“Green” condoms

Wednesday, I tweeted (is that correct? Trying to find the correct conjugation will get you into trouble in a hurry) about Andrew Revkin's blog on how condoms might be a powerful weapon to combat climate change.

There's little doubt that unbridled population growth sits at the center of a cyclone of a host of issues – and not those that seemingly affect just the developing world. Sure, Rwanda's bursting at the seams, and farmers in Niger are struggling to scratch a living on too little arable land as the desert threatens to swallow the Sahel, but those are far-off problems. But the stark reality is, as the headcounts of these countries swell, in step with the likes of population behemoths India and China, they'll consume more resources, make more garbage, put out more CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, and add to the inevitable mercury spike of the planet.

And even if they don't use as much fossil fuel, water and plastic soda bottles as we do – and if they live outside the United States, rest assured they don't – their sheer numbers will be overwhelming, and all the deliberate choices some of us try to make to conserve, recycle and just be generally less wasteful won't make a bit of difference when it comes to righting the course of our planet.

Take a statistic I'm familiar with: The average woman in Niger will give birth to eight babies. Eight! And that statistic's not unique outside developed countries. Now granted, maybe two of those won't survive to adulthood, not that that's something to be happy about. And with medical care improving, albeit at a snail's pace and in some cases only because of direct handouts in the form of medical supplies and expertise that prop up shoddy regimes, more of these children will survive.

That's a great paradox. No one will argue that saving the lives of children isn't the right thing to do. Every kid deserves a fighting chance. But by artificially introducing modern medicine into cultures that still prize fertility, and indeed have needed it in abundance for millennia in order for their culture to survive, we're allowing the balance to tip toward a human-heavy planet struggling under this yoke.

That's where the condoms come in, green or any other color. A simple fix, cheaper and less permanent than vasectomies and tubal ligations ("getting tubes tied"), fewer hitches when it

comes to take a daily oral pill, and worlds more realistic than abstinence-only solutions, it at least puts some power in the hands of women when it comes to avoiding pregnancy. Female condoms would be ideal, but we had a few of these floating around for demos in our Peace Corps hostel, and their practicality was laughable – something along the lines of a shapeless sandwich baggie.

Condoms are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to attacking the population problem we all will face. Education and the empowerment of women lie right under the surface as imperative parts of any solution. Here's a little more math: so of those six Nigerien

kids who survive to adulthood, only two will learn to read. What that means is that increasingly bottom-heavy population will have few people who are aware of the role they play in the world's fate.

Incidentally, Sheryl WuDunn and Nick Kristof, the Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning couple, have a new book out called Half the Sky. I haven't read it yet, but if it's anything like Kristof's columns, it'll be engaging, passionate and energizing.

Reading “To Timbuktu”

Timbuktu – the name of the Saharan outpost is synonymous with any far-flung destination. For centuries or, more likely, millennia, the town stood at the intersection of two ancient highways – one, a watery path to the sea; the other, a trail only visible in the memories of those who have traveled it, into the sand and across the desert. And yet photographs of signs outside the city (I've never been there) unceremoniously spell out "TOMBOCTOU" in block letters. No flourish, no attestation of the role the settlement has no doubt played in history countless times throughout the ages. Just a simple indication like any other for travelers, put in place by a government that has more pressing issues to worry about, like feeding its citizens.

Perhaps the city itself is like many icons – a bit hollow unless you take into account the getting there. I've been reading Mark Jenkins's book, To Timbuktu, which is about just that. So far it's a great read, as he takes the reader through an expedition to find the source of the Niger River in Guinea, and then follow it to Timbuktu in Mali. Aside from the action and anecdotes from both Jenkins's experience and the annals of African exploration, we readers are treated to a few spot-on riffs – observations in which Jenkins draws on his experience as a traveler and his time as a stringer in East Africa. This one's admittedly a generalization, but in my experience it's true for almost all expats:

"Like all expats in Africa, the Olafsons (a couple he stays with in Guinea) don't quite live in Africa. They live inside a walled compound with guards and guard dogs and gardeners, servants and chauffeurs, flush toilets and air conditioning. The Olafsons aren't typical though because they don't whine about it. They openly admit they have chosen exile. They are in Africa to make money, plain and simple. They plan to retire twenty years before everyone else. Most expats, when they go back to their own country (twice a year, expenses paid), find it too tame and talk ceaselessly of the drama and wildness of their life in Africa. But then back in Africa they take every precaution to make their lives just as they would be if they lived at home-except for the servants and the cases of expensive liquor and the very good money (hardship bonuses and all).

