Avatar Trailer

I have a confession to make. I've never seen ET or Titanic. Shame shame yes but I was never really  interested in the stories. A boy making friends with an alien only to have ET leave him at the end or to wait 3 grueling hours just to watch a ship sink. Come on.

Anyways, thought I'd share the trailer to the upcoming blockbuster Avatar. The film has been getting lotsa hype on the interwebs. Apparently it is filmed with a new technology - a fusion of  live-action, 3D and CGI.

Whatever - it looks really cool.

Elements of the central plot include many environmental themes. I may check it out in the theaters come December.

Enjoy and have a great weekend !

Metallica Monday

So my week kicked off with a big bang. Literally. My BF took me to the Metallica concert on Monday. The first time I've seen them live and wow. Had to be one of the best rock concerts I've ever seen. Our seats were great!  Check out some of the photos (keep in mind the quality is crap - from my camera phone).

As for their set - the first few songs were from their latest album Death Magnetic. Although I'm not familiar with those tunes - very impressive.  From there, they went to a few fan favorites with Seek & Destroy and One. Then the fever-pitch rose with  Enter Sandman and Unforgiven. I have to say the highlight for me was hearing the epic Master of Puppets. If there's one song that defines this band (if that's possible), I think it's MoP. It was the showstopper that brought the crowd to a frenzy.


I'll be checking-in later this week with a new rant on the environment.

Until then, here's a very clever animated short for your viewing pleasure.

Binge and Purge

Don’t Be So Mayo

I still watch TV. Not as much as I used to because the commercials berate my consumer ID to a pulp that I actually care about the image I purvey by choosing a sandwich spread. Really. It’s mayonnaise folks. Eggs whipped in fat, 'seasoning' and chemicals. Really. I have the power to choose but is that choice a change or is it a transformation? Do I take the blue pill or the red pill? Do I Miracle Whip or do I Mayonnaise?

All right, enough of that. If you want to know more visit Nacho Underpants on the sandwich spread lowdown.

And the Emmy goes to...

Anyways back to the TV shows still worth my while. 2 of my favorites happen to be Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Both feature a strong premise, fantastic writing, acting and production values. Mad Men showcases the boom and bust world of advertising set against the challenging period of the baby boomer. Breaking Bad sees a high school chemistry teacher dealt a fatal hand in life go alpha-male working the crystal meth trade to support his family before he dies. Of course, most of you know the scoop and it's good to know they took home awards on Sunday for the best in show.

Another commercial. The latest Liberal spot claiming:

We can do better

Really. You can, I’m sure. Regardless if you’re someone, something or party it's possible but may never a have chance if the choice is Green Washing as the strategy.

The new slogan for the Liberal's should be the mantra for the Wind energy industry in Canada who’s capacity to generate a whopping 2,854 megawatts -- enough to power more than 860,000 homes and equivalent to about one percent of Canada's total electricity demand. (Source: Reuters)

One percent? Really. Wind energy's potential can equal 1% of the country's energy portfolio. Hmm. Really. My brother can get more output from a burrito & beer.

For more on this subject check out the tasty menu @ the new Steak & Eggs blog.

or

JoFergs & Skyler point vs. counterpoint on the wind debate.

And for something edgy, check out Jeff's trippy take on 1968.

As they say on TV, stay tuned and we'll hear from you on Twitter.

Canada's Energy Problem: Part 1 - Reality Check

Although I wish to see solar/wind/thermal energy thrive to the point where we no longer have to rely on fossil fuels I am not blind to the fact that humans need more energy than those technologies can currently provide. Our options at this point are limited, as these new innovations are being fostered and tested for large-scale use. What do we do in the meantime? Canada's government has proposed conservation, demand management, higher efficiency standards, fuel switching to natural gas, diversified energy sources as well as increased usage of renewable technologies. Is this enough? I'm not sure. Personally I think it is a step on the road towards a possible energy reform in this country that can hopefully meet Canada's voracious energy needs.

