When I was in grade school, I traded a kid on the bus for some pornography.
In return for a few comic books, he gave me a hardback fantasy novel about questing elves who took occasional timeouts for some elf-on-elf, elf-on-dwarf and elf-on-dragon … uh, jousting.
By “occasional,” I mean every five or six pages. It’s surprising they got anywhere, really.
I don’t remember many details about the book because I didn’t get to keep it very long. Later that day, when I was devouring it with apparently too much googly-eyed interest, even for a kid who loved to read, my mom asked to take a look.
Did I mention it was profusely illustrated?
One feverish phone call later, Mom arranged for me to return the book and get my comic books back. Turns out Superman beating the screws off some robot was more acceptable than second-rate Tolkien wannabes fogging up the Misty Mountains.
It wasn’t a big deal. Principals were not mobilized. Students were not suspended. School boards were not called upon to resign.
I have a feeling my rescinded trade would be a bigger deal in today’s hypersensitive society, where every scintilla of material is poured through the moral strainer and only the purest stuff is allowed to reach our kids.
It’s going on in Hudson, where the mayor has called on the school board to resign over a book of writing prompts, which had been used for five years in a college course taught at the local high school. Some of the 642 writing prompts dealt with mature subjects (re: sex), which the teacher had told students to disregard.
Nobody’s psyches were scarred and nobody’s sensibilities were offended, at least until the whole thing blew up into a witch hunt with no actual witches, just some words circling the page.
It’s that kind of knee-jerk reaction that National Banned Books Week, celebrated this year from Sept. 26-Oct.2, is designed to combat.
Sponsored by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, Banned Books Week publicizes a list of books most often banned (actually removed from shelves) and challenged (complained about). A successful challenge leads to a ban. An unsuccessful challenge leaves the book on the shelves for others to read.
Since most challenges take place over books in public schools, funded by tax dollars, any removal of such material meets the definition of “government censorship,” which should concern everybody – Democrat, Republican, moderates, rich, poor, young and old. Nobody should want to live in a world where inquisitive minds are kept away from materials.
Among the most challenged books from 2020 are “Stamped: Racism, Anti Racism, and You,” “All-American Boys” and “Speak,” along with perennial listmakers like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men.”
And if you didn’t care or said “right on” to the first three titles, but felt your outrage revving from zero to one hundred when you saw the last two, might I humbly suggest you are part of the problem?
Today’s world is challenging and complex. Our reading choices, and those of our children, should reflect this complexity. Parents have every right to shield their children from material with which they disagree (much like my mom, who recognized that an eight-year-old didn’t need Naughty Bits Tolkien on his shelf). This includes asking for alternative reading assignments when the material in a class may be too triggering, although the ability is properly curtailed when children are taking college-level classes at a younger age.
But parental authority stops with your own child. To force your views and restrictions on other people’s children denies them the opportunity to find those special titles that will speak to them through the years, the way “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men” resonate with certain readers of my generation.
It’s cliche to say we should celebrate Banned Books Week by reading one, but it’s still the best corrective action. When we’re done reading, we should talk about the book with others, expressing our wonderment, questions, and even outrage.
And know that, if the book were banned, the conversation couldn’t happen at all.
Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com or @cschillig on Twitter.
Monday, September 27, 2021
Saturday, September 18, 2021
If we can potty-train cows, should we still eat them?
In a week dominated by other news, readers are forgiven if they missed the bombshell that cows can be toilet trained.
Animal behavioral scientists in New Zealand managed this feat by managing the cows’ feet. An Associated Press story documents the way researchers enticed cows to enter a “MooLoo,” a special gated area where they then peed. (The cows, not the researchers.)
Flummoxed parents trying to potty-train toddlers will be heartened to note that scientists weren’t entirely successful. Only 11 of the 16 cows in the experiment could be trained; the others, apparently, are still freely peeing in fields, stalls and wherever else cows go when nature calls. (Nature usually calls collect. She’s notoriously frugal that way.)
The AP report notes the cows were trained only to pee, not poop. No word on when or if scientists will attempt to control the animals’ bowel moooovements.
The article also noted that cow urine is an environmental challenge. It mixes with ammonia and can pollute the water and air. If cows could be reliably trained to use MooLoo-like contraptions, it would be easier for farmers to control and dispose of the runoff.
An ancillary issue is this: If cows are smart enough to be potty-trained, why are humans still eating them?