"Even foreign correspondents are like this. That's something I learned in East Africa. People have this image of foreign correspondents out there on the edge getting the tough story for the betterment of mankind, but most of them are just expats. They live behind walls of money, drink like fish, and spend all their time with other soused white people. They send their stringers out to get the story." (p. 50-1)

A few pages later, again taking a step back to see the differences in perspective on the human experience, Jenkins makes an astute observation, ahead of its time: "Places with no roads and no wires are bigger than other places. Distance hasn't been distorted. People claim the world is getting smaller, as if it were some green and blue balloon leaking air. Africans don't buy this. To most Africans the world is enormous. Why? Because they walk. They have no choice; they are poor. If you must use your own legs--your own blood, bone, and sinew--to travel from one place to another, a mile is a mile and the world is boundless." (p. 56)

Interesting that this story was published in 1997. Certainly at the time, people were talking about the shrinking world, but I don't think "global village" had yet entered the lexicon. Again, he rightly attributes that sentiment to a question of perspective.

Silence, one bike – or one plug-in hybrid – at a time

Riding around town the other day, I had a picture of what streets of the future might be like, as a super-silent Toyota Highlander hybrid crept past me. Of course the biggest problems that more bicycles on the road will solve are the escalating release of carbon into our atmosphere and our insatiable thirst for energy. But a curious byproduct of our desperate need to make use of every possible solution we have available might be more silent streets.

Think about it. How magical would it be to replace the roar of car and truck engines burning fuel at their most inefficient with the quiet hum of electric motors and the whir of bicycle chains? It doesn't take an engineer to figure out that those stops and starts downtown and residential areas are murder on gas mileage, often driven by our perceived need to accelerate as quickly as possible to the next stoplight. Toyota and other leaders on the hybrid front have turned that on its head, recycling the energy generated from the constant braking in urban areas and funneling it back into forward motion.

Now, with companies like General Motors beholden to the will of the masses – not just as the easily hoodwinked consumers who chomped down so hard on the sport-utility craze of the 1990s, but as (hopefully) more savvy investors who will demand ventures into technology that will be profitable and stem the hemorrhage of oil from the earth and carbon into the air – an affordable plug-in hybrid seems to be within our grasp.

Neil Winton at the Detroit News would counsel me to temper my enthusiasm, but I'd argue the closer we get, the more exciting the potential. Predictions about battery life, range and consumer enthusiasm are conservative, he writes. If that's the case, fair enough – it wouldn't be the first time car companies have fallen woefully short of expectations. But maybe we just need to take the time to envision the wondrous and unanticipated ways that our world might change – ahem, enter the quiet cul-de-sacs and hushed avenues of the 21^st century, part of my own tenuous hopes – for solutions to go viral. Winton himself points out that in Germany, and undoubtedly most developed countries where nearly everyone owns a car, most trips top out at around 30 miles: tripping to the grocery, running the kids to school, hopping to the gym. You get the idea.

Sure, we in the media hype, and in many cases overhype, a good deal too many proposed solutions, such as the exciting idea to pepper the oceans with iron flakes, hoping to encourage the growth of carbon dioxide-absorbing algae. So avoid the hyping the naysayers too, and don't be afraid to imagine the possibilities.

What’s in a Lane?

Here's a riddle: What relies on an ancient Mesopotamian (probably) invention, and yet, these days, incorporates design elements developed by NASA? It's a healthy and green alternative to the automobile. Once you learn how to ride one, you'll never forget how, or so goes the conventional wisdom.

