Marching Into April - No Joke!

End of the World - Great Big Sea

On Saturday March 29th we commemorated another Earth Hour. From 8:30-9:30 local time, we shut off lights in an attempt to help the planet breath a sigh of relief. In 2007, a movement was started in Sydney, Australia to bring awareness to the ever growing concern of Global Warming. And please understand that Global Warming means way more than just the temperature of the earth going up. Believe it or not rising temperatures is the reason we have more intense weather patterns and more snow. Yes even more snow is because of warming temperatures on earth. 

Quickie refresher of high school science. Moisture is collected from the surface of the earth by evaporation. Collecting in clouds and then falling as precipitation. Rain or snow depending on the season. An increase in the sun power will cause an increase in the amount of evaporation. And it has to fall in the form of rain or snow or a combination of.  

And yet, every time that an uncharacteristic cold snap or snow fall occurs people jump on the "So where is the Global Warming Now" band wagon. It frustrates me, partly because these are fairly intelligent people and partly because there is even one person who considers this mentality as valid. Where is Global Warming when we find ourselves bracing for yet another Snow-pocalypse? It is right outside your frost covered thermal paned window. It is the intensity and instability of the weather patterns we once thought were normal. Global Warming caused Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The frequency and intensity of naturally occurring storms is multiplying at alarming rates. Hurricane Juan hit Nova Scotia in September 2003. The province was barely recovered from the that slap by Mother Nature when she let White Juan loose in February 2004. White Juan left behind 95.5 cm of snow in Halifax in one 24 hour period. That's 37+ inches. More than the yard stick that decorated the blackboard ledge in school. Three feet! Half the average persons height! 

But even that was several years ago now. What amazes me more than that storm is the fact that although wind gusts of 124 km/hr were reported, I can recall at least 4 days this past season that wind gusts reached or exceeded 100 km/hr. Almost seems norm now. Batten down the hatches indeed!  

Have we gotten used to bundling up and grumbling? How about this comic relief for you. In 1999, the city of Toronto (no stranger to snow) called in the Canadian Army to help it dig out when 27 cm of snow fell. That's right 27 cm. Seems a little over the top all things considered including that there was already significant snow on the ground - nothing new really. Sometimes it is not the amount of snow but the speed in which it falls that have some of us with the shovel at the ready feeling over-whelmed. Where do you put it all? Check out this link for some remarkable, record setting storms that have hit the Winter Wonderland known as Canada. 

I don't mind snow and despite all the dire warnings that had us shivering in our boots in fear more than cold, I think that here (at least) it was a fairly mild winter. A snowfall/blizzard would close schools and snarl traffic for a day and my friends would hear the doomsday predictions and send message to prepare and stay safe and warm. Snow would fall, clogging streets and usually blowing to make things barely visible past the edge of the balcony. Two days later we would be in plus zero temperatures and everything would be melting away. Only one day did I turn back from a walk because the wind chill was freezing my eyes. And there were a few days in January where just a light jacket if anything was required.

I get winter. I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario. School wasn't cancelled, you walked. There was a lot of activities that you could participate in and enjoy more with the falling of snow. Snowmobiling, skiing, tobogganing, making ice forts, ice mountains to slide down (skeleton without the sled and helmet). Everybody had several pairs of mittens and long johns and Nipigon nylons. You wouldn't think about going out without being properly dressed for the conditions. We embraced winter and all it had to offer.

It is increasingly hard to do that when ski hills are closing because the seasons unpredictability just couldn't support them as viable businesses. Neither could the economy where people didn't have the exorbitant costs to involve entire families in sport. Plus electronics and modern conveniences mean there isn't a lot of need to venture out. So we don't. It's easier to curse under our frozen breaths then to go out and enjoy the cloud that landed on earth. I spoke to someone from Iceland recently who suggested that we were all wimps here. Life didn't stop for a few snowflakes. Chains were put on tires and schools and businesses stayed open. Just another day with more solid precipitation. 