Before I’m mobbed by thousands of readers – OK, dozens … OK, just my mom – advising me in not-so-nice language to take my woke self and my west-coast views somewhere else, I hasten to point out that I still eat beef.
And chicken.
And pork.
And turkey.
A few years back, my wife and I decided to give up meat for a year after a similar epiphany over ethical and environmental considerations. We bought some vegetarian cookbooks, looked up recipes and prepared for our new adventure.
To give ourselves a fighting chance, we decided to limit the duration of our stay in Meatless Vania. We would be vegetarians for one year and then re-evaluate.
The early days were encouraging. We made wonderful meals – roasted cauliflower and vegetarian meatballs, zucchini pasta and portobello mushroom fajitas, loaded smashed potatoes and roasted veggie sandwiches.
We were cooking like the love-child of Julia Child and Bobby Flay mixed with the animal-rights zeal of a PETA board member. And the food was pretty good. I still missed meat, but not as much as I expected. A victory of sorts.
But then reality set in. Work was long, time was short, and it was easier to reach for pre-prepared foods than to whip up nightly culinary feasts, sans meat.
Before we knew it, frozen cheese pizzas became the linchpin of our vegetarian diet. An increase in weight followed.
Holly bailed in August, lured back to carnivorism by the sinful steak burgers offered by a local church at Carnation Days in the Park. I held out through December, but celebrated with a crock pot of pork roast which I inhaled whole at 12:01 a.m. on New Year’s Day.
None of which means that I’m not still concerned about the health and environmental advantages of going meatless, both for myself and the world.
And I’m not above feeling guilty when I hear that cows have strong emotional intelligence, persistent memories, problem-solving skills and the ability to shred like a boss on the solo for “Stairway to Heaven.”
Maybe I’ve been misinformed about that last one.
At any rate, I’m impressed by the cows’ potential to pee on demand, even if I will continue to eat them until my guilt and sense of social responsibility catch up to my palette.
I hope nobody has a beef with that.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Animal behavioral scientists in New Zealand managed this feat by managing the cows’ feet. An Associated Press story documents the way researchers enticed cows to enter a “MooLoo,” a special gated area where they then peed. (The cows, not the researchers.)
Flummoxed parents trying to potty-train toddlers will be heartened to note that scientists weren’t entirely successful. Only 11 of the 16 cows in the experiment could be trained; the others, apparently, are still freely peeing in fields, stalls and wherever else cows go when nature calls. (Nature usually calls collect. She’s notoriously frugal that way.)
The AP report notes the cows were trained only to pee, not poop. No word on when or if scientists will attempt to control the animals’ bowel moooovements.
The article also noted that cow urine is an environmental challenge. It mixes with ammonia and can pollute the water and air. If cows could be reliably trained to use MooLoo-like contraptions, it would be easier for farmers to control and dispose of the runoff.
An ancillary issue is this: If cows are smart enough to be potty-trained, why are humans still eating them?
Before I’m mobbed by thousands of readers – OK, dozens … OK, just my mom – advising me in not-so-nice language to take my woke self and my west-coast views somewhere else, I hasten to point out that I still eat beef.
And chicken.
And pork.
And turkey.
A few years back, my wife and I decided to give up meat for a year after a similar epiphany over ethical and environmental considerations. We bought some vegetarian cookbooks, looked up recipes and prepared for our new adventure.
To give ourselves a fighting chance, we decided to limit the duration of our stay in Meatless Vania. We would be vegetarians for one year and then re-evaluate.
The early days were encouraging. We made wonderful meals – roasted cauliflower and vegetarian meatballs, zucchini pasta and portobello mushroom fajitas, loaded smashed potatoes and roasted veggie sandwiches.
We were cooking like the love-child of Julia Child and Bobby Flay mixed with the animal-rights zeal of a PETA board member. And the food was pretty good. I still missed meat, but not as much as I expected. A victory of sorts.
But then reality set in. Work was long, time was short, and it was easier to reach for pre-prepared foods than to whip up nightly culinary feasts, sans meat.
Before we knew it, frozen cheese pizzas became the linchpin of our vegetarian diet. An increase in weight followed.
Holly bailed in August, lured back to carnivorism by the sinful steak burgers offered by a local church at Carnation Days in the Park. I held out through December, but celebrated with a crock pot of pork roast which I inhaled whole at 12:01 a.m. on New Year’s Day.
