What a beautiful bird.

A couple of mornings ago, I was enjoying a cup of tea on the balcony watching a flock of beautiful birds, which I discovered were bee-eaters.  They alternated their behaviour between being perched on a large tree in my garden and flying around an adjacent field full of sweet corn and ready for harvesting.  Most species of bee-eater can be found in Africa and Asia but others occur in Southern Europe, Australia and New Guinea.  They predominantly eat flying insects including bees and wasps, which are caught in the air.  Whilst they will eat almost any flying insect, honeybees can comprise a large part of their diet.

In the part of the world where I live, I often hear the sound of gunshot, which I am told is to frighten, not kill, the bee-eaters and that is because beekeeping is an important rural activity in this area.  I don't know how much of a threat the bee-eater is to beekeepers.  Certainly, the bee-eater only stalks bees in flight, not on the hives.  There has been a lot of concern in recent years about the declining bee population and not just because of the obvious product from bees, i.e. honey.  One of every three bites of food eaten worldwide depends on pollinators, especially bees, for a successful harvest.  I have not done extensive research on the causes of the declining bee population, but they include the use of pesticides, notably neonicotinoids, fungicides as well as the spread of viral pathogens and parasitic mites in beehives.

Ironically, recent research by the University of Sussex in the UK suggests that the fad for keeping bees in the cities as a means of preventing bee population decline, actually poses a threat to honeybees.  In London alone, the number of beehives has doubled in the past five years.  Professor Francis Ratnieks from the University of Sussex, summarised the problem as follows:

"Both honeybees and wild bees have been declining.  Although the causes are complex the most important seems to be the loss of flowers and habitat.

If the problem is not enough flowers, increasing the number of hives makes that problem worse.  The honeybee is just one of many insect species which feed on nectar and pollen.  Having a high density of honeybee hives is not only bad for honey bees, but may also affect bumble bees and other species feeding on the same flowers.

If a game park was short of food for elephants, you wouldn't introduce more, so why should we take this approach with bees?"

So what about the threat of the beautiful bee-eaters to the magnificent honeybees?  Beekeepers quite understandably regard bee-eaters and other insectivorous birds as pests, but other branches of agriculture generally do not consider them as their enemies.  In fact, birds that prey on insects are mostly considered to be beneficial for farming because they help in the control of insect pests.  The biggest threat to apiary bees usually occurs  during a period of migration of the birds and two possible solutions that can be adopted by beekeepers are to relocate the apiaries temporarily during that period or to scare (but not kill) the birds with the sound of gunshot.

Let's hope we can continue to live in harmony with bees and bee-eaters, taking precautionary measures where necessary and controlling human bad practices that threaten the natural habitats for the planet's pollinators 😊

It's a great idea!

I have always had a fascination for and admiration of human ingenuity.  From the start of our lives we inherit and benefit from the innovative achievements of those around us and all the generations that preceded us.  Medicine, motor cars, aeroplanes, computers, clothing, food supplies, electricity, gas, solar panels, roads, bridges, monetary systems, televisions, radios,........ - the list goes on and on - are all the result of human ingenuity, intellectual and physical endeavours.  As an engineer, my appreciation of mankind's achievements extends beyond WHAT a product can do for me, to HOW it works.  In fact, I find it difficult to accept the benefits of my man-made surroundings without understanding the workings of the component parts.  As an example, I know many people are quite content to drive their cars without a basic understanding of the internal combustion engine, but that doesn't work for me.  I need to know how it works, its capabilities and limitations.  Now to some readers, my behaviour might seem a bit whacky or even obsessional but I can assure you that when I am in the company of practising engineers (I no longer practise) my inquiring mind, compared with others, seems quite pedestrian.