Answer (as if you hadn't already guessed): The bicycle. Since my childhood, I've been transfixed by these simple machines that allowed me to rocket down hillsides, weave through busy city streets, and keep my car parked in that enviable shady spot outside my apartment. And yet, it's been a contentious relationship as I took my knocks, both literally—like the crash that left me with nasty road rash, a jammed shoulder and a tacoed rear wheel, just days after I bought my first mountain bike when I was 15—and otherwise.

"Get off the road! You're not motor vehicles!" yelled a driver as he passed me and a friend I was riding with, over-pronouncing the 'h' in vehicles—common in Ohio where I grew up. He came close enough that I could have snapped off his antenna (I didn't). I don't remember being scared—just pissed off.

Screaming something about how cyclists had the same rights as drivers, I pedaled as fast as I could, not quite sure what I would have done when he stopped. He dusted me with a flick of his foot, so I didn't get a chance to "discuss" the issue with him. Probably just as well, but it was a rough introduction to the hazards cyclists face on the road. As if the stability disparity and several-ton weight difference weren't dangerous enough on their own, a host of behavioral issues play a role in the cyclists' safety. Anger, frustration, ignorance, carelessness—they all cause us to make unwise decisions, but on the road, the results can quite literally be life or death.

The basics of the argument aren't hard to understand: Spindly, slow-moving and ill-protected, a bicycle is no match for even the smallest car, especially when either the driver or the cyclist doesn't know—or is wantonly not following—the rules of the road. The catch-all solution seems to be cordoning off a space of the road for cyclists, as with bicycle lanes. It seems to make sense, right? Paint a white line on the pavement, and tell bikers to stay on one side and motorists to stay on the other.

But as I've investigated further, I've found vocal activists who say that bike lanes promote unsafe behavior. For my recent article in Bicycle Times, Cyclists Find No Safety in Numbers, I talked with experts on both sides of the issue, and I looked at a tragic accident—one of the type that critics point to as they lambast bicycle lanes as a safety strategy. They say that the placement along the right side of the road encourages cyclists to remain there even when the bicycle lane ends, as they inevitably all do at some point. Further, they say, bikers still stay in the gutter when they should in fact be entering traffic: to make a left turn, say, or—as the cyclist in my article could have chosen to do—to avoid a semi that was turning right while he planned to continue going straight.

It's a heated debate (at least in the small circles that debate such things) with few clear answers that I can see. To make matters worse, the will for research that might tip the scales one way or the other is hard to come by in this country where cycling isn't the mass mode of transportation it is elsewhere in the world.

Uncertain Times

In this little bastion of liberal idealism in northern California called Chico, I thought for sure I had the population pegged. I’d walk into the book discussion group on Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes on a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, and everyone would be sipping lattés and chiding the imprudent decisions we’ve all made since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that got us into this warming mess. I’m constantly seeking out the open disagreements that make science what it is in my work as a journalist. So, I thought, it would be nice to go beyond what I think of as a pretty soundly answered question—i.e. are humans causing climate change?—and learn about what other people think we should do about it for an hour in my spare time, rather than debating whether or not it’s happening and who (or what) caused it. 

Boy, was I wrong. The discussion started off predictably. Our moderator had asked Matt Chang, a slight, witty professor from California State University, Chico, to stoke the conversation with a reflection on his research into fisheries economics. He dove into the subject of climate change, and as any good scientist would, celebrated uncertainty. “We just don’t know,” he said several times, on the likely effect on fish stocks of climate-dependent factors ranging from sea level rise to ocean acidification. 

An older man raised his hand. When Chang called on him, the man twisted in his chair to address the group. At first a little cryptic, he soon stood up and began by calling Kolbert a “world-renowned environmentalist.” Then, in what seemed to be a rehearsed speech, he capitalized on the opportunity to use uncertainty to his advantage—though it still wasn’t clear what he was trying to say, until he pulled a glossy-covered report from the stack of papers he had pinched between his elbow and ribcage. “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate,” reads the cover. The man holding the report introduced himself—George Roy—and his companion, Lionel Brooks, who was, in Roy’s words, a “Ph.D. chemist.” Roy said they were both among the 32,500 scientists who had signed a letter to the United Nations, which basically argued that man hasn’t had the hand in the changing climate as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and others have claimed. 

