors d’ouvres, and relatively safe, though some people do develop reactions to the stuff. For my money is best way to enjoy the outside even when the little buzzers are around.

In the past year or so I have noticed a very interesting phenomenon. It seems the more the our governments dither and obstruct any real action to combat climate change caused by human activity and the more our media confuses the issues and ignores the importance of the climate change, the more groups of people hunger for information and  action. It’s fascinating to watch. The people that you would expect to take action, lead the initiatives and give us guidance are the biggest problem. 

Every week on the Science Files with AK, I inevitably get questions from callers about what is happening, who to believe, how to mitigate what is happening etc. And I am finding that its not government, the media or large companies and corporations that are leading the way on talking, planning and implementing meaningful changes, its small groups from churches, schools and other ethical organizations that are our new leaders.

Governments have failed miserably when it comes to doing anything other than talking. They have completely underestimated the will of the common person to do the right thing when it comes to climate change. And as the days, months and years role on without anything other than rhetoric, small groups of concerned folks are beginning to recycle, reduce and eschew the lack of planning by business oriented governments whose mandate is to keep the status quo.

And so, by and large have the media failed to keep us in the loop in reporting accurately on climate change. In North America, the mainstream media is so woefully inept at reporting on anything other than lurid sexual escapades of insipid cabinet ministers that they have created an information vacuum or even worse a confusion vortex as the planet and it’s eco-systems cook. Most reporters are so woefully under-educated in the sciences and fall regularly for the climate equivalent of the “Nigerian Internet scam” that they are worse than no information at all.

Big business on the other hand, especially the transportation and oil behemoths are as close to an “evil empire” as anything I have witnessed in this society. Just like IBM, GM and Bayer were complicit in the Holocaust of the Nazis seventy years ago, so to are our current business giants in the climate change Holocaust that we are witnessing.

In the past year however, I have witnessed a remarkable about face in the grassroots ethical groups who are finally understanding the implications of business as usual, hear no evil, see no evil and say no evil, triumvirate of climate monkeys. Starving for real information and analysis they have invited speakers, created forums, asked penetrating questions and begun to demand change to our wayward practices. Again it is the individual who comes to the fore, who will make the sacrifices, while those who are supposed to lead, governments, media and business, who are supposed to represent us and our way of life who are wanting and missing in action.

The price of oil is greater than it has ever been and I am worried that as we approach the summer months we are far too focussed on the cost of travel, tourism and business. I am concerned that we are treating this as an inconvenience and an irritant rather than what it is really is, the first shot across the bow of the western consumptive way of life. What will happen as the summer months wane and we head back into the colder bleaker months of winter, when it is only about travel, but about the basic necessities like food and heat. In Canada we are so dependent on fossil fuels for heat and transport of food stuffs from across the world that we have not planned for what to me is the inevitable. 

We in the middle class wail and complain at the erosion of our wealth as the price of a barrel of crude climbs. we demand governmental assistance to ease the tax burden as our corporate power companies swim is revenues, feeling that it is our due to have a cut of the pie. My concern is this as we hue and cry. What about the people who could not afford a tank of oil last winter, who were on the margins of society, who could not afford the food on the super market shelves?

If you think that last winter was a trial, wait for this coming winter. Food banks and oil banks are already over subscribed and the need far greater than the ability to meet the demand.

So what to do, what is the solution? Certainly the price of oil is not likely to reverse. My approach to this conundrum is to use less. Less imported food, less driving, less consumption and fewer toys and purchases. And when I do need to to consume something I have a number of criteria. How far does it have to be shipped. Where is it manufactured and how much plastic is involved in it manufacture? I ask myself the question whether I really need it. Is there some way I can do the same thing without it. I also consider the likelihood of obsolescence. How long will I be able to use it and what happens to it after I am done with it?

What I have found is that as I consider what to buy and what not buy, I find that the process of considering the purchase actually inhibits impulse buying. Sometimes after all the considerations have been taken into account I find that I really don’t need it. It was a case of want and not need.

So what good it this you ask. How does that help? As I consume less, there is more left for other things, other people and maybe just maybe, if the demand falls, so to will the speculation that is driving a lot of the price increases. The final reason is that it also makes me feel better. I find that I value what I do have and tend not to seek consolation in the acquisition in new items that all too quickly become detritus and cast-off

Will this work for everyone? Probably not. But I feel a little better.