Balancing the Egginox

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Two decades ago when I met my wife, she introduced me to a ceremony of balancing eggs on their ends at the exact moment of equal day and night in our portion of the northern hemisphere. I scoffed internally, but, out of love and half asleep, went along with the 2:00 am ceremony.

When at the exact moment of the Equinox, my egg snapped to attention, upright and perfectly balanced, almost like a gravitational field had pulled it upright, I was blown away. I became a believer. For every year since on the equinox in spring and fall, I have balanced my eggs.

Sometimes they stand for several days before toppling over, as usually happened when our then young son ran through the dining room. But never a year when the eggs did not balance.

Now some have suggested that, with extreme patience and a little glue, you can balance an egg on its end at any time of the year. Heresy! Consider the science of this. The axis of Earth is at 90º to the sun only twice a year in our tiny part of the world. Balance is perfect. No wonder the ancients took this time to cleanse, restore balance in their lives and begin to spin stories of the rebirth of the Sun King. It’s all geography.

That’s why the federal government released its budget this week … everything in balance, Well, for sure by 2023 … on the egginox.

You may laugh, but this afternoon, at exactly 5:58 p.m. eastern time, I will be at our dining room table, balancing our free-run, organic, Omega 3 enriched Golden Girl  eggs. I may not have faith in Conservative politicians, or in organized religions, but I have seen the Egginox light. And I believe!

***

p.s. You think we don’t have Passover eggs and Easter eggs for a reason? Really?

 

* image from snopes.com

 

Yellow Vests, White Pests

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 When the Yellow Vest Convoy rolled across Canada under the disguise of protesting an atmosphere saving price on carbon, every sane citizen in the country should have thrown their bodies across the highways to block the trucks. This climate change denying, xenophobic parade of pollution spewing  fossil fools should have been turned back to sink in the tar sands.

Instead, they will idle their trucks for a few days in the nation’s capital, get their undeserved CBC talking heads exposure, sensational front page headlines in the Sun for a few days, and two thumbs up from Andrew Scheer as he bottom feeds for votes.

Yes, wearing their true blue MAGA (Make Alberta Great Again) caps, the “United We Roll” mob will stomp and puff out their chests and chant until the diesel fuel runs out, at which point most of the audience will have passed away from toxic fumes. Just mention the words “Liberal and National Energy Program” in the same breath to a pre-Paleolithic Albertan, and you will spawn a Convoy.

Now, keep in mind that some of my favourite memories and old friends are from Alberta, and probably much of the fossil fuel I burned for years driving around the country. That was then and this is now. Alberta can’t hold the country hostage for wasting the legacy that Peter Lougheed saved up in the Heritage Fund.

Also keep in mind that the Yellow Vest organizers acknowledge that there were more than Albertans in the United We Roll Convoy as confirmed by Ontario’s Sault Ste. Marie  Yellow Vest organizer who referred to Canada’s immigration Minister as an “ugly n*****” responsible for flooding Canada with useless n***** muslim terrorists.” You get known by the company you keep, good truckers everywhere.

Nor does anyone deny that Alberta should be resurrected as an energy giant in Canada, If half the “energy” that the organizers put into this convoy went into transforming the oil extraction and pipeline sector into high tech renewables, the problem would be solved. Like when the blacksmith’s shops became mechanics garages that became computer analysis workstations. Change is inevitable.

However, the resistance to this change requiring job retraining and infrastructure transformation is at least more palatable than the white nationalist and white supremacist core of the Yellow Vest Convoy. Yellow Vests Canada bears little resemblance to the movement that started in France to protest growing fuel prices. In Canada, the Great White North, its goal is to quell immigration, not sign the United Nations’ migration pact, and stop carbon taxes and a sustainable development agenda.

In other words it is racist, environmentally illiterate, and dangerous.

It’s one thing to cheer for the good old roughneck who has to go back to school; it’s totally another thing to cheer for the fascists carrying the tiki torches.

The way I see it.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

*image from jwnenergy.com

Himalayan Meltdown

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The latest NASA Climate briefing contained the usual news about ocean warming, and sea level rise, and Arctic sea ice reduction, and polar vortex surges and more violent storms expected. But tucked away in all of this good news was an item that bothered me the most.

The Himalayan glaciers are disappearing at an increasing rate and expected to be gone by the end of the century. This is the tallest mountain range on the planet, the child of a great tectonic plate shift eons ago. The fresh water that flows off these glaciers doesn’t just inspire National Geographic calendars and yuppie expeditions.

To quote from the National Academy of Sciences Atmospheric Sciences and Climate Board: “The Hindu-Kush Himalayan region extends over 2,000 km across South Asia and includes all or parts of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. The region is the source of many of Asia’s major rivers, including the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra.”

Beyond concerns for planetary ecology, those waters and rivers replenish wells and irrigation systems for millions of people.

Teachers: here’s a good math lesson for your class. How many people live in those countries? Or a health question: What are the four basic needs of life? Or a geography/history question: What caused the collapse of the Fertile Crescent civilizations, the French Revolution, the Arab Spring uprisings, and the Syrian civil war?

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to calculate the social upheaval caused by millions of  hungry environmental refugees seeking water, food, shelter, and empathy on the remaining high dry lands of our Home Planet.

Add into this mix the news that 2018 was the fourth hottest year on record, and all five of the hottest years have occurred in the last five years. Stir in the United Nations Annual Food Security report that chronic hunger continues to be on the rise for millions of the world’s population. The conclusion is that if we exceed a 2ºC rise in global temperature, accelerating climate change will push us to a point of overshoot. In biological terms that means a whole lot of people are going to die from famine and the social chaos that follows.

