Birdwatching Can Get Political... if you are in Canada.

Mary Ann and I both belong to a club called the Kitchener Waterloo Field Naturalists.  It would be unkind of me to call them (I mean us) birdwatchers, because we are much more. In addition to watching, and counting, species of birds, we are also watching trees, flowers, mosses, insects, fungi, salamanders and lichen.  And probably a lot more, since I am not one of the most observant members of that club.

It came to my attention that there was a CBC news item about the club.  The story is that the Federal Tax department (CRA) sent a letter to the KWFN, warning them to not get too political. Apparently, the club had sent a letter or two to politicians, urging that (a) bees were at risk due to some chemical spray, and (b) the Ontario Government should not water down the "Endangered Species Act".

The CBC news item
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/revenue-canada-targets-birdwatchers-for-political-activity-1.2799546

The letter from the CRA to the KWFN
www.kwfn.ca/CRA_Items/CRA_Letter_2014.pdf

Now, I know that feelings can sometimes start running high about threats of a tax audit. At least one member of the club was willing to speak to CBC reporters about his feelings of being muzzled by the Federal Government (in the embedded video).

On the other hand, you have level headed internet commenters like 123noitall saying
"Follow the rules like everyone else...or drop your charitable status and do it on your own."

I want to take an objective position here, and try to be fair about this news story.  First, the CRA did in their letter admit that the KWFN had done nothing wrong.  So why did the KWFN get a warning letter?  Because in their official financial statement, they had reported 0 dollars under political expenses.  Since writing two letters can easily cost you a few dollars postage*, the CRA merely was reminding the club that it should report this as a political expense.  The Federal government has decided it is political to write a letter to politicians urging them to pass or amend laws. And once the political expenses get over 10% of your budget, you are deemed too political, and must abandon your tax free status.  The KWFN also had a speaker at one meeting talking about the tar sands, and urged members via their website to look into the David Suzuki "Blue Dot" tour.  All these things could cost money- so many megabytes of web space, and honorariums for speakers.

*A further wrinkle is that you are allowed to send mail postage free within Canada to the Government under these rules, which I'm not sure if they apply to provincial governments:
http://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/manual/PGgovtmail-e.asp

The CRA, for its own part also has to be very careful to not give the appearance of partisan bias.  So they have to be very careful to investigate conservative bird watching clubs just as much as liberal bird watching clubs.  It's the same when they are investigating millions of dollars being hidden offshore by wealthy Canadians.  They cannot investigate just the liberal minded tax avoiders, they must pay equal attention to conservatives hiding their money offshore. And I guess they have been pretty non-partisan about the whole thing, because the CRA don't really have the budget to investigate any offshore banking (liberal or conservative), while they do have an increase in their budget to check out virtually all birdwatching clubs in Canada for unreported political activity, liberal or conservative alike.

So I don't think there is really all that much muzzling for us free Canadian citizens to be concerned about.  As long as you correctly report your expenses when sending a letter to your member of parliament, you will be fine.

All this brouhaha is actually the fault of the Green Party. Because of their party platform, caring for the environment has become a political thing.  And if some other party opposes the Green Party, then caring for nature and the environment becomes not only political, but partisan. I predict that one day, some political party will make it a policy to destroy the environment.  From that day on, any club that enjoys preserving nature will be automatically be considered a partisan political group.

Here is a link to another blogger who has commented on this story, but he is not as even handed as I was in my judgment.
http://montrealsimon.blogspot.ca/2014/10/big-brother-harper-and-gentle.html

Picture: Steven Harper and his wife set an example, engaged in some non political birdwatching.  Ironically, he has a bird sanctuary named after him in Israel. The Stephen J. Harper Hula Valley Bird Sanctuary Visitor and Education Centre, Israel
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-tours-holy-sites-in-israel-visits-bird-sanctuary-named-after-him/article16446088/

Real World Lessons About Electric Cars

I recently watched a documentary on PBS "Revenge of the Electric Car".  You can see a preview here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po1XA6l19Mk

Today I was looking up Tesla cars on Google to see how they have been doing since the documentary was made, and one interesting development is a series of quick recharge stations called "Superchargers", that Tesla has installed across the USA.

But in researching the Tesla, I came across a different article that I believe shows all the negative aspects of the Tesla.  Whether this was a deliberate hatchet job, I don't know, as it seems an innocent enough test, and fair observations of the result.  The article was called "What Running Out of Power in a Tesla on the Side of a Highway Taught Me About the Road Trip of Tomorrow", written by Nate Berg on a website called "The Atlantic Cities"

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2014/04/what-running-out-power-tesla-side-highway-taught-me-about-road-trip-tomorrow/8978/

There are many comments after the article, and surprising to me, most support the Tesla, and even more shocking, I saw none that were vulgar or rude.

One comment that caught my eye may be typical of many neutral observers reactions (because after all, the seemingly neutral article did spend a lot of time pointing out the electric car's main shortcoming.) :  Adam Schulz says "Fantastically balanced article. I really like how you didn't demonize Tesla for your breakdown but illustrate that there are genuine constraints to electric vehicles, even with the supercharging stations. Thanks for this work!"

That was in part, my impression also, but I did not take this as an illustration of "genuine" constraints on electric vehicles.  On the contrary, it's amazing to me that the author drove from Barstow to Kingman (206 miles) in an electric-only car, and that if he had gone three more miles, could have recharged in about one hour.  And after that, he could continue his trip all the way to the East coast.

Obviously, the main limitation of the car was the driver himself, who should not have blindly followed the computation of the car's range calculator.  If I was driving that car, I would have slowed down to less than 65 mph once I saw the that the extra distance turned negative.  And I would not have bothered to pass that "psycho" trucker that nearly forced Nate Berg off the road.  Instead I might have stayed behind the truck, and benefited from the lower speed and the draft of the truck to save electricity.  And I'm pretty sure I would have made it to Kingman.

By the way, dimming the car's computer screen to save electricity is almost funny.  Or was he being serious?

I suppose I should not be making such absolute comments about an electric car, when I don't own one, but come on!  This is just basic Physics.  Most cars operate on the same principle.  They carry X amount of energy, and have to go Y distance.  The big unknown is the efficiency of converting the energy into distance (also known as "miles per gallon" in the internal combustion world.)  Another factor is the grade of the road, and as the author noted, Kingman is higher in elevation than Barstow.  I checked, Barstow is at 664m, Kingman is at 1016m above sea level.  So again simple Physics would tell us how much electricity would be needed to lift a car that distance straight up, and subtract that amount from your range.

In the end, I was very impressed by Tesla's range and speed.  Even more impressed by the number of their Supercharging stations, and how fast they can recharge the batteries.  Not too impressed with Nate Berg's driving, but since I would not be hiring him to drive my car, I don't care.

Picture:  This is how you sell cars in the real world.

The Noah Movie Review: Do Cats Hate Water?

Last night I persuaded Mary Ann to go and see the new movie "Noah" at the cineplex.  I was intrigued by this movie, as it is a bible story, yet I see in the news that Fundamentalists hate it.  Apparently because it is historically inaccurate.  I think that Atheists may have the same objection.

Anyway, it stars Russell Crowe (Noah) who is not my favourite actor, but I don't hate him either. As Noah's  wife, Jennifer Connolly, who I like because she starred in Blood Diamond, but also don't like because she seems to be starving herself to death.

I hope this does not spoil anything, but this version of Noah solves some of the age old questions, like what did they do with all the animal poop, how did they feed all those animals for so long, and how did they stop the animals from killing each other?  I will reveal the secret here:  They put them to sleep (like hibernation) with some kind of burning plant smoke that does not affect humans.  Wasn't that easy?  The Holy Bible should have hired a few more Hollywood writers and it might have come off as more believable.

