When is a weed not a weed?

"I am just going into the garden to do some weeding", my wife, Sandie, said the other day.  We do tend to have a clear division of responsibilities when it comes to gardening tasks and weeding is something I don't take onboard.  It's not a job I enjoy but more important, I am never quite sure what is deemed to be a weed.  Wikipedia's definition is 'a plant considered undesirable within a certain context'.  Well that really is subjective!  I am sure Sandie and I can agree what, for example, is a rose.  But when it comes to weeds, we do have differences of opinion, although I usually bow to her experience of these matters and anyway, I want a quiet life!

When I had a lawn in the UK, I became quite obsessive about achieving a bowling green effect.  I regularly weeded and fertilised the grass and mowed it using a power mower with a heavy roller to achieve a professional striped finish.  Here in Turkey, the climatic conditions are vastly different to the UK.  We have long hot summers with little or no rain and a mixture of weather in the winter, predominantly dry and mild but with heavy storms at times.  An English lawn would not survive in this part of Turkey.  But we do manage to have green lawns, which are a mixture of long-rooted grass and various green 'weeds'.  From a distance it looks good!  The bottom line is, what is regarded as a weed in a UK lawn could be very acceptable here in Turkey.

If a weed is 'a plant considered undesirable within a certain context' then clearly if the 'context' changes, for example UK to Turkey, then what is 'undesirable' also changes.  But context can be more than just climatic conditions.  Context can also be to what extent the lives of weeds affect human activities.  I have already touched on weeds being unacceptable in ornamental lawns and those used for sporting activities, such as bowling, cricket and football.  But of course weeds can also be unacceptable in agricultural environments where they compete for survival against crops that provide food for humans.  This 'context' is where humans are at war with nature.  Plants that interfere with food production have to be controlled otherwise crop yields are reduced or lost.  Humans have a formidable array of deterrents at their disposal, including chemical weapons (weed killers), which can be selective and very effective.

Look at the photo at the beginning of this post.  This is white clover.  Now the lawn enthusiast, which I am happy to say no longer applies to me, would definitely regard this plant as a weed but in many other 'contexts', it is a desirable source of fodder, honey and soil nitrogen.  The lawn specialist would probably eradicate it with a selective weed killer.  However, it tolerates close mowing and is a beneficial component of natural or organic lawn care as a result of its ability to fix nitrogen and out-compete other lawn weeds.  So there's the dichotomy, is it an invasive weed or a truly beneficial companion?!

I could ramble on and on with this topic, but I won't.  We are definitely exploring the world of opinion rather than fact.  So when is a weed not a weed?  Ask my wife! 😊

KISS

No, this blog post is not about the act of expressing love, passion, affection, respect, greeting, friendship, peace or good luck.  It is about the KISS principle, an acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid.  The phrase has been widely used as a design principle, which is based on the premise that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complex.  Simplicity should be a key goal in design rather than complexity.  As an engineer, I can relate to this goal, particularly in the case of software-intensive systems.  The oxymoron 'worse is better' is often applied to software systems, where less functionality ('worse') is often preferable to more complex systems ('better'), which can be more difficult to use and prone to bugs.

A simple acronym like KISS, is easy (simple) to remember, rolls off the tongue nicely and is a good philosophy.  But is it?  I don't think so.  At least, not always.  Whether we like it or not, life is incredibly complex.  So how do you apply simplicity to complexity?  Well, it might be argued that any complex problem can be dealt with by breaking it down into simple 'chunks' and dealing with them individually........KISS!  Imagine an electric blanket that the owner switches on one hour prior to going to bed each evening.  On one occasion he notices the bed is cold and checks the plug observing that a 13A fuse is blackened.  He changes the fuse and the blanket appears to work.  Next evening the bed is cold again........bloody fuses!  So Mr Heath Robinson decides to replace the fuse with copper wire - that won't blow mate!  And it didn't, but the following night the bed covers ignite and the house burns down.  The simple 'solution' to the problem ends in a tragedy.  The fuses had been blowing not because of faulty fuses but because of a damaged element in the electric blanket, causing it to draw too much current.  When the fuse was replaced with copper wire, the element got hotter and hotter until it ignited the bed clothes.  The point of this story is that breaking the problem down into manageable 'chunks', dealing with each one separately........KISS........was not the way to deal with the problem.  The fuse blowing was the symptom of the problem, NOT the problem.

I can think of loads of situations in my own life where quick simple fixes have led to longer-term problems.  On the other hand, I do believe simplicity does play an important role in life.  Leonardo da Vinci said "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" and Albert Einstein who was a master of understanding complexity, said "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."  So I'm not against simplicity in certain situations but it's not the be all and end all of problem solving.  Let me conclude with my own acronym - KISSES - Keeping It Simple Sometimes Endangers Situations........through unintended consequences.

What's the topic for my blog post today?

Most of my blog posts are the result of almost spontaneous inspiration.  I just get the urge to write about something and although they tend to be published weekly, there is no set timetable.  You can't schedule inspiration!  When I look back at my posts, I note they seem to fall into three categories - posts that are topical, based on a recent NEWS item; posts that are based on general OBSERVATIONS; posts that are on issues that I feel PASSIONATE about.  Today's post has a thread that runs through all three categories.