The cat calls started. “We appreciate your opinion, but would you please sit down?” offered one woman amongst the groans. I must admit, my own gut reaction mirrored that of the group. I am not a climate scientist by any stretch and don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of the subject, but I’ve spent enough time immersed in the literature and speaking with scientists to be satisfied with the assertion that we humans are at least playing a part. It’s mystifying to me that someone could spend an entire career in the sciences and not be struck by the same conclusion. So these were the types of “scientists” that George Will and his fact-checkers rely on for arguments against the idea of anthropogenic climate change? They really do exist. I’d have been less surprised to see a leprechaun jump up with a report about the alchemical properties of rainbows. 

A side note: George Will, a conservative political pundit and op-ed writer for the Washington Post, is usually someone I respect. He’s typically level-headed and dispassionate, if erudite, in his arguments, and I thought that his hosting President Barack Obama at his home for dinner was a grand gesture that bespoke of his willingness to rise above the shrill Rush Limbaughs and the Ann Coulters of the conservative movement and to participate in the conversation. However, he’s been embroiled in a controversy over a statement he made in his column a few weeks ago—something about the icepack at the poles being at about the same level now as it was in 1979—a claim few ice scientists agree with. I won’t go into details, but science writer Carl Zimmer’s continues to chronicle the story on his blog, “The Loom,” as it unfolds. 

Anyway, I stayed after the meeting to speak with Brooks. Perhaps a little too confrontationally, I asked him right off the bat who funded him and the other scientists who had signed the letter to the United Nations. Irritated, he told me he’s retired and no longer has his own funding. So I asked him a few more questions about climate change, all of which he sidestepped. I came to learn that he and Roy had worked in the nuclear industry for decades, and though I’m still not clear in what proportion to the debate at hand, it seems as if nuclear power was a bigger stumping point for them than climate change—it just put them, it seemed, on the same side of the fence as the climate-change disbelievers. 

“I want to make sure my kids and grandkids have a reliable source of electricity,” Brooks told me. I said I understood that, but I pushed him again on the climate issue: “Don’t you think it’s important,” I asked, “that we figure out if we’re having a hand in warming the planet and then what we’re going to do about it, regardless of whether it’s nature or man?” He seemed to agree with me, even going so far as to admit that investments in solar and wind power were a good idea, though he questioned what he called “the real cost”—that is, after tax incentives, et cetera. 

As we were walking out, I shook hands with Brooks, and Roy introduced himself to me, saying if I ever wanted to write about climate change to look him up—he’s in the phonebook—and he’d give me all the information I could want. While I’m just as befuddled that anyone could stick their heads in the sand and try to deny climate change nowadays, he’s at least willing to talk—something I can’t say about some of my like-minded fellow book clubbers who simply wrote these two off when it became clear what they stood for. 

I’m not trying to make this whole ‘listening’ idea a theme of this blog, but I do think it’s important that we try to see others’ perspectives. Do they have some misguided, and perhaps biased ideas? Sure. (I still don’t know where their money comes from, but I’ll figure it out.) Did the word ‘crackpot’ cross my mind a few times while I was listening to them? Absolutely. But my point is this—getting pissed off and retreating to a liberal bunker is not going to change anyone’s mind. That’ll only further entrench and separate the two positions—which is, in my opinion, a step away from the massive behavior shifts we ALL will have to make if we’re going to find our way out of this climate change mess.

What I Saw

Sometimes we're privy to extraordinary encounters in the world around us--things that have nothing to do with our presence, that go on, and have gone on for eons, without the slightest contribution from our own egotistical species. These windows on alien societies are probably all around us, and yet we pay so little attention, the chance to witness them can seem rare. I'll leave the debate over whether we should even be in some of these places to the masterful hand of David Quammen (National Geographic, January 2009), and just share what I saw on a day in late August in the mountains of northern New Mexico.

