Valentine's Day from This American Life

One of my favourite podcasts, This American Life, joined with the Google Doodle team to make a cool doodle for Valentine's Day.  It only showed up on US browsers, so if you missed it you can see it here.  If you click on each of the candy hearts it'll play a little 45-60 second true-life story.  In addition to the six that play from the hearts, if you scan down the screen you'll find a link to one more, and there are a few more that I haven't listened to yet here.

We are the 1%

The slogan of Occupy Wall St. was "we are the 99%" - the ordinary people, not the super-rich.

A few weeks back, Martin and I got an unexpected insight into the lives of those super-rich 1%'ers.  They're us!  According to GlobalRichList.com, Martin's income is in the top 0.42% globally.  He's the 25 millionth richest person in the world!

The numbers are calculated on a 'purchasing power parity' basis - i.e. they try to account for what you can buy with that income based on what prices are where you live.  If we lived in Thailand, but Martin received the same income as he gets here, he'd be in the top 0.08% of income earners globally as the cost of living in Thailand is a lot lower than in New Zealand.

So, what's it like to be so rich?  To be honest, it feels quite modest to me.  Roughly a third of our income goes to taxes and donations, a third essentially to savings (that's 'Mortgage + Kiwisaver' on the graph) and we live on the remaining third.

Our savings are targeted at being able to support ourselves in retirement at about the level of National Super and to own a 2-3 bedroom unit outright.  We're assuming that the government won't be giving us a pension as we don't think that rich people like ourselves should be relying on government support.

The amount that we live on (excluding our mortgage payments, Kiwisaver contributions and donations) is significantly less than the amount the government pays to retired couples who own their own home - although it is much more than we would get if Martin was unemployed and I was back on the sickness benefit.

benefits for a couple who won their own home, one eligible for a disability allowance, as of Sep 2011	weekly	annual
M on unemployment, H on sickness benefit	$395	$20,623
our current expenditure	$472	$24,661
National Super	$582	$30,380

I've come away from this exercise feeling subdued.  I've always known we were wealthy - after all, how many couples can live on only one income? - but I hadn't realised quite how far up the tree we are.  I'm stunned by how poor that means everyone else must be.

A little thing from the latest Grapevine magazine confirmed that impression:

If you've got food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep

... you are richer than 75% of the world.

If you have money in the bank, cash in your wallet, and spare change in a pocket somewhere

... you're among the top 8% of the world's wealthiest.

and

If you're reading this
... you're more fortunate than 3 billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

New Pictures

For the first time in many months, today I managed to change the pictures I look at above my bed :-)  I even cleaned the fly-dirt off the perspex.  I don't think I've done that before, and there was quite a lot there, but warm water with a slosh of vinegar in it cleaned it off nicely!

Now I have new scenes to muse on, plus I can begin to acquaint myself with the geography of Europe :-)

Neighbours Day 2014

Neighbours Day Aotearoa 2014 is coming up at the end of March.  If you're in New Zealand, maybe you could start thinking about organising a gathering in your street?

Martin, Sarah and I have found Neighbours Day a fun and fairly non-threatening way to get to know some of our neighbours.  Don't be put off by the apparent complexity of our event!  We happen to have a very energetic woman who coordinates organisation for our street so what happens here is moderately involved.  However, it can be much simpler.  Last year my friend Anna simply invited people to her place for afternoon tea :-)

If you think that sounds like a fun and worthwhile thing to do, check out the NDA website: they have a bunch of resources to help you get started.

The Surprising Discovery About Those Colonialist, Proselytizing Missionaries

 I've just read an encouraging article (recommended by Paul Windsor) entitled The Surprising Discovery About Those Colonialist, Proselytizing Missionaries.  It describes the work of sociologist Robert Woodberry, who believes he has established that:

Areas [of the world] where [19th century] Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations.

 As far as he can tell, the presence of such missionaries was far more significant than any other factor(s) (culture, climate, other historical factors etc.) in making this difference. He doesn't know exactly what caused this difference, but he notes that missionaries promoted the idea that all people were of equal worth and also that they tended to teach reading and establish both schools and printing presses - all things that could tend towards the establishment of democracy.