Now back to the movie.  The director had a radically different interpretation of the Noah story from the one most Christians cling to.  The normal Christian interpretation is that God is an angry God who is easily annoyed, and punishes mankind quite horribly when he is in a bad mood.  And sometimes even if He's in a good mood!  So bottom line: better worship God as hard as you can, as often as you can.

The writer and director of this movie was Darren Oronofsky.  His view is that a Creator made a nice planet, but one of his specially created species is greedy and cruel, and causing a bit of a problem by wiping out every other form of life.  I don't think I'm giving anything away by revealing that the problem species is Humans.  And so "The Creator" can only solve the problem by wiping out most of life on Earth with a flood, and starting over, either with Noah's family, or without humans altogether.

Oronofsky's vision is not too far off the vision of many environmentalists.  The environmentalist view is that humans are just one species of a complex ecosystem, and should learn to live within that ecosystem without destroying it.  On the other hand, the Fundamentalists seem to believe a man-shaped God created Man in his image, and that the entire rest of the universe was only created by God for a backdrop to Man.  In other words, they believe that a universe without "Man" makes no sense whatsoever.

Would you want to see this movie? Probably not, if you only want to see the cute animals  like giraffes and zebras and gorillas marching two by two up the gangplank.  You will see that, but you will also see a lot of killing, and just plain nastiness.  Also you will see just about everything that you normally find in an epic action movie starring Russell Crowe: monsters, battles, a lot of screaming and crying, man-to-man wrestling and swordplay.  But most of all, if you are a Biblical literalist, you will find a lot of offensive stuff on a philosophical level and on a "factual" level. (especially the constant reference to "the Creator" instead of "God".)  It's also not tremendously appealing to environmentalists, if Mary Ann is a representative sample.  Of course, her main objection was that everybody seemed to leave their empty popcorn and drink containers in the theatre instead of taking them out to the garbage.  "Is this the new culture?" she said disparagingly at the end. So apparently not a lot of environmentalist saw this movie, but it does have a powerful attraction for litterbugs.

Green Party of Canada: Good or Bad Science?

Here is something I came across in the National Post.  The headline reads

"Elizabeth May’s Party of Science seems to support a lot of unscientific public policies".

I don't always vote for the Green Party, but that is mainly because we don't have runoff voting.  Your first vote better count when you vote in Canada.  I support science, and any party that also genuinely supports science.  So if it's true that the Green Party is supporting a lot of unscientific public policies, I will not vote for them.

Knowing already that the National Post runs a lot of prejudiced material supporting the Conservative Party, and knowing that many NP titles do not match the article they were pasted to, I decided to read it and see for myself whether the Green Party was science based or B.S. based.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/11/15/elizabeth-mays-so-called-party-of-science-seems-to-support-a-lot-of-unscientific-public-policies/

I would have to say first, that for once the title matched the content of the article.  And that seems to support my rule that if the title matches the URL link name, then it didn't get a make-over by the Propaganda-wise Title Editor.  So now on to the content and see if the conclusions are fair.

The first jab comes from Michael Kruse (I don't recognize the name)

“I really think the Green Party is just doing the same things everybody else does, which is to make up an idea that matches with your ideology, and then go looking for evidence to support it,” said Michael Kruse, chair of Bad Science Watch, a non-profit devoted to rooting out false science in public policy.

I had to investigate who Michael Kruse is.  Although he does not seem to be a scientist, he has set up a non-profit group called "Bad Science Watch".  I didn't see anything on the web site about global warming, but I did see something about Wifi radiation.  "Investigating ant-wifi activism in Canada."  Then I did a cross check and found that the Green Party (or Elizabeth May) has said that we rolled out wifi too quickly in schools without proving that it is harmless. So if understand correctly, that makes Elizabeth May an anti- wifi activist, and so Michael Kruse is not a really impartial scientist making his anti-Green party claim.

Furthermore, if Bad Science Watch is committed to rooting out *all* bad science in public policy, maybe they should be investigating how the Conservative government is ignoring global warming.

At this point, I have not really settled yet whether Michael Kruse is an impartial  commentator.  And so far I have only gone through about 10% of this National Post article.  I'm not sure I have the time to slog out all the remaining details, so after the first dodgy reference, I will just start to skim for glaring errors.

If it is Green Party policy to oppose new scientific technology, such as Wifi, nuclear power, genetically modified foods, coal powerplants, and tar sands development, that does not necessarily make them unscientific.  They would only be unscientific if they opposed these technologies regardless of scientific evidence.  But the Green party clearly states that they believe that much of the true unbiased scientific research has been undermined by corporate interests, with big think tanks funding pseudo scientific research to support their profitable activities.

Continuing in the rest of the NP article, I notice this:

GreenParty.ca, for instance, is host to a two-part blog post earnestly trumpeting the evidence for “abiotic oil,” a theory from Stalinist Russia that petroleum is not derived from biological matter, but is rather a geological substance dating to the origins of the earth.

I happen to think it is particularly nasty (though not unusual for the NP) that the article finds this way to link the Green Party to Stalin.  But Abiotic Oil is not a policy of the Green Party at all.

The blog they refer to is here, is written by David Bergey.  This blog is, as they said, hosted by the Green Party website.
http://www.greenparty.ca/blogs/12489/2012-08-28/more-evidence-abiotic-oil

But of the three comments following this blog post, all are dismissive of abiotic oil, mainly because it is unscientific.  And abiotic oil theory has not been the basis of any policies of the Green Party.

Picture: I found the picture  of the kitties on the internet.  I added the word "Science" to illustrate the dilemma facing scientist who are offered funding by large corporations.

Is the Prius a High Performance Car?

It is not unexpected that many car enthusiasts hate the Toyota Prius.  After all, even before the Prius there were many who hated Toyota because it was foreign.  And many hated Toyota because it was a death trap (the runaway acceleration scandal).  Also we know there are many people who hate environmentalists, who often drive a Prius.

So the Prius has a lot of baggage to deal with, especially in the USA. However, in California it is outselling the Ford F-series pickup trucks, which surprises me.

http://jalopnik.com/5953457/the-end-is-nigh-prius-out+sells-camry-ford-f+series-trucks

I was reading an article in Jalopnik.com, about this latest development.  The article itself was highly critical of the Prius, and many of the follow-up comments were as well.  There were two often repeated claims, first that the Prius damages the environment more than a Ford pickup truck, because of its battery technology.  And the second is that the Prius must not be referred to as a high performance car, because high performance implies speed, and not efficiency.

Is the Prius really that hard on the environment, compared to say a for F250 pickup truck?  Well, it's easy to make a claim like that, but takes some time to disprove.  I didn't see any sources for this improbable fact. And frankly I get tired of bullshit-like claims being made with no supporting facts, which then take a lot of my time to investigate.  I think its time for a new rule.  If you want to make an improbable claim, you need to cite authoritative sources.  (e.g. not Fox News or the Heritage Foundation)  I remember a few years ago writing a blog answering a critic who claimed that a bicycle created more CO2 than a car.  People will make stuff up, I just wish other people had enough common sense to ask for proof, instead of absorbing stories as if they were the gospel truth (by the way the gospel is .....  oops I must not get off track here).  The link to my blog about why a bicycle saves more gas than a car is below, that was back in 2009, when I made more of an effort to respond to stupid and unsupported claims.

http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.ca/2009/07/can-bicycle-save-gas.html

Now, a more interesting claim, because it is actually believable, that a Prius is not a High Performance vehicle, because it does not go fast.  Most people would think that, and I sort of understand why.  So I am the one taking a position that has the burden of proof.  And I am willing to accept the challenge.