I realize I can post wonderful articles about the most amazing alternative energy technologies but unless they can be put in place within the next few years, it is impractical to look at them as the answer to all our current energy needs. In the documentary I posted in the popular Jarvis Street article, the future described by experts was bleak, particularly for the "American Dream" (I use the term loosely) of the suburban home and nuclear family as we know it. The idea of the suburbs becoming the ghettos of the future is alarming, a stark contrast to their current vaunted status, but if we are truly at peak oil, we must act now to preserve our future. 

Not all my fellow citizens share the same beliefs as me on many issues, particularly the environment, energy and government. I think the average Canadian is more worried about their families, their jobs, their mortgages, the economy, the recession...everything except the environment. With money scarce and energy demands still high, investing in solar or wind energy is, at the moment, probably unwise for the average Canadian household. So what can we do now? I hope to explore these options in an ongoing series of blogs on "Green Me Up, Scotty!".

As always comments and questions are very welcome! 

Fail.

Normally I don't post these, but I couldn't pass this up. In the parlance of our times, Epic Fail:

Stensiling in the Future

Okay, I have a lot to say today, and it's a good thing I already changed the format of this blog, because otherwise this post would look really out of place.

My friend Jim Fairthorne over at State of Affairs posted a blog on Thursday detailing environmental watchdog Greenpeace's castigation of the Ontario government's proposed nuclear plan. Jim made a number of prescient points, all of which you can find here, but to summarize, he discussed the importance of keeping Canadian jobs in Canada and argued that if GP spokesman Shawn-Patrick Stensil wanted to criticize nuclear energy, he might do well to come up with some alternatives that were just a little more specific than hiding behind the “green energy” moniker. I'll come back to Mister Stensil in a minute.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and throw my support behind Jim on this one. Yes, I'm a huge supporter of green technology. Yes, I think wind turbines and solar panels are wonderful ideas and a great support network for our energy infrastructure. But the bottom line is this: according to the 2008 Independent Electricity System Operator statistics, here's how our energy generation-to-consumption worked:

- Ontario Energy Production totalled 159.3 TWh
- Generation by Fuel Type:
- 53 per cent from Nuclear (84.4 TWh)
- 24.1 per cent from Hydroelectric (38.3 TWh)
- 14.5 per cent from Coal (23.2 TWh)
- 6.9 per cent from Gas/Oil (11 TWh)
- 0.9 per cent from Wind (1.4 TWh)
- 0.6 per cent from Other Sources (1 Twh)

Okay? Okay. Nuclear energy provides over half this province's power – fact. The so-called “green” energy totals (if we assume that all “other sources” are green in nature) generate roughly three percent of what the current nuclear plants generate. So clearly, at least in the short term until green tech can be made more efficient and the red tape of any major changeover can be cleared up, the Power Of The Atom looks like a pretty good alternative to things like coal, oil and other major pollutants.

Jim's article (if you haven't read it yet, and you should) doesn't even directly deal with the issue of whether or not nuclear power is “good” – he skips over that pointless argument and goes right into the economic ramifications of the Ontario government contracting the building and maintenance of our nuclear reactors to external, non-Canadian companies. Jim argues that it's a much better idea for Ontario's economy to make sue of the existing CANDU infrastructure and keep these jobs in Canada, and I tend to agree with him.

And now back to Mister Stensil, who personally responded to Jim's blog post. I've included the text here:

Hey Jim,
I don’t think you tried to hard to find alternatives to Ontario’s nuclear plans on Greenpeace’s website.
I [sic] took me two clicks to find this link: renewableisdoable.ca
You’ll find a report there that’s been endorsed by all of Canada’s major environmental organizations on how to replace the Pickering B and Bruce B nuclear stations.
At a global level please check out Greenpeace’s Energy Revolution report on how we build a climate friendly energy system (without nuclear): http://www.energyblueprint.info/
Cheers.

I took the liberty of checking out the links Mister Stensil included in his post, and what I came up with solidifies my irritation with this whole situation.

