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Persistence of Error
Mar. 14th, 2012 10:18 pmOur federal Natural Resources Minister chooses to be in grievous error again. My apologies to humanity as a whole for this.
Air quality question
Aug. 5th, 2011 06:18 amHow was it that Ottawa-Gatineau did NOT have a smog alert yesterday? Minds dealing with pained lungs want to know.
Krugman: Eat the Future
Feb. 13th, 2011 02:24 pmhttp://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/eat-the-future/
Go and look.
The war against the future continues onward. If it's allowed.
Go and look.
The war against the future continues onward. If it's allowed.
Recycle Bins on the Streets
Oct. 20th, 2010 10:27 pmIf your town/city has them...what do they look like?
Into the Fourth, Once More, My Friends
Jul. 3rd, 2010 05:24 pmWishing my USAer friends the best of their own national birthday, if perhaps a shade under seven hours ahead of schedule!
Some other notes:
1. Been checking on the visitation stats for this LJ, and was pleased and surprised to spot visitors from three countries I wasn't expecting, and two that left me wondering what's been keeping some of their citizens away:
Good to "see" you, and I hope you'll visit again. Maybe we might even get to chat some time?
2. That Spacing Ottawa opinion piece I spoke of yesterday got some interesting responses over the first day of being "live". Including a link to this proposal for an extended rail network that strikes me as usefully ambitious.
3. We have yet another reason to wean ourselves off of oil ASAP: oceanic arsenic levels. Sorry, Mr. Stelmach.
Some other notes:
1. Been checking on the visitation stats for this LJ, and was pleased and surprised to spot visitors from three countries I wasn't expecting, and two that left me wondering what's been keeping some of their citizens away:
- Venezuela
- Brazil
- the Dominican Republic
- Mexico
- Austria/Osterreich
Good to "see" you, and I hope you'll visit again. Maybe we might even get to chat some time?
2. That Spacing Ottawa opinion piece I spoke of yesterday got some interesting responses over the first day of being "live". Including a link to this proposal for an extended rail network that strikes me as usefully ambitious.
3. We have yet another reason to wean ourselves off of oil ASAP: oceanic arsenic levels. Sorry, Mr. Stelmach.
In the ecological good news category...
Dec. 25th, 2009 01:56 pmSummerside, PEI - a town I visited two summers ago - has got a wind farm going now.
Looks promising, judging by this CBC News item!
One more gift of the Season to the world at large...
Looks promising, judging by this CBC News item!
One more gift of the Season to the world at large...
Keeping One Eye on København
Dec. 13th, 2009 06:04 pmSeeing as everyone else who gives a damn one way or the other on the summit therein this week, I thought I'd throw my two cents in with those who don't want my nation's federal government to act as the Alberta oil industry's "firewall"...particularly where climate derangement's concerned.
Ontario's offering green license plates for anyone living here with a green car. The design looks not too bad. I assume they're sticking with Driver Gothic for the registry alpha-numerics on the actual plates?
John Scalzi pointed out a few things about a certain inevitability that maybe we should finally admit to having achieved as fans and pros and move on to something else from there. What do you think?
John Scalzi pointed out a few things about a certain inevitability that maybe we should finally admit to having achieved as fans and pros and move on to something else from there. What do you think?
Climates, Transit and Ticking Clocks
Dec. 10th, 2008 09:38 pmFirst off, how about that snowstorm? And the transit strike starting the very next day? I can't help but wonder if maybe After listening to Gwynne Dyer last night at St. Brigid's Centre for the Arts before heading out into the Bad Weather before the Labour Storm hasn't soured me a little on having sympathy for both sides of this.
Because there's a third side involved here, and that's the side keeping this planet as liveable for ourselves as possible for as long as possible. And hopefully keeping ourselves sane while we're working on all the crap we've gotten ourselves into as a species. That latest book of his, Climate Wars is a bit of an eye-opener. Or "re-opener". Or maybe I should rip off Mr. Dyer's editor at Embassy and use the same label he did: "shit disturber".
Why not? It works, impolite as it is. And my discomfort with the phrase matters not a whit nor a damn.
I am beginning to think that this particular labour battle is a waste of time for both City Hall and the Amalgamated Transit Union's Ottawa local. Both camps are missing the point I referred to last paragraph, that point about the third side. We've got a ticking clock here, and one we can possibly still have some small hope of stopping before it reaches "midnight": a 2-degree rise in worldwide temperatures due to carbon particulate pollution. Whether or not we'll be able to cheat that clock, and Mr. Dyer suggested ways and means of doing that with an eye towards using that extra time to actually solve this problem and maybe another one coming on its own anyway no matter how much ecological harm we do over the next century...well, we don't know for sure yet.
But the sooner we get this transit labour dispute settled, that'll be one less fight we need to have and one more bit of climate derangement solving done.
Cut a deal, people.
Sidebar: If you want to hear what Dyer actually said, go here. It'll have links to all the needed files.
Because there's a third side involved here, and that's the side keeping this planet as liveable for ourselves as possible for as long as possible. And hopefully keeping ourselves sane while we're working on all the crap we've gotten ourselves into as a species. That latest book of his, Climate Wars is a bit of an eye-opener. Or "re-opener". Or maybe I should rip off Mr. Dyer's editor at Embassy and use the same label he did: "shit disturber".
Why not? It works, impolite as it is. And my discomfort with the phrase matters not a whit nor a damn.
