My busy week

This week’s newsletter is going to be a little different from normal - more  of a stream of consciousness than a deep dive into particular topics. I hope you don’t mind. This past couple of weeks have been pretty busy for me, mostly on personal stuff, but I’ll attempt to relate the highlights, particularly where they intersect with skepticism.

Some readers will be aware, but many will not, that the year for me has been fairly difficult. Back at the end of February my wife, Susan, was diagnosed with breast cancer (after discovering a fairly large lump), and just a couple of weeks later had surgery. Then began the fortnightly rounds of chemotherapy, followed by some weekly ones, all of which were variously tolerated, but mostly ended up  with Susan feeling pretty awful. Then there were the expected side-effects, such as loss of hair, changes to her senses of taste and smell. Pretty awful, but better alive than dead. 

The past few weeks have seen her undergoing daily radiation therapy, with a total of 15 exposures. The side-effects of that are different from chemotherapy, but have made her feel pretty tired, as her body is summoning its resources to recover from the radiation. Additionally, the effects are cumulative, and a little bit like getting a suntan - not a very pleasant one.

But, this week she has completed the radiation therapy - and she now moves on to ongoing hormone therapy (a daily pill for 5 - 10 years), which targets the hormone receptors on the cancer cells. 

With all of the major and drastic interventions behind us, we are feeling that we can now move on with life a bit. Susan’s hair has begun to grow back (though it makes me aware of just how slowly hair actually grows when you have to start from bald). These are minor cosmetic things, but they contribute to making a person feel whole, I think.

During the cancer treatment, friends and family and workmates have been fantastic and incredibly supportive. I am pleased to say that, by and large, we’ve not had any of the alternative medicine crowd try to convince us that some magical combination of herbs or change of diet will be the cancer cure that is needed. Perhaps our skepticism has acted as a protective forcefield against ths. (Though, I did have one of our neighbours, who are originally from India, suggest that I could send Susan to India for a course of Ayurvedic medicine. I largely put this down to them being well-meaning - at the time I explained that we were following the advice of doctors, and that that was going well.)

So, that’s all been going on in the background for the week that’s just been. 

But there’s been other things happening this week for me too. On a positive note, this past Tuesday, we attended my daughter’s graduation ceremony - a much postponed ceremony because of Covid. My daughter graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery - that’s the degree you get to become a doctor. So, it was a “proud dad” moment for me, and lots of celebration all round. 

Also attending the graduation ceremony was my mother - who’d flown up from Napier to spend a few days with us. So, in addition to the graduation ceremony, we’ve been showing her around Auckland a bit.

Of note this week in Auckland was the opening of the Costco Wholesale warehouse store. This is a pretty big deal, especially since it’s located at Westgate, which is near the end of Auckland’s Northwestern motorway, and about 10 minutes drive from where I happen to live. The store, which promises lower prices on a large variety of items (groceries, hardware, car fuel, services - such as car tyres, pharmacy, optical, electronic goods, hardware and tools, and bizarrely rollout grass and coffins), works on a membership model which allows you to visit the store and purchase from there. The annual fee is $60 per household, or $55 for a business. With the discounted price of fuel, many people have seen that the annual fee is quickly recovered by filling up their car there.

The store opened on Wednesday, and had people camped out overnight, wanting to be the first through the doors. Traffic chaos was predicted and eventuated, as the store is located in the middle of the newly developed area (containing other “big box” stores), and accessible only via a single lane road. Nevertheless, we decided that since my mother was returning home on Thursday, Wednesday would be the day to visit. So, we headed down there about 4pm on opening day, anticipating a long wait. Well, I consider it a minor miracle! Traffic was relatively light, and we made it into the store without queueing. Once inside, there were a large number of people there, all pushing over-sized shopping trolleys (I’d guess 50% larger than a large supermarket trolley).

The store has a fairly extensive range of goods, most of which are in larger-than-usual sizes, with the expectation that you shop big and infrequently. Many people were seen exiting the store with bumper-sized packs of toilet paper, but we got away with some plus-sized packs of cereal, laundry detergent, and dishwasher tablets.

Now, I do consider our quick entry on opening day to be a miracle. On Saturday, encouraged by the ease with which I’d been able to access the store on opening day, I decided to visit again. Big mistake! Saturday, it would seem, was the day that the majority of Aucklanders would have their first opportunity to visit. Joining the traffic queue was slow, but 15 minutes later I was in the carpark. Then there was the queue to find a park. Another 15 minutes later I was parked and out of the car and heading to the entrance. Then I saw the queue to get in, which I’d estimate was probably another 30 minutes of waiting. I guess they can only have so many people in the store at any one time. So, I aborted that visit, and have decided that any future visit will be after the initial novelty and curiosity of the rest of Auckland has died down a bit. It’s the beginning of school holidays, and I guess, one fun(!) outing for the kids is a visit to the biggest shop in the country.

In seriousness, it will be interesting to see the effect that the store has on prices in supermarkets and other retail outlets. They’re certainly likely to feel some strong competitive pressure, especially those in close vicinity. I’ve already seen the surrounding supermarkets discounting some of their prices, and also revealing larger-sized packages. 

Thursday was Susan’s last radiation therapy treatment, and my mother returned to Napier, so things at home returned to some sense of normality.

