Richard Zurawski

Technology is nothing short of amazing. For the longest time the most amazing telescope in the world was the 200 inch Hale Telescope on Mount Palomar, in California. It taxed the technological infrastructure of the time to the max. It took, from start to finish, 21 years to make and revolutionized the astronomical world after the second world war. The mirror alone took 13 years to grind and polish and when it finally began operation in 1948 this telescope saw further into the universe than any instrument ever had.

Today we are riding the technology cusp at breakneck speed and astronomical innovations are again pushing the night sky envelope. A new generation of computer driven, multiple mirrored super scopes are on the drawing board. The largest, dubbed the overwhelmingly large (OWL) telescope has a series of mirrors that give it an effective diameter of 100 metres, a light gathering ability that is greater than all the major telescopes now in use combined! It has 4,000 times the area of the Hale telescope!

The new OWL, if and when it is constructed, will be able to peer right to the edges of our universe, see individual planets orbiting stars and cost more than a billion dollars to make. And it is so sensitive that it cannot be used without the most sophisticated software ever devised to cancel out the Earth’s atmosphere. Its foundations and the machinery that move it have to be impervious to the tiniest vibrations. Even a footstep would be enough to send out vibrations that could distort an image.

It will be the largest moveable piece of hardware ever created and is on the theoretical reaches of the materials used. Even if we wanted to build something larger, the limits to existing materials would prohibit the exercise. And it will take 20 years, from start to finish to build. But when it is completed it will create images that will revolutionize astronomy and what we know and understand of the universe. And no matter how we try, its virtually impossible to think of a way to pervert its use into something military or have an application other than to see, understand and learn.

Well, well, well. Another pronouncement from on high. It appears that climate change, according to the Vatican, is being over hyped by those doom spewing scientists and environmentalists. The exaggeration and hyperbole is not to be believed. Everything is under control. All that scare mongering about melting ice caps and unprecedented disasters are dogmatic opinions and distortion of the facts. The world is really fine. We’ll set you straight in the new year when the Vatican hosts its own climate change conference.

Hmmm. Let me see. Scare mongering? Now who could have a lock on that? Remember the Jews? The Vatican looked the other way during the holocaust, letting those Nazis paste yellow stars on six million, Jesus killing Juden. And what the Inquisition? Hell anyone? What about purgatory, birth control, repentance, damnation of your immortal soul? Who is scare mongering? What about the expressions “Fear of God”, “Vengence is Mine”?

The Vatican has a inglorious history. From its wars against Protestants, the Crusades, witch hunts, its Inquisition, persecution of scientists, its quite a list which I would say gives the Catholic Church the lock on what is scare mongering and what is not. It takes one to know one.

The Catholic Church burned Giordano Bruno at the stake for studying science and having erroneous opinions about the Catholic Church. Copernicus waited until his deathbed before publishing his Earthshaking treatise on the orbits of the Earth around the sun out of fear of the Church. The Church blacklisted that one. And what about Galileo? The fear of the stake made him recant. But under his breath he still had the courage to say “And yet it does move!”. A blind, old, brilliant scientist in fear during the last days of his life.

And now we have a pontiff again pontificating. If not that, what else I suppose? In a way I should be grateful. With a club like this, one with a history of so many miscues, mistakes and misadventures, I should happy that God’s rottweiler is not trumpeting an end to our climate changing ways. If he had issued a statement that would call for us to do something that would curb the melting of the icecaps, sea level rises and environmental extinctions, I would think it truly would be time to worry.

No Mr Ratzinger, stay the course. You and your Church with your pronouncements directly from God are what I would expect. More of the same. And after the disasters to our north and to the poor of the world, you will have so many more souls to minister to. Yup, another Zinger from the ol’ Ratzinger.

This man, our Prime Minister, is one amazing man. This past week he stood up in the House of Parliament and not only abrogated the laws of the land, but repealed the laws of physics. In one swell foop he told us that unequivocally, there would be no nuclear accident, no danger at all, if the nuclear reactor at Chalk River which produces half of the world’s medical nuclear isotopes was restarted, despite the warnings of our Atomic Energy Commission to the contrary. It appears that Harper has some information that the scientists who guide the nuclear commission don’t. Maybe its yet another missive from God that directs this man, our PM, to be able to by-pass what works for the rest of the universe.