The winter of this generation sucks. Cold is one thing, wind chill is another. You can dress for and play in 3 feet of snow. Wind chill and freezing rain gets right to you bones and crystallizes your blood. When it's a real winter, it's cold and you can dress for it. When you have a thaw mid season, you pine for the heat as if the season ended, then Mother Nature's fury hits again. It's miserable to walk in slush that soaks your socks and the ice that has come with the freeze the next day. Ain't no boot that is waterproof enough for that or provides the grip for ice rinks. That's why we skate :)

Several days after the ice on-slaught,
these branches well exposed to sunlight
are still thickly coated in the Greater Toronto Area. 

A pre-Christmas ice storm paralyzed a large part of Southern Ontario and a vast number of people were stranded at airports and train stations and 400,000 were without power. Some for nearly a week in the dead of winter with turkeys ready to be stuffed into an oven to feed masses. In the age of cell-phones and internet the Twitter-verse was awash with requests to report downed lines and emergencies online. Easier said then done when a) you can't read the Twits with limited battery life on said phone or b) no power at all to charge the cellphone or the cordless, desktop or tablet. And those people will pay for the inconvenience. Granted they didn't have to pay for the hydro they didn't use but they will pay for the clean-up and repair costs with skyrocketing bills from here on in. Say what? :( 

Memories are short and people like to remember the winter of 2009-10 because it was the winter that wasn't. We got used to not having a real winter. When it came back this year, we had been lulled into a sense of complacency and we weren't ready for the severity. I don't think that it helps when weather forecasters and the media hype up a bit of a snowfall by using words like Snow-mageddon, Snow-pocalypse, Snow-icane or Weather Bomb. Oh wait, so accustomed we have become to the hype and panic started by the media meteorologists that when I heard of the Weather Bomb on it's way, I assumed it was more of the same. That one though, is a legitimate phenomenon and can occur with snow or rainfall. Another new weather phrase that we added to our daily lexicon this year is Polar Vortex. The Polar Vortex of 2014 swept central Canada and held it in its icy grips with fingers that reached far into the southern states that didn't know how to deal with the flurries that ultimately caused traffic and travel nightmares and general chaos. So remarkably cold was this winter that a contest was held to determine the worst in the country. The link has some great graphics, information and reveals the winner. Spoiler alert it is Winnipeg also know as Winterpeg!

One day in the winter of 2013-2014 there were weather
warnings posted across the county - simultaneously!

Newfoundland had some houses that had been buried to the eaves with snow. Nova Scotia had the roof blown off buildings and one completely flipped over. Prince Edward Island became the worlds biggest snow fort. New Brunswick-ers still wander with snow shovels in their hands at the ready for the next dump. Quebec and Ontario dealt with far below average temperatures with wind chills added that froze them solid and in southern Ontario, everything that stood still or blew in the wind was covered with inch thick ice. Manitoba and Saskatchewan had snow falls and wind chills that they still haven't thawed out from. Alberta has had a rough year all around and the massive snowfalls just added to the clean up still not complete from the summer floods. British Columbia had colder than expected temperatures as well. Good to live on the coasts of the country this winter for sure. Even the northern territories were spared the frigid temps of central Canada. I chuckled when I saw cities in the north warmer that Toronto, Ontario. Rob Ford and all his hot air couldn't stop the cold shoulder. 

So all you naysayers who poo-poo Global Warming, just remember that Mother Nature is fictitious, the February scapegoat (groundhog) is just a rodent and the seasons will continue to change and worsen. Autumn extends into winter, winter is still hear and we call it spring. Summer starts later and goes past the traditional fall season. Mud-slides that shouldn't be will, tornadoes will be more frequent and stronger. Winter wear and tools will be needed in the southern states, and we will soon need SPF 100 in the sun. It wasn't that long ago that you could go outside and play all day in the sun with no sunscreen and not get burnt. Now 10 minutes max and your fried. 