None of which means that I’m not still concerned about the health and environmental advantages of going meatless, both for myself and the world.
And I’m not above feeling guilty when I hear that cows have strong emotional intelligence, persistent memories, problem-solving skills and the ability to shred like a boss on the solo for “Stairway to Heaven.”
Maybe I’ve been misinformed about that last one.
At any rate, I’m impressed by the cows’ potential to pee on demand, even if I will continue to eat them until my guilt and sense of social responsibility catch up to my palette.
I hope nobody has a beef with that.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Rewards for perfect attendance are far from perfect
Can we drive a stake through the heart of the perfect attendance award?
Its death is long overdue. Not because society doesn’t value people who show up for work regularly, but because too many of us do so when it would be better if we stayed home.
One revelation from the current coronavirus pandemic is how easily we make each other sick. In an often-cited example, an unvaccinated teacher in California pulled down her mask last May to read to students and infected 12 out of 24 of them with COVID. That single incident led to 26 positive cases in one small elementary school.
The same is likely true of other contagious conditions that aren’t tracked as closely.
How many of us have gone to work with a slight fever or roiling stomach, intending to “power through”? Maybe we don’t want to leave our department shorthanded on a busy day. Or the coworker who is our usual backup is on vacation.
Far from being team players, though, we are selfishly risking the health of colleagues and customers, some of whom may be more susceptible to whatever junk we are peddling.
Perfect attendance awards (and the financial bonuses that accompany them) exacerbate this situation. Corporations don’t intend this, of course. The goal is to encourage associates not to take a Ferris Buehler’s Day Off just because the sun is shining.
Schools have the same objective. Teachers can’t teach anything to an empty seat, so when Junior’s at home playing Call of Duty or binge-watching Netflix, he isn’t learning how to write a rhetorical analysis or solve a quadratic equation. Plus, the time it takes to catch him up when he does return to school limits the time teachers spend with the rest of the class.
Intuitively, it feels that rewarding students for coming to school regularly should make them do it more often. This should, in turn, build better work habits for life. Except this is a case where intuition fails.
A 2014 study by Harvard, UCLA and Stanford found that ceremonies where students were given a surprise perfect-attendance award caused them to miss more school later.
The reason may be that students didn’t want to be publicly identified as exceptional, or that the awards made them realize they were overachieving, so they decided to start missing occasionally.
For students who are positively motivated by potential attendance rewards, schools hit the public-health wall. Kids come in sick when they should be home, trading germs like baseball cards in classrooms, cafeterias and playgrounds.
If bonuses for perfect attendance in the workplace lead to unsafe and unhealthy environments, and if recognition for perfect attendance can backfire in schools, what’s the point? Corporate America and academia need to find better rewards using some other set of criteria.
I say this with some degree of consternation, if not hypocrisy. As a student, I missed only four days of high school — two during my freshman year (I was sick) and two during my senior year (I was sick and tired).
In the workplace, I pride myself on being present as much as possible. Early in my teaching career, I was so sick one day that I locked my classroom during lunch, crawled under my desk and slept until students woke me by pounding on the door. I somehow staggered to my feet, feverish and achy, and taught the rest of the afternoon.
That was stupid, a result of a misguided work ethic, toxic masculinity (never show weakness) and an overexaggerated sense of my own importance (the class couldn’t survive without me). Who knows how many students I made sick?
Of course, some workers don’t have the option to stay home when ill, even if they want to. Many businesses have attendance policies that are downright draconian, meaning workers are one bout of the flu away from termination, or must hoard precious sick days like Gollum with his stolen ring, saving them for childcare emergencies.
So these workers show up sick, propped up by co-workers who expect the same consideration when they are on death’s door, spreading their germs throughout the workplace and community.
What a way to run a railroad.
At the very least, companies and schools need to stop mythologizing the Iron Man ethos and normalize taking time off. It would also help if employee mental health became a bigger priority, so that the aforementioned Ferris Bueller's Day Off is viewed not as playing hooky, but as a necessary way to recharge batteries and decrease stress. Wouldn’t hurt to offer childcare options, too.
Save the bonuses for performance and innovation, not for mere presence. After all, if 90% of life is showing up, that’s an awfully low bar, isn’t it?
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Its death is long overdue. Not because society doesn’t value people who show up for work regularly, but because too many of us do so when it would be better if we stayed home.