As the mountains began to envelope the bowl in shadow, the stage was set for a battle between the boys in the valley.

Before I reached the lip of the Caldera, the squeaking honks reverberated through the aspens and conifers. I wound my way down the switchbacks to find the golden grass basking in the last rays of evening sun. The trail opened at the edge of the Valles Caldera, and I surveyed the basin with my binoculars to find two bands of elk grazing. A bull stood watch over the herd closest to me.

Cresting one of the undulations of the mountainside I’d just descended, there lay my gift—another bull, this one perturbed and ornery, all by himself. He paced back and forth, tossed his head, and slid on his shoulders through the wet grass. I walked for another few minutes, losing him behind a copse of trees, then finding him again. Finally, he trundled out from behind the blind, tossing his chin in the air and bugling.

His coat was slick, and I didn’t see the white butt that usually makes the elk so easy to see from far away. I’d soon learn why.

Among the harem closest to this bachelor, the first bull I’d seen trumpeted back. The rutter charged around, confused, it seemed, but found his prop. Elbow deep in a muddy stream carving its way through the caldera, he stomped and pitched a noisy, honking fit. The tines of his antlers soon dripped with mud he flung in all directions.

The bull with the harem raised his head from his vittles periodically to respond with a warning squawk, but never looked concerned. The youngster eventually quit his tantrum and cut a generous swath, giving his immediate adversary wide berth.

He turned east a few times to check me out. I stared back through the binoculars, but a hawk cruising for dinner stole my attention. Dropping from the sky in what seemed a few half-hearted plunges, he finally came up with some little meal.

Deciding quickly that I was no threat, the bull I’d been watching bugled occasionally, still getting an apathetic retort from the other bull, which was now behind him. After about a half hour, the bachelor turned and kangaroo-like pogo-ed his half-ton heft to the northwest toward a larger band of some two dozen cows and calves, but no visible protector.

His bouncing slowed to a trot as the perturbed cows at the rear of the harem slipped out of a gully. Then, a bull appeared. Now at a lope, the adolescent charged the big male.

The battle lasted only a few clicks of my camera, but I heard the clatter from where I sat, hundreds of yards away. I fired off my last few frames of film, and then watched as the dominant male ran off his challenger. He also took the occasion to run off an even younger bull that was still clinging to his mother’s side in the band.

The challenger sulked toward the forest at the south rim of the caldera and disappeared after a few more verbal challenges to entrenched males in the valley. Order restored, the edge of the massive shadows lowered the curtain on the extraordinary stage that is the Valles Caldera.

Inciting invocation

With the inauguration tomorrow, I have no doubt the Rick Warren questions will begin again: Obama picked who to speak and give the invocation?

Hang on a second. I’d urge our next president’s supporters to let him take office before they unleash their anger.

In my office last month, I overheard a woman telling a co-worker about this “homophobic evangelical” (Rick Warren) set to speak at the inauguration. She went on: “I feel like saying I want my money back,” which I took to mean that she is fed up with the Obama presidency before it even begins.

We, the American public, were treated to a presidential election this year that featured, I believe, two basically decent, honest men. Both may have changed their views on certain issues when pragmatism dictated, as only befits career politicians, but on this issue each was clear: One believes that any two people who love each other should be allowed to get married, and one does not. In a historically murky issue, that clear distinction stands out.

So why did the one in favor of gay rights choose Warren, a man who has actively campaigned to squelch the legality of gay marriage in California, to bless the ceremony that will launch him into one of the most powerful leadership positions in the world? Some might say Barack Obama is just an opportunist—a consummate politician who wooed a majority of this nation’s voters with the promise of change. But now, when he’s so close to taking the reins, he’s backing away from the bold ideals that rallied his supporters, and he’s settling into a pragmatic position—one in which he can trade the interests of some groups that supported him to satisfy the desires of others. “I want my money back,” they say.