I suppose it helps to be emphatic and self assured. Makes me wonder why we went to all the trouble of having a regulatory commission at all. After all, if safety is just a matter of polling enough people till you find those who agree with you then, we have nothing to worry about. Apparently the climate is also part of this divine purview as well. And not only that. If the scientists and specialists happen to disagree with you, recommend something that happens to be opposed to what you have dictated, accuse them of being partisan. Put them on the defensive. Make accusations that they have to defend themselves against. After all, a good offense is the best defense. It worked for MacCarthy back in the 1950s. Its tried, true and tested. Look how well it worked for G W Bush and his supposed weapons of mass destruction.

The laws of physics and nuclear power under the dictates of the PM. Now why didn’t we think of this sooner. It could have saved us a huge amount of trouble, time and money. If you just believe hard enough, pontificate, obfuscate and bellow you can achieve anything. So from now on, no seat belts when I drive, I believe that I am safe. And that nonsense about smoking and cancer, what a crock. So what if I have a few drinks and choose to turn on the ignition of my car and cruise the block. I am more relaxed if I am inebriated.

And while we are at it, all that stuff about evolution and Darwin and Wallace. Let’s get that straightened out too. Let’s rename creationism, call it intelligent design, and harass and harangue the educational institutions so that we can set our young people straight and show them what real science is all about.

Oh? I wonder why our kids are falling behind in the science and math compared to European and Asian countries. I know! Let’s harangue them and accuse them of being partisan and biased and soon they will see the light and aspire to our levels of mediocrity.

Yes, indeed! Praise be. Thank you Mr Harper….Mr Baird….we shoulda thunk about this sooner. Those eggheads at the AECL are full of it! (more…)

Yesterday a very interesting and frightening report came through the news wires about the climate change conference in Bali.

Our northern ice cap in the Arctic Ocean is now on its last legs. It has a matter of years, not decades before all the permanent summer ice disappears from the Arctic. Once that happens, be afraid, very afraid. For the first time in 130 thousand years we will have no summer ice in the Arctic. Its happening faster than even the worst case scenarios outlined by the IPCC. Why did the IPCC not foresee this and report it?

As is becoming more and more the case, the stalling and the obfuscation by a number of countries, including the US, China, India, japan and now Canada, had watered down the fourth report on climate change issued just a couple of months ago. The European Union countries and the third world had been pushing for stronger language and the inclusion of the more extreme scenarios. But pressure, enormous pressure, from the pro US lobby group, including our two fundamentalist sycophants, Harper and Baird, continue to obstruct any meaningful action, an act of stalling and sabotage worthy of the tobacco lobby.

Group after group has come away appalled at Canada’s inexplicable stance and rhetoric. It used to be that Canada was at the forefront of reasoned, intelligent science. Now we have compromised that reputation probably beyond repair.

By stating that Canada will not be part of any agreement unless everyone is part of it, we put yet another nail in the climate coffin. The weight of this powerful western block of have countries allied with the United States has the potential to make Bali an exercise in futility. We have sold ourselves for our own short term interests and fail to realize that we have achieved what we have in our technology because we have been able to grab the bulk of the world’s fossil fuel resources and in the processes poisoned the atmosphere with CO2. We live at the pinnacle of the world because our transportation grid, our electricity grid and our military might rests on the foundation of fossil fuels. We elect official who will do nothing in order to maintain this oh-so temporary balance, where we have everything and deny the rest of the world anything.

It is a great and national embarrassment that we send representatives like Baird who neither care nor understand the implications of the coming changes in climate on the world. We are as surely responsible for the coming deaths and misery we are wreaking on the world because of our lifestyles as if we were to declare war with guns and weapons of mass destruction.

As the oceans rise, the storms increase, the tolls mount, we should not delude ourselves that we are not responsible for the suffering and the destruction and the misery that could have been avoided.

All Season Radials. Now there is a phrase! Maybe in Florida or California there is such a thing, but in Canada, especially, it seems this year, it is the height of folly to suppose that one set of tires will fill the bill and provide maximum safety where the rubber hits the road.

All that keeps a car from moving in straight line once it is up to speed is the four small patches of rubber we call tires. And on each tire you have perhaps 20 square inches on which the most incredible forces are exerted. On a corner its those tires you have to rely on. a patch of rubber ten by ten inches that have to hold a tonne and half of glass and steel and all its inertia at bay while you turn the wheel. In the process on dry pavement the cost is a a layer of rubber peeled from the surface of the tire. On snow or ice or water, the tire has less to grip and in a worst case scenario your car or truck makes use of Newton’s best physics and continues on in a straight line until it can find a more convenient way of unburdening itself of the excess energy.