There are pros and cons of having an inquiring mind.  The main advantage is that when things go wrong, and you understand why they have gone wrong, then you might be able to fix them.  The downside is that it is very easy to become obsessed with the HOW rather than enjoying the WHAT.  So for example, I check the quality and speed of my Internet connection regularly and if the speed reduces significantly, it concerns me and prompts a call to my Internet service provider, even if it is not really unduly affecting my use of the Internet.  But another problem with focussing too much on the HOW rather than the WHAT, is that it can constrain 'blue sky' thinking.  Here's a very recent example.  Yesterday, whilst enjoying breakfast with my wife, we were were discussing some of the topics we wished to raise with a friend who we would be talking to on FaceTime later that morning.  FaceTime calls allow us to have iPad-to-iPad video and audio communications.  It's Apple's answer to Skype.  We call our friend once a week and he updates us on his news from England, whilst we respond with our news from Turkey.  It's informative and a very enjoyable way to spend about an hour each week.  My mind wandered and whilst I was marvelling at what technology was allowing us to do, even though we tend to take it for granted, I mused at what might be possible in the future.  Our virtual meeting only uses two of the five senses - sight (with two-dimensional rather that three-dimensional images) and hearing.  There is no transmission and reception of the remaining three senses - taste, touch and smell.  Now we all know three-dimensional imaging is now possible, but what about taste, touch and smell?  I am not sure that taste and touch could enhance a FaceTime call, so my mind wandered into the area of smell.  My wife sensed that my cogs were ticking and I shared my idea of enhancing video/audio calls with smell, explaining that whilst we might not necessarily want to smell our friend 😄 , topics such as cooking, perfumery, etc, could benefit from the transmission and reception of smell.  It's a great idea!

After breakfast, I decided some Internet research was required.  I Googled SMELL ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION and then followed 'Digital scent technology' on Wikipedia.  Lo and behold the concept is not new.  In fact Hans Laube invented Smell-O-Vision, a system that released odour during the projection of a film, in the 1950s.  There are now many companies working on the technology and a group of Japanese researchers believe a 3D television with touch and smell will be commercially available by 2020.  So my great idea is by no means novel!  Now because my mind is focussed on the HOW and in this case, the HOW is well on the way to being achieved, I lost my enthusiasm to continue my thought process.  Whereas perhaps I should have parked that particular issue and mused on WHAT might be achievable by, for example, creating a totally inclusive and integrated virtual communication environment.  An environment where there really is no difference between real and virtual, i.e. the geographic divide between families, friends, colleagues, politicians........, disappears.  That's WHAT we want.  It's a great idea!  But don't ask me HOW! 😄

Should we or shouldn't we?

At the time of writing this post, members of the international community are considering military action against Syria in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.  The UK government`s intention to support a US-led initiative has just been defeated following a debate in the House of Commons.  All week I have tried to follow the various arguments, for and against action, on the media and I do not intend to continue that debate within this post. I am more concerned by the judgement processes employed by those who have real influence on issues affecting mankind's well being and survival.  For example, why do two supposed intelligent individuals, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, have entirely different views on the role of the international community in respect of the Syrian conflict?  Specifically, on the issue of military intervention, Barack would say ''we should'' whereas Vladimir would say ''we shouldn't''.  And of course, David Cameron would say ''we should but my country won't support me''.  Why does David Cameron have a different opinion to the majority of MPs and, according to recent opinion polls, the majority of the UK's population?

In previous posts, I have banged on about the benefits of systems thinking and I am about to do it again.  Systems thinking is all about looking at things in their totality rather than as the sum of the parts.  It requires an understanding of not just the component parts of the system but also the interdependencies.  In the words of Peter Senge:  ''Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants''.  One of the ways that NON-systems thinking can manifest itself in, for example, international affairs is when a solution to a problem can lead to greater problems than the one that was supposedly 'solved'.  Or put another way, and again quoting Peter Senge: ''Today's problems come from yesterday's 'solutions' ''.  In my opinion, most of today's leaders either demonstrate a complete lack of systems thinking or their differences of opinion result from differences in what constitutes 'the system'.  Returning to the example of Syria, there is little doubt that Barack Obama  and Vladimir Putin do have different views on Syria, within a systems context.  The USA's interests in Syria and the Middle East are quite different to Russia's interests in Syria and the region.  So if the interdependencies are different, 'the systems' are different.  That said, in my opinion most political leaders have a myopic view of problems.  It's normally double myopia, in space and time.  Spatially, they tend to think territorially, focussed on their national interests.  Temporally, the thinking is very short term, usually dictated by their period in office.

