Archives March 2020

A New Mission for Nonprofits During the Outbreak: Survival NYT

NGOs, among others, are in a particularly difficult spot during this shutdown. Fundraising is frequently a challenging part of NGO work, particularly when applying for grants etc. When there is a downturn or crisis, everything becomes much more difficult. When an org is living at the very edge of financial viability at the best of times, there is little capacity left to cover gaps or challenging times.

In a 2018 survey by the Nonprofit Finance Fund, a consultant, three-quarters of nonprofits said they would run out of cash in less than six months. Nineteen percent said they had only enough funds to last, at the most, for a month.

(Bold mine, and I believe that this is a US stat, but not confirmed. I assume stats would be similar for Canada).

NYT

I had not seen specific stats on this piece, and, while I am not entirely surprised, it is still shocking, assuming these stats are accurate, to see how close to the financial viability edge many NGOS are operating.

In the immediate term, I hope NGOs and small businesses etc are able to get through this crisis intact. There will be very tough decisions to make, and things will likely get worse before they get better.

In the longer term, my hope is that NGOs, especially the smaller ones, learn from this and come back with stronger admin structures where needed, a more extensive donor relations base that can weather storms more easily, professional support and expertise where they need it, and a savings account that can help buy them time through the next crisis. In some cases, perhaps that will mean coming back to full functioning via a merger with a similar small NGO or any of a variety of creative solutions. Through this difficult time, stronger organizations with better program design, admin structures and donor relations may be the silver lining that we can look forward to. 🙂

Hi all,

I’ve been away for a bit, as other plans have been continually adjusting over the last week or two. I have also debated whether to write about the pandemic, or avoid it/take a break, and focus on something else. So, as a compromise, I’m going to do a bit of both. I’m going to focus on how we can use this pandemic to reset parts of how we operate, to ensure that we come out of this into a local and global community that is better than it was before.

NOTE: We have been at home, as a family, for almost 2 weeks, since school was shut down here. No known exposure to anything at this point, and we are all healthy so far. We are going for walks around the block etc, but not much more than that. We are grateful for our cold room (well stocked with flour, oats and lots of other good things), our bread machine, dehydrator and instant pot, and the fact that we have been able to order things online for delivery.

Pandemic and Climate Crisis:

Without wanting to minimize the very significant impacts of the virus in any way, I think that there is a lot that we can learn from this crisis, in order to avert further climate damage before it’s too late. If there is any silver lining, a massive global Green New Deal, with massive action to avert the worst of the climate crisis, is it.

The Covid-19 crisis is a chance to do capitalism differently: Guardian

Why don’t we treat the climate crisis with the same urgency as coronavirus?: Guardian

What could change look like?

To be clear, I am not proposing that nobody ever leave their house again. However, there is a lot that we can keep from this shutdown that could help deal with the climate crisis.

SUVs second biggest cause of emissions rise, figures reveal: Guardian – If we can leave our big vehicles at home more in the future, and use public transit/drive a smaller EV etc, the impact would be significant. Likewise, if companies have adjusted and found ways to get work done with less driving/flying to meetings, there is to reason to go back to status quo when this is over.

‘Individual actions do add up’: Christiana Figueres on the climate crisis: Guardian

Toronto Star: Did free cash drive people to quit work? Not according to a new study of Ontario’s basic income experiment. (Star) – This pandemic is yet another reason for countries to implement a universal basic income, starting ASAP. 🙂

No putting meat on expenses, says property firm: BBC News – I actually saw this one before the pandemic, and it is an interesting, if somewhat complicated response to impacts of food choices on climate and business. 🙂

And, naturally, it goes without saying that I am not supportive of fossil fuel subsidies, or bailouts of large companies that are making massive profits at the expense of people or creation. I support workers, and retraining for anybody who wants, and a universal basic income. 🙂

Doing nothing will lead to more crises in the future. Let’s use this crisis as an opportunity to build the better world that so many people have been seeking for so long. 🙂

This is not a new theme (here or in other circles.) However, the world has become so wildly economically unjust, and a small percentage of people are now so wealthy, at the expense of a fair and just world, that more radical solutions are needed. To be clear, I am talking, partly, about the ultra-wealthy here. However, even among the rest of the world, there is still a lot of inequality – and we can not declare ourselves completely innocent just because we don’t own a private plane or a yacht. 🙂

If someone own two homes (or a house and a cabin/cottage), they are more wealthy than most of the world. If someone live in a big North American house, with a big North American SUV, they are among the wealthiest in the world.