I was disappointed with the lackluster attitude towards Earth Hour this year. I did my part, but what we really need is a collective attitude adjustment. A lifestyle change. It has always been an important issue for the me (the wasteful abuse of the planet and its resources), so I made a lifestyle choice. Lights were rarely left on in unoccupied rooms when my kids were little, because I chose to teach them to shut them off. It's a habit that we can learn. They did. I won't suggest we were perfect but we tried. It's a start. 

credit where credit is due:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/4-facts-about-earth-hour-1.1331421
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Juan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Juan
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/blasts-from-the-past-canada-s-worst-snowstorms-1.1370387
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/22/canada-ice-storm-travel-chaos-power-outages-as-massive-storm-hits-ontario-quebec-and-maritimes/
http://globalnews.ca/news/1208476/who-had-the-worst-winter-in-canada/
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/geekquinox/winter-2013-2014-report-card-did-grade-canada-172923296.html

Raping the Earth is not Consequence-free

Oh Mother Earth - Neil Young

Sunday April 22, 2012 is Earth Day! To commemorate and honour the occasion, we'll go green too. The computer is using it's share of electricity but the lights are off and the candles are lit. Okay, it is daytime, but the point is that the question of excess consumption is being considered. Making a commitment to improving our personal impact on the earth is a life long challenge not a 24 hour sprint on a day designated as Earth Day. Ten years from now we might be looking at Earth Day as another commercially generated spending spree like Valentines Day, except this time we will be going out and buying cloth bags and reusable water bottles that we bring home from the mall down the street in our 8-passenger capable vehicles! 

It may actually surprise you to know that the notion of Earth Day had its' inception in 1970 in the United States. A US senator from Wisconsin - Gaylord Nelson - was concerned about the air pollution that was becoming an accepted symbol of a successful industrial economy, oil spills were getting more public coverage, growth seemed to trample on and destroy anything in its' path in the name of prosperity. Change was underfoot, the population as a whole was no longer afraid to challenge what they viewed as wrong. Countless young people had raised their voices in protest of the Viet Nam war. It was felt that this energy could be channeled to alert the government to the need for change in environmental practices. And it worked, the Environmental Protection Agency was born, soon to be followed by the Clean Water Act, The Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act. Effective or not is a matter of opinion but better than nothing, for the awareness was spreading. 

It wasn't until 1990 that the movement was launched into a global campaign and Canada was a part of the 200 million persons and 141 nations participating in changing how self-centered we had become in our views of entitlement to rape the earth consequence-free. Recycling programs got their start and tree-huggers joined the tree-planters to green up. In Canada, some people got so enthusiastic about the new initiatives that they turned Earth Day into Earth Week and in some cases Earth Month. Now they had the right idea! Caring for the world in which we live takes more than a 20 minutes clean-up challenge in our neighbourhoods once a year. It takes more than one day of using less electricity than normal. More than one day of leaving our car parked. It's not just recycling - it is reducing, reusing too. It's a lifestyle change. But really the lifestyle that we want to emulate is the habits of generations past. Some things I don't think I would want to go back to and certainly some changes have led to a healthier and more comfortable life, however it is our attitudes about entitlement that may need to change. Pens, for example, were re-used and re-dipped into inkwells. The only thing requiring replacement periodically was the nib. Now we toss the whole thing.  As we fight the notion of bringing our own bags to the stores, generations past did this exact thing before the emergence of the plastic bags. For the lack of surplus finances to spend on frivolity, toys were handed down, so were clothes and furniture. In the kitchen, most household tasks were undertaken with muscle power and not just to push the "on" button. Even when the small appliances became more the norm in the typical Canadian household, just around the corner was the repair shop. Today we are expected to throw out the toaster when it doesn't work quite right since it would cost more for repairs than the $8 to buy a new one. Even microwaves which 15-20 years ago cost the consumer nearly $900 for a low-quality oven can now be hand for the paltry sum of $50 - certainly not worth the cost of the technicians time to repair. You also had one family car that was shared among all members. On moisture free days, laundry hung on the line outside to dry - or on lines strung up across the expanse of the basement. There may have been one television for the entire household not one per room. These days it's not uncommon for each member of the home to be attached to a TV, laptop, cellphone and stereo-type device. Not wanting to go back to the dark ages, we have to find a way to make change in other ways. 

We need to go back to the fundamentals of the Earth Day ideal. Reduce, ReUse, Recycle. In that order! 