Dominating the NEWS today is the horrendous aftermath of the typhoon, named Haiyan, that hit the Phillipines, which has been reported as the strongest storm ever recorded.  It's a part of the world that is used to typhoons and there were warnings for Haiyan but nevertheless the destruction has been unimaginable and left an estimated 10,000 dead.  National and international relief and rescue efforts are of course underway, but it will take months, if not years, for the affected areas to return to some sort of normality and the lost lives will never be recovered.  Disasters such as this make other world issues pale into insignificance, particularly problems where the solutions are directly controllable by the world's inhabitants.  For example, the issue of controlling Iran's nuclear activities, such that it does not develop a nuclear weapon capability, can be solved by debate, negotiation and agreement, as well as, of course, an overarching desire to succeed by all parties.  The Phillipines tragedy, on the other hand, was an act of nature, over which mankind has no control........but is that true?

Over the past couple of decades, from my OBSERVATIONS of natural disasters, my feeling is that the rate and severity of calamitous acts of nature appear to be on the increase.  I have not collected any statistics to support that claim.  It's just a feeling.  Floods, storms, droughts, hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, blizzards, heat waves, extreme cold........seem to get regular and extensive news coverage.  But are these acts of nature all unavoidable or does mankind have an influence and therefore a responsibility?  Well let me digress to one of my old chestnuts, correlation and causation.  Correlation does not imply causation.  For example if the cockerel crows each morning at sunrise, the cockerel will not be causing the sun to rise!  On the other hand, the rising of the sun could be causing the cockerel to crow.  There are many more subtle examples of of incorrect conclusions from correlations.  After the Second World War the rate of pregnancies in the UK closely followed (i.e. correlated with) the number of bananas that were being imported.  Were the bananas causing the pregnancies?!  Well if you believe that you need to study biology.  It could have been pregnant women had a desire to eat bananas.  It might have been the 'feel good factor' at the end of the war lead to a desire for reproduction and, quite separately, the urge to buy bananas.  Or it might have just been a coincidence i.e. no apparent causal link between the pregnancies and the bananas.

For many years I was not totally convinced of the causal link between mankind's generation of carbon dioxide and climate change, but in recent times I have changed my view.  All the evidence suggests there is a definite correlation between the emission of carbon dioxide from, for example, the burning of fossil fuels and global warming, which is causing climatic changes.  I have become PASSIONATE about this issue (see my previous blog post) and I am so frustrated that there seems no sense of urgency by the world's political communities to take the issue seriously.  Now I'm not suggesting that Typhoon Haiyan was avoidable.  That would be a hypothesis that could be neither proved or disproved.  But what I do believe is that paying lip service to green issues could contribute to more disasters.

That's my blog post for today and my thoughts are with all those affected by Typhoon Haiyan.

Too hot to handle?

It's nice to keep warm on a cold winter's night.  Conversely, the cold weather can kill, so warmth is not a luxury.  It is a necessity.  So I watch with interest the energy debate in the UK, particularly following the recently announced fuel price increases.  The coalition government formed by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, with the latter as the junior partner, made a big issue of its green commitment in the early days in office.  I recall news clips of the Prime Minister, David Cameron, cycling to the Houses of Parliament, albeit followed by his limousine!  But it's easy to be green when not faced with tough economic choices and I now sense the tide is turning.

I always thought the highest priority on the green agenda was to prevent irreparable damage to the planet by excessive man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, which cause global warming.  If you believe action has to be taken to prevent the threat to the planet, then the economic arguments are of secondary importance.  The cost of energy produced from fossil fuels will inevitably rise because the deposits of the fuel, which have taken billions of years to form, are diminishing whilst the demand is increasing, ergo the demand is greater than the supply so the price goes up.  The green alternatives, such as solar, wind and waves, are not cheap in terms of capital investment to create useable energy supplies and the costs of running and supporting the new installations.

What about nucleur fission?  Well, it is green in terms of the extremely low levels of carbon dioxide emissions, but dealing with radio active waste, which remains active for many generations, has not been satisfactorily addressed.  Nuclear fusion (like the sun) doesn't have the same waste problem, but commercially available fusion reactors are still a long way off.

What about fracking?  In my opinion, forget it.  It's just another form of dirty fossil fuel with potentially dangerous extraction consequences that are not fully understood.

We can't flick a switch and go totally green overnight.  There needs to be a transition.  For reasons that I have already described, the transition will be costly.  This is where the political debate, such as the one currently raging in the UK, becomes interesting, because costly energy could cost votes!  Politicians are not interested in long term sustainable green energy sources at the expense of their short term political careers.  But the political system, particularly the feudal elective dictatorship in the UK, will not change overnight.  So what's the solution?

I believe the real problem is not the cost of energy but the inability of the poorer sectors of society to pay for it.  A professional footballer, a banker, a doctor, a plumber........for example........will always be able to pay for gas and electricity.  But there are many citizens who have to make the choice between warmth and food during the cold winter months.  Therefore the real problem is the inequitable distribution of wealth, where the gap between rich and poor continues to widen year-on-year.  So the political debate should not be about clean or dirty energy, which in my opinion is really beyond debate.  The real issue is about creating a fair society where the necessities of life, including warmth in the winter, are affordable by all.

But is that too hot to handle?