The Guardian: Britons reach Africans’ annual carbon emissions in just two weeks. I have sometimes been encouraged not to include this kind of data – because some people feel that it is not relevant, or it’s unfair or any number of other reasons. I acknowledge that there are differences in context (eg I have found it easier to live in a slightly smaller space when I’m in a warmer climate, and don’t need room for heavy winter clothes etc). However, I also think that we have more control over our choices than we sometimes admit – and our choices affect our carbon emissions, and our place in the world.

If we start from the premise of “I should never have to live like someone somewhere else…”, it’s technically true, but then we immediately absolve ourselves of the responsibility to look at our own choices (directly and via the governments that we elect), and see where we can do better, and how we fit into the bigger picture. Maybe our homes in cold climate are a bit bigger than in warm climates to help with long winters, but they could still be a lot smaller than what many people are living in.

Maybe having a vehicle is necessary, but a compact EV (with trains and other public transit used more often) would work instead of the gas-guzzling SUV used more often. Maybe making a choice to live closer to amenities, with less land/house for ourselves, would make it easier to walk and use public transit more often. We can all do our part to close the gap. 🙂

Here is some of what I have been reading in the last few months:

‘Socialism for the rich’: the evils of bad economics: Guardian

Mark Zuckerberg’s plea for the billionaire class is deeply anti-democratic: Guardian

Think billionaires are just super-rich people? Big mistake Guardian

The next few are related to financial redistribution…

What could the US afford if it raised billionaires’ taxes? We do the math: Guardian – Naturally not an exhaustive list, simply looking at some of the ways that a more just and equitable society could emerge from greater income equality.

Salon: Even a wealth tax isn’t enough: It’s time for an income tax based on economic inequality.

How to Fund ‘Medicare for All’: Slash the Military NYT

And here are a few calls from those who have wealth, asking for greater taxation…

‘Traitors to their class’: meet the super rich who want to be taxed more: Guardian

America needs to seriously tax the rich – I should know, I’m one of them: Guardian

Toronto Star: The federal government needs to tax our inheritances.

… And why that matters for the health of people, and the planet. 🙂

FOK website

NOTE: I am not a certified nutritionist. This is general information only, to the best of my knowledge.

At various times, such as in presentations or conversations, the question of dairy, carbs or other specific food items comes up, particularly as plant-based eating is often part of the discussion at hand.

One of the ones that has been raised is that of dairy – a result of the heavy industry marketing-influences on the earlier versions of the Canada Food Guide. Many people still hold the belief that dairy is essential for health, and that whole-foods plant-based (WFPB) eating is leading them astray.

In a similar manner, sometimes the question of carbs comes up in discussions, as being contradictory to common fad diets, such as keto, paleo etc. To the best of my knowledge, there can be value (from a digestive health perspective, for example, and also from a spiritual perspective), to the practice of fasting (intermittent or other), while done carefully and with proper guidance.

However, the idea of eating a heavily animal-based protein diet (regardless of what it is called eg keto or paleo etc), seems problematic to me – both for individual health and for the health of the planet. There is strong science backing up both the health and environmental benefits of a WFPB diet, and likewise, strong evidence of the damage, to people and planet, caused by a heavily animal-based diet.

I do not know all of the background of how the low-carb trend took off, but there is a quick summary here, which is a shorter version of some of what is in the updated China Study book. Here are a few quotes:

The human body, which does not have the ability to make food from the sun, also happens to use carbohydrates as its main energy source. For example, our brain and red blood cells depend specifically on glucose (a carbohydrate) for normal functioning and energy.

……..

By telling people to avoid or significantly limit carbs in general, the low-carb movement has erased the crucial distinction between unprocessed and processed foods—creating an entirely new paradigm that goes against everything we know about nutrition and health.

Long-Term vs. Short-Term
If you eliminate carbohydrates from your diet and put your body into a state of ketosis, whereby it’s forced to burn fat to make ketones for energy, it can lead to short-term weight loss. But keeping your body in a state of ketosis is neither sustainable nor healthful, and it does not fulfill the long-term promise of effective weight loss. Indeed, observational population studies show that high-protein, high-fat diets are associated not only with more health problems but also obesity. (Bold mine)

When looking at long-term and sustained weight loss without mandated exercise or calorie restriction, the most effective eating pattern has been shown to be a whole-food, plant-based diet (low in fat and high in unprocessed carbohydrates).

FOK website

Going further into details regarding the rise of the Atkins and other similar low-carb, high (animal) protein “diets”, the writer says:

The chair of Harvard’s Department of Nutrition said that the Atkins diet was “nonsense” and “dangerous.” The prestigious Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics called the diet “unbalanced, unsound, and unsafe.” But no amount of criticism stopped the diet’s popularity and the newfound fear of carbs it perpetuated. (Bold mine.)

……….