Even in places where very few people converted, missionaries seem to have had a profound economic and political impact.  However, independence from the colonial state appeared to be necessary.  Catholic missionaries often were state-sponsored.  Woodberry notes:

One of the main stereotypes about missions is that they were closely connected to colonialism.  But Protestant missionaries not funded by the state were regularly very critical of colonialism.

I know that missionaries here in New Zealand were influential in the writing of the Treaty of Waitangi and were also energetic in protesting various government and settler land grabs.

Although the article I read is from a Christian publication, Woodberry's work has apparently been published in a prestigious, peer-reviewed sociological journal.  It's a single study, so there could well be another explanation of this effect that he has missed, but his secular academic peers are taking the claims seriously.

The article concludes with 8 brief biographies of 19th century protestant missionaries who made a significant difference in the countries in which they worked.

Carbon offsetting

Yesterday a friend told me that she's really looking forward to a relaxing week in Fiji after a really busy few months.  I was happy for her that she could have this holiday, but sad to think of the suffering flying inflicts on some of the world's most vulnerable people.  The flights were already booked so it seemed too late to encourage her and her husband to consider holidaying in the Bay of Islands or somewhere else local instead, but maybe they could at least offset the carbon emissions of the flight.  After thinking about it for a while, this is the email I sent in response:

Hi again,

A relaxing week in Fiji sounds lovely :-)

May I ask, have you considered offsetting your carbon emissions for the flights?

As a Christian, the human suffering and death climate change is causing concerns me deeply.  This is the article that first opened my eyes to what Western lifestyles are doing to people in low-lying poor countries like Bangladesh.

However, it need not all be doom and gloom!  Planting trees etc. can soak up the carbon that planes emit, meaning that people like those in the article can see their children grow to healthy adulthood after all.  That's what carbon offsetting is all about.  There's more information about it and how it works here and here.

In addition, the charity that Martin and I use for carbon offsetting (Trees Water and People) doesn't just plant trees for the sake of it.  They employ people in poor communities in Latin America to grow the trees and plant them out, plus the trees are planted in places where they'll be useful: like to stabilise soil on eroded hillsides, or fruit and nut trees planted in places where people don't generally get to eat a good balanced diet.  They also provide fuel-efficient cookstoves to people in places like Haiti, which are better for the people who use them as they're cheaper to run and less smoky, and they provide solar heating for people living on Native American reservations in the US.  I like the way that donating to them helps both our poor brothers and sisters in low-lying places like Bangladesh as well as our poor brothers and sisters in the places where TWP actually work :-)

For flights, we use this calculator to figure out what our carbon emissions are.  Your flights to Fiji will emit around 2 tonnes over the round trip (for the both of you, not each).  If you wanted to offset them using Trees Water and People, their offsets page is here.  You can choose whether you want your money to go to treeplanting, cookstoves or solar heating.  Alternatively, you could search online for a programme that did work you particularly liked: there are heaps to choose from.  Carbon footprint has lots of projects to choose from.

I hope you don't mind me raising this matter.  I'd be really interested in hearing your response.  And I do hope you have a lovely holiday after all the recent busyness!

Love,

--Heather :-)

I'm mostly putting this on the blog so I can refer to it again later myself, but I'd be interested if any of you had any comments to make on it, too :-)

We went to the beach!

Martin and I are in Whangarei, staying with his parents for two weeks.  The highlight for me has definitely been getting to go to the beach!  We've been twice - on Wednesday of last week then again yesterday.  It took a lot of preparatory resting to manage it, plus a lot of help whilst there, but it was so much fun!

Martin and Dad assembling the beach wheelchair

Picnic day 1 - the shelter was my Christmas present from Martin

Entering the water

At our beautiful picnic spot, day 2

Day 2 picnic

A very happy Heather

Mum 'swimming' with us - she seemed keen to minimise contact with the water!

We had a lovely time.  The water was warm and the weather was perfect :-)

There are a few more pics up on flickr.