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Tag: enviornment

OUR COUNTRY REEKS OF TREES

Published by NiteMayr on March 1, 2010
Obama and Friends
Credit to: OldMaison @ Flickr

The Olympics have come and gone and Canada has apparently won “The most medals Evar” by a host nation.  Which is nice I suppose.

With a price tag of 8 Billion and counting I hope that the balance sheet works out for Vancouver as the Recession continues unabated.  Right?  Around here I think people would be willing to literally shovel shit for work as the job market tightens into a tight ball like a potato bug and doesn’t show any signs of letting up; never mind the HUNDREDS of positions in the want ads.  If the news tells you that it’s poverty-aggeddon then you should behave like it is.

Good luck recouping those costs that have been laid out on your behalf;  by comparison the estimated cost (dollars) for each day in Afghanistan is approx. 3 Million (http://www.afghanistan.gc.ca/canada-afghanistan/news-nouvelles/2009/2009_02_25a.aspx?lang=eng)  with the expected total cost to be 11.3 billion.  Just think, for 3 Billion more Canada could have been saving Iraq too!  How exciting; huh?

All of that nonsense aside; the Winter Olympics have indeed brought out some nice nationalism in the Canadian people; allowing them to show again that even in the face of glorious victory they don’t destroy their own downtown in celebration.  I’m not naming names or anything; but at least one big fratboy neighbor on the Continent can’t really say the same.

Climate Change is Impossible

Published by NiteMayr on March 9, 2009

How is it possible that a planetary body that has endured ice ages, meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, etc can be said to be under threat by a puny species like humankind? How is it possible that we (as humans) continually overstate our individual and collective worth despite all evidence to the contrary?

TockTick

There it is, in once simple statement.  The Veritable “God of the Gaps” in Climate Change denial.  Humans are puny, how could humans take any hand in the alteration of the Environment?

One does not have to look far to see the veracity of the claim that human activity affects the local enviornment.  Trash and industrial waste go a long way to demonstrating the the localized power of human misadventure.  How about on a transnational scale?  Look at the Acid Rains that have ravaged the forests in Northern Ontario and Quebec, passed from plants in the USA and Canada.  What about Chinese pollution that reaches North America?

Doesn’t humankind sport the ability to crack mountains?

Doesn’t humankind have the ability to shirk gravity?

Seriously; there are people who use the internet every day and say “pfft, human achievement is nothing when compared to the rain and babies.  Babies are amazing mysterious things.”

I can type a few bits of text on a  box with wires in it and EVERYONE ON EARTH CAN READ THEM IF THEY HAVE A BOX AND SOME WIRES WITH ELECTRICITY IN THEM.  Why is it beyond some people to think that humankind might influence weather patterns a bit?

It’s amazing to live in a world with such people in it.  Dunderheads all.

Project Much?

Published by NiteMayr on October 27, 2008

The environMENTAL wackos are stooping to tactics of fear yet again, now trying to tell us we’re “too stupid” to understand that they want to screw us over with higher sanitation and energy costs while crippling the economy.

Yes, this is the ultimate goal of the the Scientists who predict envionmental collapse; they want to put their hands in your pockets.  They have a vested interest in taking cash out of your hands and putting it into their pockets.

It is easy to look at someone else’s opinion and just say, well you’re crazy and want to steal my gold, so I don’t have to listen to what you say. Why not?  If you do nothing, then die, what’s the harm?  Even if the Scientists are correct and in 50 years New York is under a couple of meters of water, how does that affect you? It’s not like you’ll care, you’ll just pick up and move, problem solved.

Right?

It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if it wasn’t for geologists (working for oil and mineral firms) and economics professors getting in on the action to tell us how foolish those guys are. If there is any justification for the person quoted above to just say it’s all hooey, they’ll take it.  If Ming the Merciless himself spring forth from the pages of Flash Gordon and pronounced that Global Warming is Hooey, you’d have half the pundits telling us how while Merciless, Ming has run a whole Empire and knows something about taking care of planets.   You’d have people fete’ing Ming at Values Voters summits, saying how he’s Right With God because believes in Dominion of Nature.

It’s that very phrase “Right With God” that drives a great deal of denyers to varying degrees.  There is this belief that humanity is so small in the world that there is no way that the Actions of a few billion people who consume gigatons of resources each year could affect the health of the Planet as a whole.  Just as God is so vast you can’t see or understand it; the Planet (as God’s special little playpen) is beyond Human Ken and therefore we can’t do anything to hurt or heal it, right?

Let's Revalue Long Distance Travel

Published by NiteMayr on July 29, 2008

So much for Democratized Travel.  I’m actually tired of cheap air fares.  Yawn, easy long distance travel via planes needs to be a thing of the past and I’ll tell you why.  Costs and Convenience.

I like convenient air travel, convenient, unhurried, non-volume based air travel.