The history of high performance cars has always had something to do with speed, but it has also always had something to do with efficiency.
A practical car could not even be made until fuel efficiency reached a point where the car was able to carry it's own fuel.  Most NASCAR fans cannot remember a time when fuel efficiency was so bad that a car could not physically carry its own fuel  around one lap of a track. OK that never happened at a NASCAR race, because you could not have NASCAR until practical cars were invented.   But today, it's quite different and we sometimes completely ignore the aspects of efficiency in a high performance machine.  Well the spectators often do, anyway.  But the race teams, the engineers and drivers all know the importance of efficiency.  After all, they have certain limitations on the amount of fuel they can carry.  The rules often (I should look this up, of course, but I think it is ALWAYS, not just often) stipulate maximum size of a gas tank, and maximum displacement of the engine. Given these parameters, your performance is governed by, or limited by your efficiency. Performance is a combination of speed and efficiency. And additionally, in Formula One racing, I believe that pit stops to refuel have been banned.  A lot of racing fans hate this because they think it makes the entire race nothing more than a fuel economy rally.

So if it is true that hybrid technology is a high performance item, then you would expect that outright race cars may use hybrid technology to increase their efficiency and therefore overall speed.  The 24 Hour Le Mans race is an example.  It is not exactly the same type of hybridization of the Prius, but it is using the same principal, of capturing braking energy to use for a temporary boost in speed.

http://www.michelinchallengebibendum.com/en/NEWS-AND-PUBLICATIONS/News/Automobile-racing-hybrids-battling-it-out-on-the-racing-circuits

Picture.  It's just a joke, more or less. http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forums/thread/5202580.aspx

Electric Vehicles Perform Some Functions Better than Gas

Today the Globe and Mail had an interesting headline: Why modern electric vehicles are like cars from 1905


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/green-driving/news-and-notes/why-modern-electric-vehicles-are-like-cars-from-1905/article5374751/


I could not figure out what the headline meant, even after reading the article.  Anyway, one comment got me motivated to write a blog, it goes like this

Edgenet 9:23 AM on November 17, 2012

"Electric cars will never replace the gas cars. Electric cars are for crazy professors and people like them that do not live in the real world."

I know many other people think the way Edgenet does.  So it's time to have a public service lesson in how an average Canadian uses a car.  I do not wish to argue that electric cars will completely replace gas cars.  But they will be increasingly creating niche markets alongside gas cars, where a family may own one of each.  So instead of owning three gas cars, a family may own two gas cars and some kind of an electric vehicle.  Electric cars are not just for crazy professors and people who don't live in the "real" world.

Although I don't have statistics in front of me, I know that many Canadians are turning to electric four wheel and two wheel vehicles to get around.  The four wheel vehicles (also called mobility scooters) are often used to go to supermarkets for shopping, and can in fact go right inside the mall or supermarket, because of their electric technology, and because their owners have great difficulty walking.  You may not want to call these things "cars", but they use the same technology, and they perform the function that a car used to perform, but do it better.  Their batteries and charging systems are adequate today,  to accomplish the goal of shopping.

A second use for an electric car, this time a more conventional electric car, is getting kids to school.  School busses do not carry all the kids, for proof you only need to go by a school at 3:00 to see all the parents waiting for the kids to come out.  Those people drive their kids to school or back four times a day, with a cold start each time.  And it is getting to the point where some families have a minivan that is only used for this one purpose.  Toyota is having some problems with engine failures in minivans whose oil turns to sludge and burns out the engine, because the vehicles never get operated for more than 15 minutes at a time. So the engine never has a chance to get up to operating temperature.  Families who use a minivan like this, usually also have huge four wheel drive pickups and SUV's that they use for longer trips, relegating the minivan exclusively to school shuttle duties. It would make a lot more sense for this type of work to be done with an electric vehicle, that needs no oil changes, no gas fillups, no warmup time, and does not burn out the engine on stop and go driving.  200 mile range and top speed of 100 mph are not needed in this application.  Just plug it in at home and drive around the block when you need to.

I don't necessarily agree with driving the kids to and from school four times a day, but I'm just observing the "real" world that I see developing around me.

Picture: Taken from this website "EV World The Future in Motion"

http://evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=27678

Are Foreigners Trying to Block Canada's New Pipeline?

There was a disturbing article in our local paper "The Record" about non-Canadians trying to block a new oil pipeline that the government wants to build.

The article is written by Kathryn Marshall of EthicalOil.org. In it she blasts "foreign" money being used to sway Canadian decision making about oil pipelines.

In her article, she quotes an anonymous environmental radical saying that they would accept money from Mars.

"An organizer from the foreign-backed, anti-pipeline group, Dogwood Initiative, recently declared: “If I got duffel bags of money delivered from Martians from outer space I would still take that money.”"

Obviously, this is a hypothetical situation, but if (some) environmentalists would accept money from Mars, then you would obviously take money from Al Quaida, the Taliban, Socialists sources, and other unCanadian and unwholesome people.

The main tactic of this article is to sidetrack the argument away from "Is this pipeline good for Canada" to "Foreigners are trying to block a pipeline that Canadians obviously want, and need, and a pipeline that would be good for them".

Should I play along with this debating tactic, or should I take the high ground and refuse to get into "where does the money come from" and "who is more Canadian, you or me?".

We have had many debates about the environment in the last 50 years. This pipeline is a sub-debate about global warming, and is also about pollution from oil spills and destruction of habitat. So it is another environment vs. profits debate. In the past, these debates ended up being the little guy (environmentalists) mounting a grass roots opposition to giant, wealthy multinational corporations. In those debates, the government often sided with the corporations in the early stages before public opinion became unstoppable.

So up till now, it was always big corporate money vs. private individuals sending in small donations. If it was just about money, no environmental cause would ever win. But now it seems things have turned around. Now the big money, according to Kathryn, is behind the environmentalists. And if Martians had money, that would also go to the environmentalists.

Now it's time to stop and think. A reality check in other words. If Martians existed, their support would not go to the environmentalists on Earth. And if anybody has a lot of money, it is not environmentalists, it is Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Suncor and the like.

Exxon Mobil's Market Capitalization is 412,016.05M (I normally cannot count that high, is that 412 billion dollars?)
BP's Market Cap is only 139,661.83M (And that is AFTER the money spent in the Gulf oil spill.)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/markets/stocks/summary/?q=XOM-N

"Dogwood Initiative" as a non-profit organization is not listed on the stock exchange. It is based in Victoria B.C., and apparently its most recent campaign was to put stickers on loonies to oppose oil tankers in British Columbia waters. If you want a ballpark estimate of their financial resources, I would think under $100,000. (Or as they say in the oil business 0.01M) That means Exxon alone has about four million times as much money as Dogwood Initiative. (if my guess is right).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogwood_Initiative

It looks to me like not much has changed in the environmental debates. It is still the local people pooling their puny resources against giant mega rich multinational corporations and their puppet governments (like Canada and the US governments for a start Yes Obama that means you.). Now if by chance some money should come to Dogwood Initiative from a "foreign" source like Greenpeace, let's remember that Greenpeace got its start in BC and became a worldwide organization later. And that fundamentally, it is still supported by small contributors around the world.

But even more important is that the global warming debate is a world wide concern, and it is natural that world wide support should be available for decisions that have a world wide impact.

I believe that by framing this debate as a purely Canadian internal matter, Kathryn Marshall is attempting to dismiss the global warming issue entirely.

I looked up the funding for "Ethicaloil.org", Kathryn's organization and found out that it does NOT accept foreign funding. (Greenpeace is specifically mentioned as a foreign source that they (or she) will not accept money from). She does accept donations from "individuals and companies, including those working to produce ethical oil". Kathryn does not list the companies producing "ethical oil" but Exxon and BP would probably be acceptable according to her own definition.

http://www.ethicaloil.org/about/

So, to summarize. Despite the conservatives and oil company propaganda to the contrary, the big foreign money is still 99.9% on their side. And no matter what Harper or bloggers like Kathryn say, some Canadians (including me) are still in favour of limiting corporate damage to planet Earth. Now let's get back to a sensible debate about things that matter before I start asking questions like "Is Kathryn a Canadian?".

Picture: Some random pipeline I got off the internet, I think our new pipeline is still on the drawing board.