That’s just for turning a corner. Stopping is a whole order of magnitude greater.

Driving is the biggest killer and producer of injuries we have control over. Each year some four thousand Canadians die because of car related injuries. By donning proper snow tires, studies tell us that 25% of winter collisions could be avoided. Add to that the cost to insurances and repairs, emergency infrastructure and rehabilitation to those injured and the cost begins to settle in.

Canada is the second coldest country in the world and snow and ice is a fact of life, even if there is climate change. Our way of life rides on our tires. Snow tires cost so little and can provide so much. Talk a second to look at the treads of your vehicle. Once a collision happens its too late. Physics is physics.

Now that Christmas is upon us, it seems the wattage of light is everywhere going through the stratosphere. White, green, red, blue. No matter where you look there seems to be light streaming out everywhere. All in the name of spectacle.

But if you want a truly awe-inspiring spectacle, turn off the lights and take a few minutes to look at the incredible pagent that is our universe at night. Billions of ice powder crystalline points of light, each a star, planet. asteroid, comet or galaxy. Each with a story, a history, a myth that stretches back to the earliest human times.

If you live in the city and almost 80% of us do, chances are there is almost nothing left of the night sky for you to look at. It is obliterated by our artificial light, light for advertising, lights for lights sake. And as a result we have lost the precious jewel studded night sky.

Our first inklings of science came from the night sky. We learned about cycles, circles, orbits, time and mathematics from the night sky. The arts, philosophy, religion and thought were all stimulated by the night sky. The night sky played a huge role in the development of the sciences and our understanding of the nature of the universe. Today scarcely one in a hundred people could point out a planet from a star or know the incredible mythology that has played itself out in the heavens.

And not only do Christmas lights diminish the subtle beauty of the night stars, they also consume energy, energy from electricity. It is in the creation of electricity that yet another cost plays and pays itself out in the form greenhouse gases. Most of electricity come from fossil fuels being consumed. It has a burden of the environment, one that it can scarcely hold anymore. If that energy were needed for heating, cooking or for safety, it would understandable and maybe justifiable. But today, with the climate change issue hot on all burners, it is hard to imagine a reason for adding yet more of drain to the grid.

So maybe it is time to tone it down. Celebrate yes, enjoy the season. But turn down the lights. Look at the marvel of the night sky that our ancestors did and revel in its exquisite nature, subtlety and beauty. We have lost so much with our own crass motivations. Its too much of a good thing.

We are blinded everywhere with light. Its come to the point where we see less with the lights on than with them turned off.

How many politicians does it take to squander a planet? Take your pick. There are American, Japanese, India, Saudi and now even Canadian representatives who are playing Russian Roulette with rhetoric, pointing fingers at everyone except us.

Mr. Baird stop with the hot air! Enough already! This is a deadly serious. Climate scientists tell that the we are at 420 parts per million of CO2 and if we get to 450 we are in uncharted dangerous territory with no turning back. And at 3 parts per million per year increase we will be there in ten scant years!

So now we are hearing that we have to have every one side or there is no deal, we will not do anything and point fingers at the Americans, the Japanese, the Indians and the Chinese. Do we not get that water, air and climate are no respecters of political boundaries and that we in Canada are consuming thirty times our share compared to what is sustainable. Canadians consume, produce and take as much from the Earth as the entire continent of 600 million in Africa do!

So what if the Americans do not agree to cut back on CO2 emissions. Does it matter that the Indians and the Chinese have their own agenda? What does that have to do with our consumption, lack of planning, our ever increasing emissions and greed. To quote a great sage named Zappa, “the real world is high school with money!” We have a federal environment minister whose agenda is all about railing against the actions of others, about obfuscation, playing politics and doing nothing meaningful to halt our precipitous slide to oblivion. Talk about fiddling while the planet burns.

Just last week yet another damning study came forth telling us that the tropics have expanded in the past 25 year some 250 miles from the equator. Scientists knew that it was bound to happen. The problem is that they thought it was going to happen in the next 100 hundred years not the last 25! No explanation just yet, because the information is has just come to light.

Add to that another tasty tidbit. The IPCC report was watered down in its severity. The US, Saudi Arabia, Chinese and Indians pressured the committee to limit the language as much as possible. Even so its frightening. And still we have a politician who is representing us at the Bali conference, embarrassing not only himself, but all Canadians with his inexcusable rhetoric.

