Winning battles, losing the war

"Today, we have more environmental groups and less forests, more 'protected areas' and less species, more carbon taxes and greater carbon emissions, more 'green' products and less green space."

- Rex Weyler, Nature: A system of systems.

Fewer forests, fewer species. "Less" qualifies mass nouns; "fewer", count nouns. Less sloppiness; fewer errors. Less pedantry; fewer readers. Sometimes, no matter how many times I correct grammatical confusions, I think I'm waging an unwinnable war. But I pick myself up and fight on. What else can one do?

Dodging tax: a £13 trillion issue

If avoidance is legal, how can it be wrong?
There is an important legal distinction between tax evasion and tax avoidance. The former means practices that reduce the tax one contributes and which are actually illegal; the latter means practices that reduce the tax one contributes, which are technically legal, but morally dubious, even repulsive. There is an important moral distinction between tax avoidance and proper use of provisions within tax law that attempt to make tax fairer. It is important to keep these distinctions clear.

Some question whether this latter distinction is meaningful. Mitt Romney, for instance, insists that he has paid every cent that he is legally obliged to pay, and not a cent more. This is a common refrain from very rich individuals and massive corporations. Their claims amounts to: I have not broken the law of the land. That may well be a true claim, but it is not the point of the accusation that one has engaged in morally repugnant, even if technically legal, tax avoidance.

Such a legally watertight claim has a certain intuitive ring to it. Why would I not claim deductions for which the law has made provision? Presumably, such provisions were made in order to avoid a potential injustice from which I might otherwise suffer and so my use of them could even be argued to be a moral good, allowing me to dispose of my income to bless others in ways the government could not dream of and for which the government has already planned ahead of time. And put this way, I agree, such moves can indeed be a blessing.

But that there exists legitimate use does not ensure that no abuse is possible. Alcohol has a legitimate use as a good blessing of God, yet there is such a thing as getting drunk. And while the state may legitimately take interest in placing limits of certain forms of drunkenness (such as driving a vehicle while having a blood alcohol limit above a given determinate figure), it will not necessarily legislate against getting drunk and then making a fool of oneself or being rude and obnoxious to one's family while intoxicated. So we can affirm legitimate use while noting illegal extremes and yet still desire to speak of legal - yet morally dubious, even repulsive - drunkenness.

And as with drunkenness, it is not always easy to pick the precise point where a cheery dram with companions becomes drunken offensiveness, and the distinction may not even always be purely a matter of quantity. But when inebriated revellers stagger down the street at three in the morning yelling abuse at each other and waking everyone within earshot (to pick a hypothetical example), then it doesn't take a finely tuned moral compass to determine something is awry.

Likewise, when an individual or corporation is hiding sums larger than most people will make in a lifetime from the taxman's view by pretending to have some business connexion to a microstate whose primary export is being a known tax haven, then speaking of such practices in a very different moral tone to the teacher who claims a deduction for the purchase classroom materials is no great leap of moral imagination.

And when it is revealed that it is likely that at least £13,000,000,000,000 is hidden in such havens (or more than the combined GDP of Japan and the USA), then moral outrage from the teacher who faces worsening conditions due to budget constraints is neither illogical nor untoward.

Someone who said because the law is not interested in the difference between a relaxed pint over dinner and passing out in a pool of one's own vomitus therefore there is no relevant moral distinction to be drawn would be gently reminded that the point of political authority is not to legislate every morally relevant occasion. Neither should we have any qualms about being willing to distinguish between legitimate tax deductions and the egregious abuse of legal loopholes to avoid sharing the burden and privilege of serving the common good through contributing one's fair share.

Technology and the church: an analogy

Following the reflections on technology vs. technologism I posted a week ago, I thought I'd offer an extended analogy to tease out what I think are some of the implications for the church of rejecting such technologism in relation to our ecological predicament.

The AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is a large and wicked* social problem. Its causes are complex and involve (amongst others) both individual lifestyle choices and broader cultural assumptions. It is a slow-burn problem, with cases multiplying in largely invisible ways (that is, infection is not an experience that a subject is usually aware of at the time) and symptoms only really becoming manifest years later. It is also a problem where the accumulation of individual cases generates further complex social realities (AIDS orphans, child-headed households, a culture of stigmatism and so on). In South Africa, for quite some time, the government held a position of officially denying the link between HIV and AIDS, holding back implementation of various policies that, while being very unlikely to "solve" the problem, nonetheless could have significantly reduced the spread of the disease and hence the resulting human suffering.
*Wicked in the technical sense, that is, a complex and multifaceted problem without a single "solution".

