On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

I'm adding Ricochet Media to my "Canadian News/Opinions" bookmark list. Seems like a good choice alongside rabble.ca, iPolitics, and so on.

Books I'm working on reading: 100 Days of Cree by Neal McLeod with Arok Wolvengrey, for indigenous language studies. The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron, Ph. D for psychological self-awareness and ability to get along with others.

Elizabeth May on an "Age of Consequences":

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.

Whatever I think of the NHL turning their backs on the CBC after six decades of a solid brand-building relationship, I just had my attention drawn to this item again tonight: the 2014 NHL Sustainability Report.

It's apparently occurred to some people looking at this report that the NHL might have both a financial and ecological stake in the outcome of Canada's next federal election. And that the oil and coal sector might have a problem with that perception.

I don't know that they're wrong about that assessment. Some of you reading this might have your own thoughts.

Anyone?

Apparently, NASA has this in the works:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-187

I'd imagine Harper, Abbott and the like are going to be annoyed by this inconvenient evidence-gathering, right?

Something Martha Thomases wrote recently got my attention. It also triggered some renewed thinking that started in these comments I posted in reply:

"Martha, you're reminding me of why I love Ottawa the City.

Ottawa the National Capital is something that like other people across Canada - much like Americans regarding Washington, DC, probably - I view with ambivalence, an emotional range that goes from anger to pride and back again, sometimes within the space of a second or two.

Ottawa the City is its own kind of complicated place, with a history, a mix of cultures, architecture, languages, and a hundred other things all its own. Our suburbs - one of which I currently call home - are becoming no less so than the core neighbourhoods. I take satisfaction from a lot of that, although frustration also creeps into the mix, here as in your New York.

And aspiration to make the place better has returned in recent years. I hope to go into detail elsewhere on that."

This is one of those "elsewheres". Spacing Ottawa continues to be another, so I hope and plan. (You should keep reading that for contributions of other writers and artists as well.)

Anyway.

When I mentioned aspirations of improvement to Martha, there's a few things firmly in mind. Personal survival on the economic level, obviously and selfishly. But you already know about that. Many of you are living that, right along with me, wherever you live.

Looking at Ottawa-Gatineau, there's the environmental concerns. We've had issues with untreated sewage getting into the Ottawa River making problems for people downriver. Both within the city limits and beyond them. I'm sure that it's not making things any easier in places from Cumberland Village all the way to the Bay of St. Lawrence. It may indeed be much diluted by the time it gets to that latter point, but it's still contributing to aggravating a problem that can instead be fixed.

There's the transit infrastructure. Some of you know of some of this already. We almost had the shovels digging up pavement at Waller and Laurier - and elsewhere - to start on building a further extension to our light rail transit component. But the election of a mayor more friendly to the federal government of the moment than to transit needs of Ottawa the City delayed that for four years, and got city hall embroiled in an expensive legal action, settled at no small cost.

It certainly could've been worse. But it could also have been better.

This past month or so, construction teams have finally started digging and blasting and pouring concrete and installing framing steel in several parts of the downtown core to get the ball rolling on a new version of that LRT expansion, called the Confederation Line. An aspiration to restore and expand upon something Ottawa had and discarded over 60 years earlier...finally in the process of being fulfilled.

And hopefully, a more livable city resulting from that. Liveable for everyone, whatever our income levels.

My apologies for reading like a speech-writer. Sometimes, I get into that head-space and there's no use but to go with it for as long as it lasts.

Been re-reading The Massive # 6 today.

One thing in the text pieces got my attention.

"The Great Lakes region expanded its water-surface area by roughly 4,000 square miles. The Upper Michigan Peninsula is no more."

Thunder Bay. Nipigon. Marathon. Wawa. Sault Ste. Marie. Manitoulin Island.

Elliot Lake? Sudbury? North Bay?

Parry Sound. Snug Harbour. Penetanguishene. Wiarton.

Goderich. Sarnia. Windsor. Point Pelee. Port Stanley.

The Niagara Peninsula. Niagara Falls. St. Catharines. Hamilton. Oakville. Mississauga.

Toronto.

Oshawa. Cobourg. Belleville. Kingston. Brockville. Cornwall.

All gone too after the Crash.

Whatever it turns out to have really been.

I'll keep reading The Massive and get back to you...

A friendly acquaintance of mine (and several others on my friendlist here at LJ) recently posted some interesting observations about the possible consequences of Obama's decision on the Keystone XL pipeline project.

I suspect that Alex is right on several points here, but I'd be interested in your perspective on his POV. Anyone?

We could do without this.

26 hectares of the South March Highlands in the west end of modern Ottawa is about to be clear-cut for home-builders, road-builders and so forth to do their thing. As was done to build most of the modern city from 1826 onwards. It's an old habit, and you'd think we've built outward instead of upwards enough for over 150 years.

But, apparently the addiction must still...still...be fed. Despite our efforts and desire to pull ourselves away from that table as a city.

Enough.

I'm feeling a little achey, a lot of tired...and I'm still connecting dots in my head. Also, feeling a little rant-minded. So, if you'll forgive me?

New issues of National Geographic, Canadian Geographic and The Walrus came out in recent weeks, and there's a topic linkage in that: oil and its consequences.

National Geographic was covering the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, including a foldout map of the Gulf of Mexico complete with federal exploration leases actively explored/exploited, pile lines, wildlife refuges and so forth all marked out clearly. To call it an extensive network is probably to damn myself for understating the situation.

Walrus had a feature on the Albertan oil industry's push against the Northwest Territories to get onside with their perceived needs for the McKenzie River Valley watershed. A lot of people in the NWT are not all that pleased with the push. However, being a territory and not a province still has more than a few political and financial drawbacks for the NWT. And those could end up creating some ecological headaches for future generations.

Canadian Geographic's October 2010 issue is devoted to the direct consequences of climate derangement for Canada as a whole. Desertification of the South Saskatchewan River basin, loss of harbourfront real estate in old downtown Halifax (and likely, its counterpart in the former city of Dartmouth right across the harbour as well ), overheated cities(with Montréal as an exemplar of where we could be headed with or without remedial and preventative measures)...

You see where my brain is going tonight?

When I stumbled onto the last of these at Mags and Fags, that news-stand on Elgin Street, late this afternoon, I muttered something about "climate derangement" - my phrase for the situation many - most? - of us are scared of. A guy standing next to me who'd chuckled moments earlier about some novelty item proclaimed by its packaging to be "made of real poo" - I have my doubts on that one - responded on automatic that "I don't believe it. It's all a scam by people looking to bring carbon taxes."

I suppose it's an inevitability. Live in Ottawa long enough, you'll run into all kinds. Sometimes it only takes a month, sometimes a quarter-century. And you'll have to live next to them, work with them, and occasionally marry into each others' families. If you - and they - are lucky enough and careful enough, you'll figure out a way to not only co-exist, but thrive in concert. Someday. Preferably sooner than later.

Anyway.

I told him flat: if it's my lungs or someone else's cars? I'm siding with my lungs. So if that means carbon taxes? Go, carbon taxes, go!