REDUCE: This isn't just to reduce the amount that we spend in consumer products - although that definitely has an impact. We also need to reduce our carbon footprint in the daily decisions of our life. Consider buying items in bulk to reduce the packaging cost and aftermath. Before you buy that apple marketed as organic from California, consider the apple grown in your own area. The apple from half a world away is leaving an incredibly large carbon footprint on its journey to your local supermarket and it likely matured on the truck during its' journey to look freshly picked just for you. Additionally the criteria on organic-status for the country of origin may be quite different than the standards for quality from your local producers. This applies to non-organic food products as well. If it's not available locally, consider the impact before you lay your money down. Maintain this mindset outside the grocery store and with every trip to the stores you make. 


One of my personal beefs is with the advertising for the new and more efficient appliances like washers and dryers. The new machines purport to use not only less energy but less water as well. But, not only do you have to purchase specialized laundry detergent, you also have to buy cleaning agents (chemicals) to use monthly to ensure efficient operation without foul smells invading clothes. My machine is not one of these High-Efficiency units, I have never cleaned it with anything other than vinegar once a year or so, and when I wash clothes they always come out smelling better not worse! But let's say your disposable income affords you the opportunity to buy this new laundry room miracle. And you leave the appliance department holding your head up high because you are going to be doing your part to "Green it Up". But wait, what is going to happen to the perfectly serviceable machines that you had up until now? Landfill clutter? It's like automobiles, if we all go out and replace our vehicles with the new hybrids, what is to become of the goods we already have. With gas prices what they are, good luck getting fair dollar value for that V-8 guzzler you have. Fill it up with the toaster that has become fickle, the digital clock with one LED light out and the TV deeper than 6" because nobody wants them and drive it all to the landfill. I will keep my washer and moderate my usage of it instead. Like the dishwasher, I will wait for a full load before I start it. When it's irreparable, then I will replace it. I own a laundry team that was built to withstand 20 years of family needs - the high-tech machines of today may last you 10 years - if that, for I've heard a lot of complaints about quality thus far. "Should have kept the old ones" is not an uncommon phrase. And I'm not talking marital partners. 

REUSE: This is a tough one for many people because it requires some common sense. We all know some people who are sorely lacking in that! Do not reuse Toilet paper, Valentine's Day Cards, personal hygiene products, intravenous needles, condoms and gum. Reusing some plastics have been proven to be harmful to our health because of the leaching of chemicals. Sometimes reusing requires a person to be a bit of a crafty handyperson, then you can make a swing from a tire or a bird feeder from a plastic bottle. 

Reusing the plastic disposable water bottles is a practice that I engaged a lot in, I was uncomfortable about the quantity of bottles in the recycling bin every week. Then out came the news that harmful chemicals were leaching into the drinking water with every re-fill and worse if you tossed it in the freezer the night before. My first thought was that it was the moguls of industry that were putting the fear into us to ensure we kept spending. If those plastic bottles were no good....were any other refillable receptacles safe? And why wasn't anyone working to make the plastic safe? Personally I was comfortable drinking municipal water (at home) until the Walkerton Ontario incident. Then we all learned that tap water could kill! At the town level, short cuts, short staffing, human error put us at risk. At home, the age and material of indoor pipes put us at risk. People bought bottled water in droves because they were scared. It can take months or years to find the cause of a disaster like Walkerton that is investigated immediately, but somehow decades after the fact with all evidence long disappeared, scientists can still tell us that the water we drank from the garden hose on a hot summers day in 1972 could cause adverse health effects. I'm just grateful that someone found a way to use my water bottles to make fabric, park bench and objets d'art and thus absolve me some guilt. 

Fear is the also the reason that we bought into the notion of cleaning our homes with disposable chemical laden cloths instead of household sponges. We had special towelettes for each room of the house because we couldn't risk so called cross-contamination. How did we ever managed to survive the past generations attempts to kill us by not washing their hands with antibacterial soap, they didn't disinfect tables, counters or cutlery. Egad! They used not only the same utensils but the same cutting boards for food preparation. And the cutting board was germ sucking wood! A 70 year old relative promptly threw out all the cutting boards dispute she had not killed any of her four children and started to buy disposable cutting boards for poultry. Fear will make us spend irrationally on "un-friendly" products. The fear is fed to us by the media and the companies that market the items. It is beneficial to their bottom line if we are using consumables and replacing them.