Its not his or Canada’s planet. It belong to us all, humans, ants, trees and all the myriad of species on this beautiful, frail planet. And if we want to be part of it in the future we have to stop with the hot air!

I would guess that this question is one that is dogging many people. What to do this Christmas? Is it better for the environment to by a getting a plastic tree to decorate or go out into the woods and find a real one to cut down and bring home.

Its a complex and interesting question. My suggestion is to do neither, but if you must do one or the other and are trying to make this an environmental yule, here are some of the facts as I see them.

The case for plastic/artificial. The artificial tree is reusable year after year. And it doesn’t involve taking a living thing out of the environment, killing it and then throwing it out after just a couple of weeks. Plastic trees are also less likely to be fire hazards. They don’t burn as easily and some plastic trees are actually fire inhibitors. And because artificial trees don’t burn, when they are disposed of they don’t release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The case for the real tree. While they live they convert CO2 into carbon, they take carbon dioxide out of the air. They do not involve the plastic industry which is a huge emitter of greenhouse gases and a massive spoiler of the environment. The tree when buried after it is used takes its carbon with it out of the atmosphere. And they are renewable.

The case against artificial: The tree will be around for a very long time. It uses fluorine and chlorine two very danger and deadly elements. It also come from the petrochemical industry and is highly energy intensive, that is, it uses up a lot of energy in its production. Shipping crude hurts the environment and destroys millions of animals yearly through spills and destruction of habitat.

The case against the real tree: You are killing something. You are taking a tree out of the environment which takes CO2 out of the atmosphere. Growing tress is a crop, a monoculture by and large and involves all the negatives of agribusiness like pesticides and deleting natural habitat. Then there is the trucking, preservation and cutting of the tree which involves a significant energy input.

As I said there is no simple answer. Old habits die hard, especially now that we have to consider the environment even when celebrating.

“When I was a boy”….How many stories begin with that statement? I can see you eyes glaze over as you read this, but bear with me. This is another story of the “Good Ol’ Days.” And no, its not “good’ because I have a faulty memory. Its something that I have revisited and tried on for size and find that, yet again, we, that is, you and I have been sold a bill of goods, by those amazing purveyors of BS.

So, with out further ado. “When I was a boy….we were poor”. Truly we didn’t have much, but on the other hand we had more than I see us, the boomers bequeathing to our progeny. I had a pristine backyard, a forest of trees, streams, lakes and fields to roam and wander in and explore. It was simpler back then and that simplicity was reflected in pretty much all that we did. Our kitchen, where my mother taught me to cook, because both she and my father worked out of the home and it was expected that I share the load of the family chores and responsibility, was a simple one. No cappachino maker, no juicer, no food processor, microwave or chocolate fountain to be found in our kitchen. The grocery store was just that, a store that stocked fruits, veggies, dairy and meat, served by locals who bought local and sold local. No elaborately packaged, prepared and chemically enhanced food stuffs with lists of strange and marvelous concoctions that would not seem out of place in my first year university organic chemistry text, a time when organic didn’t mean anything other than just that. It had nothing to with a yuppie quest for unadultered food. It wasn’t new and improved or value added, wrapped in p-lastic or hermetically sealed for freshness. It needed to be washed, peeled, prepared, flavoured (mostly with salt and pepper) and presented.

It got me to thinking that perhaps its not so much work to go back to basics, peel my own potatoes and carrots, make my own fruit salads, in short become my own middleman and do the work myself. And in truth, by the time I was done reading the list of chemicals in the prepackaged and pre-prepared foods, had looked up what in fact these chemicals were and then understood, it was far simpler and easier to just grab knife and begin the preparation.

I discovered this. Almost no meal from start to finish, takes more than 45 minutes to prepare, cook and serve. Compare this with the frozen microwaved marvels. By the time I was able to unwrap, put into dishes, assign a time, zap and serve, I found that forty five minutes was used up. But along with the roughly the same amount of time I also had a pile of chemicals, food that was laden with saturated fats, transfats, sugars and salt, not to mention the over packaged containers this food comes in. And it didn’t taste nearly as good!

I recommend you try this sometime. Ditch the processed, value-added, over packaged, microwave marvels and try out the fresh stuff. You’ll be surprised, save a whack of energy, eat better and save the land fills an extra trip.