What Are Christians Doing About the Environment?

One thing I do not understand at all is that true Christians are not doing anything to save the environment. Jesus told us to love our neighbours, and the poor, even our enemies. I guess He forgot to tell us to also love our great great great grandchildren.

Jesus told us that the rich would find it hard to go to heaven. So you would think that He would like it if we could cut back on our luxurious greed driven lifestyles. But instead we continue to waste resources, which in turn destroys our environment.

It's about time the Christians whether Roman Catholic, or born-again fundamentalists or anything else, to make up their minds, and choose - either conspicuous consumption or moral leadership.

University of Guelph Economics Department Spreads Corporate Propaganda

My title may be a little unfair, as I have only really heard the opinions of two of its professors, and maybe there are many more who do not spread corporate propaganda. But still, something is going on at the University of Guelph Economics department. For the second time this year I have found out that one of the professors is committed to the anti-global warming cause. A month ago, I wrote about a lecture I attended by Glenn Fox (also a professor in the University of Guelph Faculty of Economics), this blog:

http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2011/02/glenn-fox-phd-lectures-seniors-on.html

Now I read an article by Ross McKitrick in the Vancouver Sun, about Earth Hour "Why I will leave my lights on".

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Earth+Hour+will+leave+lights/4498889/story.html

He also wrote a book "Taken by Storm" skeptical of global warming.
http://www.takenbystorm.info/

So at least two outspoken critics of global warming or use of green power sources on the UoG faculty of Economics.

Here is McKitrick's CV page at UoG

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/cv.html

And, in case you could not predict, it lists him as Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute, Vancouver B.C.

I find McKitrick's piece in the Vancouver Sun "Why I leave my lights on" to be about as offensive as the drivers who tell bicycle riders "Good thing you ride a bike, it leaves more oil for our Hummers." By the way, I am not accusing McKitrick of saying that, because that would be a "straw man argument" and unfair to him.

But McKitrick did say this: "The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity." Now that is straw man argument. In fact his entire argument against Earth Hour is one long straw man argument, that people who turn off their lights hate electricity, instead of showing respect for our resources. I have never seen one single person who turns out their lights for Earth Hour who "hates" electricity, or is trying to demonize it.

Such arguments are not only illogical, but unworthy of university professors. The University of Guelph is letting itself become a source of corporate propaganda, instead of an institution for learning.

And in case you were wondering, I can tolerate debate and discussion. But neither of these professors seem to stick to logic, nor do they seem to consider both sides of the issue. That's why I think they are propagandists.

Prosperity Lake, Fish Lake Controversy in Cycle Canada

Although I have writing this blog from the point of view of a motorcyclist, you can easily see that I have not restricted myself to writing only about motorcycling. Because I do not believe that motorcyclists should stick to talking only about motorcycling, and should sit down and shut up about everything else, such as the environment, hypocrisy, lies, and deliberate distortions in the news media. I could have separated the the blog into two, one for only motorcycling and one for everything else, but I did not, and of course that somewhat restricts my readership. Not that it makes much difference to me as it is a non commercial blog anyway.

Today I was quite impressed that Cycle Canada seems to agree with that attitude. In my new April 2011 issue, it came to my attention that Cycle Canada had written an opinion about the environment in March 2011, because one of their readers, John Northey of Port Moody, B.C., wrote in to complain about it. Forgive me, I did not notice it when I read the March issue last month, or if I read it I sure don't remember. John Northey wrote a letter to the editor, complaining that Neil Johnston (the author of the Cycle Canada piece about Prosperity Lake) "broke away from a ride experience to create a political polemic, which has no place in your publication. I am certainly not averse to controversy in Cycle Canada, as long as it relates to items about motorcycles and motorcycling. Johnston may have some experience with mining, but that does not give him latitude to make judgments when others with vastly more technical capability remain hard at work to resolve environmental issues in the Prosperity and Fish Lake situation."

This was the answer by the editor (Neil Graham)

"It stuns me that, as a man who expresses great affection for B.C. wilderness, you would so easily leave the region's future for others to decide. To have written a piece about Fish lake and not to have delved into the controversy would be a sacrilege - as well as shoddy journalism. And these "others" that you speak about, with "vastly more technical capability", wouldn't happen to be members of the Liberal Party of B.C. or employees of Taseko mining, would they? Before we are motorcyclists, we are citizens of this land, and sometimes it means standing up and exposing hypocrisy and double-speak. --Ed."

I say thumbs up to Cycle Canada on two counts. One, the courage to stand up and speak on a controversial issue, that is not normally covered in motorcycle magazines. Second, for the judgment to speak out on something that is worth speaking out for. I would actually not be very pleased if they spoke out against the environmentalists on this. I feel that we are already getting an overdose of right wing corporate propaganda in the media.

But that does bring us to another issue. If Motorcycle Magazines (or blogs) are going to start giving opinions on politics, religion, and the environment, which opinions should they give? Wouldn't it be better if they left it up to right wing or left wing bloggers, or the National Post or MacLean's magazine? In a perfect world, where we were not bombarded with propaganda from corporations and hatemongers, I would think that motorcycle magazines should avoid anything but motorcycling topics. But in a world that is gradually slipping into the corporate mindset (example, believing the mining company's promises that there would be no pollution), we need more and more people willing to take this kind of action, before it's too late. Already, large numbers of people have their heads in the sand about out economy slowing down, about oil resources depleting, about overpopulation and pollution, and global warming. I don't want Cycle Canada to become like my Greenpeace magazine, but say enough for us to know that they don't have their head stuck in the sand too.

Bird Designs and Intelligent Designs

Last night I was at the monthly meeting of the Kitchener Waterloo Field Naturalists Club (KWFN). I am a member of the club mostly because of Mary Ann's interest in bird watching and nature. But I have to admit that I am not as highly interested in birding as she is. However last night three people from "Wild Ontario" did a presentation at the monthly meeting that even got my attention.

http://www.kwfn.ca/meetings.html
http://www.ourwildontario.ca/

They brought four live birds to the meeting, a Kestrel, a Broad Winged Hawk, a Great Horned Owl, and a Turkey Vulture. These birds had been rescued, but because of permanent injuries it was not possible to release them back into the wild. So the group has a public education program that uses the birds to teach people about nature. I certainly learned a few things from their talk, which seemed to be geared to hold the interest of anyone from five years old up, and I'm thinking even the most avid birders at the club meeting must have learned a few things too.

Some of the things I learned?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrine_Falcon
http://earthsky.org/biodiversity/fastest-bird

I was especially interested in the adaptations that give the birds advantages in finding food. For example, the Peregrine Falcon is the world's fastest living thing at 349 kilometers per hour.

Peregrines use their dive speed to catch flying birds. And no it is not considered "cheating" to achieve this speed in a 45 degree dive. In nature there is no cheating, there is only catching food or not being caught for food.

The Kestrel uses its ultraviolet vision to see vole tracks. I never heard about this before, but apparently this discovery was made in about 1995. The Kestrel can also hover in one place, which not many birds can do.

The Great Horned Owl has three dimensional hearing and binocular (or 3D) vision. Humans also have 3D vision (useful for going to movies like Drive Angry 3D), but many birds have eyes on each side of their head which give a wider field of view, but give up binocular vision to do it.

The Turkey Vulture has quite a few adaptations that allow it to feed on the intestines of dead animals. While the Owl has no sense of smell, and therefore can feed on skunk, the Turkey Vulture can smell ethyl mercaptan, a gas produced when bodies begin to decay. This ability has been used to test gas pipelines for leaks, as vultures will gather if the line leaks and ethyl mercaptan is being pumped through it.

This presentation was an extraordinary opportunity to observe close up some birds I would rarely be able to see in the wild. Staring face to face with a Great Horned Owl, guess who blinked first? I have to admit that standing outside in the cold hoping to see a Spotted Wood Thrush a hundred meters away is not as much fun for me as having these birds inches from me in a warm, well lit room. I am obviously not a natural at birding.