RECYCLE: Make this one easy for people and only the most insolent members of society will refuse to partake. I have found that when the choice of a recycle bin and garbage bin are both close at hand, people will stop to consider the proper receptacle for the item. This is behaviour that does a heart good to see. The problem often lies in the difficulty in knowing what is acceptable, especially when it comes to plastics. This number in a triangle is okay but that number in a circle is not. Not being an engineer, plastic is plastic - make all of it recyclable. If the margarine container is, the yogurt container should be also. Something are still too difficult to recycle. In some larger communities this isn't the case, but there is a lot of population outside of major metropolitan centers. Batteries, tires and paint cans are not accepted at curbside, so what is to be done with them? Sometimes in the absence of feasible options, the recourse is the landfill. Granted, if you have a vehicle you can use your carbon footprint to transport your batteries to a metropolitan disposal site...if. 

I am pretty proud of the efforts of my community in its' commitment to lowering the contribution to the landfill site. When we were all provided with an animal-proof composting bin, the curbside collection schedule changed. Weekly the composting and recycling is collected. Every other week garbage is collected. We reduced the household garbage to less than a green garbage bag in two weeks. There is no smell to it, because it is primarily packaging from consumer goods, the smell comes from the food scraps and such that is composted. Compliance to the programs was initially met with disbelief but now stands at 80% all for it. 365 days a year we care for the earth. And did you hear that the orange peels that I am tossing into the green bin are being earmarked for the tires that will be a standard option in the industry. But I need to know, will they smell freshly squeezed as you roll along down the highway? 

I think that people are really starting to get the idea that resources are limited and conservation is key. Whether you subscribe to the Global Warming Theory or not you cannot deny that everything we do impacts the health of our planet, some of which can never be repaired or recovered. Newtons' Third Law of Physics states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The Law of Karma states that every action in life creates another reaction which produces another action and so on. Even the Bible itself supports this notion in "as ye sow, so also shall ye reap". They are all saying the same thing. What we do today will affect our tomorrow. If we want a tomorrow as glorious, bountiful and plentiful as our today we must be aware of how are actions will impact the future. The future for those who will still be here after we have gone and for those yet to come. 

A Few Trips Around the Sun with Mother Earth

Changing the Weather - Crash Parallel

Southern Ontario has dodged another bullet weather-wise! Being left more than a little embarrassed in the past, the meteorologists were reluctant to say definitively that we would receive a specified amount of snow. Instead of screaming Snow-maggedon again, they tentatively predicted 15-20 cm of snow that could easily turn to rain. This evening on the news they blamed the slight rise in temperature combined with the still warm ground that the snow was falling on to explain the lack of accumulation. And that is how this whole "winter" has been. I rushed to replace my shovel in October before the supplies were depleted and I was left clearing the driveway with a garden trowel! Since then, I have used it twice. Even today with the Winter Storm Warning in effect, the driveway was barely slushy. I'm not really complaining but I am concerned. This is not normal weather. I am worried that this mild winter will impact the spring and summer season soon upon us. 

Alaska is not a stranger to the winter storm and frigidly cold temperatures, but by mid January of this year over 200" of snowfall had been recorded. That's more than 16 FEET! No wonder house roofs were collapsing under the weight of it all. That is more than double the seasonal average and the temperatures have been so cold that none of it has had the opportunity to melt. This is causing major disruption in the flow of traffic and supplies, not to mention the risk of avalanches. But for the continental United States, it is quite a different story. One report claims that as of January of this year a mere 14% of the country was covered in snow compared to 60% at this time last year. That is significant and troublesome. 

Then you have Europe. In a two-week period beginning towards the end of January, more than 650 people have died due to record-breaking cold weather and snow fall in places that are unaccustomed to such phenomenon. Thousands of people are stranded in their homes behind walls of snow 13 feet deep, often with no electricity. Boats are trapped on rivers that froze over during the blizzards, cars are abandoned all over the roads, one airplane skidding into a pile of snow while attempting to take-off. I don't know what the norm is for winter weather conditions in this part of the world, but I would suggest this isn't it, if every other newspaper has a story on the devastating toll the snow is taking on the citizens. 

