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Browsing All Posts published on »August, 2012«
How I Learned My Place
Some windows on a racist education: First Nations Education in the City, Pt. 2 In grade eight I found myself in a remedial math class in Cloverdale. Because that’s what they do. They put you in a remedial math class whenever you change schools, and I’d just moved to Cloverdale. The teacher was asking questions, […]
American Meteorological Society Statement on Climate Change
August 29, 2012
This is a repost of the original statement by the AMS, which may be found here. I admit to adding illustrations, maps and graphs (from highly reliable scientific sources) to enhance on-line readability. (Adopted by AMS Council 20 August 2012) Climate Change An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society The following is an AMS Information […]
9 Reasons to Oppose the Northern Gateway Pipeline
August 28, 2012
These are not even all my reasons, but they’ll do for a start. Fossil fuels cause climate change. The heatwaves of Europe, Russia and the United States, droughts in the US, Australia and East Africa, floods in Canada, the US, Australia, Pakistan, China and Colombia, wildfires in Canada, the US and Europe are the result […]
Aboriginal Education, Yes or No
August 27, 2012
First Nations education in the city, pt. 1 The question got asked, Should we open a school in Vancouver for Aboriginal students? It became obvious to me right away that it was a question with no meaningful short answer. There are too many questions and considerations behind that issue which we have to get past […]
Arctic Sea Ice Retreat Shatters Previous Record – A Month Early
August 26, 2012
On August 15th I posted a note about how the Greenland ice melt had already set a new record—a month early. The thing about that record was that, although we knew a new record was set, we didn’t yet know what the record was, and wouldn’t know until some time in September when the Greenland […]
The Generation That Didn’t Go to the Moon
August 26, 2012
I grew up on science fiction. Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, HG Wells, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison. Etc. The entire history of human space exploration has happened within my lifetime, within the lifetime of Baby Boomers like me. From Sputnik in 1957, through the moon landings in the ‘60s […]
The Climate Escalator
August 24, 2012
From Skeptical Science, licensed under creative commons attribution. This graphic illustrates the way some climate deniers would have you look at the evidence about climate. Their technique: choose a period of time within which there is a decline or leveling off of apparent warming–since climate graphs are always jagged lines these periods of time are […]
And Why the Sea Is Boiling Hot…
August 24, 2012
Climate denial and morality If the “The Walrus and the Carpenter” were versified by Edgar Allan Poe rather than Lewis Carroll, it would, without changing a single detail, be a truly disturbing tale. The Walrus is a Pied Piper-type figure, luring innocents with words rather than with music, and his eloquence enchants even us. We […]
The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll
August 23, 2012
(From Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.) The Walrus and the Carpenter ‘The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright— And this was odd, because it was The middle of the […]
Bell Curves & New Climate Normals
August 21, 2012
We all know what a bell curve is, a graph in the shape of a bell. A lot of things distribute that way, with the bulk of things happening in the middle, tailing away towards either extreme. Climate stacks up like a bell curve. Even with climate change it still stacks up that way. Thus, […]
Grandpa Theo
With Malaika
Klick This Pic
An Informal Chronology of the Aboriginal Land Question in BC
Father Theo's Blog 
August 30, 2012
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