I'm just sketching a little and I'm going to assume that the parallels to a number of ecological problems are more or less obvious to those paying attention to such matters.

The point I'd like to make concerns the role and limitations of technology. In this case, I have in view both the very low tech option of condoms and the considerably higher tech option of antiretroviral drugs. Widespread adoption of safer sex practices would very significantly slow down the spread of the disease. Therefore, government and NGO programmes that promote such harm minimisation are, to my mind, basically a no-brainer. The widespread provision of antiretroviral drugs is slightly more complex, involving various economic implications and calculations, though still clearly a good idea on balance. These do not cure the disease, but they do slow its progression in an infected individual, and so increase his/her life expectancy. Now, in this situation, technology serves to provide real social and personal goods, and any responsible government ought to be implementing such actions amongst their many priorities.

Nonetheless, such provisions, while reducing the pace and severity of the crisis, do not by themselves decisively solve it. Huge damage has already been sustained and more is in the pipeline in the form of millions of carriers whose lives are likely to be shorter than they would otherwise be, and whose future sexual activities will be conducted under a shadow. Grief remains a healthy and appropriate response, not as a replacement for these policies, but simply out of emotional honesty.

Furthermore, implementing these policies doesn't remove the moral evaluation (at both personal and cultural levels) of the failures that enabled the problem to spiral to such magnitude. It would be easy to indulge in cheap and simplistic condemnation of the lax sexual ethics of many of those who end up infected (though of course, many spouses and children may contract the condition entirely innocently), and this would be reductionist if that were the extent of one's response. Conversely, not to comment on the sexual sins as a spiritual problem manifest in grave social harms would also be to miss an important component of the situation.

Now the analogy is not perfect and I'm sure there are all kinds of important differences between AIDS and ecological crises, but perhaps this example may illustrate the possibility that technological responses of real social benefit do not render the problem less wicked (in the technical sense) and do not sidestep the need for careful moral evaluation of the situation.

Now, consider the position of a Christian church facing an AIDS epidemic amongst the congregation. There are all kinds of possible responses, and a healthy one will include many facets: caring for the sick and orphaned; seeking honesty and reconciliation in relationships damaged by sexual misdeeds; helping the congregation understand the nature of the disease including causes and its likely effects; calling on governments to implement responsible social policies; planning for a future in which more families are broken and child-headed households increase. Amidst this, I presume that it would be a good idea to lay out sensitively the good news of sexually committed exclusive covenant relationships (within a full-orbed proclamation of the gospel of grace, repentance, forgiveness, freedom and reconciliation). Now, to speak of the goodness of sexual relationships as they were intended may not "cut it" as a social policy, and nor need this proclamation imply ecclesial support is restricted purely to abstinence/chastity programmes. But if the church does not recognise that one of the significant contributing factors to this epidemic is the eclipse of scriptural sexual ethics, then it would only be doing part of its job. Ultimately, the church will be praying and working towards becoming a community within which healthy sexual relationships of trust and commitment are the norm, where failures are handled sensitively and graciously, where reconciliation and stronger relationships are the goal. And even if to some observers it appears foolish, naïve or old-fashioned, it will hold onto the possibility of the partial and provisional healing of desire amidst a sinful world that at times shows little evidence of such a message being effective. It will hold onto the hope of eschatological healing, yet without confusing this with any sort of divine guarantee for miraculous deliverance from the consequence of our actions today.

Similarly, while technology may offer certain paths that reduce the pace and severity of ecological harms, and while governments may well be wise to consider various options carefully and responsibly (rather than the present mix of short term opportunism, denial and misguided or cynical tokenism), nonetheless, the church cannot but notice that behind our ecological woes are certain assumptions and patterns of behaviour: a reckless indifference to the consequences of our pursuit of ever higher levels of consumption; an insatiable acquisitiveness that desperately tries to find meaning in stuff; a foolish arrogance that claims to wield ultimate mastery over matter; a short-sighted willingness to sell our children's inheritance for a quick thrill today coupled with an inordinate unwillingness to let go of luxuries; and an ignorant inattentiveness to the plight of our fellow creatures. Noting these roots needn't remove the possibility that the church will support responsible technological mitigation of our crises, but the church will continue to hold out - despite the apathy and scorn of the surrounding culture - a picture of human communities not based primarily on acquisition, of a good life that is not built primarily around consumption or material wealth, of a heart that is content and generous and which desires neither poverty nor riches. It will speak out against the personal and systemic greed whose manifestation is a destabilised and scarred planet. It will grieve over the damage already done, and the more that is in the pipeline. It will speak of grace, forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation - and of a divine eschatological healing of a groaning world, yet without assuming that this implies we will not face the more or less predictable consequences of our present failures and so not at all neglecting the task of both caring for victims and advocating on behalf of those without a voice in the matter: the global poor, future generations and other species.