I am going to stick my neck right out there to be lopped off and say that I have to laugh at the weather-related stories that I have heard lately coming from neighbours to the south. I laugh at the ignorance when Canada is blamed for all the cold weather affecting the United States, and the perception is related that all of Canada is snow-bound. Just as an aside - I had to spend several months 4 hours south of my hometown of Thunder Bay in Duluth, Minnesota. I was often asked if we lived in igloos and if we had a summer at all. Reality was that the weather was almost identical, but this was before the world-wide exchange of information that we can access these days. Regardless, even today with the expanse of the globe compressed into a few strokes of the keyboard, there is rampant misinformation being shared by supposed professionals. Consider British Columbia. Larger than Washington, Oregon and California combined, the coast is unlikely to see snow in the average winter. But a short drive to the central and northern parts of the province with take you closer to the Rockies with an abundance of snow and great skiing conditions. Toronto, Ontario is on the same latitude as Cannes in the Riviera and just to the south is Windsor on the same plane as Northern California. It is a serious mis-judgement to lump all of Canada into one similar package when from sea to sea, north to south there is enough variety in landscape and weather to please anyone and to compare to anyplace. 


I feel sorry for meteorologists and weather forecasters, no matter what they say there are gonna be people hating on them. Rain is a blessing for the farmer and a curse for the construction worker, and so it goes. I wonder what the suicide rate is for the profession. No matter what the weather, people hate you and blame you. I would think they are just below lawyers in the people we love to hate. But they are the ones who spend the hot days of the summer wising it was cooler and the cold days of the winter wishing it was warmer. Wouldn't it be nice if we could appreciate what we had when we had it - including the weather?

=======================

This most recent storm that we were expecting was not coming from the Northern Territories at all but from the southern United States. Yes this storm that barely created a rain fall let alone a snow event, created havoc in several southern states with extensive snow and high winds. But beyond being a competition, we should be very concerned about the trends we are experiencing. Toronto citizens are beginning to refer to the 2011-2012 winter season as the Winter That Never Was, it took until mid-February to declare a winner in the contest predicting the first day that 5 cm of snow would fall at one time. Typically, we would see closer to 65cm falling during the winter season. Behind the people celebrating the best winter ever, there are people who are seriously worried. 

What does this all mean and why is it happening? This mild weather that we are experiencing now could potentially impact spring and summer to come. In the mild days of January, critters were active beneath the garden soil that had still not frozen, flowers were beginning to bloom. And then you have a couple of days of cold. Will the flowers come back or has the cycle been broken. Have we altered the life cycle of the critters. Has the migratory pattern of the birds been affected. I am not exactly Methuselah but I have lived through a few trips around the sun. There was a time when fall was a distinct season with a predictableness to it. The changing of all the leaves, the gradually dropping of the mercury and the flight of the geese heading south. The flocks in a "V" were unmistakable. The formation is not so regimented anymore, and the time frame for the flight is vague. Geese, even in smaller numbers can be seen throughout the winter months now. Not good. 

Global Warming. I'm not a fan of that term, I would prefer something that encompasses the notion of the change in the weather and weather patterns. Indian summer (abnormal warmth during the fall months) is more an expected occurrence than a rarity. The freak snowfall on April Fools Day or later is not fooling anyone in its regularity. There have been many Christmas' of late that jackets are optional. And it isn't just in southern Ontario. My own hometown of Thunder Bay could count on winter hitting with a vengeance and sticking around. By my birthday at the end of November we were skiing regularly at one of 7 ski hills and going until at least the beginning of March. Now, most of the ski hills have closed because of the unpredictable weather. There are regular melts and rainfall instead of snow. Snowmobilers don't want to put money down on trail passes when there is a good chance that the trails may only be operational for 1 or 2 weekends. 

It's time to open our eyes and be concerned about what we are experiencing with the Changing Weather and start to make some serious changes in our callous treatment of Mother Earth. Awareness is the first step.