If you go to the “Renewable Is Doable” site, you'll find an awful lot of rhetoric about how green technology is a Better Idea than nuclear power, but they don't really say a great deal about how it's better, why it's more economically feasible or even what technologies they want to use instead. They make mention of a trend towards lower energy requirements in Ontario and reference the IESO statistics for 2008 that I mentioned above. However, upon reading the IESO report, I discovered the “trend” is actually the result of wetter, more temperate summers decreasing the public desire for air conditioning. So basically what they're saying is because the trends are dependent on the weather, we can no more predict energy consumption than we can plan a picnic with any real assurance it won't be rained out. And yet, Greenpeace is still railing against the idea of nuclear energy as unnecessary.

In a blog post on January 13th, 2009, Mister Stensil contends that these predictions render nuclear energy an overcompensation for a non-existent need. He figures we can replace the existing CANDU network with a wide array of solar panels and wind turbines to shore up what will amount to 75% of our energy requirements by 2010 (especially once the plan to shut down Ontario coal plants goes into effect).

Once again, I'm all for the prospect of reducing our dependence on pollutant-rich energy sources in favour of green alternatives, but this has not been well thought-out. What happens if we decide to shut down every nuclear reactor in favour of fields of wind turbines (that people already don't want), or sheets upon sheets of solar panels? Do you have any idea how much this kind of initiative would cost? Certainly I don't think it would result in the “billions of dollars” of savings Mister Stensil is suggesting.

The bottom line is this: we're in the midst of a much-touted economic crisis. Jobs are going the way of the dodo with alarming rapidity. Changing our entire energy system to a green network whose efficiency is still under debate would be a monstrous, costly undertaking. We have existing power which, while it's not perfect, is rather efficient and will cost us far less in the short term and shore up our energy requirements while we research green technology and figure out ways to improve its efficacy in the interest of eventually making that changeover. The green revolution is coming, folks, but it's not going to be built in a day.

Feedback on this issue would be much appreciated – we need to talk about this.

Not exactly as advertised

When I first came across this article, the name immediately made me want to write about it. The name came up on my RSS feed as "Five Ways to go Green Without Really Trying". Now maybe I'm hormonal, but that made my blood boil like I accidentally sat down on a lit element. The most basic, fundamental roadblock we have to get around in our fight to save this planet is very simple: human apathy and laziness. People want change; of course they do. And if it's something they don't have to think very hard about, something that won't detract from their standard of living or (heaven forbid) interrupt their American Idol marathon, then they're all over it.

It took a long time for people to get used to the idea of recycling, but eventually they got over the fact that they couldn't just throw all their trash in one bag anymore: some of it had to go in a separate box, for the good of us all. Good for you! But then, along came the Green Bins (for those of you who don't know, it's a wonderful idea much like compost, in which you separate certain food waste into a -- you guessed it -- green bin so it can be taken to a different landfill site where everything is biodegradable), and once again Ma and Pa Canada decided this was too much hassle -- I mean, really, the idea of actually having to separate your half-eaten, wasted meal into a totally different bag? Unthinkable! Recycling is okay, but garbage is just garbage! Why can't we just schlep it all together and forget about it?

Sysiphus keeps pushing that rock up the hill, and lazy, ignorant lardasses keep knocking it all the way back down again.

So when I read the title "Without Really Trying" my immediate reaction was irritation, because somebody (it seemed to me) was monopolizing on just that sort of laziness to actually market products to people. "Want to assuage your environmental guilt, but not enough to actually do something proactive? Here, buy this product and you can get back to feeling good about yourself and wasting food and watching bad TV." All of this went through my head in rapid succession, so as I was preparing myself for the rage that was doubtless about to overcome me, I opened the link.

Imagine my surprise when I was met by a well-written, clever, useful article about several solutions (not even product placement -- solutions) I either hadn't considered, or didn't know about.

The manual lawn mower? Great idea. Exercise (which the aforementioned apathetic lardasses could use), absolutely no emissions whatsoever (other than your own sweat), and it self-mulches your lawn. Also, you're saving money on gas. Right on!

The hatchback was the only one I took issue with, mostly because of my last post and its implications to the automobile industry. But the "marketing to men" angle was cute, so I let it pass.