In short, the church is not unmindful of the potential benefits of technology, but it is called to be free from the slavish fascination that treats it as our saviour. A world in peril needs more than a renewable clean source of power; it needs a renewed and cleansed heart.

On flying

The seven year old standing on the roof of his house believes that in stepping off and flying, he will be free. While he plunges through the air, the wind in his hair may be exhilarating, but the freedom in which he passionately believes and on which he has staked his future is an illusion. Freedom means discovering that we have two feet planted on the ground.

The "free" market, insofar as this requires belief in the possibility of infinite growth on a finite planet, is perhaps the largest exercise in unfreedom humanity has ever conducted. Can you feel the wind in our hair?

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, 'If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,

"He will command his angels concerning you",
    and "On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone."'

Jesus said to him, 'Again it is written, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."'

- Matthew 4.5-6 (NRSV).

Connect the dots

I offered a few thoughts back here on the connexions between extreme weather and climate change. This topic continues to be the subject of much investigation and the links are many and complex. Nonetheless, a few metaphors are becoming commonly accepted by scientists attempting to communicate their findings.

The first is the image of a baseball player on steroids. Adapting it for use in Commonwealth nations, let's talk about a cricketing batsman on steroids. Taking the drugs improves his muscle condition and makes it possible for him to hit balls harder. While it is not possible to say whether this or that six is the result of drug-enhancement, it is nonetheless possible to see that the player is now hitting more sixes than he was before he started taking drugs. The odds have shifted in favour of bigger shots. In the same way, we're getting weather on steroids, with greater odds of dangerous extremes.

The second commonly-used analogy, mentioned in this video, is the idea of "loading the dice". Weather is always variable, just as rolling a pair of (six-sided) dice will give you results ranging from 2 to 12, with 7 being most common. But if you take one of those dice and add a dot to each side, so that it now ranges from 2 to 7, then you'll still see a lot of variation, including the occasional low number. But 8 will now be most common, and it will be possible to roll a 13. Some of the events we've seen in the last handful of years around the globe have been the equivalent of 13s, standing as much as six standard deviations above the average (using the period 1950-80 as a baseline). Indeed, if we just look at events that are three standard deviations or more above the average, then statistically on an unchanging planet, we'd expect (on average) just 0.3% of the globe's surface to be experiencing such conditions at any one time. Yet over the last decade, the average has been about 10% of the planet's surface facing such extreme conditions. In fact, if we want to be a little more accurate, then rather than painting an extra dot on all the sides of one die, it is as though we have taken one of our pair of six-sided dice and replaced it with an eight-sided die. The point is not only has the average increased and upper extreme become more extreme, but the range of possible weather experiences has widened, leading to greater variations in temperature and precipitation. Not only are the extremes hazardous to human health and ecosystems (both natural and managed), but greater variability is now also becoming more widely accepted as harmful.

All our weather now occurs in an atmosphere increasingly shaped by human activities. There is no "natural" weather any more. We are moving into a new regime that includes higher numbers, and 13s will not be the end of it. We've only warmed about 1/5th the projected warmth of our current trajectory within my daughter's lifetime and perhaps 1/10th of the likely long-term warming.

The chances of the ball being hit out of the park keep increasing.

UPDATE: After posting this, I came across this post that examines this topic in more detail and includes the following very helpful video.

Planetary liposuction

Monbiot stole my analogy. I have had a post drafted for the last couple of months based on the idea that geoengineering attempts to rapidly modify the climate with techno-fixes are the equivalent of liposuction for an obese planet, retrospective attempts to undo slowly accumulated damage overnight that may bring temporary cosmetic improvements (and perhaps mild benefits of more valuable kinds) at significant risk of their own.