So what's the solution?  Well, in my humble opinion and in the words of a former non-systems thinking UK politician, Tony Blair, it's ''education, education, education''.  The teaching of systems thinking does not feature prominently in schools, colleges or universities and I think it should.  But it's not easy because there are not many people who are truly proficient at systems thinking.  So if you don't have the teachers, you can't attract the students and you don't develop tomorrow's teachers.  Also, systems thinking should not be regarded as an adjunct to curricula but embedded, like a language, in all disciplines.

I'm not an educationalist, I don't pretend to know right or wrong ways of teaching, but I do know that the world appears to be suffering from poor thinking, which is a systemic problem.  At least if we recognise that problem then maybe we are on the road to knowing the answer to ''should we or shouldn't we?''................even if the answer is ''maybe''!! 

By the book

We live in a rule-based society.  No matter how 'free' we think we are, eventually we come across a rule that ensures our behaviour is guided in a certain direction.  Most rules that have any chance of controlling individuals, carry penalties for non-compliance, for example the rule of law.  It's interesting that we tend to think of penalties for non-compliance rather than incentives for compliance, i.e. plenty of stick but no carrot!

Some years ago, I was in a taxi in Amsterdam, which was taking me to the airport.  The driver was a talkative individual and we engaged in conversation.  He soon revealed his political leanings and informed me that he was an anarchist.  He was quite passionate, albeit somewhat dogmatic, about his views, with little tolerance of anyone with opposing opinions.  So I became a good listener, not wishing to upset him and certainly not wanting to miss my plane!  In summary, he believed rules were for fools and individuals didn't need to be controlled by governments to act responsibly.  Interestingly, he was a good driver.  I suppose it is not too much to expect a cabbie to have good driving skills.  But he obviously had no difficulty following the rules of the road.  In Turkey, where I live, driving is an interesting experience.  The rules are very similar to most other countries but many drivers seem to regard the rules as guidelines!  For example, it is not unusual to see vehicles jumping red traffic lights, crossing double white lines, driving without lights at night and even driving against the traffic flow!  Oh and it's quite common to see a family of four on a motor scooter!........without wearing helmets!!  I can only assume that the penalties for non-compliance of traffic laws are rarely dished out and indeed, although I (and many others) are often stopped by the traffic police it is always no more than a documentation check.  So as far as driving in Turkey is concerned, it would appear there is an attitude amongst many drivers that rules are for fools, despite the fact that the official statistics suggest otherwise.  The following stats have been taken from a World Health Organisation report for 2009:

Road fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year:  Turkey 13.4, UK 2.86

Road fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles per year:  Turkey 97.1, UK 5.1

These figures speak for themselves.

Returning to the anarchist from Amsterdam, I think he probably believed that individuals were in a better position than governments to decide what they should and shouldn't do.  The quote from Douglas Bader is apposite "Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men."  Now that philosophy certainly does provide a certain amount of music to my ears, but what about those who, for whatever reason, don't have the wisdom of wise men?  Does it mean rules exist to protect those who don't have the knowledge, experience, whatever, to protect themselves?  In my opinion, anarchy would only have a chance of operating effectively if participating citizens had common values, including broad agreement on what is right and what is wrong.  But that is utopia, not reality.  If we want to strive to achieve a utopian, rule-less society, then wisdom might be the key to success.  Society can't become wise overnight, but maybe a gradual transition from rule-based to guideline-based communities, within an ethos of shared values, might prevent us from becoming mindless zombies! 

The Quiet Cacophony

The Quiet Cacophony, yes it's an oxymoron if ever there was one, but I experience it most days.  There's rarely a day on the year when I am not up and about by 5.30am.  At the time of writing, mid August, the afternoon temperatures here in Turkey can approach 40 degrees C but at 5.30am it is usually in the mid 20s, relatively cool and for me a more physically active time of day.  That said, I usually start my day with a period of physical inactivity, enjoying a cup of English tea, whilst just sitting and thinking on my balcony.  It's the only cup of English tea I have during the day.  At this time of year and particularly if I'm working, cold water is far more refreshing.  There is, however, one hot drink I do enjoy from time to time, Türk çayı (Turkish tea).  It is served in small glasses, without milk, and although I'm not a 'sugar man', I always take one spoonful of sugar with my Türk çayı.  It's a fantastic flavour and, believe it or not, very refreshing even in the summer heat.