The beer growler is a great idea too, though not revolutionary in Canada (we've had returnable bottles forever). Reuse is better than recycling because it takes less energy and produces less harmful emissions, and also -- beer is good. (I'm Scottish, what do you want from me?)

Milk paint -- remember how I said I never knew some of this existed? That one wins. I would never, ever have thought of using milk to paint anything. What a neat idea.

And finally, Soap For Everything -- now, I'm not normally into plugging companies, but I have actually tried this stuff and it is amazing. They aren't kidding when they say it works on anything: my aunt once used it to get red wine out of a carpet, and twenty minutes later I was washing my hair with the stuff! The peppermint scent is nothing short of divine. And it's genuinely green. Awesome.

So it turns out my initial reaction was totally misplaced, and the article is great (seriously, check out the link at the top). I guess it goes to show that I shouldn't fly off the handle if something looks offensive or stupid at first glance. Don't worry; that doesn't mean I won't.

To: Humans, From: Everything Else on the Planet -- Thanks a lot

Four billion years. That's how long the Earth has been around. In that period of time, the ecosystem has gone through roughly five of what are being called "mass extinction periods", which is exactly what it sounds like: everything dies. Now, scientists are suggesting we're heading into period #6, but this time there's a catalyst that has nothing to do with giant space rocks or volcanoes or God turning down the thermostat -- take a wild guess what that catalyst might be.

It's okay, I'll wait.

Still guessing? Here's a hint. It's us.

At this point, the appearance and propagation of existing species is being rapidly outmatched by species that are vanishing, literally every day. And it's all our fault. To illustrate, here's a great quote from David Wake, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley:

"There's no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now...[A]mphibians have been around for about 250 million years. They made it through when the dinosaurs didn't. The fact that they're cutting out now should be a lesson for us."

So whatever it was that killed off the dinosaurs, we're worse. Anybody really surprised? Show of hands?

Here are some more fun facts: according to the 10,000 or so scientists who work for the World Conservation Union, 51 per cent of known reptiles, 52 per cent of known insects, and 73 per cent of known flowering plants are in danger, along with a metric ton of mammals, birds and amphibians. Not enough? We are killing off species we don't even know exist yet. Remember all those warnings we got back in the early 90's about how we could potentially steamroll over the cure for cancer or AIDS and not even know it? Yeah, welcome to the new millennium, where science fiction has become science fact.

Let's take it even a step farther, and you can take this one with a grain of salt because it's a little apocalyptic even for my new-found worldview, but check this out. Straight from the mouth of Peter Raven, past President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

"We have driven the rate of biological extinction, the permanent loss of species, up several hundred times beyond its historical levels, and are threatened with the loss of a majority of all species by the end of the 21st century."

Several hundred times. Roll that number around in your head for a minute. We have cell phones more powerful than the personal computers of ten years ago; we can text one another from New Zealand to Toronto in the blink of an eye; we have iPods and Blackberries and automatic everything and five cars a household and sex toys designed by NASA -- and even with all this human ingenuity at work, we can't seem to stop killing everything.

It's like the author of the article says: what good are all these conveniences if we manage to rape, pillage, burn and destroy our natural environment, and essentially murder ourselves in slow motion in the process?

It's time for a serious alteration of our priorities. Like, now. Right now. I'm not kidding.

Check it out.

Apocalyptica

Normally I'm a bright, sunshiny person, and even though I'm well aware of the potential dangers our race faces if we keep ruining our planet, I don't usually buy into the doomsayers who predict the end of the world as we know it. I like to think positively and work proactively, but sometimes it's hard to look away when somebody is holding up the big cardboard sign stating The End Is Nigh. And this article, in particular, struck me because I'll admit to having kind of a dark sense of humour at times, and this guy was kind of funny even as he was sounding the death knell of our culture.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, predicts that if climate change continues undeterred, we could see massive worldwide disaster on a scale heretofore unseen in human history. Even a nine-degree (Fahrenheit) raise in global temperature, a conservative estimate based on studies, would result in disruption of the monsoon, collapse of the Amazon rain forest and the meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet, not to mention deoxygenation of huge tracts of the world's oceans (which would prove devastating to marine life and the ecosystem in general). Based on these apocalyptic findings, Dr. Schellnhuber predicts the death of over 75% of the human population, bringing our total numbers down to a more ecologically supportable 1 billion inhabitants.

