The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an innovative new measure that shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered. The Index doesn’t reveal the ‘happiest’ country in the world. It shows the relative efficiency with which nations convert the planet’s natural resources into long and happy lives for their citizens. The nations that top the Index aren’t the happiest places in the world, but the nations that score well show that achieving, long, happy lives without over-stretching the planet’s resources is possible.

On the map, I'm really glad to see how well Latin America and Southeast Asia scored. Having lived and worked in both places, I can certainly attest to their being super-efficient at converting material goods to human well-being.

"Brokeback Bharat" is a spoof trailer using images from Bollywood to campaign against section 377 of the Penal code that criminalizes homosexuality in India. It has some great scenes. Bonus points to anyone who knows what TV shows or movies they are from...

You never know what will take off on the Internet.... Last month, some folks on Hornby Island, BC in Canada put a webcam in a bald eagle's nest. Since then, there has been an EXPLOSION of viewers - now up to 2 million per day - watching the eagles and waiting for the eggs to hatch.

I find it pretty relaxing to watch. Now we just need to put a microphone up there for next year...

You know you are getting older when colleagues you consider friends and mentors start to pass away.

I was very sad this morning to hear from friends in South Africa that Dave MacDevette died on Friday while rock climbing near his home in Cape Town. Dave was founder and president of Empowerment for African Sustainable Development (EASD).

I first met Dave through my boss at IISD. They had worked together in Fiji 15 years or so ago. When I met him, he was doing a lot on African environmental information systems and state of the environment reporting. He and his wife Monika had a house in Nairobi and were both doing contracts with UNEP. I stayed with them there for a few days on my way back from a GKP meeting in Ethiopia and lent Dave a hand at a meeting at UNEP on developing a capacity building strategy. We had a great time talking about life, the universe and everything while having a drink on his deck and watching the monkeys in the trees.

One of the things I always admired about Dave was his commitment to young people - both his own sons and other young South Africans. When he moved back to Cape Town more full time a few years ago, he was very excited about being able to surf and climb with his sons. And he was excited about raising funds through EASD to support the ideas and research of all of the motivated young people he kept meeting in S Africa. It was through Dave that IISD was able to find first Chris Higgo and later Steve Vosloo to work with us on the Information Society and Sustainable Development project.

Dave will be very missed.

A friend sent this to me... a fine solution, no?

Anyone else concerned that Smurfs dying is more shocking to Europeans than real shots of African child soldiers? What have TV news and movies done to our senses of reality and horror?

I'm a bit slow on this posting... but it's taken me a couple of weeks to get used to doing everything one-handed :-)

Simon Angelo was born on August 27, 2005 at 5:47 AM(at 41w1d). He weighed 8 lbs, 2 oz when he was born and was just under 21" long. He's been an absolute joy - super mellow so far about everything. I'm really looking forward to having the next year off from work to get to know him and watch him grow up and discover everything.

Labour and delivery was a bit of a long haul with complications popping up off and on over a couple of days. Our midwife and the hospital medical team worked incredibly well together through all of it. There is a part of me which is amazed that I made it (until the emergency surgery at the end) without any drugs whatsoever. It's incredible the degree to which skilled coaching can help you to manage pain and your perceptions of it. And (of course) a special thanks to Linda for being such an amazing partner in all ways.

In the spirit of TakingITGlobal, I also wanted to note how truly global the whole birth was... Our midwife (from Winnipeg) was trained in Wales. The second midwife (originally from Ghana) also trained in London (her aunt, also a nurse at the hospital, was previously a midwife in Ghana). The charge nurse (who helped with labour coaching) was from Zimbabwe. The emergency team that took over was led by a Chinese ob/gyn. In the meantime, my parents from the US and Linda's dad (from Egypt), and his partner were all waiting anxiously in the waiting room.

It's amazing how much babies can pull the world together....

More pictures and details on the birth can be accessed through Simon's Web page. Please sign the Guest Book while you're there!

I was shocked this morning to read the news of the assassination of Brother Roger, the 90-year old founder of the Taize Community in France. He harbored Jewish refugees during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, then built the ecumenical Taize Community with a mission to reconcile all denominations of Christians and promote dialogue and peace. A mentally ill woman slit his throat with a knife during an ecumencial prayer service Tuesday night in front of approximately 2500 (mostly young) people.

Part of what hit me so hard about this was that on Tuesday, I was just looking at the Taize site for music to download and play on my computer during labour (whenever this baby decides to be born). I hadn't looked at the site in a few years, so I don't know why I ended up there on Tuesday. When I was a grad student in Oxford, I used to get up early a few mornings per week and go to the Anglican church for sunrise Taize services. They were always so quiet and peaceful with everyone singing along to the short repetitive prayers in many different languages. Growing up Catholic, I always loved the ones in Latin (e.g. Nada Te Turbe). Most of all, though, I've always been impressed with the Taize spirit of creativity, generosity and compassion.