I intend to say quite a bit more about geoeingeering, as I suspect that it is not going to go away, but will only become more significant in and ethical and political debates about climate change. This is another topic that Christian ethicists will need to contemplate, and once again, there are no shortcuts to learning about the details of the various proposals, which range from putting millions of tiny mirrors in space to reflect a small amount of incoming sunlight, to seeding the ocean with iron filings to generate algal blooms that soak up carbon dioxide and fall to the ocean floor, to adding sulphur to aviation fuel (a substance that we've been trying to get out of the atmosphere for other reasons for some time) to reduce solar radiation entering the atmosphere, to crushing certain kinds of rock into powder and scattering them on the ground to accelerate a natural carbon sink (this last proposal may have some merit, by the way).

Analogy is the best medicine

Ben doesn't appreciate his doctor's alarmist advice.

It would be quite possible to push this image further: "I can't afford healthy food!"; "Are you telling me to starve to death?"; "The cheap calories I get from high fructose corn syrup means I have more money to help others"; "Think of how many jobs would be lost if the fast food industry were to shut down"; and so on.

A parable

Every day while walking up the 193 steps to my desk I pass the smallest nature reserve in the country, a tiny locked garden that thrives with all manner of wee, sleekit beasties.

Today as I walked past, a man, slightly inebriated, climbed over the fence, stumbled through a couple of low bushes, exclaimed loudly to his two friends who had remained behind "It's beautiful! No, I mean seriously, it's really beautiful!" and then proceeded to unzip his pants and relieve himself.

Whether the point of this parable is as an illustration of so many of our interactions with the created order, or is related to the fact that I kept on walking, thinking this was someone else's problem, I am not entirely sure.

Threatening to leave

In other news, Jimmy Riches, 9, of Little Waddington, has threatened to take his bat and ball away from the local village boys' game of cricket unless his special rules are retained. Since he owns the only equipment in the small settlement, he demanded to set the terms on which the game is to be played. "Jimmy's code" included extra lives for Jimmy while batting and all his runs counting triple, plus being allowed to be sole umpire for contentious calls. The other boys felt these rules gave Jimmy an unfair advantage and sought to soften them, suggesting that perhaps he should only score double and that he had to state how many extra lives he had today before coming to the crease. Jimmy rejected these modifications and has warned that if the other boys insist on them, he will go and play with the lads in the next village.

Child sacrifice: A political debate

A two-party system
A: For the sake of national security and prosperity, we must sacrifice ten children each month to Moloch. Moloch is an angry god, but fair. If we burn ten children alive on the temple altar, Moloch will ensure that we are well-fed and our enemies do not prevail against us. That is how things have been and we must observe the ancient traditions.

B: No, no, no, no – have you no heart? No conscience? You want to kill one hundred and twenty innocent children each year? Are you nuts? How horrible! Of course we should only sacrifice seven children each month. And we should make sure that the priests are well trained, that the sacrificial fire is sourced from sustainable wood and, for the sake of equal access, the victims are selected on a points-based system.
Image by CAC.

Why is a raven like a writing desk? Two nice analogies

I like a good analogy. When well designed, they can convey the unfamiliar through the familiar. Of course, they can also mislead if we don't pay attention to the differences as well as the similarities. Here are two I've come across recently. First, one from Australian Sustainable Energy by the Numbers, a useful report from the University of Melbourne into the possibility of getting Australia to 90% renewables (or low carbon) in a short time frame at a decent cost with (hopefully) some more realistic assumptions than this report.

"Our cruise ship is leaking badly. The captain is advised by the engineer to start the bilge pumps but the accountant says this will be too expensive and would cut into profits. The captain makes a tough decision; the passengers will have to bale. An argument breaks out between the staff and the passengers about whether to bale with spoons or glasses. The passengers argue for glasses but the staff for spoons because of the likely breakage of glasses. The hospitality manager comes up with a brilliant solution. The passengers should drink more beer and champagne and pee over the side."

- Peter Seligman, Australian Sustainable Energy by the Numbers, 61.

H/T Dave.

And I couldn't go past this recent letter to the editor in the SMH.

"And what about this great big garbage tax? Why do I have to pay to have my garbage collected when I can dump it in the bush for nothing? My little bit doesn't make any difference to world garbage levels, and when it rolls to the bottom of the gully I can't even see it. Call me a garbage sceptic, but show me the science. If garbage is bad why do we produce so much?

"When I went overseas there was garbage lying everywhere. Other countries don't have great big garbage taxes. They make cheap stuff and we can't compete. Until every country in the world adopts a garbage price, our great big garbage tax is economic suicide. Garbage is crap."

- David Hale Gordon, SMH letters to the editor, 25th March 2011.

From a great height

"The Harper government is reluctant to impose regulations on 'energy-intensive industries' like the oil sands in the absence of comparable U.S. moves, arguing that to do so would damage Canada’s economic competitiveness."