But there’s a chance that the choice of Rick Warren says something that’s far more positive. It’s just a chance, to be sure, because as Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin and even Vice President-elect Joe Biden pointed out, Obama doesn’t have executive experience, and how he’ll lead is anyone’s guess. It could be, however, that Obama is living up to that guiding principle held so dear during the campaign—the promise of a seat at the table for everyone with an open mind. Instead of conspicuously excluding everyone who stands for principles he doesn’t agree with, Mr. Obama has chosen to share one of the most important days of his presidency—and arguably his life—with someone who flat out disagrees with him. In effect, he’s opening the door to discourse with this man. Warren has shown, by hosting Obama several times at his church, that he’s willing to listen and start a dialogue on values in this country.

What did Cesar Chavez say about convincing people of your position? Talk to one person, and then another person, and then another person. It seems only logical to start with those people who disagree with you but are willing to listen, rather than just spouting off to like-minded associates.

I know what my sister would say to all this: Nice try, John, but that’s a priviledged position you sit in, away from the fray. And on some level, she’s right. I can marry the person I love, a choice she doesn’t have in Ohio where we grew up, or even in California where I live now. And I’ll probably make more money and enjoy more freedom over the course of my lifetime than her or our cousin, whose father is Jamaican, because I’m a white male. Fair enough, I’d say.

I am not affirming Rick Warren’s views. Anyone who knows me would assert that there’s little he and I would agree on. But I believe that if we let anger born of past wrongs—as egregious as they may have been—stymie all communication, we’ll thwart any possibility for progress on the issue of whether two people, any two people, can make the public statement that we call marriage and enjoy all its benefits.

My sister has become, in her own way, a quiet activist—one who I think realizes that bringing about change requires more than just venting to those who agree with her. She knows that to make any important difference, the argument for gay rights or environmental conservation or social justice will have to be put to those who see the issue from a different angle.

In that same vein, I believe the choice of Rick Warren was calculated. Obama knows that in order to represent the rights of the gay community, he’s going to have to lay out a convincing argument. Instead of making this a gay vs. straight debate, he just might be saying, “We’re all people—now let’s sit down and work this out.”

Bigger than Mr. Warren himself, the choice speaks to all those who agree with Mr. Warren on this issue. Most of these people didn’t vote for Obama, and choosing Warren might quell some of the anger that crops up so quickly over the myriad issues on which they disagree with our next president.

Bigger still, perhaps the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads, the Kim Jong-Ils and even the Osama Bin Ladens of the world might see an America that stands by the principles on which it was founded—not necessarily an America that’s sympathetic to their demands, but a country with the belief that discussion might be salve to the wounds that once bred the hate and animosity leading to such destruction in world in the past decade.

What I worry about with the vehement reaction to Warren’s selection for an admittedly prominent position is that that attitude is only one step away from the cronyism that’s beset our nation in the past eight years. Saying you’re not welcome if you don’t agree with us is the same philosophy that has guided the current administration to gird all forums for discussion so tightly.

Obama’s done nothing more than offer this man a chance to speak. In Bill Clinton’s first term, he caved to pressure and signed the famous “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning gays in the military. In Obama’s defense, there’s been no such shift, no backing down on campaign promises yet—until tomorrow, he is still just the president-elect. In the end, he may turn his back on the gay community altogether in favor of reforms that are more apt to get him re-elected or build his legacy.

But there’s another possibility. Perhaps Obama espouses the same hope I do—that words, not wars, whether cultural or military—will solve problems. It’s that hope that led another former president to pen the words for his own inaugural address that Obama paraphrased during his acceptance speech. “We are not enemies, but friends…Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.” If that passion is allowed to reach a fever pitch, absent the mitigating power of discussion, its manifestation—perhaps in renewed hatred toward the gay and lesbian community—can only be destructive to the advancement of the cause.

Inevitably, the cynics among us—and within us—will see this choice as evidence that the change in politics Obama promised was nothing but a mirage, and, mandate in tow, he’s off to do as he pleases. He’ll just be more of the same.

But in fact, if we look closely, he’s doing the one thing that so many in this country have yearned for—he’s listening.