But during the talk, my mind was wandering a bit. I was also thinking about comments I have seen on the Internet about "Intelligent Design". I'm sure many Fundamentalists would consider these birds further proof that it would take God's own intelligence to design all these wondrous abilities. I see it as quite the opposite. If God designed these birds, I would give him an A+. If he produced the bible, that would be about a D-. Unlike studying the bible, when you are studying nature, the more you learn, the more impressed you have to be. And sooner or later, I hope this could result in humans starting to have more respect for the environment than for an old book.

Picture: A Turkey Vulture. This is not Socrates, the one-winged Vulture from the show, it is a picture from this site. Socrates lost a wing in a car accident 23 years ago, and was the original bird in the Ontario Wild program.

Glenn Fox, PhD, Lectures Seniors on the Wastefulness of Green Energy

Yesterday I attended one of the "Third Age Learning" lecture series that Mary Ann has signed up for. I could go for $5, as a guest. Two to three hundred seniors are signed up for these lectures by respected authorities in various subject areas. The subject yesterday was: "Rural Economics and Green Energy in Ontario: It's not easy being green" by Glenn Fox, University of Guelph Professor.

http://fare.uoguelph.ca/users/gfox

I was quite appalled that this turned into what I thought was a one sided presentation of everything that was wrong with the renewable energy initiative in Ontario and in Europe. I didn't hear one thing that was right about green energy.

I am guessing that some of the 300 or so member of the audience were taken in, even though I did not interview every member of the audience afterwards. That's because Glenn Fox did sound "fair and balanced" without actually being fair or balanced. He avoided most of the outrageous claims of the anti-wind power advocates. Even when he was making an obviously outrageous claim, he presented it as an unlikely possibility. Also, being a university professor in economics, you would not have any reason to suspect him of twisting the truth. Of the two people in the audience we did actually talk to after the lecture was over, one of them was outraged at this one-sided presentation, the other stated that they thought it was fair and balanced. I don't see why a lot of other people would not match this very small sample.

The presentation itself was strictly from an economic viewpoint. With many statistics, bar charts etc, the professor made a case that renewable power was more expensive than hydro electricity, coal, gas, oil, or nuclear. In fact many times more expensive, given our current price of electricity to consumers in Ontario.

The same was done in Europe, going especially into Denmark's alternative energy and Spain's. Glenn stated that Denmark lost a huge amount of money to Norway and Sweden, who bought excess wind energy at cheap prices and sold back Hydro energy at peak prices.

Then he matter-of-factly stated that there was no known inexpensive way to store electrical energy from wind power, even though the case of Norway and Denmark was an example of how Hydroelectric generators can be used for this purpose, and how Norway was making money on this principle.

The professor even managed to toss out a few truly outrageous claims without anyone being able to call him on it because of the humorous way he did it, for example some Russian scientists have advanced a theory that oil in the ground does not come from geological plant matter, it it spontaneously generated.

When asked about the fact that oil is non-renewable, Glenn Fox mentioned that new technology could extract ever more oil from the ground, and that we had no idea how much oil could be discovered in the future. And yet, he never pointed out that speculative "new technology" could also help with renewable energy.

One question I asked was about his assertion that 5 jobs in Spain had been lost for every megawatt of wind power installed. I asked how this was possible, and he admitted that while there was more employment in the electrical segment of the economy, the rest of the economy had overall lost jobs because of the increase in the price of electricity, which he said had forced businesses to close. What this sounded like to me, was that this "fact" had assumed that every job lost in Spain was being blamed on wind power, because I don't believe it is actually possible to directly connect any single unrelated job loss in an economy to the cost of electricity. Anyway, this "fact" should have been the subject for a debate, or not presented at all, but it was simply presented as a truth. Many people might have come away with the idea that wind power normally costs the economy 5 jobs per megawatt, simply because it was impossible or unrealistic in the context to challenge the professor. (Questions were to be written on a slip of paper and handed in anonymously, which discouraged confrontation. This is the format of all the lecture series apparently, and yes it makes sense in a fair minded lecture, but not if the professor is only dealing to one side.)

I would not have minded if this lecture was any way fair to the controversy, and yes, there is a controversy. But the professor never even stated why we were trying to use renewable sources in the first place. Unless Mary Ann had asked about running out of oil, I don't think that would have received even a mention. Glenn made no mention of global warming or climate change, other than a reference to possible environmental costs that might theoretically be added to any of the energy alternatives. It was never mentioned how much these costs might be, though. And it was obvious that these costs would never really be added because they could not be quantified by conventional economists or accountants.

There was no mention at all of the amount of money that Middle Eastern wars have cost us, even though I wrote a question about it on a piece of paper and handed it. It was simply skipped over. I could see there were several other questions he also just skipped over without having to even mention. At least if questions are asked from the floor, the audience gets to hear the question and maybe it will give them something to think about, even if it is ignored.

In the end, I was quite resentful of being ambushed by this 2 hour long brainwashing session dressed up as an educational opportunity.

Further research into Glenn Fox finds him on the Fraser Institute website, a conservative think tank in Canada. He participated in "Taking Stock of Environmentalism", a research paper attacking "The Precautionary Principle", which may be one of the philosophical foundations of environmentalism. The paper is available for free download from their site. I hope it's not an April Fool's joke, but the date of the paper is April 1, 2000.

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/research-news/research/display.aspx?id=12812

Glenn Fox's contribution to the paper was described:

"The Ambiguous Advice of the Precautionary Principle. The manner in which the Precautionary Principle is typically invoked is one-sided. It recognizes one category of unseen consequences but not another."

Picture: Glenn from his UoG web profile. The subliminal message given in Glenn's picture is "gentlemen, start your engines". I should give him some credit, at least, for not being in the driver's seat of a Hummer.

How Is Oil Sand Sludge "Essentially Like Yogurt"?

Here is a story that combines propaganda (or PR) and English/French cultural differences in Canada.

In the Globe and Mail

"The Alberta oil patch has avoided potential embarrassment after Advertising Standards Canada ruled that an advertisement that compared toxic oil sands effluent to yogurt did not mislead viewers."

The advertisement was put out in English and French. The English advertisement stated that the oil sands tailings effluent was "essentially like yogurt". The French version said it "had the consistency of yogurt". The English version was protested by the Sierra Club of Canada as misleading, and the English version ad was pulled. The French version is still up.

We learn from this story that the Advertising Standards of Canada does not have a problem with an ad that states toxic oil effluent is like yogurt. According to the ASC, this level of distortion is normal, and well understood by society. They said it is a way to explain the consistency of the effluent, not a statement about it's toxicity.

It is a mistake to think that advertising and PR is a communication like a normal email or conversation. In advertising, PR, and propaganda, every word is studied and every sentence crafted carefully to manipulate the audience's responses, both conscious and subconscious. Every word is carefully considered for its impact, and for whether it has crossed the line from exaggeration into outright lying. The message of the ad is that oil effluent is not so bad. Some marketing person must have had the idea that they could compare the sludge's consistency to yogurt, and furthermore they could leave out the word "consistency". Probably some other people said "I like it, but wouldn't we get slapped by the Advertising Standards Council for lying?". The marketing person replies "Nawwww! we do it in advertising all the time. We can say it's like yogurt, and then argue later that we meant consistency, and only a fool would actually try to eat it. "

Then, they got the ad translated into French. I was not there to hear the conversation, but I can imagine the French interpreter saying. "We're going to need that word "consistency" in the French version." English marketing person says. "Why?". French translator replies "Unlike the English Canadians, French Canadians who hear the ad will react negatively if we try to tell them the sludge is essentially like yogurt." English marketer: "Those French people are such liberal bleeding hearts. Well, we have to go with your recommendations, because you know the French audience better than we do."