- From The Globe and Mail.

Developed nations attempting to outdo one another in economic growth are a little like skydivers competing for the highest terminal velocities in free-fall. Refusing to regulate the tar sands because it might damage economic competitiveness is akin to refusing to open a parachute because the other guy might get ahead of you.

A crash in slow motion (continued)

Recently,* I compared our situation facing the various ecological and resource threats of industrial society as being like a car crash unfolding in slow motion. The point of this analogy was to say that while a crash may be almost inevitable, the driver (societal leaders, including though not limited to political authorities) still has a role to play in shaping the severity of the collision.
*I've just realised that I first used this image back here in response to Sam's analogy.

To push this picture a little further, perhaps we could imagine that we are driving on a narrow road on the side of a tall cliff. We've been driving too fast and are out of control. The outcome could involve sailing through the barrier over the precipice or crashing into the cliff-face that rises above us on the other side. It seems to me that worrying purely about the economic costs of ecologically responsible action is a little like obsessing over not crashing into the cliff face. Sure, crashing into a cliff face would be bad, and in normal circumstances you want to avoid it. But in our case, already speeding and out of control, better the cliff face than over the edge of ecological destruction. Why better? Because economic damage might last years or decades; ecological damage might last decades, centuries or millennia.

Perhaps a simpler image is speeding along a two lane road and finding a stopped or very slow truck up ahead. We can slam on the brakes and probably slide into the back of the truck, in which case, the sooner we hit the brakes the better. Or we can swerve into the other lane and risk a head-on collision with oncoming traffic. Since we can't see around the truck, we just have to hope there is a gap. In the past, it has usually made sense to swerve and keep accelerating, but traffic is increasing.

Perhaps this analogy is reaching its limits. The point is, we often pay too much attention to the wrong threat.
Image by BuenosAiresPhotographer.com, used under creative commons license.

Looking ahead: anticipation and prudence

We are generally not very good at responding to long term threats. We are wired to focus on the immediate. Warnings that smoking or obesity might cut years off one's life all too often fall on deaf ears. Or even where the veracity of the claim is acknowledged, there remains a disconnect between this acknowledgement and remedial action.

Many ecological crises share this structure: incremental changes (often as the result of pursuing certain immediate objectives that may well be good or pleasurable in their own right) lead to unforeseen consequences “in the pipeline” that may take years, decades or longer to become fully manifest. Examples include declining biodiversity, habitat loss, soil degradation, ocean acidification and overfishing. Climate change may represent the most complex and difficult example.

The distance between the actions that cause harm and the suffering of that harm is widened in climate change to be not only temporal, but also spatial and relational, meaning that there is no immediate or proximate visibility to the consequences of actions that are only become highly problematic in a cumulative manner. Thus, there are a raft of distraction techniques that can dilute the fierce urgency of now. We can point out the relative size our tiny contribution and the inefficacy of reducing it by ourselves; we can question the consequences that are as yet only forecast; we can lower our ethical horizons to include only what is visible in my neighbourhood.

The problem is that we are used to making our ethical decisions as though we were walking, where avoiding a pothole or canine faecal incident is only a matter of looking a step or two ahead. But we are no longer walking. Our greater agency through soaring population and technological innovation means that our actions have greater consequences, affecting a wider sphere over a longer period of time. Our consumption and production don't just satisfy our immediate needs and wants but have unforeseen knock-on effects that extend much further than they used to. We are no longer walking. When you drive, you need to look further ahead, observing and anticipating events over a wider field of interactions and responding well ahead of time to possible threats. "Too late" happens surprisingly early. In driving, you need to look further ahead and further afield than when we're walking because the consequences of your actions are so much greater. A mistake while walking means bumping into a stranger and perhaps meeting a new friend. A mistake while driving could mean sending a tonne of metal travelling at superhuman speed into a brick wall, or under a fifty tonne truck coming the other way.
H/T mustakissa for suggesting this analogy.

But we are not even driving. Perhaps a more appropriate image for the scale of our agency and our consequent need to anticipate threats is flying.
Image by Ruth Brigden.

A rare treat

By Marc Roberston.

Facing the truth can be hard

“Sometimes facing up to the truth is just too hard. When the facts are distressing it is easier to reframe or ignore them. Around the world only a few have truly faced up to the facts about global warming. Apart form the climate ‘sceptics’, most people do not disbelieve what the climate scientists have been saying about the calamities expected to befall us. But accepting intellectually is not the same as accepting emotionally the possibility that the world as we know it is heading for a horrible end. It’s the same with our own deaths; we all ‘accept’ that we will die, but it is only when death is imminent that we confront the true meaning of our mortality.”