One revelation from the current coronavirus pandemic is how easily we make each other sick. In an often-cited example, an unvaccinated teacher in California pulled down her mask last May to read to students and infected 12 out of 24 of them with COVID. That single incident led to 26 positive cases in one small elementary school.
The same is likely true of other contagious conditions that aren’t tracked as closely.
How many of us have gone to work with a slight fever or roiling stomach, intending to “power through”? Maybe we don’t want to leave our department shorthanded on a busy day. Or the coworker who is our usual backup is on vacation.
Far from being team players, though, we are selfishly risking the health of colleagues and customers, some of whom may be more susceptible to whatever junk we are peddling.
Perfect attendance awards (and the financial bonuses that accompany them) exacerbate this situation. Corporations don’t intend this, of course. The goal is to encourage associates not to take a Ferris Buehler’s Day Off just because the sun is shining.
Schools have the same objective. Teachers can’t teach anything to an empty seat, so when Junior’s at home playing Call of Duty or binge-watching Netflix, he isn’t learning how to write a rhetorical analysis or solve a quadratic equation. Plus, the time it takes to catch him up when he does return to school limits the time teachers spend with the rest of the class.
Intuitively, it feels that rewarding students for coming to school regularly should make them do it more often. This should, in turn, build better work habits for life. Except this is a case where intuition fails.
A 2014 study by Harvard, UCLA and Stanford found that ceremonies where students were given a surprise perfect-attendance award caused them to miss more school later.
The reason may be that students didn’t want to be publicly identified as exceptional, or that the awards made them realize they were overachieving, so they decided to start missing occasionally.
For students who are positively motivated by potential attendance rewards, schools hit the public-health wall. Kids come in sick when they should be home, trading germs like baseball cards in classrooms, cafeterias and playgrounds.
If bonuses for perfect attendance in the workplace lead to unsafe and unhealthy environments, and if recognition for perfect attendance can backfire in schools, what’s the point? Corporate America and academia need to find better rewards using some other set of criteria.
I say this with some degree of consternation, if not hypocrisy. As a student, I missed only four days of high school — two during my freshman year (I was sick) and two during my senior year (I was sick and tired).
In the workplace, I pride myself on being present as much as possible. Early in my teaching career, I was so sick one day that I locked my classroom during lunch, crawled under my desk and slept until students woke me by pounding on the door. I somehow staggered to my feet, feverish and achy, and taught the rest of the afternoon.
That was stupid, a result of a misguided work ethic, toxic masculinity (never show weakness) and an overexaggerated sense of my own importance (the class couldn’t survive without me). Who knows how many students I made sick?
Of course, some workers don’t have the option to stay home when ill, even if they want to. Many businesses have attendance policies that are downright draconian, meaning workers are one bout of the flu away from termination, or must hoard precious sick days like Gollum with his stolen ring, saving them for childcare emergencies.
So these workers show up sick, propped up by co-workers who expect the same consideration when they are on death’s door, spreading their germs throughout the workplace and community.
What a way to run a railroad.
At the very least, companies and schools need to stop mythologizing the Iron Man ethos and normalize taking time off. It would also help if employee mental health became a bigger priority, so that the aforementioned Ferris Bueller's Day Off is viewed not as playing hooky, but as a necessary way to recharge batteries and decrease stress. Wouldn’t hurt to offer childcare options, too.
Save the bonuses for performance and innovation, not for mere presence. After all, if 90% of life is showing up, that’s an awfully low bar, isn’t it?
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Making Labor Day mean something
Most of us spend more waking hours at work than anywhere else. So why isn’t Labor Day a bigger deal?
For many Americans, the three-day weekend that stems from the holiday serves as a speed bump on the road to summer’s end. It’s a chance for one last picnic (but not really), refreshing swim (but not really) and home-repair project (but not really) before the weather turns cold.
Yet we will do more of all these activities in September — heck, I cook outside all year long, provided I can shovel my way to the grill — so Labor Day isn’t truly about the end of summer.
In the past, we could argue the holiday was more about the start of a new school year. If you are of a certain age, you can probably remember the pungent mix of anxiety, nervous excitement and full-on dread that would accompany Labor Day activities, conducted with the full knowledge that the next day you would don your stiffest, newest pair of jeans, board a bus and prepare to meet new teachers who had spent the last three months devising Machiavellian means of academic torture.
No matter the Labor Day menu — burgers, hot dogs, chicken, corn on the cob, baked beans — it was seasoned with fear.