Apparently, the English marketer was right in one way, the ASC let the statement stand uncorrected. But when the Sierra Club complained, it was the sponsors of the ad who backed down in embarrassment, and pulled the ad.

It proves that despite the American influence, some English speaking Canadians have some ability to detect bulls**t in advertising.

By the way, in case it was not obvious: When all the propaganda is stripped away, nobody cares about the "consistency" of the toxic sludge. I am quite sure that the word consistency is being misused anyway. (Do they really mean "viscosity"?) What people actually care about is that birds coated with this sludge die, and that it is very hard to clean off without help. I have not tried this at home, but I'm betting that if you dunked a bird in a vat of yogurt, it would have a much better chance of surviving on its own than if you dunked it in a vat of toxic tar sand runoff. That's what people really care about, and this issue of "consistency" is nothing but a standard advertising ploy. The only similarity between yogurt and oil sludge is that they are both semi-liquid, and whether the ASC permits it or not, it is ridiculous to mention both in the same sentence.

Picture: from this web page

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jmogerman/the_crude_in_syncrude_ugliness.html

Can We Learn Something from Caribou about Environmentalism?

There may be a debate about whether we should use wind power, about whether global warming exists, or if oil is indeed running out. But in that debate, I feel there is no doubt that one side is treating nature with respect, while the other has a superior attitude. As if Man can defeat nature with his immense brain and technology.

There are some lessons to be learned from native people about our relationship to the environment. Here is a story I found in Goliath

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5961784/Knowledge-learning-and-the-evolution.html

"According to narratives by Chisasibi Cree elders in the 1980s, a disaster occurred in 1910 at Limestone Falls, near the center of the Quebec-Ungava peninsula (Berkes, 1999, chapter 6). Equipped with repeating rifles that had just become available, hunters abandoned their hunting restraints and conventional ethics of respect for the animals, and slaughtered large numbers of caribou at the river crossing point. The caribou had already been in decline along the Hudson Bay coast. Following the event at Limestone Falls, the herd disappeared altogether from the lands hunted by the Cree and did not reappear until the 1980s. The Cree believe that all changes occur in cycles, and the elders at that time had predicted that the caribou would return one day."

You could argue that it was not one bloody and wasteful slaughter of the animals in 1910 that caused the caribou to disappear for over 70 years. After all, the caribou were already starting to dwindle. But there is no doubt that there was a lack of respect for nature in that 1910 hunt with the newfangled repeating rifles. Secondly, the lack of respect that year was a break from the traditional ways of hunting. The subsequent disappearance of the caribou certainly gave people a pause for thought. Over the next seventy years, the story was retold about the arrogance of the hunters in 1910, so when the caribou reappeared in the nineteen eighties, it didn't take too much to convince people to be respectful, and not wastefully kill the animals.

Are we to take this story as an example that being respectful toward nature is good? Or is it an obvious ploy to con the superstitious natives?

There are many such stories told all over the world, of native groups who have either managed their resources carefully, or wasted them. Some have survived, and some have disappeared. Funny thing is, it is not always the natives who manage their resources well who survive, and being wasteful does not guarantee the humans will not survive.

My own feeling is that it is better to show respect for nature than to wantonly destroy it. You may call that a spiritual feeling, because I sure can't prove it is scientific. You could also call it Karma. Something rings true about people who are most boastful, and wasteful, and full of themselves falling hardest.

If we go back to the same time, about 1910, it was believed that the cod on the Grand Banks were so plentiful they would never run out. And we ran our fishing industry on that belief, until the cod actually ran out. Luckily, with our global system of commerce, we can continue to snack on fish that comes from China as easily as the stuff that used to come from the Grand Banks. And as species get depleted, instead of protecting them, we continue to eat them at a great rate. Bluefin Tuna is endangered? Great, I think I'll order some for my dinner. That attitude shows a lack of respect for nature.

I'm sure people have some natural instinct to be respectful of nature, but somehow it is being lost in our modern global economy. Maybe it is propaganda that has got us convinced to consume, waste, throw stuff away without a guilty conscience. Maybe if we had a chance to think for ourselves, we would be cautious, and take only what we need. It may also make us happier people. We are certainly not that happy in our consumer-oriented throwaway society.

But ultimately, we may need about a 70 year catastrophe to convince us to be frugal with out resources. And then, we can just pray for a second chance. Imagine that we ran out of oil for seventy years. Seventy years of hearing stories from our elders about the old days, when people drove Hummers "just for the hell of wasting oil". Then one day, someone finds a new, huge reserve of oil. Do you think it would take much to convince those people to take the bus or a train instead of a Hummer?

Propaganda Alert: James Lee is NOT an Environmentalist

According to ABC news "A radical environmentalist who took three hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters while wearing what police may be explosives was shot and killed by officers, police said."

I am asking ABC News to retract this blatant lie about environmentalists. Even if it was actually true, that James Lee was an environmentalist, it would still be propaganda to link the environmental movement to someone who went nuts and tried to take hostages.

But so far I have seen no proof that this guy was any more of an environmentalist than Charlton Heston. I think we actually have some pretty strong proof that this guy was actually more of a teabag carrying gun nut than an environmentalist .

What is the basis for calling this deranged person an environmentalist? Did he ride a bike to the crime scene? No. Did he recycle all his left over pop cans? No. Is he a vegetarian? Maybe. Does he keep his air conditioner up at 78 degrees? No. Does he belong to the Audubon Society? No. Does he contribute money to the "Save the Whales" campaign? No. Was this action part of a Greenpeace protest? No.

Actually, the evidence of James Lee being an environmentalist was taken from his website manifesto. This manifesto actually has a lot more in common with Glen Beck's Teabaggers than it does with the Environmentalists

He suggests putting a game show on the Discovery channel to give ideas on how to live without giving birth to more "filthy human children", since those new additions "are pollution". Environmentalists have never used to word pollution to refer to anyone's children or babies.

"All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease" That would be a pacifist position, not environmentalist. By the way, pacifists who use guns and strap explosives to their body are also rejected by the pacifist movement.

"Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and
the anchor baby filth that follows that.... FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH
AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH!"  (that is pure right wing racist stuff, not on any environmentalist agenda I know of. But a very popular point of view with the right wing.)

"Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy." Too general to distinguish between right and left economics.

"THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! all human procreation and farming must cease!" The end of procreation and farming have never been discussed, to my knowledge, by environmentalists. Although, to be fair most environmentalists do believe that farming does take away habitat from wildlife. But most environmentalists also know that there is a big difference between the amount of land and water used to produce meat and what is needed to produce fruits, grains and vegetables. If James Lee actually knew anything about environmentalism he would at least be aware of this difference.

How to Stop an Oil Spill (Seriously)

As much as the oil spill bothers me, just for the environmental damage, something else is more annoying right now, and that is the conservatives asking Obama to save them from the big oil spill, and that the government, not BP should not be deciding how to cap the well.

Conservatives are now blaming Obama for not plugging the oil spill. In trying to make the blame stick, they certainly have one thing going for them. The spill is near New Orleans, and so the charge that this is Obama's Hurricane Katrina has some credibility, for people who don't realize that this is not hurricane related.

How soon we forget "Drill, Baby, Drill" which was the Republican mantra in the election campaign.

There is another conservative dogma, that big business can do everything better than the government. It is also forgotten, while they complain that the government should be in there telling the oil companies how to cap the well. I have never believed that private enterprise was always better than government, but even I would leave this one to the people who know how the oil rigs work, and they are the oil companies.

I think that neither the Democrats or Republicans would do a good job of plugging that well, and maybe the only solution is to let the oil companies try. I don't like the idea that the oil companies are failing, and have not tested some of these emergency methods, but there is nothing worse than somebody interfering in an emergency repair effort. Doesn't everybody know that already? Let me make it more clear. If your wife was undergoing life threatening surgery, would you run into the operating room to yell at the doctors and tell them what to do and how to do it? If you answered no, you are just like me. I would not go in there myself, and I also would not send the government in there to "help out".