On the bright side, he told the Danish hosts of the recent climate meeting in Copenhagen, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet would "increase your usable land by, I don't know, 10,000 percent." Funny guy.

This is scary stuff. Remember, I said conservative estimates, which means Dr. Schellnhuber's calculations are a better-case scenario. It could be much, much worse. How many signs to we have to wave around before governments, institutions and individuals start taking this issue seriously? This isn't a John Wyndham novel, folks, this is real life. Wake up.

Here's the full article.

Seriously. I don't know what to say anymore.

Apparently our lifestyle of excess has reached its pinnacle.

What do you know about toilet paper? Really, what do you actually know about it? Do you spend a lot of time thinking about your toilet paper or carefully considering your purchasing options when it comes to said toilet paper? Do you have a brand preference? Is there quality control involved in that preference -- do you actually grade your toilet paper based on comfort, softness, PLUSHNESS even? I don't know about you, but if I started putting that kind of thought into what kind of product I use to wipe my nethers, I think I would probably require a reboot of my day-to-day priorities.

Not so for our neighbours to the south. According to the New York Times, major toilet paper companies are stripping bare the forests of our great continent to provide the discerning public with a toilet paper that is, and I quote, "silken, thick, and hot-air-fluffed". There's a huge push in this industry against the use of recycled paper in this product because it's too coarse for the delicate American posterior, so instead companies will clear cut virgin forests in order to keep up their stocks of long, sensuous fibers with which to make bum-cleaner.

I've written before about the benefits of finding other sources of pulp and fiber to supply our material needs (things like hemp in favour of hundred-year-old carbon-eating trees), but this baffles even my ability to engineer a clever response. Toilet paper. Say it to yourself again. Toilet paper. Paper that goes in the toilet after being sullied by the remains of last night's chili burrito. It's literally a product designed to clean poo and then be easily discarded. Why, oh why, oh why, must it meet standards of quality control that might also be applied to thousand-count cotton bedsheets? This is the most absurd extravagance I've ever read about, ever.

Now, I'm not advocating the use of sandpaper or newspaper as an acceptable substitute, but come on! Recycled paper really isn't that bad (it's what I use, so I know) and it's infinitely better for our environment. What would you rather have -- a beautiful forest to walk through that helps clean the air and keep endangered species alive, or a luxurious butt-wiping experience?

Please tell me what you think about this -- I can't be the only one outraged by this whole debate.

The original story can be found here.

Good idea, bad idea...

I have always been a huge supporter of NASA. I think the idea of going into space is, in a word, awesome. There are countless things we can learn about our world and our place in the universe by venturing beyond the boundaries of our own atmosphere.

Take, for example, the recent NASA initiative to launch a specialized research platform into orbit -- the Orbiting Carbon Observatory was designed to monitor greenhouse effects in the atmosphere in an attempt to learn more about the process and, hopefully, how we can curb the negative properties of the greenhouse effect.

Awesome, right? Right.

Except it fell into the sea.

Yes, you read that right.

You know, I really want to give these guys a lot of rope. They're the people that put men on the moon, for goodness' sake. They've charted far-off galaxies by sticking a huge telescope in orbit; they have pushed back the boundaries of scientific exploration farther than our parents could ever have imagined. Clearly, these are some of humanity's greatest minds.

So why can't they make things work the way they're supposed to?

Challenger. Columbia. The Mars rover. And now this. Two exploded shuttles and a handful of dead astronauts, a robot that journeyed millions of miles just to smash into a planet, and a $256M orbital platform that now resides at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Like I said, I'm all about finding new and innovative research methods to help us understand our planet better. But I can't help but think that $256M might have been better spent elsewhere. If you're going to invest that kind of money into a project it would help if the project was a success.