Oh, sure, there were students who were actually excited about a new year, who looked forward to Trapper Keepers filled with Ditto sheets (kids, ask your grandparents about Dittos sometime), endless afternoons in sweltering rooms with only the occasional beep of the projector to prod the drowsy teacher’s aide to advance the filmstrip from frame 65 to frame 66 of a 215-frame extravaganza on the mating cycle of the tsetse fly, and buckets of slop ladled onto fiberglass serving trays and dignified with the name of lunch.
But let’s be honest: The rest of us never trusted our classmates who reveled in such ridiculousness, who could kiss goodbye the last vestiges of midnight bedtimes and fireflies and comic books spread across the front porch without so much as a backward glance. I mean, we’d copy off their papers and gobble down the cafeteria food that they wouldn’t deign to eat, but we didn’t think they sucked the nectar from the flower of life like all us working-class drones.
But now that so many districts start back to school in mid-August, Labor Day is no longer a first-day marker for students, either. Many of our kids have been back in the saddle for weeks by the time this first Monday in September rolls around.
So what the heck is the purpose of Labor Day?
I suggest we make it about — gasp! — labor.
And not in the “Frank and Ernest” sense, either, where Labor Day was the one time each year when the comic-strip duo was gainfully employed.
No, I’m suggesting that we really take a moment to salute America’s employees, who have undergone a sea change in the last year or two, swamped by COVID, by pendulum swings of different opinions over their essential or non-essential status, by attacks on their work ethic.
Take just a second to consider that last point — the ongoing meme-war over the alleged laziness of the hourly laborer, who has the temerity, the unmitigated gall, to no longer be content to toil for minimum wage in some of the dirtiest, smelliest, most lowly regarded positions.
As one worker said when questioned about the pervasiveness of this opinion, almost always offered by somebody who has been mildly inconvenienced because their Nacho Bell Grande has taken a few minutes longer at the carryout window, “Don’t they know how many of us died?”
The point is well taken. Frontline employees in a bunch of occupations didn’t have the ability to switch over to cushy work-at-home situations during the pandemic and haven’t accrued enough sick time to take off every time they have the sniffles.
But one thing they can do: Get sick or die because of their jobs, and go to the grave with the criticism of their fellow Americans still ringing in their ears.
Maybe this Labor Day, think about how many of our friends, neighbors, kids and grandkids work in retail or restaurant work, and how many of them will be working on these commercial frontlines this Monday, on weekends, on midnight shifts, flipping burgers and stocking shelves, while others are enjoying the fruits of these labors and begrudging them every penny.
Maybe Labor Day isn’t a bigger deal because we feel too guilty thinking about it more than we do, which right now, isn’t much.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
For many Americans, the three-day weekend that stems from the holiday serves as a speed bump on the road to summer’s end. It’s a chance for one last picnic (but not really), refreshing swim (but not really) and home-repair project (but not really) before the weather turns cold.
Yet we will do more of all these activities in September — heck, I cook outside all year long, provided I can shovel my way to the grill — so Labor Day isn’t truly about the end of summer.
In the past, we could argue the holiday was more about the start of a new school year. If you are of a certain age, you can probably remember the pungent mix of anxiety, nervous excitement and full-on dread that would accompany Labor Day activities, conducted with the full knowledge that the next day you would don your stiffest, newest pair of jeans, board a bus and prepare to meet new teachers who had spent the last three months devising Machiavellian means of academic torture.
No matter the Labor Day menu — burgers, hot dogs, chicken, corn on the cob, baked beans — it was seasoned with fear.
Oh, sure, there were students who were actually excited about a new year, who looked forward to Trapper Keepers filled with Ditto sheets (kids, ask your grandparents about Dittos sometime), endless afternoons in sweltering rooms with only the occasional beep of the projector to prod the drowsy teacher’s aide to advance the filmstrip from frame 65 to frame 66 of a 215-frame extravaganza on the mating cycle of the tsetse fly, and buckets of slop ladled onto fiberglass serving trays and dignified with the name of lunch.
But let’s be honest: The rest of us never trusted our classmates who reveled in such ridiculousness, who could kiss goodbye the last vestiges of midnight bedtimes and fireflies and comic books spread across the front porch without so much as a backward glance. I mean, we’d copy off their papers and gobble down the cafeteria food that they wouldn’t deign to eat, but we didn’t think they sucked the nectar from the flower of life like all us working-class drones.