Even though people are getting frantic, it is best to let the experts solve the problem. Do not panic and make things even worse.

If Oil Spills Are Natural, What Else is Natural?

Just in case somebody starts reading this and starts thinking I am a BP shill, I am not. I do want to live in a clean, natural environment. But at the same time I want to know the truth about the oil industry's arguments to continue drilling in sensitive areas. And I use oil myself. It takes time to sort through the hype on both sides.

Fox News came out with a revelation that puts the BP oil spill in perspective. Oil spills are perfectly natural. There is actually more oil coming in to the oceans from natural seepage than from the BP spill.

I have a reference right here in case you need to look it up.

So Rush Limbaugh and Fox News do have a point, although you rarely hear the oil companies making this point publicly. The truth is that they spill less oil overall than all the natural seepage from oil reservoirs under the ocean world wide.

Does this automatically mean that we can forget about oil spills? Of course not, because local concentration is important, and damaging. The fact that oil has been seeping for hundreds of thousands of years means very little to the people of Louisiana who are trying to fight off a tide of oil that may come ashore any day now.

Nature is kind of harsh. Just because something is natural does not mean it is good. Just because it is natural does not mean we will not suffer horribly if we get a heavy dose of it.

Environmentalists often give the idea that nature is all good, that nothing bad can exist in nature. This is not true, and most environmentalists don't believe this childish idea themselves, but it takes time to explain the complexity of reality. Obviously diseases are natural. Mosquitoes and black flies are natural. Freezing cold is natural. Floods, tornadoes, lightning. Sometimes we forget that space and the moon and Mars are natural too, but nothing lives there. And more than anything else, we forget that mankind is natural. And mankind includes the Nazis, the Commies, illegal immigrants and Republicans. Even Rush Limbaugh is part of nature, although Fox News is not, being a technological/electronic artifact. Something else that is not natural, and never has been? Windmills of course.

A more accurate image of nature would be this. In the entire universe, there is a very small place where life can survive. It is called the surface of the earth (give or take a few miles up or down). On much of the surface there is an environment, an ecosystem, that is self sustaining and balanced. This is where all known life exists. A few seemingly unimportant changes to this ecosystem, could alter it to the point where it will longer sustain life.

Many environmentalists believe that human activity is creating an imbalance in nature, so large and so fast, that nature cannot respond. Our technology, together with our rapid, unchecked population growth are changing some of the characteristics of our environment that may lead to catastrophe, or maybe not.

Some people would like to slow down our technology and examine the issues scientifically, others want to keep going and assume the environment can handle it. In a logical society, probably both points of view would be considered, and the more cautious approach would likely be taken. But we do not live in a logical society, we live in a society driven by politics and money, and informed by propaganda and name-calling. The cautious approach, and planning for the future are often pushed into the background by greed, obstinacy, ignorance, and the ever present desire for more comfort and convenience.

So what does it matter what the truth is about oil spills? In the broad perspective, the Earth has absorbed bigger assaults, and in an even broader perspective, our society does not have an intelligent decision making process.

That is why in the end, I personally think less drilling, and also higher taxes on oil make sense. We need to tax oil in order to give alternate energy sources a chance to compete and develop. But obviously not everybody takes the same lesson that I do from the facts presented.

It would also be perfectly natural, in the strict sense of the word, for all life on Earth to be extinguished. And that is another perspective for you.

Picture: Artists' conception of New York after all humans are wiped out by something or other.

Who is to Blame for the Oil Spill?

Deepwater Horizon was a "dynamically positioned" oil platform, which is actually a floating platform controlled by computers and positioned by propellers to maintain a steady position. This is what caught fire on April 20, 2010, and sank two days later, and resulted in the oil spill currently messing up the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana.

The Deepwater Horizon drilled the deepest well ever last year, at about 10 kilometers. I'm not sure if this spilling well is the same one, because the Deepwater Horizon sank in water only 1 mile deep. At any rate, I did not even know that there was a competition going on for the deepest well ever. Now we find out.

So much for facts. Now let's get on with the mud slinging. In the absence of any conclusive evidence, many people are wondering who is to blame. Here are some of the players/suspects.

1. BP (British Petroleum) An oil company that thankfully is not Exxon or American, to take the blame.

2. Hyundai. The Korean company that made the oil rig in 2001, and also makes the Accent, a car which sells for $10,000.

3. Barack Obama, as Anti-Christ-in-Chief he must share some blame, especially after making plans to increase offshore drilling, and making statements about how safe the technology now is. Also, this is now being touted as "Obama's Katrina" by many conservatives, and also by Greenpeace.

4. Sarah Palin, was the inspiration for motto of "Drill, baby, drill" (although she was thinking of the Arctic near Alaska, but the principle is the same.)

5. Halliburton. Was doing the drilling, ex-company of Dick Cheney.

6. Environmentalists. Rush Limbaugh came up with the idea that maybe environmentalists sabotaged the rig. It was spread to Fox News by Dana Perino (Former Bush administration Press Secretary). The idea being, that since the Deepwater Horizon caught fire near to Earth Day, that the timing indicates it may be a plot by wacko environmentalists, with the goal of creating a such a disaster as to put an end to offshore drilling for all time. Although oil platform experts doubt that even Greenpeace, with their vaunted scaling capabilities would be capable of getting on to an oil rig unnoticed. But who knows? Some people think environmentalists are wackos. Some people (yes, including me) think Rush Limbaugh and his followers are wackos.

In the end, this may be a big enough disaster to do for offshore drilling what "Three Mile Island" did for nuclear reactors in the USA. At the very least it may persuade people that offshore wind turbines are not as ugly or as dangerous as they have been made out to be.

Picture: Deepwater Horizon on fire from Wikipedia

The Invisible Hand that Cleaned Up the Environment

I had not been made aware of the body of work by Pierre Desrochers, until I was sent this "Earth Day" article by a friend. According to the article, Pierre Desrochers is professor of geography at the University of Toronto and associate researcher at the Montreal Economic Institute.

I looked it up, just to be sure, and his own web page says he is "associate" professor of geography at the University of Toronto (in Mississauga), but on sabbatical leave this year. I will not get into a discussion of the difference between associate professor and professor, but I had a friend who went through this process, and it is quite a big difference. You can find Pierre's article here in the National Post.

This article has many "hot button" statements, so I am not surprised, from the tone of it, that Pierre is regularly attacked by scientists and "greenies". Not physically, or course, I mean like what I am doing here, which is to try to point out what is wrong with his statement. I'm just trying to do my bit in the cause of truth and fairness.

The statement I picked out for my own response is this one by Pierre Desrochers:

"It was not heavy regulation or green activism that was primarily responsible for improved environmental quality over the last few decades but rather a process inherent in the market economy, leading to ever more efficient innovations and an ever more economical use of resources. When will we see an Earth Day where it is finally recognized that the market’s “invisible hand” also has a green thumb?"

With that type of statement, it is not surprising to find that Pierre is getting a lot of his work published in the conservative Canadian newspaper "The National Post", or that he is working for the Montreal Economics Institute, which has been getting a reputation as a pro-free market think tank.

This statement directly contradicts self evident truth. So apparently it was not the environmentalists who pushed for a clean environment, it was "the invisible hand of the free market"?  This is, in my opinion, a bald faced lie. An attempt to not only revise, but actually "erase" the public perception of what went on in the last 40 or so years.

There were countless initiatives by grass roots activists, some of which led to big changes, for example Greenpeace fighting against nuclear testing, including the death of a Greenpeace activist and the bombing, and sinking of their ship "Rainbow Warrior" by the French Special Forces. But let me focus on something different, in one area only, one that I had personal involvement with, although not as an activist, but as a regular Joe car driver. Probably similar to everybody else who might read this blog. I am referring to the 40 year struggle to clean up automobile tailpipe emissions.

