For days I was wrestling with a recalcitrant email system.  Emails refused to depart from my computer, and I could find no one who understood even how the system works, let alone correct it.  I paid a silly amount to someone purporting to be an expert, but it turned out he wasn’t .

So let me be an epicurean philosopher for a moment and ask the question, “Why are we doing all this technology to ourselves?  What is the point, except to illustrate that collectively we can do it, and someone, somewhere is making a pile of money at it?”

Apparently, 5G, a system that is going to take over the world, is going to allow you (yes!) to connect your electric kettle to the internet. Nothing will be isolated. Big Brother can surveil electronically in real time how many slices of bread you are toasting for breakfast.  Why?  Don’t ask!

There are lots of us increasingly feeble old people, and few can understand computers or electronics.  Wait till the 20s/30s crowd, who are foisting all this technology upon us,  reach old age – because they will.  By  that time it will be too late. They will be getting confused, forgetful and stressed – and will have done it to themselves.  But I suppose the imaginations of these techies doesn’t run to imaging themselves old and feeling helpless.  If the greatest threat to us all is  the climate crisis, the second is the complexity and ubiquity of technology, which frequently doesn’t work, and no one seems to know why.  Wait till it happens to you – and repent!

This an an epicurean blog.  We believe in a happy, contented life with peace of mind.  I fear it is all going wrong!!

My wife and I went mackerel fishing off the coast of Dorset, in Southern England. There were about 15 people on the boat, the weather was glorious and the catch quite good, enough for everyone.  We had fresh, baked mackerel for dinner that evening, caught on the end of a line.

I got talking to the owner of the boat, who told me that, this size of catch was now getting unusual. In the whole month of April he and his fellow fishermen had caught only 7 (yes, 7) mackerel.  He told me that the mackerel shoals were abandoning British waters and were moving North as result of the warming of the Channel waters.  If you want to fish for mackerel now, he told me, you have to go to the seas around Iceland to find the sort of numbers you used to get.

I wish Mr.“global climate change is all a hoax”Trump and his his fellow climate deniers could have heard these comments. What preposterous explanation would they have offered this fisherman for his calamitously falling catches.  The warming seas must be hurting him seriously., and his future as a professional fisherman looks scary.  All over the planet real people are having their lives and livings threatened, and Trump is boosting oil and gas production  and scrapping rules that mitigate the effects of a warming planet.  He will not be hurt, but his children and grandchildren certainly will be. He doesn’t care.  Epicurus distrusted politicians, justifiably – little has changed in that respect.

I did it all myself.

For sure, I did it all myself.

I never used networks or old college friends

On whom the success of so many depends.

I went out to work at the age of eighteen

Thin as a rake, but determined and lean,

And I laid rows of bricks and mixed tons of cement,

Made ten bucks a day for my food and my rent.

Twelve hours with no break did I labor on site,

And I did my book-learning by candle at night.

Then one day the boss man said, “Hey, come here, kid,

I’ve been watching you, boy, and I like what you did.

You’ve got brains, you work hard, but your problem is knowledge.”

So I chucked it and went to community college.

I learned my house building from sewer to gable,

And earned extra money by waiting on table.

Then I built up a  company, just as I’d planned,

Scouring the country, developing land.

I have been real successful, the business has grown,

And I’ve ten million bucks that I’ve made on my own.

I’d have made twice as much and could maybe relax

If it wasn’t for government, liberals and tax,

The planners, the lawyers, the dumb regulations,

Activist judges, red-tape strangulations;

The NIMBYSwho get up a great caterwaul

When you build on a green field a new shopping mall.

It’s always the do-gooding, meddling few

Who complain at the loss of some trees or a view.

No, all the restrictions should now be relaxed

And government prohibitions be axed.

We don’t need these laws, they all need up-ending,

And let’s call a halt to all government spending.

Send bureaucrats off up to Mars in a rocket,

But stop pilfering profit from my hard-earned pocket.

Sack all pen-pushers, ignore stupid rules

Made for the work-shy and drawn up by fools.

The need for it’s gone, it is all over-blown.

After all, what I’ve done, I have done on my own.

………..Truth replies

Are you telling me your parents had nothing to do

With the bundle of talents and hang-ups that’s you?

Where is the mention of school on your part,

That taught you the culture and gave you a start?

You must owe a debt to some of your teachers,

Those lousily paid and unrecognized creatures.

Who established the college you studied at later?

It wasn’t the wages you earned as a waiter.

Who paid for the roads that we all take for granted?

Our whole infrastructure was not simply planted,

But grew from decades of investment, and sacks

Of public subventions you now spurn as “tax”.

What is the value you put upon peace,

Containment of crime and the role of police?

Who bought your houses, your suburban sprawls,

Your gas stations, offices, car parks and malls?

Why, government workers, contractors and such

And similar folk whom you now hate so much.

The fortune Five Hundred fattens and waxes

On recycled money from Federal taxes;

Directly or not, here’s a thought to astound:

You probably shared in this merry-go-round!

Who laid the ground rules that draw to this nation

Immigrants swelling a huge population,

All needing housing?  These guys you can thank

For increasing your profits and cash in your bank.

Have you had no advantage from new medication?

Half the research is paid from taxation.

Have you had no advantage from rules about drugs,

Or water we drink, free of threatening bugs?

I bet were you sick I would hear through your sobs

“Wish they’d get a grip and start doing their jobs.”

Scrap Social Security?  Wow, you are plucky,

But perhaps, just like you, everyone will get lucky,

The market might rise and its rise might not vary,

Believe that? Believe in the good Christmas Fairy!