Returning to my morning quasi-meditation, I try to time it just before the sun rises, which at this time of the year is slightly later each morning.  So for example, this morning the sun rose at 6.21am and I had my tea at about 5.45am, well before the sun had made its presence known from behind the mountain, but when the sky was just beginning to transition from darkness to dimness.  This is when I am conscious of the 'quiet cacophony'.  If I sit, occasionally sipping my tea, letting thoughts drift into my mind and flutter out, often inviting other thoughts before departing, then it is the quietest time of the day.  The quiet environment, the comfortable ambient temperature and the English tea, combine to provide a very thought-productive experience - wonderful!  Thought productivity during that part of the day is a measure of the number of thoughts swilling around effortlessly in my mind.  It is definitely not, however, a time for converting thoughts into tangible actions, which requires mental effort.  So it is a time for relaxing, not exerting, the mind.  If you consider the analogy with the physical aspects of the body, we need sleep before and after physical activity.  Likewise, the mind needs relaxation between periods of mindful activity.

But what about the cacophony?  Yes there is one.  If I cease my quasi-meditation and just listen, there is a tremendous cacophony, a discordant mixture of sounds.  These include dogs barking, cockerels crowing, calls to prayer from local mosques, low frequency vehicle noises from a distant main road, farm vehicles travelling through the village, the start of the dawn chorus, the occasional aircraft coming into or taking off from the local airport and miscellaneous rural sounds.  In fact if I really concentrate on the cacophony, trying to work out the nature and origin of each acoustic signature, my quasi-meditation thought-productivity, would rapidly decline to zero!

I don't need to extol the virtues of the human brain but my morning experience is an example of our amazing mental processes.  We have the ability to concentrate our thoughts on something, to the exclusion of everything else.  Now I'm not suggesting I could relax my mind to the same extent when, for example, I am sitting in a busy cafe in the centre of Istanbul but even in that environment, it is possible to blot-out distractions.  It does raise two interesting questions, does the mind need a certain level of background noise to operate efficiently and would a truly silent environment be a major distraction in its own right?  Two questions I don't feel able to answer, but maybe there's an expert somewhere who will have an opinion.  Meanwhile I'll just continue to enjoy the start of each day!

Fusion, fission and all that jazz.

In a previous blog post - It's fracking stupid! - I expressed my opposition to the creation of additional gas supplies by fracking.  I don't want to go over old ground so in this post I will focus on a solution rather than a problem.  The problem is the depletion of the world's energy resources as well as the carbon that is created whilst the energy is consumed.  In my opinion there should be three components to the world's energy strategy, each of which is carbon-free, as follows:

🌅 Nuclear fission - short to medium term.

🌅 Solar, wind, tidal, etc - short to long term.

🌅 Nuclear fusion - medium to long term.

Let me explain the rationale behind my proposed strategy.  Steps have to be taken to reduce carbon emissions, as a matter of urgency.  A move away from coal, gas and oil is, therefore, essential.  There's little point developing electric cars if the batteries are charged using electricity generated from power stations burning fossil fuels!  Conventional nuclear power stations, which do not emit harmful carbon dioxide but do create dangerous radioactive waste, provide a short to medium term energy source.  Continuing development of energy from renewable sources, based on solar, wind, tidal, etc, will increasingly become a prime generator in the short to long term.  However, all the predictions suggest fission and natural renewable sources will not be sufficient to meet the increasing demand, particularly from the developing world.  That's why nuclear fusion is so important.

The international nuclear fusion project known as Iter, meaning 'the way' in Latin, is a research project on a site in the Caderache forest of Provence in the south of France.  34 nations, representing more that half of the world's population, are engaged in the biggest scientific collaborative project on the planet.  The aim of the project is to create an unlimited supply of clean, cheap energy.  Unlike conventional nuclear fusion reactors, nuclear fission reactors do not produce radioactive waste and the fusion process cannot easily be used for military purposes.  Whereas nuclear fission does not occur in nature, nuclear fusion is the process that powers the sun.  A lot of progress has been made but there is still a long way to go.  The current forecast is that the first demonstrator of a nuclear reactor to produce electricity for the grid will be during the 2030s.  The first commercial nuclear power plants are expected from the 2050s onwards.  Yes it's a long journey but it's worth the effort.