It's sad to lose a man who has given so much to make that a reality....

"Staff at Knowsley Safari Park are monitoring smaller vehicles, including Smart cars and Mini Coopers, after the lions started paying special interest. David Ross, park manager, told the BBC News website that a group of lionesses chased after one Smart car after being confused by its compact appearance."

From the BBC...

Does anyone else find it funny (in a sad, not a haha, sort of way) that within the last week, the US Congress has passed two major pieces of legislation: the first was a comprehensive energy bill, the second a highway transportation bill.

The $14.5b energy bill was pushed forward by the President and Congress bemoaning US oil dependence. They came up with a whole new raft of incentives to produce oil, natural gas and coal domestically to meet rising energy demands. Along the way, they also made polite statements about the need to reduce energy demand, but the funding put into this side of the equation was pitiful in comparison to the supply side of things.

Now, this week, the US Congress passes a MASSIVE $286b highway transportation bill.

Now, call me crazy, but if you spend $286b in six years on expanding the highway system and $14.5b in ten years on developing new sources of domestic energy - doesn't it seem like at the end of the day all you end up with is a package of incentives that keeps Americans spending the majority of their lives in their cars? There are a lot of studies coming out that indicate that more roads = more traffic - countering Bush's claims that better highways will save lives and will REDUCE gas use since people will not be idling in traffic for so long.

Couldn't we spend tax dollars a BIT more wisely and invest them in transit projects instead of highways??? Perhaps change some land use planning practices so people can live closer to where they work? Get folks out of their cars and onto bikes so they don't continue to die at an increasing rate of obesity-related diseases?

I really wish US lawmakers had just taken the summer off, gone to cottages somewhere and READ current studies and research rather than passing bills which buy short-term economic (and political) gains at the expense of the long-term quality of life of the American people and neighbours around the world.

Another bit of news to watch... According to US lawyers in the Maher Arar case, foreign citizens passing through American airports have almost no rights. The U.S. government is interpreting its powers in such a way that passengers never intending to enter the U.S. connecting to international flights at U.S. airports must prove they are no threat and could be allowed to enter the country. If passengers are deemed to be inadmissible, they have no constitutional rights even if later taken to an American prison. The interpretation means travellers can be detained without charge, denied the right to consult a lawyer, and even refused necessities such as food and sleep.

Seems like a serious infringement on universal human rights if you ask me... If you can, please consider boycotting US-routed flights to protest this policy.

Now that I'm officially on leave from work, I finally had time to set up a Web page for Thumper. It's hard to believe that this baby is due in 11 days. It kind of feels like I've been pregnant FOREVER. But, for those of you who still can't picture it, I've posted recent photos over there and everything...

In order to keep my TIG blog relatively clean, once the baby is born, I'll be posting baby pictures and stuff on the other site - although I'll post at least the birth announcement here for y'all as well.

Have a great week!

Tonight should be interesting... the city crews are coming to spray Malathion in my neighbourhood tonight between 10 PM and 6 AM. The last time this happened three summers ago, there were street protests blockading the fogging trucks and a couple of people were arrested. I have no clue what will happen tonight. The difference between then and now is that tonight's fogging has been ordered by the Province of Manitoba due the detection of West Nile Virus (WNV) (spread by mosquitoes) in dead birds. Last time it was about spraying to kill nuisance mosquitoes that made it unpleasant to be outside.

In order to understand this whole kerfuffle, there are a few things you have to understand:

* Winnipeg has nasty mosquitoes most summers. The city is at the junction of two rivers on flat land that used to be the bottom of an old glacial lake thousands of years ago. The soils have a lot of clay and hold water like crazy. It is prone to flooding and prior to the last 100 years, used to have a ton of wetlands on it. When it gets wet and hot (30C+) in the summer like this year, it's like a mosquito Club Med. A week or so ago trap counts in one part of the city were 3,392. The traps do not attract WNV-carrying mosquitos, which are monitored using a different system by the province.

* Over the last few years, Winnipeg has come up with a new mosquito control policy which includes a strong belief in Integrated Pest Management. This means that the City Entymologist and crews try to use biological controls and very targetted treatments to try to keep mosquito populations under control. This year, they even tried putting minnows and dragonfly larvae around the city to help eat the mosquito larvae. They also use a more complex formula to decide when they have to spray for adult mosquitos. Rather than just spraying once there were more than 100 bugs in a light trap on any given night, they now take things like soil moisture and the life cycle of the mosquitos into account (or 25 for 3 consecutive nights, which is what happened last summer after our new mayor came in and the old entymologist quit).