That may be why cardiologist Dr. Kim Williams vigorously promoted a plant-based vegan diet during his tenure as president of the American College of Cardiology, and once famously said, “There are two kinds of cardiologists, those who are vegan and those who have not read the evidence.” (Bold mine).

FOK

In light of the health and environmental impacts of heavy consumption of animal-based foods/proteins, both individually and communally, it’s time to find ways to add more low emissions, whole/plant-based foods into how we eat. Let’s find ways to celebrate amazing rice bowls with veggies and tofu, homemade granola with plant-based milk and all of the other endless options that are available to us in the plant-based world – not as a sacrifice, but as one small, joyful step towards ensuring that we all have enough healthy food to eat, and a thriving planet, that we all share, to live on. 🙂

For International Women’s Day (just past), here are a few links that I have been collecting over the last little while. Despite progress, women are still under-represented and under-valued in countless ways. Happy Reading! 🙂

‘We still have a problem with female authority’: how politics sets a trap for American women (The Guardian)

After My Abusive Relationship, I Couldn’t Leave The House. Travel Opened My World Up Again. HuffPost

My life got easier after top surgery. Is this what male privilege looks like? (Guardian)

A new poll shows what really interests ‘pro-lifers’: Controlling Women (Guardian). Far from truly caring about protecting women and children, denying access to full reproductive health services, along with other rights that men have, is ultimately about men (primarily) attempting to control women.

Warren jokes men who think marriage is between one man and one woman should ‘just marry one woman’. CNN – Let’s put our own action and integrity first, before we engage in discussion with others about their actions. Another one I have seen recently (I think on Facebook)… Any men who genuinely care about limiting the number of abortions in the world should get a vasectomy first. 🙂

These people have a country to run. (Macleans) – A look at an amazing and progressive government, and what leadership looks like, when barriers are removed. 🙂

Fighting the tyranny of ‘niceness’: why we need difficult women.
(Guardian) – To be clear, being nice and being strong are not at all mutually exclusive. However, sometimes, difficult decisions need to be made, or conversations need to be had, and women do not deserve to be limited only to roles where they are only passive and “not difficult” for others.

The queue for women’s toilets is a feminist issue. (Guardian) – Anybody else tired of long lines that men never have to deal with? 🙂

Running Out of Children, a South Korea School Enrolls Illiterate Grandmothers (New York Times)

And, on a lighter note, here is a great article about Robert Munch and The Bag Bag Princess (CBC). A perfect book to go back to for International Women’s Day… 🙂

CBC

True – with one clarification. The time to end fossil fuel subsidies is not just now. The time was decades ago, and somehow it still hasn’t been done. We absolutely can not transition to a clean energy economy as long as we are spending money supporting fossil fuels.

The amounts at stake here are staggering:

A post-tax estimate includes direct subsidies, along with what fossil fuels cost in terms of their negative social impact, such as pollution and global warming. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) report places Canada’s post-tax subsidy to the fossil fuel industry at an astounding $43 billion US in 2015-16, which amounts to nearly one-fifth of the current federal budget. (On a global scale the IMF post-tax estimate is astronomical: $5.2 trillion US in 2016, or 6.5 per cent of global GDP.) (Bold mine).

CBC

If we want to invest that money in clean energy, I am completely supportive. If anybody who works in the fossil fuel industry wants to retain, I completely support paying for some retraining to learn how to install solar panels, or some other clean energy project. Likewise, if somebody is on a farm that grows animals for meat or dairy consumption and is losing business as trends change, I want them to be able to support their families, and would happily support redirecting some of that fossil fuel subsidy money to helping them change their farm over to something more sustainable.

I do not believe the critics, who say that others are going to continue burning fossil fuels, so we can continue, with a clear conscience, until the worst offenders stop, and then we’ll stop after that. We don’t use that logic in anything else. Imagine what it would sound like if we did… “There’s somebody in my class who isn’t studying or doing their homework. So, until they get straight A’s, I’m not doing any homework…” or “Once everybody else in the world stops smoking, then I will too, but I’m not going to be the first. If I stop, somebody else will buy that pack of cigarettes, so I might as well buy it for myself…”

We rise or fall together, as a planet, and we are each responsible for doing our best – to bring the global average up, together. Supporting the fossil fuel industry brings the average down for all of us, and change is past due. There is lots that we can do: pressure our local MP to support an end to these subsidies, sell our gas vehicles and buy electric and/or use public transit as much as possible, live in a smaller house (or apartment) that needs less energy to heat, install rooftop solar panels, reduce or eliminate animal products in our diet, Lots has already been done, and we still have a long ways to go. We’re in this together – let’s make it happen. 🙂