But now that so many districts start back to school in mid-August, Labor Day is no longer a first-day marker for students, either. Many of our kids have been back in the saddle for weeks by the time this first Monday in September rolls around.
So what the heck is the purpose of Labor Day?
I suggest we make it about — gasp! — labor.
And not in the “Frank and Ernest” sense, either, where Labor Day was the one time each year when the comic-strip duo was gainfully employed.
No, I’m suggesting that we really take a moment to salute America’s employees, who have undergone a sea change in the last year or two, swamped by COVID, by pendulum swings of different opinions over their essential or non-essential status, by attacks on their work ethic.
Take just a second to consider that last point — the ongoing meme-war over the alleged laziness of the hourly laborer, who has the temerity, the unmitigated gall, to no longer be content to toil for minimum wage in some of the dirtiest, smelliest, most lowly regarded positions.
As one worker said when questioned about the pervasiveness of this opinion, almost always offered by somebody who has been mildly inconvenienced because their Nacho Bell Grande has taken a few minutes longer at the carryout window, “Don’t they know how many of us died?”
The point is well taken. Frontline employees in a bunch of occupations didn’t have the ability to switch over to cushy work-at-home situations during the pandemic and haven’t accrued enough sick time to take off every time they have the sniffles.
But one thing they can do: Get sick or die because of their jobs, and go to the grave with the criticism of their fellow Americans still ringing in their ears.
Maybe this Labor Day, think about how many of our friends, neighbors, kids and grandkids work in retail or restaurant work, and how many of them will be working on these commercial frontlines this Monday, on weekends, on midnight shifts, flipping burgers and stocking shelves, while others are enjoying the fruits of these labors and begrudging them every penny.
Maybe Labor Day isn’t a bigger deal because we feel too guilty thinking about it more than we do, which right now, isn’t much.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Climate change will not be denied
Almost forgotten among the ongoing tragedy in Afghanistan and the continuing rise in COVID-19 numbers is a piece of bombshell news with an impact measurable in decades and centuries.
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report earlier this month that cites human activity as a major cause of climate change. It doesn’t hem and haw, hedge its bets or use weasel words. The earth’s climate is changing for the worse, and we are to blame.
The report is both ideally and unfortunately timed.
“Ideally” because it comes in the middle of a summer that illustrates weather extremes. These include “heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones,” all of which will become more commonplace.
One of the most disturbing parts of the report states that the planet’s “surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered.” In other words, what humanity is experiencing right now in terms of temperature will continue – no matter what – through 2050.
Just as concerning is the observation that “past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia.” Our environmental sins will haunt our kids, our kids’ kids, and generations to come.
Really, you could point a finger at any part of the report and find something depressing. Comforting bedtime reading this is not.
The report is also perfectly timed because it comes months ahead of the 26th U.N.'s Climate Change Conference of the Parties, aka COP26, scheduled for Glasgow this fall. The paper is poised as the primary document at that conference, just as its predecessor was the anchor paper for the Paris climate accord in 2015.
Yet the report is unfortunately timed because, as noted above, it falls in the middle of a busy news cycle, where it has been muscled off front pages not only by the Middle East debacle and the immediacy of COVID, but also by the very weather extremes it warns us of.
Officials may be so distracted dealing with climate emergencies – putting out fires quite literally in some cases – that they will miss a quickly closing window of opportunity for prevention.
The report warns that the Earth’s governments – 195 of which signed off on these findings – must do everything in their power to limit the increase of global warming to only 1.5 degrees Celsius, which will still be disruptive, and not the more devastating 2.0 degrees Celsius or above.
The report is also unfortunately timed because it comes as the United States, which stepped away from a leadership role in curbing climate change under the Trump administration, is more divided than ever — over vaccines, mask-use, election results, you name it. Climate change is just one more area of dissension.
Make no mistake, this report is definitive, deeply researched and sourced, with the authority of some of the world’s top minds behind it. Still, there will be those who will dismiss it out of hand, who will make the predictable jokes when next winter’s first cold day rolls around. (There’s a reason these phenomena haven’t been labeled “global warming” for years — because the weather patterns climate change begets are so varied.)
Some conservatives, meanwhile, have slowly moved the needle of their belief from “climate-change denial” to “climate-change acceptance, but too expensive to address.” And within this narrow shift comes a small glimmer of hope.