Could Iter achieve its aims sooner with more funding and effort?  Probably it could but in my opinion, the real impediments to progress are the vested interests of the giant multinational oil companies and politicians.  Both these groups are driven by very short-term interests.  The oil companies want profit NOW.  The politicians want re-election SOON.  So companies' and most governments' aspirations are incompatible with a long-term survival strategy for the planet.  But I don't want this post to become problem-orientated.  Let's be positive!  Work is underway on each component of my proposed fission/natural renewable/fusion strategy and it's up to activists around the world to make sure this strategy is delivered.  This means opposition to the development and perpetuation of fossil fuel energy sources, including fracking, whilst encouraging carbon-free programmes.  We have a duty, not just to the present incumbents of our planet but also to future generations, to ensure life is unhindered by the exploits of our own species.  Fine words, but when I look around I see a big gap between that statement and reality.  But we live in hope! 😊

The Mighty Fan

In countries that have months of very hot weather, like Turkey where I live, it is important to have ways of being comfortable.  Diving into the sea or a pool does the trick but you can't do that all day, every day.  Night time can often be a major problem because being too hot can make it difficult to get to sleep and lack of sleep is bad for your health.  In my bedroom I have an air conditioner, which is a permanent fixture, and a portable fan.  I usually switch the air conditioner on about one hour before I intend going to bed, which cools the bedroom to a comfortable temperature, I then lie on the bed with no covering, switch off the air conditioner and switch on the portable fan, which is positioned to produce a cooling breeze over my body.  It usually doesn't take long before I am asleep and the fan is left to run all night.

The economics of my practice are interesting.  The air conditioner consumes about one kilowatt of electrical power, whereas the fan consumes about 40 watts.  Put another way, if the fan is left on all day and all night, it consumes less electricity than the air conditioner would consume in one hour of usage.  So for the period that I am asleep, the fan's consumption is less than the amount that would be consumed by the air conditioner in 20 minutes.  But of course, to compare a fan with an air conditioner is like comparing an apple with an orange.  The air conditioner does actually cool my bedroom and I can verify it by measuring the 'before and after' temperatures, which might, for example, indicate a drop from 30 degrees C to 20 degrees C.  On the other hand, the fan does NOT cool the bedroom.  It just makes me feel cooler.  It is the same effect when, in the winter, the weather forecaster talks about 'wind chill factor' and might say, for example, the daytime temperature will be four degrees C but because of the strong wind it will feel like minus two degrees C.  It is describing a perception that cannot be measured.  In my bedroom, the perception of cooling is created by the fan blowing a warm air layer from my body to be replaced by cooler air.  Also any moisture on my skin, like sweat, evaporates and creates an additional cooling effect.  But the effect cannot be measured, only predicted by various empirical formulae.

My bedtime cooling technique combines the old with the new.  The introduction of the fan predates the advent of electricity by many centuries, whereas air conditioning has only been possible since electricity was available.  But there is not just a difference in the maturity of the two technologies, there is also a fundamental difference in the technique.  In one case I am cooling the environment (my bedroom) in the other case I am cooling the body (me).  As I was mentally preparing this blog post, I mused about the problems people have working outside in high temperatures, for example hand-harvesting of crops in hot countries.  Unlike a bedroom, it is not possible to reduce the temperature of the outside environment, so for a worker to keep cool, some sort of fan technology might be the answer.  My wacky thoughts led me to the idea of a flat hat made from a thin solar panel, below which would be a fan, powered by solar energy, which directed a draught onto the worker's head!!  I doubt my creative thinking will ever see the light of day as a commercial product, indeed it might even have been thought of before - it's not difficult to reinvent the wheel!  Whatever, I hope those of you who are currently enjoying a long hot summer, are also managing to keep cool - happy days 😊