On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Some of us have been discussing this proposal elsewhere, if memory serves:

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/north-sea-dam

No, it's not going to be a panacea. It won't cure ills, but it will slow down some of the worsening consequences whilst deferring them to other places. And it will exact costs in other ways. The British Isles, however their borders are redrawn in the decades ahead, will still lose cities, towns, villages, farms, businesses...as will continental Europe outside the dams now containing/shielding/distorting the North Sea. Building this NEED project will be a consequence that creates consequences.

Building it will require the European Union to go from a coalition of nations to being a nation. If it hasn't already gotten there by the time the decision to build is taken.

Foreign intervention. Instead of the consequences of giving him what he wants. That's what he wants us all whining about.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/paralyze-oilsands-plan-keystone-pipeline-1.5356980

I don't like the rhetoric from Stephen Blais on this point. For all that living in the east end outside the Greenbelt can be a pain when it comes to getting to anywhere else in Ottawa-Gatineau, I do understand the value of the Mer Bleue bog.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/orleans-innes-brian-coburn-extension-1.5292215

1. This is a component in what David Brin would rightly call a "War on Expertise". It's got to be resisted.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-conservatives-on-campus-flyers-maligning-left-wing-professors-anger/

2. The problems are linked. And I cannot help but suspect that the revival of white-supremacist fascism is intended to put the skids under the environmental protection/rescue movement.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/14/naomi-klein-we-are-seeing-the-beginnings-of-the-era-of-climate-barbarism

3. The official listing of registered political parties in Canada, for your reference.

https://elections.ca/content.aspx?section=pol&dir=par&document=index&lang=e

Particularly in a place where only The Western Producer or CBC might regularly visit.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-oil-gas-coal-wind-power-halkirk-1.5194320

I see you too, Halkirk. I see you too.

Poland's one of those places where "illiberals" have managed to install themselves, but resistance continues. And then there's this coming to Katowice...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/climate-change-talks-katowice-poland-paris-accord-1.4929385

I count this as very good news. That there are people actively seeking to reverse it...it frightens me, but still. Good news.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/09/10/news/canadas-carbon-pollution-dropped-2016-economy-grew

This article in the Los Angeles Times has some horrific implications, if I'm reading between the lines correctly:

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-microsoft-restore-disc-20180215-story.html

Ian Gould, my partner on the Local Hero comics project, pointed this one out to me this morning:

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-nrl-patent-carbon-capture-devicea.html

Useful or not?

Yesterday, I went to see that movie. Despite having one particular aspect of it spoiled for me by someone on my friendlist here, it was a good show. It looks like they took what pieces suited them from the old version of the Extended Universe, which bothers me less than some might say it ought to - and built something new upon the older movies.

Beyond that, I'll leave further discussion of the movie itself to the comments. Spoilers, it may be expected, can be discussed safely enough there.

rfmcdpei has been noting over the last 24 hours or so about the weather and climate derangement and observing how up until overnight it's all been affecting Toronto. The effects have been similar in Ottawa, as kallisti has noted in venues other than LJ. We finally started getting snow in amounts that look like it'll stay awhile. Environment Canada has a Freezing Rain warning in effect as I type this, so perhaps we might expect further complications to the situation to arrive later today.

Remembering what the weather was like in 2002 at this time of year, in the days between Christmas and Gregorian New Year's when my family was arranging for and carrying out my father's funeral...I am struck by the (probably imperfect) memory of how little snow there was at that point on the ground. I'd been doing a lot of shovelling and sweeping off of snow in the weeks leading up to the morning of his death - Christmas morning - but on those days immediately following, not anywhere near so much.

It seems to me that the pattern's continued ever since. And it's slowly getting more disturbing. Maybe the damage is already too far gone, but the work to at least slow down the pace of it getting worse should still continue. Because we might yet turn things around for future generations, or at worst buy them the time to bring their own genius to the problems.