- Clive Hamilton, Requiem for a Species: why we resist the truth
about climate change (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2010), viii.

These are the opening words of Hamilton's new book. In case you hadn't picked it up from the title, it's no exercise in optimism. Hamilton believes that we have largely missed our opportunity to respond in time to climate change and now all we can do is minimise the damage and salvage what we can. However, reaching that conclusion involves a willingness to face the full scale of the threat rather than watering it down through a variety of coping mechanisms.

There are three important claims in this quote. First, Hamilton believes that "the world as we know it is heading for a horrible end". It is important to distinguish between the planet and the world. The planet will survive, life will go on, but the human world, our societies and contemporary globalised industrial civilisation, will not survive in anything like their present form. This prediction may or may not be true, but our ability to determine its truth will be partially affected by our openness to considering the claim closely rather than dismissing it out of hand.

Second, Hamilton points out that it is quite possible to accept this prediction in the abstract, to know something of what the likely implications of climate change will be, and yet for this knowledge to remain at arm's length, disconnected from our emotional life. We "get" it, but many of us have not had what Hamilton calls the "oh shit" moment, where we really get it: "We can no longer pretend the impacts of warming are too far off to worry about, or that the scientists must be exaggerating. We realise that our apathy is rooted in fear or that our hopes for a political upheaval are no more than wishful thinking. We concede that no technological marvel will arrive in time."

Third, Hamilton draws an analogy between facing personal and social mortality. Just as we evade really facing the former through a variety of distraction and coping mechanisms, so there are analogous strategies at work to keep us from facing the depth of our current predicament.

Where can we draw the strength to face the truth about ourselves and our situation?

Going, going, gone?

Art losses "worse than expected", according to latest global report
The art world is reeling from fresh revelations of the extent and pace of a destructive fungal growth that has been afflicting galleries worldwide.

A new report gathering data from hundreds of smaller studies and national bodies has revealed that tens of thousands of priceless pieces are at risk; some have already disintegrated under the relentless mould attack. The report, known as the Global Art Outlook is not the first time attention has been drawn to this situation, but the authoritative publication offers a global picture of just how rapidly the mould is spreading, demonstrating the failure of government and private action to slow the infestation to date.

An agreement back in 2002 to slow the rate of artistic decline and preserve art treasures at a global, national and regional level has not been kept, according to the report. Curators estimate that without drastic action, somewhere between 30 and 70% of all artworks could be lost over the coming decades. Metallic and stone sculptures are slightly more resistant, but paintings have been decimated. Oil canvasses are particularly vulnerable, and many well-known masterpieces are showing signs of the dreaded mould. High profile campaigns have saved a few, but art lovers despair at maintaining sufficient public interest for the thousands upon thousands of lesser known works.

In a joint statement following the release of the report, the Directors and Chief Curators of twelve of the world's most iconic galleries, including the Louvre, MoMA and London's National Gallery, warned, "This is a wake up call to humanity. We need a new vision for preserving artistic diversity from this mould."

Critics of the report were quick to remind the public of "Pollockgate", the controversy over a 2005 study which claimed that the works of noted artist Jackson Pollock were on the brink of mouldy disintegration. This study was later retracted when it was discovered that the variegated blotchy patches associated with the infestation were actually part of his work.

The share price of major European tour companies took a hit this morning when it was revealed that even major galleries like the Uffizi or Louvre could suffer a sudden disintegration of most of their art. Google rallied 3% on the strength of its digital libraries.

But local art critics warned that reliance on virtual art would undermine preservation and restoration of originals. "Once these pieces are gone, they are gone forever. Yes, we'll have photos of them, and memories, and in some cases even copies, but the world will be a much poorer place without The Scream or the Sistine Chapel, without anything directly from the hand of Dali or Da Vinci."

Despite these warnings, much of the public remains ignorant, apathetic or even sceptical of the scale of the problem. A recent poll found that 94% of respondents could not distinguish a Klee from a Klimt, and 71% said there was too much media focus on art problems that affect only a small segment of the population. One man, interviewed outside the Scottish National Gallery this morning said, "I haven't seen any works distintegrate and the local art gallery still seems to be open, not that I've ever been. Who needs all these artworks anyway? It's just a few paintings, it's not the end of the world. And besides, what's so bad about a fungus? I like mushrooms. Don't we need mould to bread down compost and other waste organic matter?"