NASA -- get it together!

At Least They're Trying...

I don't know quite what to make of this, but I'm going to try and flesh it out.

Over the next century, about 4000 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico are going to be decommissioned (side note: yay!). Usually the government does to these rigs what they do to everything that's no longer useful -- they blow them up. This has the unfortunate side effect of killing everything in the sea for miles around Ground Zero, go figure. It also costs really a lot of money, to the tune of millions of dollars per unit, due to the precise nature of controlled detonation (can you really use a word like "precise" when you're talking about thousands of pounds of high explosives? Guess so).

Enter Morris Architects, who have developed the potentially brilliant (and potentially dangerous) idea of turning these metal behemoths into Dubai-esque luxury hotel/resorts. According to BLDGBLOG the total surface area of each rig is somewhere in the realm of 20,000 square feet -- multiply that by four thousand rigs, and you're looking at a massive amount of real estate, ripe for development (according to Morris Archtiects).

Initially when I read about this, I thought "what a great idea!" but that was honestly the result of my knee-jerk reaction to the fact that Morris wants to make these oases eco-friendly and self-supporting (always a plus in my book). But then I got to thinking about it and I read some of the comments left on the original article. One reader mentioned that he works on oil rigs for a living and regardless how many bells and whistles you might add to one, it's still an oil rig and a crappy vacation destination. Another reader stated simply "hurricanes"...good point there too.

Here's another one: if these rigs are slated for decommissioning, it's probably not because there's no more oil to be had in that particular part of the world (much as I keep saying we're running out, we're not quite THAT low yet). If the government is seriously considering exploding these structures, I'd imagine it's likely because they've reached their operational capacity and are no longer structurally sound. Translation: they spent a hundred years in salt-water and are about to fall over into the sea.

Also: the logistics of this project are staggering to say the least. Morris Architects made a big deal out of how easy it would be to transport the necessary materials to the rigs, but leaving aside all the other arguments I've already made, what about getting the PEOPLE out there? And who's going to go? Rich folks, that's who, because nobody else could begin to afford the price of such an extravagant vacation. So who does it help? Realistically -- nobody.

I'm all for making use of existing platforms instead of just demolishing them, but instead of turning them into luxury items for the upper class, what about setting up hydroponic farming or even just "floating forests" to help clean the air?

I'd appreciate your responses to this -- I think it's an idea that needs consideration, but I don't think Morris Architects' idea is the right way to go. Feel free to agree or disagree.

Damned if we do...

It never fails. In our never-ending quest to retroactively fix all the damage we've done to our environment, humanity spends a considerable amount of time, effort and money trying to wean ourselves from non-renewable resources like oil -- we look for alternative ways to power our lives. Of course, I'm all for these initiatives, but sometimes our attempts to do right by our planet have unforeseen consequences.

Almost forty years ago, anthropologist Louis Leakey sent three female scientists into the depths of jungles worldwide, hoping to gain a better understanding of our simian ancestors. Everybody knows who Jane Goodall was (the chimp lady) and some people might remember Dian Fossey, but few -- if any -- recognize the name Birute Mary Galdikas, the woman in charge of studying orangutans. As of this writing, Galdikas is the only one still working in the field, and what she's discovered recently casts a serious shadow on our green initiatives.

Palm oil is widely regarded as an acceptable substitute for gasoline as a fuel for our internal combustion engines (the thing that powers your car), and is in high demand the world over. Unfortunately, in an effort to provide for this increasing demand, Indonesian forests are being clear-cut to make way for palm oil plantations, resulting in serious damage to the ecosystem of the native red apes. This noble creature is now on the verge of extinction because their habitat is being destroyed to make way for the "green" fuel of the future.

I guess this is the result of our consistent abuse of our natural environment over the last several thousand years -- now, even when we learn from our mistakes and try to fix them, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. If we can't come up with an alternative source of power, we risk further deteriorating the ozone layer and putting life as we know in jeopardy. But palm oil requirements are also destroying precious elements of the global ecosystem. So what do we do next?

Read the article for more information on this important issue.