One thing we decided on to assist with Susan’s recovery was to seek out a local gym that could assist with the physical recovery. Hunting around online, we came across a specialist gym with trainers that specialise in post-cancer recovery, and fortunately, it’s just a couple of km down the road from us. It’s run by a Canadian couple, and in our initial talk with them, they seemed to understand our needs, and we felt we could work well with them. I emphasised that we were strongly pro-science, evidence-based stuff. No woo! Well, Friday we were booked in for an initial evaluation session - the kind where they get you to do all sorts of balance exercises, which make you feel silly and inadequate (well they did for me, anyway!) During that session, one of the trainers suggested that a visit to a chiropractor might help with loosening up my spine. That was not received very well by me! Nope, not going to a chiropractor. A physiotherapist, yes! The trainer asked why we were against chiropractors and I said that they weren’t science-based. I’m sure, given more time, I could have come up with a better answer. But anyway, we’re still happy to start a programme with them, but will keep an eye out for education opportunities! 

My assessment is that the sort of exercises we’ll be doing seem to be low risk and have positive benefits, but I am aware that gyms are hothouses for pseudoscientific nonsense, but will be on the lookout for this.

So, that’s pretty much been my week, packed full with activities. I also have a job to do, so have had to fit everything in around that!

On to a few other topics that have arisen…

Craig Shearer

2022 NZ Skeptics Conference

Climate change topics

This past week has been replete with stories related to climate change. Firstly, there’s Hurricane Ian which has wreaked havoc and destruction and loss of life in Florida most recently, but previously in Cuba and Puerto Rico. It’s fairly obvious that extreme weather events are exacerbated by climate change, and that living near the coast is going to be an increasingly risky proposition for large numbers of people.

But, it seems that the commercial imperative means that life must go on, and we must continue to act as if climate change isn’t happening, or that it’s not that serious. With life in a purportedly post-pandemic world returning to normal, and international travel getting up and running again, Air New Zealand has launched a direct service between Auckland and New York. The flights are at the extreme end of the available range, being 17 hours long. But this week, the flights were disrupted with reports of passengers and baggage having to be unloaded due to stronger-than-predicted headwinds. It’s difficult not to make the connection that worsening weather is tied to climate change, and that the emissions produced by the aviation industry are certainly contributing to the worsening situation. Most irksome, to me at least, is that most international travel is tourism - for pleasure purposes. 

I’ve had a considerable number of international trips in the past, so it would be hypocritical of me to heavily criticise others for their choices (and, Susan and I are planning an international trip next year as a sort of compensation for the crap year we’ve just endured). But there will likely come a point where people have to make the connection between non-essential travel and their contribution to the climate crisis.

On a slightly positive note, Eviation, a company building electric aircraft, this past week had a maiden flight of an all-electric plane. The trip was short, reportedly just 65km, and the aircraft is in its prototype stage, but it is encouraging that the technology is at least feasible.

Given the state of battery technology, electric aircraft will likely have their uses for transporting small numbers of passengers over short distances. But as a replacement for long-haul aircraft, we’re probably decades away from achieving that. But, battery technology is seeing continuous incremental improvements, which do add up. We still seem to be in the steep part of the curve so it’s possible that some breakthrough will pan out which will see the technology become quite viable.

And finally, on the climate change issue, I’ve seen advertising for a new housing development here in Auckland. Pararēku Island is an island near Karaka (South Auckland). I’ve seen criticism on social media about the project, which is being marketed as a luxury housing development (section prices starting at $1.6M). The specific criticism is that it is a low-lying island, and that it’s likely to be affected by sea-level rise from climate change.

The marketing material gives aerial views of the island, which are likely to give a false impression of its elevation from sea level. I did a little research into this, and it appears that the developers have done their homework - at least, the potential for erosion of the island cliffs from sea-level rise has been considered, and the predicted rise caused by climate change taken into account. There was a hearing for the Auckland Unitary Plan back in 2016 that considered the issue, with an expert on erosion providing an assessment. From the pictures in the document from the hearing, it seems that the island does rise well out of the sea. 

And they’ve allowed for potential erosion from some quite big sea-level rises over the next century. Still, I guess all bets are off it (or when) one of the Antarctic ice sheets calves off into the ocean!

Anyway, it does illustrate the danger of succumbing to social media hysteria - something it’s increasingly easy to do.

Auckland Skeptics in the Pub

Hey, I know that there are some skeptics in Auckland. We’re holding our first regular (monthly) Skeptics in the Pub this Tuesday night (4th October, 7pm) at Dice & Fork at Victoria Park Market. We’d love to see you there.

You can RSVP via the Meetup site. 

Vote!

In my last newsletter I mentioned the local body elections which are currently underway. The elections have some candidates standing who are aligned with various “freedom” and anti-vax groups. The media has done a fairly good job of identifying at least some of the candidates representing dodgy positions. 

But the important thing is to exercise your right to vote! You can be sure that those who want to see those candidates in positions of power are telling their members who to support, and they’re more motivated to see them succeed than the average punter is to see them fail. 

So, I urge you, go out and vote. I have! 

If you need some help in deciding who NOT to vote for, FACT Aotearoa has put together a page on their website highlighting candidates with dodgy backgrounds or affiliations. It's a great resource - go here.

Destiny Church in the UK

One of our readers from the other side of the world, a Kiwi living in Ireland has told us about a Destiny Church in the UK. 

Unfortunately the article is behind a paywall, but from what I’ve been able to read about it, it seems to follow much of the same structure and techniques that Apostle Brian does here in our country.

The headline reads "How Destiny Church ‘told women sex acts were God’s will’ and is accused of leaving worshippers penniless".

“Owen’s fusion of Bible Belt-style fundamentalism and free-market “prosperity gospel” theology attracted thousands of converts and brought millions of pounds to his Destiny Church in the UK and across the globe.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it!