If environmentalists can convince the movers and shakers that climate change is too expensive NOT to address — in effect, that the environment, like the banking or real-estate industries, is too big to fail — they will be more apt to act. And if parts of our coastline become inhabitable, if clean water becomes a luxury, if the health costs of treating those who are most susceptible to polluted air continue to balloon — then the cost of “business as usual” will be too great.
We can and should shift more of our economy to renewable energy sources, train workers from traditional energy industries to thrive in these newer endeavors, incentivize homeowners to transition to solar power, invest in high-speed rail and other forms of mass transit to shift away from individual car ownership.
What we can’t afford to do is nothing. A friend I was talking to about the report reached a conclusion that is all too commonplace: “It sounds like we’re already screwed, so why bother?”
That response reminds me of a line from the musical “Hamilton,” where a legacy is defined as “planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.”
For future generations, we have to plant the seeds of climate-change reversal today, before there aren’t any gardens left.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report earlier this month that cites human activity as a major cause of climate change. It doesn’t hem and haw, hedge its bets or use weasel words. The earth’s climate is changing for the worse, and we are to blame.
The report is both ideally and unfortunately timed.
“Ideally” because it comes in the middle of a summer that illustrates weather extremes. These include “heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones,” all of which will become more commonplace.
One of the most disturbing parts of the report states that the planet’s “surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered.” In other words, what humanity is experiencing right now in terms of temperature will continue – no matter what – through 2050.
Just as concerning is the observation that “past and future greenhouse gas emissions are irreversible for centuries to millennia.” Our environmental sins will haunt our kids, our kids’ kids, and generations to come.
Really, you could point a finger at any part of the report and find something depressing. Comforting bedtime reading this is not.
The report is also perfectly timed because it comes months ahead of the 26th U.N.'s Climate Change Conference of the Parties, aka COP26, scheduled for Glasgow this fall. The paper is poised as the primary document at that conference, just as its predecessor was the anchor paper for the Paris climate accord in 2015.
Yet the report is unfortunately timed because, as noted above, it falls in the middle of a busy news cycle, where it has been muscled off front pages not only by the Middle East debacle and the immediacy of COVID, but also by the very weather extremes it warns us of.
Officials may be so distracted dealing with climate emergencies – putting out fires quite literally in some cases – that they will miss a quickly closing window of opportunity for prevention.
The report warns that the Earth’s governments – 195 of which signed off on these findings – must do everything in their power to limit the increase of global warming to only 1.5 degrees Celsius, which will still be disruptive, and not the more devastating 2.0 degrees Celsius or above.
The report is also unfortunately timed because it comes as the United States, which stepped away from a leadership role in curbing climate change under the Trump administration, is more divided than ever — over vaccines, mask-use, election results, you name it. Climate change is just one more area of dissension.
Make no mistake, this report is definitive, deeply researched and sourced, with the authority of some of the world’s top minds behind it. Still, there will be those who will dismiss it out of hand, who will make the predictable jokes when next winter’s first cold day rolls around. (There’s a reason these phenomena haven’t been labeled “global warming” for years — because the weather patterns climate change begets are so varied.)
Some conservatives, meanwhile, have slowly moved the needle of their belief from “climate-change denial” to “climate-change acceptance, but too expensive to address.” And within this narrow shift comes a small glimmer of hope.
If environmentalists can convince the movers and shakers that climate change is too expensive NOT to address — in effect, that the environment, like the banking or real-estate industries, is too big to fail — they will be more apt to act. And if parts of our coastline become inhabitable, if clean water becomes a luxury, if the health costs of treating those who are most susceptible to polluted air continue to balloon — then the cost of “business as usual” will be too great.
We can and should shift more of our economy to renewable energy sources, train workers from traditional energy industries to thrive in these newer endeavors, incentivize homeowners to transition to solar power, invest in high-speed rail and other forms of mass transit to shift away from individual car ownership.
What we can’t afford to do is nothing. A friend I was talking to about the report reached a conclusion that is all too commonplace: “It sounds like we’re already screwed, so why bother?”
That response reminds me of a line from the musical “Hamilton,” where a legacy is defined as “planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.”
For future generations, we have to plant the seeds of climate-change reversal today, before there aren’t any gardens left.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Teachers, let's wear masks
Teacher colleagues, if you're like me, you're both excited and apprehensive about the start of the new school year.