I am beginning to think that this particular labour battle is a waste of time for both City Hall and the Amalgamated Transit Union's Ottawa local. Both camps are missing the point I referred to last paragraph, that point about the third side. We've got a ticking clock here, and one we can possibly still have some small hope of stopping before it reaches "midnight": a 2-degree rise in worldwide temperatures due to carbon particulate pollution. Whether or not we'll be able to cheat that clock, and Mr. Dyer suggested ways and means of doing that with an eye towards using that extra time to actually solve this problem and maybe another one coming on its own anyway no matter how much ecological harm we do over the next century...well, we don't know for sure yet.
But the sooner we get this transit labour dispute settled, that'll be one less fight we need to have and one more bit of climate derangement solving done.
Cut a deal, people.
Sidebar: If you want to hear what Dyer actually said, go here. It'll have links to all the needed files.
On a positive note of energy production
Dec. 8th, 2008 03:22 pmOrléans becomes home to the Ottawa chapter of the Solar Revolution.
At least something's going right in my neighbourhood.
At least something's going right in my neighbourhood.
The first of a series of quick postings tonight begins with the tale of the MV Camilla Desgagnés courtesy of CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/11/28/nwest-vessel.html
Implications, anyone?
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/11/28/nwest-vessel.html
Implications, anyone?
Winding Down the Yule Weeks of '07
Dec. 21st, 2007 04:29 pm...at least by the Gregorian calendar.
We've had a good run of snow days to make the place actually look like winter in Canada for the last couple of weeks. However, according to the forecast in play as I write this from Environment Canada, we can expect a complete turnaround in the weather's behaviour over this weekend in the Ottawa Valley. Plus-nine Celsius, rain, and so forth, being the rule of the day at some point, specifically.
This is not going to be much fun. Not a surprise, really. You'd think we've learned to expect this by now after the last two decades' worth of weather conditioning: Christmases(or the holy festival(s) of your preference and upbringing) that do not look much like the expected. I have to worry, no matter what the government of the day and their preferred allies would have me believe instead.
A quick personal note: hello to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
duncanmac and welcome to the Friendlist! Hoping to see you around regularly!
On a more professionally-minded note, the comics work progresses. I will announce more shops recruited to the Local Hero network here in Ottawa, and elsewhere around the world as time goes by. If you know of a store that might be particularly interested in carrying the series, I hope you'll let me know, either here or via e-mail at my GMail address over the next little while.
Also, the work on the second issue continues apace, and I'll be posting bits and pieces of the production process here and elsewhere over the next couple of months.
More later...and in the meantime, back to you.
We've had a good run of snow days to make the place actually look like winter in Canada for the last couple of weeks. However, according to the forecast in play as I write this from Environment Canada, we can expect a complete turnaround in the weather's behaviour over this weekend in the Ottawa Valley. Plus-nine Celsius, rain, and so forth, being the rule of the day at some point, specifically.
This is not going to be much fun. Not a surprise, really. You'd think we've learned to expect this by now after the last two decades' worth of weather conditioning: Christmases(or the holy festival(s) of your preference and upbringing) that do not look much like the expected. I have to worry, no matter what the government of the day and their preferred allies would have me believe instead.
A quick personal note: hello to
duncanmac and welcome to the Friendlist! Hoping to see you around regularly!On a more professionally-minded note, the comics work progresses. I will announce more shops recruited to the Local Hero network here in Ottawa, and elsewhere around the world as time goes by. If you know of a store that might be particularly interested in carrying the series, I hope you'll let me know, either here or via e-mail at my GMail address over the next little while.
Also, the work on the second issue continues apace, and I'll be posting bits and pieces of the production process here and elsewhere over the next couple of months.
More later...and in the meantime, back to you.
A bit of poetry
Apr. 3rd, 2007 04:35 pmMadness engulfs me:
I live by paper each day,
yet fears seek its end.
I live by paper each day,
yet fears seek its end.
Progress in Art(and Other Stuff)
Jun. 10th, 2006 10:16 amI'm taking today and a chunk of tomorrow to draw pages for Local Hero. I am growing increasingly pleased at my sense of progress, and yet frustrated at a number of technical and technological issues. Nothing new, true, but the venting's always therapeutic(if occasionally contrary to basic marketing principles...which have long driven me half-certifiable).
Something unusual I saw on St. Laurent Blvd. this past Thursday afternoon, in that I so rarely see such things at any distance in Ottawa: geese. Just standing there on the lawn in front of one of the strip malls lining that street, looking at all the traffic on wheels running this way and that, numbering about a half-dozen in toto. Very good for that sense of wonder aspect of the soul.
I can't say that I think it does much for their health -- I know it doesn't do much for mine as yet(but with the new hybrids and alt.fuel cars coming on the market, maybe that'll change to the better) -- but I liked seeing them there.
Something unusual I saw on St. Laurent Blvd. this past Thursday afternoon, in that I so rarely see such things at any distance in Ottawa: geese. Just standing there on the lawn in front of one of the strip malls lining that street, looking at all the traffic on wheels running this way and that, numbering about a half-dozen in toto. Very good for that sense of wonder aspect of the soul.
I can't say that I think it does much for their health -- I know it doesn't do much for mine as yet(but with the new hybrids and alt.fuel cars coming on the market, maybe that'll change to the better) -- but I liked seeing them there.
If I WERE to buy a car tomorrow...
Oct. 12th, 2005 11:46 pm...I think it would be something like one of the models shown here at WorldChanging. Looks intriguing.
By the way...anyone who's already got a car like that in their personal-use fleet at home?
Thank you kindly. My lungs definitely appreciate it.
By the way...anyone who's already got a car like that in their personal-use fleet at home?
Thank you kindly. My lungs definitely appreciate it.