The full report can be read here, or you can find a Guardian article here.
Anyone still scratching their head should make sure they look at the report I have linked to (yes, I know it is large, and yes, I know it is not about art). If all else fails, read my next post.

"Mmm, forbidden doughnut": craving and myopia

Homer Simpson once sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for a doughnut.* Those who've seen the classic episode know that Homer in his hunger immediately scoffs most of it, before realising at the last moment that as long as he leaves the final bite uneaten, he gets the best of both worlds: most of a donut and his soul. However, during a sleepy trip to the fridge for a midnight snack, Homer can't help himself and gobbles the remaining morsel, saying "mmm, forbidden doughnut".** Then, of course, all hell breaks loose.
*I could post the clip of "The Simpsons - Donut Hell" from YouTube, but assume it breaches copyright, so I won't.
**He actually says "mmm, forbidden donut", but I thought I would translate for my non-US readers.

Homer's short-sighted stupidity - first in making the deal, then in sealing his own fate despite knowing how to avoid it - is funny because it's true. We make shortsighted decisions knowing that they are shortsighted and will eventually come back to bite us, but, in the moment of decision, the immediate gratification surpasses the longer term consequences.

Now, where's that sashimi?

What we do with what we know: a story

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. It was not an easy cancer to explain to people, because, basically, the doctors hadn’t seen any cases quite like it before and could not identify precisely where it had started or what caused it. Since it was such a rare growth, they could also not give me a meaningful prognosis. The scans indicated that it was of a significant size, in a critical location and there was good reason to think it was probably growing quite rapidly. Their recommendations were that surgery would be almost impossible (one of them told me, “I’m not into killing my patients”), but that chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy might have some effect (one oncologist spoke of “curative doses” and another simply of reducing its size).

Now at this point, I had a variety of possible responses open to me. I could go and get further oncological opinions (I had already gone to three different hospitals and had multiple scans and a variety of tests).

I could have weighed up the probable side effects of treatment (quite a long list!) and decided that it was not worth it and tried to make the most of my remaining time, however long or short that turned out to be.

I could have heeded the many voices telling me that traditional medicine doesn’t know how to deal with cancer and that I needed various alternative treatments: homeopathy, acupuncture, meditation, herbal remedies, hypnosis, miracle diets and many more that were urged upon me by well-meaning contacts, often with powerful testimonials.

I could have listened to the Christian sisters and brothers who told me that I would be healed if I had faith, that God loves miracles and would preserve my life without treatment, that they had seen or been given amazing recoveries after prayer.

I could have embraced the cynical critiques of the medical system by noting that it is in doctors’ interests to keep me thinking that I am sick, that I need them, that I need their expensive and complicated treatments.

I could have gone onto Google and attempted my own re-diagnosis on the basis of extensive reading of the most popular sites, or by consulting the most helpful discussion boards.

Each of these options were being put forward by people who apparently desired good for me. Yet deciding to go ahead with the recommended treatment was a relatively easy conclusion for me. Despite its costs, I do not at all regret the decision and suspect there is a very good chance I would not be here today without the excellent treatment I received at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Indeed, it has been three years today since I had my last radiotherapy dose, a few more days since my final round of chemo.

I’m sharing this story not for the sympathy vote, nor to celebrate an anniversary, and nor yet to ridicule the faith or intentions of those who urged me to avoid treatment. I share this story to raise the issue of the relation of knowledge to ethics. How does our knowledge of the world affect our obligations and opportunities to pursue good?

Many factors contributed to my decision to accept treatment, but significant amongst them was the considered advice of recognised experts in the field based on years of empirical research. I was not morally bound to follow this advice. The research has not been exhaustive. Not all the experts I saw recommended exactly the same treatment. My case involved some degree of novelty. Not all cancer treatment is as effective as mine has been so far. But I do believe I would have been both foolish and seriously at fault if I had simply ignored their advice, or acted as though the diagnosis must be wrong because I’ve heard of some misdiagnoses in the past, or if I had presumed that I would be alright because some tumours undergo spontaneous remission.

It would be no good to say that since the scriptures don’t tell me whether or not to trust doctors, then I have no reason to trust them. It would equally be no good to say that since the scriptures don’t tell me to have cancer treatment, then I was under no moral obligation to take the advice of the oncologists seriously.