* Winnipeg is the only major city in Canada that sprays for adult mosquitos using Malathion - a nasty chemical which can cause damage to the nervous system and is toxic to fish, honeybees, and aquatic insects -- but which Health Canada swears is safe if professionals apply it according to the specified directions. Winnipeg's mosquito policy allows residents to register their objection to Malathion and to NOT have it sprayed within 100m of their home. The crews basically plug those addresses into a computer on the trucks and the fogging stops until they get to the end of the buffer zone (go GIS/GPS!!!). My entire neighbourhood has not been sprayed in a few years because so many residents registered for buffer zones (random note: there was some controversy over how activists strategically asked homeowners to register - it only took something like 15% of ths houses to register in order to make spraying impossible in the whole neighbourhood. Some people felt this was rather undemocratic).

* The City's mosquito policy can be overridden if the Province decides that there is a public health reason. West Nile Virus has been declared such a public health emergency - although the information distributed by the province goes out of its way to state "Most people who are bitten by an infected mosquito do not become ill and for those who do, the symptoms are usually mild. In some cases, the virus causes serious illness and sometimes death." In 2003, there were 142 cases of WNV identified; of these 35 were serious, including two deaths. After finding increasing evidence of WNV carrying mosquitos this summer, the province has ordered that Winnipeg has to spray the entire city and that buffer zones are null and void. This means that Wolseley will be sprayed this year.

* West Nile Virus is here in North America for good. There is no evidence from anywhere in the world that you can eradicate it. You can just manage it from year to year.

So what does this all add up to? A serious confusion in my head as to the risks of West Nile Virus vs. Malathion spraying. Both are nasty and can be passed from mother to unborn child. At the end of the day, though, I tend to come down against the spraying in my neighbourhood. Why?

* I can count at least 100 dragonflies zipping around my backyard at the moment eating mosquitos and making me happy. Tomorrow morning, most of the dragonflies will be dead from the Malathion. Goodbye beautiful creatures; goodbye front line of defense for the next batch of mosquitoes that hatch.

* The province has produced no proof that there is a massive infestation of WNV-carrying mosquitos in my neighbourhood. I tend to think that the government owes me data at least before spraying toxic chemicals on my home. Tell me really what my odds are of catching WNV if I am standing in my backyard with (and without) mosquito spray on at different times of the day. I suspect my odds of dying from WNV even if I were standing naked in the yard at dusk are lower than my risk of being killed in a car accident.

* I have an organic garden in my backyard. It's nice to be able to grow your own food and to be able to trust that it is safe. Once they spray out there, I will not feel safe being in contact with my plants (weeding, etc) and will have to take extra precautions washing my lettuce, tomatoes, peas, beans, etc etc to make sure that the chemicals which have settled on them have washed off.

* West Nile Virus is here to stay. At some point, we're going to have to accept it as a new part of our ecosystem - not an emergency crisis. Educate people, yes. But also accept that there will be some deaths and some serious illnesses. Is the province planning on
spraying Malathion over the whole city every year for the next 100 years? That's hardly what I'd call a risk management plan. Or even vaguely cost effective.

I don't know... it's just going to be sad sitting inside the house tonight with all of the windows closed waiting for the trucks to rumble by. It's also going to be sad if the city starts arresting protestors in the street again. I totally understand where they are coming from. But, in arguing with the city to develop the new policy, we all missed the boat and forgot about the Province's ability to unilaterally undo all of our hard-worked for agreements. It's just hard for the average citizen to keep up with and to understand the technical information in enough depth to be able to present viable alternatives to the Province for managing WNV as a public health situation - which is what is really needed now.

Run, don't walk to any opportunity to catch Catie Curtis in concert. I saw her play a couple of times on Saturday at the Winnipeg Folk Festival.

Besides the fact that she bears an eerie resemblance to my friend Alyson Slator (who lived in Boston for a few years, where perhaps she was cloned), I also liked her music.

And she told a great story about how her Massachusetts marriage license got her into Canada when she realized at the border that she had forgotten her passport at home before starting this tour. As she put it, we had same-sex marriage to thank for her making it to the city for the Folk Festival. There you have it...

I got an email last night saying a guy I know from my high school is now the asst. deputy director of the new Illinois Homeland Security Market Development Bureau. Sigh. You knew it was only a matter of time until some city/state tried to capitalize on the economic potential of all of this. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, "state leaders are optimistic they can make Illinois a national center for security specialists by offering a range of financial incentives and grants for consulting, manufacturing and technology companies supplying defense devices and security advice."

I guess the thing that made me most queasy was the bit about "food security". They did a sruvey of 30 companies and noted that, "Despite the fact that 80 percent of the businesses appeared to have an individual with responsibility for food security, not one operation had a food security plan designed to limit problems relating to terrorism."

Sigh... and here I thought that food security was about making sure that all people on the planet - no matter their income - have access to healthy and nutritious food. Silly me.