Thank God for the people who faithfully strive

To frame equal rules which have let business thrive,

Where corruption is modest, the playing field fair

And the whole business culture’s not governed by fear.

You’d have a real reason to grumble and moan

If you had to do business in Sierra Leone.

No, none of us prosper alone, I would say.

A little humility goes a long way.

( From a book of light verse called “ The;Rueful Hippopotamus” by Robert Hanrott, available on Amazon)

Extreme weather is commonly seen as a product of climate change. But it is also becoming a significant driver of the crisis, a new report suggests. In its annual review of global energy trends, BP calculates that global demand for energy grew by 2.9% last year – the biggest rise since 2010 – and that a significant factor in this was the number of much colder and hotter days than normal, which led to a greater use of air conditioners, fans and heaters.

As a result of this additional energy usage, carbon emissions rose by 2% – faster than in any year since 2011, and roughly the carbon equivalent of having 400 million more cars on the roads. Spencer Dale, BP’s chief economist, warned of a “worrying vicious cycle: increasing levels of carbon emissions leading to more extreme weather patterns, which in turn trigger stronger growth in energy and carbon emissions”.

While the report acknowledges the “extraordinary growth” in renewable energy – up 14.5% last year – it argues that to tackle climate change we must also find ways of making fossil fuels, BP’s product, less damaging. The oil and gas multinational has called for countries to switch from coal-generated power to gas (which produces fewer emissions), and for more government investment in carbon capture technology, to eliminate the emissions from the flues of power plants before they reach the air. (The Week, 22 June 2019).

Did I read this correctly?  One of the big fossil fuel producers, BP, which has fought the idea that its product is responsible for global climate change with every means in its power, now wants greater use of the very natural gas it now produces ( of course) and wants us, the public, to invest in carbon capture from power plants to make its own product harmless.  Excuse me – but they produce the product that results in the emissions; they should pay for the carbon capture, big time.  Talk about shameless cheek!

A new non-invasive MRI scan for prostate cancer could “revolutionise” diagnosis of the disease, scientists have claimed. Men in the UK aren’t screened for prostate cancer because the existing blood test – which looks for raised levels of the protein PSA – is unreliable. Most men with raised PSA levels don’t have cancer, but must have an invasive biopsy to establish this; the test misses around 10% of tumours; and it cannot distinguish slow-growing ones that don’t need treatment from the most aggressive kinds. The developers of the new ten-minute scan, which is being tested on 350 men this summer, claim it produces fewer “false positives” and can detect if the cancer is one that requires immediate treatment. Prof Mark Emberton, Dean of the UCL faculty of Medical Science, and one of the scientists trialling the test, said he hoped that the NHS would eventually adopt it as a routine screening tool.  (The Week, 22 June 2019)

This is very personal to me.  As far as I can establish every male among my ancestors for over two or three centuries appear to have died of prostate cancer, including (definitely) my father and grandfather.  It is a genetic inheritance, and I am the first to survive it, thanks to a good surgeon and modern medicine. It is, in my family’s case, diagnosed within the first six months of the 60th year – reliable as a clock.  But the biopsies are literally hit or miss, and I was told that the cancer is usuallh more aggressive in reality than the biopsies indicate.  This news gives me Epicurean peace of mind.  I have two sons, and it is reassuring to know about this advance in detection.  Who knows, by the time they are 60 prostate cancer could be detected harmlessly with an MRI and zapped with an injection?

Manaus, Brazil

The Vatican has opened the door to the possibility of married men becoming priests in remote parts of the Amazon basin. There is currently a drastic shortage of priests in the region – which extends across the borders of nine South American countries – and ministering to such a far-flung flock poses severe logistical challenges. Pope Francis first mooted the idea of ordaining viri probati (men of proven virtue) in remote communities two years ago. Now, the idea has been slated for discussion at the Amazon Synod, which is scheduled for October. The candidates for the priesthood should be “elderly men, preferably indigenous, respected and accepted members of their communities”, with grown-up families, says a document outlining the areas for discussion. Currently, the only married Roman Catholic priests are former Anglican priests who converted.  (The Week 22 June 2019)

Sounds to me like the beginning of an unavoidable change.  As candidates for the priesthood become fewer and fewer it seems inevitable that older, married men – and women – are accepted as priests.    And a good thing , too. I used to know an Anglican priest who was married, had worked for years for British Petroleum, and had become a vicar in middle age.  A wise man and a good listener. with a bit of charisma.  That’s what these churches need for pastoral work and for rebuilding congregations.  Not that, as a follower of Epicurus, I have any particular right to advise anyone about the policies of the Catholic church!

Letter to The Guardian:

“Your article on “zero heroes” ( e.g zero emission champions) was worthy but it tiptoed around the main factor causing increased global pollution: increasing human numbers.  Progressives often parade their environmental concerns loudly, but are strangely silent on the question of population growth.  How can we get on top of warming planet, increased pollution, habitat destruction snd species extinction if we add 80 million people to the population every year?

“Every country should have a population policy that seeks to stabilise or reduce their population.”

Gordon Payne, Fremantle,  Western Australia. (Guardian Weekly 31 May 2019)

It is astonishing, is it not, that so few people focus on population growth when talking about the climate crisis? What we ought to be doing is offering family planning to people all over the globe who, for cultural, religious and financial reasons, have no access to it – if they want it (we can’t make them).  This particularly applies to Africa, whose population growth is a huge and destabilising problem (we have only seen the tip of the iceberg so far in terms of African migration to Europe).  India, already the most populous country on Earth, is another example.  There they already have  a serious water problem.  Culture and religion stand in the way of sensible policy.