Of course, receiving treatment in order to try to stay alive was neither my only nor my highest moral obligation. There are worse things than death. There are ways of staying alive that diminish the point of being alive. But all things considered, I believe there was a compelling moral case for me to accept the recommended treatment. I believe that not only was it possible to pursue this treatment without being distracted from more important things (like loving those around me and praising the wonders of the one who gives all life), but that the treatment was in fact a means to that end, keeping me alive for more service and song, and opening many opportunities to love and praise that I might otherwise not have had.

It may be obvious where I am going with this, but in case it is not let me spell it out. There is a large and diverse body of scientific experts with years in the field who point to widespread and growing empirical evidence of a critical diagnosis, which we cannot in good conscience ignore. They may offer a variety of different (even sometimes conflicting) advice on specific treatment, but it would be irresponsible to dismiss their warnings or to treat the situation as though it were nothing but a distraction from what is truly important.

Our knowledge of the world, though fallible and incomplete, is nonetheless sufficient to contribute to the moral deliberation of Christians. The evidence for alarming anthropogenic climate change is strong enough such that wilfully ignoring or burying the issue at this stage has become irresponsible. This is not a denial of sola scriptura nor to fall into legalism. Nor is it to say that climate change is the only or primary moral challenge of our day, or that all Christians ought to become climate change activists. And neither yet do I claim that Christians owe their allegiance to any particular mitigation strategy. But as one significant pastoral and social issue amongst others, and one linked to fears and guilt, to anger and confusion, to questions of greed and of faith, hope and love, addressing climate change Christianly is neither a luxury nor a distraction from the gospel.

Imagine...

Imagine a world in which public transport was almost free, in which it produced almost no carbon emissions or other environmental nasties, and in which it didn't rely heavily on oil and so was not substantially contributing to a society vulnerable to the dangers of peak oil. However, in this world, running a car still sets you back hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, still produces huge amounts of carbon dioxide and is still dependent upon cheap oil. The disparity between them is so great that one trip in a car costs about as much as using public transport regularly (multiple times a day) for a year. Furthermore, imagine that this idyllic public transport system was directly connected to every house and building in the city, so that using it was only ever metres away. Sounds nice?

Imagine your shock to find that in this world private car use continues to grow by 10% each year and that car manufacturers are making huge profits. How can this industry possibly be flourishing? Perhaps they have run scare campaigns spreading misinformation about the dangers of public transport (when in fact, it poses the same or fewer dangers than regular use of a private automobile). Perhaps they have successfully branded car use with a variety of attractive identities - healthy, natural, convenient - despite the actual facts about the situation.

I imagine you might be worried. Not only are your fellow citizens being duped out of their money and helping to unnecessarily destroy the environment, but if more and more people switch to their own (far more expensive, far more polluting, far more oil-dependent) car, the government will have less reason to maintain the excellent public transport system at its present standard. What of those who can't afford a car and rely on the public system?

Oh, and imagine that in this world, using public transport actually improved your teeth.

Now stop imagining, because in Sydney, this is world in which we live. Except rather than transport, I'm talking about drinking water.

Bottled water makes no sense. Tap water is just as safe (if not safer), comes in at about 1/2400th of the price, uses very little energy and produces very little pollution. Bottled water costs about as much for a bottle as you spend on drinking tap water for a year: one tonne of tap water costs about $1.20, while the same amount of bottled water costs around $3,000. Water is heavy (and thus energy-intensive) to transport (and refrigerate) in bottles, compared with Sydney's tap water, which is largely gravity-fed, or occasionally pumped, through an amazing pipe system that connects to almost every building in the city. The bottles themselves are energy-intensive to produce (being plastic, an oil-based synthetic product), and in Australia only about one third are recycled (with the exception of South Australia, whose enlightened policies manage to get a recycling rate around 70%), while the rest make their way into landfill, where they take hundreds or thousands of years to decompose. The production of a plastic bottle ironically uses about seven times more water than will ever be able to fit into it, and results in about one hundred times more carbon emissions than the production of a glass bottle.

And all this is entirely unnecessary, yet sales of bottled water continue their astonishing growth (180 billion litres sold last year and growing at 10% p.a.): a testimony to the victory of consumerism over common sense.

A friend of mine has done the logical thing and started a Facebook 'cause': Reject Plastic Drink Bottles.

Having been cynical about The Daily Telegraph in my previous post, I applaud them for running a story the SMH seems to have missed on this topic.

This site summarises the pros of tap water and the cons of bottled water, encouraging us to "think global, drink local".