To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
2
Dec
2018
The space probe InSight landed safely on Mars last Tuesday. NASA is working on plans to send humans to Mars. When it happens, I hope NASA will include some real estate developers.
They would love Mars. It looks exactly like what they do to the earth when they’re building new projects.
Mars has no vegetation. No tree-hugging residents to protest about the destruction of their natural habitat. No cuddly animals to arouse the sympathies of sentimental do-gooders.
For over 20 years, I have taken my dog for walks on the ridge that rises to the east of my home. Although it doesn’t have palm trees and sandy beaches, it’s about as close to paradise as I can imagine. Knee-high grass grows wild among the pines. Sunlight filters through the branches, illuminating the local sunflowers. From a rock bluff, I have a view along the 160-km lake that fills the Okanagan valley.
But a developer – I could name the company, but any other developer would do the same – bought that ridge.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: mission, global warming, subdivisions, bulldozers, Mars, wasteland, IPCC
26
Aug
This has been a summer of natural disasters. Some rain has finally come to B.C., but by the end of this summer, the province will have fought some 2000 forest fires. Smoke from those fires has spread across the prairies, into northern Ontario, even crossing the Atlantic to Europe. Just as smoke from fires north of the Arctic Circle, in Sweden and Siberia, drifted into Canada.
Meanwhile, California had its worst wildfire season. In Greece, some residents chose to drown in the Aegean Sea, rather than to burn on land.
Fires rampaged in Australia. And an estimated half of the coral in the Great Barrier Reef died, from rising ocean temperatures.
At the other extreme, southern India had its heaviest monsoon in 100 years, displacing close to a million people. Floods ripped through almost any country you can name. Highways washed out. Cars vanished into sinkholes. Mudslides swept houses off their foundations.
But still some people deny that all this has anything to do with climate change. And certainly deny that humans had anything to do with it.
Tags: climate change, floods, global warming, coral, David Suzuki, fires
1
Jul
King Canute sat on his royal throne. His courtiers grovelled at his feet. “Hail to the King,” they chanted, “You are all-powerful.”
“Take me to the beach,” the king commanded.
So they carried him to the edge of the ocean, and set his throne down on the sand. And the waters rose, and covered the king’s toes.
“Make the sea go back,” the courtiers urged. “Stop the waters from rising.”
“Idiots!” snorted the king. “No human has that power.”
“Then we’re doomed!” the courtiers wailed. “What can we do?”
“Sell the beach for a tourist destination,” King Canute ordered. “By the time it’s underwater, we can all be living in Switzerland with fat bank accounts.”
Tags: global warming, Canute, rising oceans, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Maldives, Great Barrier Reef, coral
6
May
Flooding has hit British Columbia again. News reports overflow with stories of property owners sandbagging their homes, their farms, their businesses. Oliver, Kaleden, Tulameen, Cawston, Cache Creek -- the chorus of afflicted communities swells day by day.
Mudslides close highways. Culverts wash out. Hundreds of homes are ordered evacuated.
And I haven’t even heard about what might be happening farther east, in the Kootenays. Or farther north, along Highway 16.
I heard a politician pontificate, “It’s a one-in-70-year event.”
Really? Weren’t we saying the same thing during last year’s floods?
Connect the dots, people! Connect the dots!
Tags: climate change, floods, global warming, sub-divisions