cartoon life

Pete Seeger: Garbage From The Chawed Rosin. Pete sings about garbage…

… in light of Toronto trash trucks crashing up the highways. Read the rest of this entry »

“Scientists decided to move the hands on the so-called “Doomsday Clock” two minutes closer to midnight. It’s sparked a debate over whether environmentalism has become all about raising awareness about the earth by scaring its inhabitants half-to-death.”

From CBC’s The Current’s podcast page on Earth Day, 22/04/2008: “Catastrophizing” Earth Day [mp3 file: runs 23:59] - an interview with  Marq De Villiers on his book Dangerous World Understanding Natural Calamities and Protecting Human Survival.

Is calamity a motivator? or just anxiety producing?

If Tungusta hit London, it would wipe it out. Nudge it out of the way first. Earthquakes and terrible building codes would flatten Tehran. Enforce better building codes. Overdue eruptions out of Yellowstone calderas could wipe the US clean. Do we have the willpower, the political will, to prevent the problem?

Are people a cancer destroying the Earth organism? Do we have the means to distribute the resources to deal with this? Is apathy the problem? Do we need a shock?

Do we have a “pornographic eagerness for apocalypse?”

Interviewed after the break, and not on the podcast, was Brian Fagan, authour of The Great Warming, Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations.

“In some areas, including Western Europe, longer summers brought bountiful harvests and population growth that led to cultural flowering. In the Arctic, Inuit and Norse sailors made cultural connections across thousands of miles as they traded precious iron goods. Polynesian sailors, riding new wind patterns, were able to settle the remotest islands on earth. But in many parts of the world, the warm centuries brought drought and famine. Elaborate societies in western and central America collapsed, and the vast building complexes of Chaco Canyon and the Mayan Yucatan were left empty.”

I think the summary is: Worry less and do more. Argue less and fix the obvious problems.

A two-week hearing before the Ontario Municipal Board ended with lawyers for the city and an activist defending a policy that protects most of the city’s larger woodlands against development. Under that policy, adopted by council in 2006, the city expects to declare as significant — and protect — about 96 per cent of woodlands that are at least four hectares. An older policy protected as little as 25 per cent of those woodlands.

But his argument and that of the city was challenged by lawyer Barry Card, who’s representing developers such as Farhi Holdings, Sifton Properties, Drewlo Holdings, Z-Group and a lobby group that represents the industry, the London Development Institute.

Rather than make changes by amending the city’s official plan, a labour-intensive step that engages the public and experts, the city adopted a new policy, Card said.

“It really amounts to a sell-out of the planning process,” he said.

Under old rules, a woodland wasn’t significant unless it rated high in three of several categories that include size, composition, age and history. New rules require only a single high rating.

“That takes 1,000 hectares (of woodlands) off the table,” Card said.

That takes 1000 hectares of trees off the protected state and allows them to be clearcut to build suburbs, driveways, roads and golf ball driving ranges. In an earlier story, Debate blooming again over London’s tree-protection policy from Wed, January 16, 2008 By PATRICK MALONEY, SUN MEDIA, Card said:

“It’s not about whether significant woodlands will be protected — but whether insignificant woodlands will be protected,” said lawyer Barry Card, who is representing a consortium of local developers at the hearing. “Developers like treed communities. What they don’t like is a change of the rules that’s arbitrary or ill-advised.”         

I guess breathing is ill-advised. Developers like treed communities because the houses on the edge of the woodlot sell for more money. Funny. Seems people like trees. They like cars, and they like trees. From Trees In Trust;

An acre of trees absorb enough carbon dioxide in a year to equal the amount produced when you drive a car (41,000 km). (North Carolina State University Trees of Strength).       

Now get out a calculator.

if 1000 hectares = 2471.05381 acres

then 1 acre = .40468564224 hectare

1 acre can deal with the CO2 from 1 car driving 41,000 km so

the CO2 absorption per hectare would be… 41,000 x .40468 or 16,592.085 km

Let’s do some rounding:

CO2 per hectare: 16,500 -> 16000 -> 4     

year avg mileage: 12,500 -> 12000 -> 3     

So, 1.33 cars per hectare. 1000 hectares support the annual CO2 emissions from 130,000 cars, and London should have about twice that many vehicles.

Ask yourself then, is 1000 hectares an insignificant woodlot?

Mr. Card and this developer consortium argue that it’s good policy to cut out your lungs. Ironically, trees support urban sprawl. The more trees you have, the more CO2 from cars you can support.

Justine at beyond30 in a post called Environmental 101 points towards a sharp little Flash animation about all our consumptive habits called, The Story of Stuff at The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. It’s a great little reminder again of just how everything is connected to everything else; dependant origination; that we are not separate from the world we inhabit.