By Anna Delaney
Our changing climate is causing some to worry that our springtime rainfalls in South Western Ontario will be more frequent and more intense than in previous years.
One of those worriers is James P. Bruce, a Canadian policy representative for the Soil and Water Conservation Society. He spoke about this issue to a small group of students and faculty at the University of Western Ontario on Monday. His talk, Water Resources in a Changing Climate, looked at how greenhouse gas emissions in the past 40 years can predict how much warming we can expect in the next 40 years, he said.
“Since greenhouse gases are going to drive the [...]
Climate change may increase spring rain
Takedown
How Environment Canada ordered a Dutch web hosting company and German server group to take down a Danish web site running an American political parody
By Bill Kovarik
A Danish web administrator says he only acted under duress when he complied with a Dec. 21 Environment Canada order to take down a Yes Men political comedy web site criticizing Canada’s climate stance at Copenhagen.
“I felt really bad promising to take the sites offline without a warrant, as I am a firm believer of the UN Human Rights,” said Ole Tange, a Danish web developer. However, had he not taken the sites down, 4,500 other sites he manages would have been kept [...]
Climate Justice group petitions UWO
By Laura Schober
A climate justice group at the University of Western Ontario is circulating a petition that demands the university end its financial ties with the Royal Bank of Canada. The bank is the leading financier of the tar sands projects in Alberta, and Mobilization for Climate Justice organizer, Toban Black, says RBC’s funding is unethical because it contributes to the harmful environmental effects generated by tar sands.
“In terms of the tar sands alone, it’s the dirtiest oil in the world, because of all the pollution that’s generated as you produce it,” he said.
Black says the petition will be passed along for review to the university’s [...]
Worldwide water problems – but what can we do?
By Marika Motiwalla
Intense storms and droughts could increase in number and severity – and Canadians will be affected by the changing climate’s effect on water resources, according to James P. Bruce.
Bruce, an environmental policy specialist, spoke about this to a small group of students and faculty at the University of Western Ontario on Monday, December 7. His talk was called Water Resources in a Changing Climate and emphasis was put on the effects of greenhouse gases on the world’s water supply.
Bruce is on the Expert Panel on Groundwater for the Council of Canadian Academics, has written several books and articles on climate change and holds honorary degrees from the [...]
Chasing Copenhagen – Part I
In search of climate solutions before the December 2009 summit
By Bill Kovarik
So this is the speed of light.
We laugh as the solar-powered boat glides silently down the Spree River through the heart of Berlin, Germany. As monumental buildings drift past, our captain, Arno Paulus, points out a series of 64-year-old bullet holes in the stone walls alongside the river.
It’s a sobering moment in the new Berlin, a city where ghosts still flit through the Tiergarten and where hollowed-out churches still draw crowds on the Ku-Damm boulevard.
And it’s because of this past, Paulus says, that Germany has a moral obligation to help change the world. “We can do it,” he says, [...]
Chasing Copenhagen – Part II
In search of climate solutions before the December 2009 summit
By Bill Kovarik
A sobering dinner with one of the worlds leading climate scientists — Stefan Ramstorf of Pottsdam University in Berlin — sets a tone of urgency. As we watch the swans paddle out on a pristine German lake, I think about Ranstorf’s prediction that at least six feet of sea level rise by 2100 is close to inevitable.
He tells us that if the goal is to limit CO2 from fossil fuels to 750 billion tons over the next 40 years, then the “only fair and just principle here is to assign them on a per capita basis.” He asks [...]
The Changing of the Grid
Unlocking the infrastructure for the next energy generation
From: Appalachian Voice, Dec. 2009
By Bill Kovarik
If the inventors of the telephone, the adding machine and the light bulb could visit their legacies today, the first two – Alexander Graham Bell and Herman Hollerith – would see enormous change, with satellites, cell phones, computers and more.
But Thomas Edison would scarcely notice a difference. The systems that lit up his incandescent bulbs a century ago run on the same principle today: large central power plants boiling water to turn turbines and feed regional monopolies.
The idea of smaller, distributed, more flexible power systems, with all their environmental and national security benefits, is only beginning [...]