The far religious right loves this scenario. Taking the world into Armageddon will only hasten the Second Coming and won’t The Rapture be delightful. However, speaking for all of the billions and billions of organisms on the Planet not enrolled in organized apocryphal religions, I’d rather not take the chance. We’ve been through serious mass extinctions before and the road to recovery is long and hard.

We have had all the information we needed to act wisely and well way from back in June of 1988 when the World Meteorological Organization announced: “Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment on the atmosphere of Earth whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war.” Yes, my friends, that was the conclusion of the Our Changing Atmosphere Conference in Toronto focused on global security thirty years ago.

Now, my friends, we have Doug Ford dumbing us down with his populist slogan about the “Job-Killing Carbon Tax.” As the humourous take on the lawn sign says, “Beware of Doug!” Putting a price on carbon is an absolute necessity. And strong environmental regulations. And a Polluter Pay Principle. Short term pain for seven generations gain.

I wrote several years ago that Earth is telling us, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.” When the bill comes, it won’t matter what our religious belief systems are. The Planet is agnostic and operates on the very simple rules of geography and ecology.

And you don’t have to take my word for it. I am just a citizen scientist and journalist. But the good people at NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration), NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the WMO (the World Meteorological Organization) and the IPCC (the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) seem to know what they are talking about. Or you can trust Doug Ford and Jason Kenney and Andrew Scheer and Donald Trump.

I’ll pass the deck, it’s your deal.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

  • image from dhakatribune.com

Bad Bill 66 – Beyond Schedule 10

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There were cheers of victory in environmental enclaves across the province when the Ford government withdrew the odious Schedule 10 from its Open for Business Bill 66. Don’t celebrate too soon, fans of the Greenbelt. The government just threw us a crumb off their “cutting red tape” table.

Schedule 10 was the easy victory. Some would say a planned distraction. Get all of the environmentalists worked up about saving the Greenbelt, and maybe the rest of Ontario will ignore what we’re doing to Energy, Education, Employment, and the Economy in the rest of Bad Bill 66. Ah, those same little “cutting red tape” tricks that The Common Nonsense Revolution used in the days of Harris and Giorno.

Let’s take Schedule 3 as an example. Changes to the Education Act will be the next hot-button item. Parents of young children are already up in arms about rumours of increases to kindergarten class sizes and the possible elimination of junior and pre-kindergarten classes. Anyone who has ever taught early primary education will attest to the fact that this is a special calling in teaching. I have often lectured that early years teachers should be retired with Honours on triple pensions after ten years. The last thing needed is an increase in class size.

Or perhaps Schedule 4 featuring changes to the Energy Act with the old metering switch-a-roo, or Schedule 8 might be of interest for those about to enter Long Term Care arrangements, or maybe Schedule 9 if you’re in the construction trades.

No, “my friends”, to intone Doug Ford, there are many reasons to look beyond Schedule 10 and threats to the Greenbelt. Bill 66 is simply a Bad Bill and should have been rejected outright. A good friend and well respected local politician said to me recently, “But Bill 66 is just another planning tool; it gives us a seat at the table.”

I replied to this concept with a quote from an indigenous Elder, “We don’t want a seat at the table. We want our own table.” If your current MPP and municipal polliticians are saying Bill 66 gives municipalities another seat at the table, it’s time to declare that the meal on the table is tainted and the water is contaminated.

Thanks but no thanks.

The way I see it.

***

Skid Crease, Caledon

Snow Plow Dazed

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It’s not the first shoveling of the driveway that gets you. You finish, the driveway is clear, your partner’s car backs out and away, you go inside to warm up and have a fresh coffee … and you hear it. The unmistakable sound of the snowplow coming. Your head droops heavily to your chest. You don’t even have to look out of the front door, You know it will be waiting.

Yes. The dreaded plow row. In our case, a two metre swath of high speed blade compressed snow thrown across the base of the driveway, I practice mindfulness, stretch and go out for part two.

My problem is that I love snow shoveling. I will go up and down the street helping the older folks. I used to enjoy this until my wife pointed out, “Honey, you are the older folk!” Still, if they couldn’t sink Molly Brown, they’re not going to stop me from shoveling!

There is a certain joy to the swish and toss of each bladeful of snow, to the patterns of removal that are like a Bansky in ice crystals, to the satisfaction of seeing the once knee deep drifts cleared, and the runway ready for takeoff. Until you hear the plow. There is not a snow shoveler among us who does not shiver in despair at the sound of the plow approaching. Some stand and curse with raised fists (I confess), and others merely retreat indoors for a cup of Zen tea, rest and return gracefully. Do not go gently into that snowy night! The roar of the plow is our call to action!

That and the sound of a neighbour starting up a snowblower. Top on my list of hated tools is the leaf blower, an obscene serenity obliterating device that was invented to consume energy and make the broom extinct. Curlers take note. Next is the snowblower. There you are, enjoying the tranquility of a winter day, gleefully tossing shovel blades of individually unique six sided crystals hither and yon, when the roaring motor and  burning stench of petrochemical fuel fills the air.

Sure, over zealous shoveling can lead to heart attacks, but that’s how winter thins the herd. Snowblowers thin the planet!  Alas, the days when real Canadians used to shovel their driveways seem to be fading.

Until that day is over, I stand, shovel ready to meet the plow!

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*image from hardhathunter.com