Air Travel (even as late as the early 90s) was still kind of special.  It was a comfortable and expensive way to travel to a far-off location.  It was expensive and comfortable and they took great care of you.  You were an important customer because you paid so much and expected to be treated as a customer; not another chunk of cattle.

As prices have dropped and “competition” took hold, service has taken a nose dive and air travel has become as valuable as high speed BUS travel.  This has to change.

First and foremost, all air lines should cut flights by 50 % and increase the price of all tickets by 50%, right there.  Across the board.  All flights should now cost 50% more.  This will offset fuel and labor costs as they are now and set those remaining flights to a profit basis.

Now, you wonder about plummeting ridership, due to the increase in price, right?  How can this make sense for the airlines?  It should balance out in the end, the smaller airlines will end up consigned to commuter/airBUS style service; daily repeat flights between major centers.  These will end up being expensive, but reduced usage (perhaps less than twice a week) will make it into a boutique service, reducing security loads too.

Imagine the lines at airports having their populations halved!  The TSA could focus on real security, instead of high volume annoyance.

Imagine 50% less planes in the air!  The savings on fuel would be amazing!

Now, what about freight?  With less passenger flights, won’t freight suffer?  With fuel prices dropping (due to a 50% drop in demand) freight gets cheaper; meaning import and export prices can stabelize until real alternatives become viable.

As for business travel.  Why?  You can ship whole operations overseas!  Why do you need to go anywhere in person?  Let’s put the sales and personal politics of business in the past and save long-distance air travel for absolute needs and VERY special events.  We have the technology to allow for simultaneous meetings via cameras and video screens with people around the world,  lets leverage that.

To sum up, I am ephatically stating that we have to return to an age when air travel was expensive and exclusive and available only to the affluent, the vacationers and the wealthy.  Like it should have remained, and I’ll see you in the lounge on a 747 for a free drink and a complimentary meal.  Cool?

Environmentalists and Capitalists are Crazy

Published by NiteMayr on June 19, 2008

“There won’t be a ban,” Coun. Judy Bryant, the planning committee chair, said in response to leaflets urging Tim Hortons customers to fight against “banning drive-throughs in London.”

“It seems misleading to me. There is nothing in the recommendation that would indicate the city is planning on banning drive-throughs.”

But the group representing several fast-food restaurants dismissed that criticism, and attacked members of the committee who walked away from a unexpectedly large crowd of 200 that breached the council chamber’s fire code.

The London Free Press

…It is easy for these large chain restaurants to raise issues against the ban, but when it comes right down to it, it does affect the health of everyone! Just take the time out to watch, on a cool day, the vehicles idling 24/7, for the sake of a coffee/doughnut or some fast food!
POSTED BY: Dorothy Bere

It makes me wonder if perhaps a total ban on cars might be the goal here “we got by fine on horses and carts, why not go back to that?“

The best Letter on the Matter, almost the best Satire on the debate:

How about the traffic lights???? I frequent London DT’s on regular basis, and my experience is that daily I sit at traffic lights a lot longer than to get my coffee. The City, as a suggesion should put some effort at getting the ridiculously long lights such as, Highbury rd. to turn left on to Wilton Grove, that takes several minutes during the day and at least 10 min in the middle of the night; not only a waste of time but also a safety issue at night; also after the Malls in the city close, there is no traffic right, why do we still have to stop at red lights?…. City Hall Staff why don’t you take care of items that will improve traffic in London, instead of trying to make it worse…. Thanks for this oportunity.
POSTED BY: Patricia Ferreira

It always seems that whenever something is convenient, someone exploits it and someone wants it gone in the name of health or the environment (or terrorism or to fight pedophiles or the myriad other reasons).  The busybody nannies show up along with the “fuck the earth let’s make money” types in tow.  I think they all arrive in the same indignant-bus.  Each side takes up arms and marks their line in the sand and starts the mantra “The other side hates money/the earth/health” and they go at it.  Each side takes no real losses but hope to make gains in the future.  When the smoking ban came down I heard gloom and doom from the Bar Owners, but the bars seem to be just as full as they always were.  It seems that you don’t need a smoke to have a beer after all.  The smokers still smoke and recruit new smokers; so the people who needed to be “saved” are still at risk, but at least non-smokers don’t have to sit in the smoke anymore, right?

(BTW Hippies who smoke, suck.)

The same goes for bans on new Drive-Throughs.  The developers will eventually see that they can make more money from renting out huge lots of land as Parking (because the coffee addicts HAVE to get coffee in the AM) and they can snare more people into eating at their place because the customers have to see and smell the stuff when they walk in.  It’s a win for the nannies, because they get to say they put a stop to people idling in the drive through, forgetting that the worst of us will leave their car idling in the parking lot anyway.

In the end, both sides get their win and move on to some other cause.

I wish the abortion protesters would go away though.