In the struggle to clean up tailpipe emissions, I don't need to look up anything in Wikipedia, because I practically lived it, as did anyone who ever lifted the hood of a car in anger since 1969. The result of the struggle is that today, car tailpipes are ten times cleaner than 40 years ago. I don't need an emissions test on my Matrix to tell me that. (although I do have to get an emissions test to renew my stickers). I can just wipe my finger inside the tailpipe and it comes out practically clean after over 100,000 km. of driving. On the other hand, I only need to ride my 1970 Honda CD175 around the city once to come home "smelling of motorcycle" as Mary Ann puts it.

The clean tailpipe movement started in California, as an answer to the smog which was choking the city and suburbs. It was not started by "The invisible hand of the Free market", but by grass roots activists and government legislation in California. It was fought every step of the way by the automobile manufacturers, and many regular car drivers like me, who objected to all these controls being placed on our cars and tried to defeat them. Did we ever blame the car companies for inventing these "clean tailpipe" technologies, as we regularly ripped them out of the cars? No, we blamed the extremists in the environmental movement. Everybody knew the car companies were against the controls. To be fair, some car companies were hard at work researching the problem to produce cleaner cars, but those were the Japanese companies, especially Honda and Toyota. GM, Ford and Chrysler, on the other hand tried every trick in the book to get around the controls, and one of the best was to get their cars classified as "trucks" to take advantage of a loophole in the laws. We all know where that went, as today more than half the "cars" stuck in traffic jams are SUVs and pickup trucks. Partly resulting from their over-emphasis on trucks and SUV's rather than research and development, both GM and Chrysler declared bankruptcy last year, while Toyota became the world's biggest automaker. Now that result might have had something to do with the "invisible hand of the free market", if it ever existed.

For at least 40 years, friends, relatives, car magazine articles, were all telling me that those crazy environazis were "ramming pollution controls down our throats". Frankly, I believed it myself. So now, with clean exhaust pipes pretty much a reality, the corporate spin machine is rewriting history. The new "reality" is that it wasn't the environazis after all who forced us to clean up the tailpipes. Now we are to forget everything we knew, and blindly believe that it was the invisible hand of the free market that brought us clean cars. This kind of blatant propaganda could only work if the public at large had an exceedingly bad memory, or were actually sheep. I don't think it will work, because so many of us actually were poking around under the hoods of cars. But just to make sure, I will ask the car mechanic a question, the next time I go for my "Clean Air" emissions test. I'll ask "Who is responsible for us having to get our tailpipes checked every 2 years?". Unless he or she is a regular reader of the National Post, and just bought their first car this year, I'm pretty sure I know what the answer will be.

Is This an Audubon Society Payoff Scandal?

Recently I received a chain email that the Audubon Society accepted millions of dollars to change their anti-wind farm stance and allow the erection of wind turbines to destroy bird populations. It was explained in the header:

"The Massachusetts Audubon Society ("MA Audubon") has been opposing the project from the beginning. They estimated that the turbines may kill up to 6,600 birds per year.

The controversy arose when MA Audubon changed their minds. They announced they would support the project on the condition that millions of dollars be spent to mitigate the ecological impact. As mitigation includes the monitoring of bird mortality and bird behaviour by ornithologists, this immediately led to suspicions of a conflict of interest."

If this were true it would be a little like CUSO taking a payoff to endorse the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor's policy of chopping off of hands of civilians in Sierra Leone. Or endorsing the bombing of native villages in the Sudan to clear the way for oil drilling. The Audubon payoff was not debunked on Snopes (as far as I could tell) so I had to investigate on my own.

First, to clear up a position. The Audubon Society has determined that while wind farms may kill some wildlife, they are a net benefit, based on our need to produce electricity in a way that does not promote global warming. And the Audubon Society also believes that global warming is a real threat, not a gigantic hoax cooked up by tree huggers. Which happens to match my own views, and those of my local Field Naturalists Club.

The timing of this "change of mind" and Payoff is not clear. But as of July 2005 (after the Feb. 2005 estimate of 6,600), the Massachusetts Audubon Society supported wind power. (I have the link below) As far as I know, all field naturalists clubs support the use of wind power.

http://www.massaudubon.org/news/index.php?id=200&type=editorial

In my opinion it is actually Exxon and the other oil companies that are fighting wind power with a well funded PR campaign, supported by conservative interests (for example, Harper, the PM from Canada's oil province, and Bush, the president from Texas). Here is a link to an article about the payoffs to climate change deniers.

This allegation about the Mass Audubon Society is illogical. It is based on the false assumption that Mass Audubon is a for-profit organization, with the power to grant or deny permits for wind turbines. It is actually a non-profit organization of enthusiasts that was asked to do studies on wind projects. The reason they get asked is because of their credibility as a non-profit organization, with a huge membership of people who know a lot about nature.

Mary Ann is an active member in the Kitchener-Waterloo field Naturalists club, which is similar to the Audubon society, in other words, a non-profit organization dedicated to birdwatching, and observing nature. Similar to the Audubon Society, they have no regulatory authority to stop wind turbines, but they are often asked to do environmental studies for a wide variety of reasons, including building and road construction. As a non-profit organization, they are not even allowed to make money (as in a profit), or they would lose their non-profit status. Greed and desire for money is totally absent in field naturalists clubs, from what I have seen. (While greed is the driving force of corporations, as they endlessly remind us)

The Audubon society is obviously concerned about bird deaths, but they are also concerned about global warming.

If we go back to about 2003 or so, there was a debate among all field naturalist groups, Audubon included, who were concerned about the impact of the new wind farms on bird population. That debate has long been resolved, and as far as I know, all field naturalists are pretty much in agreement, that although the turbines may kill some birds, it has to be balanced against global warming, which is already making entire species (of animals/birds/insects etc.) extinct. They are looking at the long term species survival. They are more aware than most people that lots of birds die all the time from cars, hunting, predators, cats, disease, tall buildings, starvation, even natural death.

The location of the first wind turbines caused a severe problem killing hawks because the towers were located on bluffs. The way hawks travel is by seeking out thermals (upward wind currents), then circling repeatedly gaining height each time, until they reach enough height that they can glide to the next thermal. So hawks will actually migrate along ridges, (which create thermal up currents) stopping to circle each time they need to gain height. If the turbines are placed right where the hawks stop to circle, the blades will kill a lot of them as they migrate. Hawks migrate in a very narrow flight path, and they circle where the winds are strongest. As long as the blades are not placed right in a migratory thermal updraft, the number of kills is acceptable.

There is a place called Hawk Cliff near Port Stanley on Lake Erie, where thousands of hawks can be seen circling at migration times. It is a spectacular sight, well known to local birdwatchers. If you place a turbine right there, it will cause a major slaughter in the spring and the fall. Yet new turbines have gone up on the lake Erie shore, placed in such a way that the hawks will not be circling around the blades, and very few are killed. Less than by local car traffic, for example.

Bird watchers are well aware of the behaviours of various birds, and are an excellent resource to advise on the location of wind turbines.

The killing of bats is another issue, which I do not have the current answer for. Apparently turbines kill a lot of bats, and it may be either where they roost, or how they hunt insects by sonar. I know a lot of people are looking in to the problem. And our local field naturalists club does watch bats, and in fact they own a bat detector which is used for outings to observe bats.

I don't have any proof that the Massachusetts Audubon Society did not take a payoff of millions of dollars to support the wind farms. But from what I know already about non-profit organizations, and the fact that the Audubon society early on decided to support wind turbines, and specifically, the Massachusetts Audubon was supporting wind turbines in 2005, I would say this story sounds false.

Picture: I took it this this morning along the Grand River. It's a hawk sitting really near, but I have a cheap point and shoot camera, not one of those monster zoom lenses. I was on an outing with the KW Field Naturalists, and they said it was a one year old Red-Tailed hawk, and they spotted it way on the other side of the river and waited for it to come over.