The excitement comes from the prospect of building positive relationships, teaching students, and collaborating with colleagues.
The apprehension comes from all those things, too. Beginnings are important, and we all want to get them right.
An additional apprehension comes from COVID, vaccines, and masking recommendations/requirements. Many of us wonder how these factors will affect learning, teaching, and mental and physical health.
Decisions about school vaccine requirements and mask mandates are largely out of teachers' control. One thing that is within our control, however, is modeling healthy choices for our students.
This means wearing masks, whether our districts mandate them or not.
Currently in Stark County, where I live, as in most other parts of the state, coronavirus spread is significant enough that various health authorities, from the CDC on down, are advising that even vaccinated people wear masks indoors. This recommendation holds true regardless of what individual districts may have announced.
For our students under twelve, teacher masking is especially imperative. These younger students have no choice in vaccination: They can't receive it yet. They may also not be able to mask based on their parents' stance.
For our students twelve and older, teacher masking is also very important. The vaccination and masking attitudes of teens are similarly based on their parents'. Some want to be vaccinated, but can't without parental permission. Others may be on the fence.
Positive peer pressure is effective. Administrators who wear masks during times of significant spread send a powerful message about the importance of public health to teachers and students. (They send a similarly powerful message when they don't.) Teachers who wear masks send a message to students who may be unsure of how to proceed.
We don't have to wade into a political debate in the classroom. We can simply say we are wearing masks out of an abundance of caution, to protect students, ourselves and our families. Full stop.
The excitement comes from the prospect of building positive relationships, teaching students, and collaborating with colleagues.
The apprehension comes from all those things, too. Beginnings are important, and we all want to get them right.
An additional apprehension comes from COVID, vaccines, and masking recommendations/requirements. Many of us wonder how these factors will affect learning, teaching, and mental and physical health.
Decisions about school vaccine requirements and mask mandates are largely out of teachers' control. One thing that is within our control, however, is modeling healthy choices for our students.
This means wearing masks, whether our districts mandate them or not.
Currently in Stark County, where I live, as in most other parts of the state, coronavirus spread is significant enough that various health authorities, from the CDC on down, are advising that even vaccinated people wear masks indoors. This recommendation holds true regardless of what individual districts may have announced.
For our students under twelve, teacher masking is especially imperative. These younger students have no choice in vaccination: They can't receive it yet. They may also not be able to mask based on their parents' stance.
For our students twelve and older, teacher masking is also very important. The vaccination and masking attitudes of teens are similarly based on their parents'. Some want to be vaccinated, but can't without parental permission. Others may be on the fence.
Positive peer pressure is effective. Administrators who wear masks during times of significant spread send a powerful message about the importance of public health to teachers and students. (They send a similarly powerful message when they don't.) Teachers who wear masks send a message to students who may be unsure of how to proceed.
We don't have to wade into a political debate in the classroom. We can simply say we are wearing masks out of an abundance of caution, to protect students, ourselves and our families. Full stop.
I know masks compromise one of our biggest assets as educators: our facial expressions. For language and music teachers, this is especially challenging. There may be times, in mask-optional settings, when we can pull down our masks to demonstrate a particular pronunciation or inflection. Or to give brief mask breaks to ourselves and our students.
I also recognize concerns over student social and emotional health and how these may be compromised by masking. We need to take these issues into consideration, as well. But physical health, during a pandemic, must take precedence.
We all witnessed, to one degree or another, how disruptive and difficult online and hybrid schedules are. The best ways to extend face-to-face learning as long as possible this coming school year are:
1. Get vaccinated.
2. Wear a mask.
It is disappointing that this year still won't be business as usual in the classroom, as much as we would like it to be. I look forward to the day when I can safely remove my mask.
But we are not there yet.
If our goals are to stay in school, to limit community spread, and to get out of this pandemic without even more adverse health consequences, then the choice is really not hard at all.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
We all witnessed, to one degree or another, how disruptive and difficult online and hybrid schedules are. The best ways to extend face-to-face learning as long as possible this coming school year are:
1. Get vaccinated.
2. Wear a mask.
It is disappointing that this year still won't be business as usual in the classroom, as much as we would like it to be. I look forward to the day when I can safely remove my mask.
But we are not there yet.
If our goals are to stay in school, to limit community spread, and to get out of this pandemic without even more adverse health consequences, then the choice is really not hard at all.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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