GRANDPA CLIMATE

     The other day the radio was on in the house and I heard, "Grandpa Climate." I thought for a minute about this and then it hit me. They're talking about me!

     I'm a Grandpa and I'm 85 years old. So what was the climate back at the beginning of my time.

    Then I thought of my Dad who was born in 1912? Oh , there's my Grandpa who was born in 1864 ? And then I thought back to my Great Grandpa who was born in 1840. 

    What was the climate like when these men were living? 180 years ago the common folks probably didn't have a thermometer. Information on climate was anecdotal. There would be some information about climate but it wouldn't be scientific. Both my grandparents could read. They used the Russian Cyrillic script. I'm not sure how much they could write. So information on climate at that time would be limited. I don't know if there is any of Grandpa or Grandma's writing left. 

    I have often told you about my time as a child and the great outdoors. It was very, very different than today. About 50% of the land was not developed. When I was a kid in the late 40's Canada's population was less than 10 000 000 .  This meant that much less carbon was produced. Global warming was probably not taking place. It seemed as if when winter came it stayed winter until spring. I remember getting what we called mild spells, but I don't remember snow thawing in the winter time like it does now. . 

    So I hope the term Grandpa climate makes people think about how much our climate has changed and that people will start to contribute to not letting the earth's temperature increase. 

   If you're a grandma or grandpa, what do you remember about climate?

Gently November Arrives

       The beginning of November has brought us very mild pleasant weather. We've had a chinook which began the last few days of October and is forecast to last to the end of the week. Halloween evening was well above freezing so it was great for all the little beaners out trick or treating.

      I made much the same post at the beginning of October but the October weather turned out to be dismal. We had mostly cloudy cool conditions with some moisture. The moisture wasn't excessive but was enough to prevent the soil drying up so that gardens could be properly worked. Much of my garden soil was actually mud. I would dig it and let it lie a couple of days and then dig it and let it dry. I was fortunate to get 5 barrels of shavings to work in as my soil is heavy clay because of a sewer line replacement a few years ago.

     So with the start of November being pleasant, I'm holding my breath hoping that we don't have nasty weather coming our way for the remainder of the month. Our Novembers are usually a time when temperatures get colder and we can have very cold nights. It's also the time when we can receive snow that stays with us.

More Disasters Than Copenhagen

As a world conference the Copenhagen fiasco was a failure in a class of its own. There was much to be gained by success in this conference, and such an enormous loss if the conference failed. The governments of the world achieved both in this case. They lost out in achieving any gains and they lost by not finding any solutions.

Canada sent the wrong people to Copenhagen. We chose the wrong government and we didn't influence Prime Minister Harper and his government to take a positive, proactive stand. Absolutely nothing was achieved at the Copenhagen conference except to lose time - precious time, which we have already frittered away by intentional inaction.

As individuals we will have to do more than wring our hands in useless gestures. Although the big picture is where it's at to reduce the production of green house gases, there is much an individual can do. Each person can alter their lifestyle to do their part in the reduction of green house gases. We can all drive less, buy cars which produce fewer greenhouse gases, and buy products which take less energy to produce. As consumers we have the power to choose products which leave a smaller mark on the climate.

The biggest thing we can do is become proactive in as many ways as possible. We have to influence our politicians and leaders. We can all write to the authorities and express our support for climate change. One letter at a time on a constant basis mounts up, and will bring about change. We will have to inform and educate ourselves about the policies that political parties stand for . We must make political parties act upon what they say their policies are. Bums like we have in power now have to be voted out.

We must also become more informed and better educated about the science of climate change . It's not rocket science. It's looking at the evidence we have. Two years ago a very large ice shelf broke off in the Arctic . An ice shelf is ice which has become solidly attached and hasn't moved, like a land mass. The ice shelf in the Arctic warmed and detached. Some of this ice is hundreds, even thousands of years old . Now it's gone. Fortunately scientists took many core samples which can be used to study the earth's climate going many years back.

Start today, this year, and do something each week to make a difference in climate change. We will then push governments and businesses along to make changes.

Copenhagen Disaster

As you can see from some of my former posts I am somewhat passionate about the natural places on this planet. So I have written about birds, animals, plants and weather. The blogs I follow have a relationship to similar topics.

So it was to my great dismay and disgust that I observed the pathetic performance of the planet's governments at the Copenhagen conference. Governments from various blocs sought to snooker other blocs into a corner to squeeze out their own agendas. For example, countries which are less developed wanted more money out of wealthier groups of nations. Top economic countries wanted the others to make similar contributions to lessen green house gas production.

All countries at the Copenhagen conference completely forgot about the earth and any responsiblity they have to curb global warming. Our Canadian government was absolutely disgraceful in its performance and position. Our government made no effort to move forward on reducing green house gases. Since our government is rather secretive, one might suspect that they were not in any way working to reduce green house gases.

Much debate takes place on climate science. Extremely skillful manipulators attempt to distract the agenda and confuse issues so that doubt arises as to the validity of climate warming. We don't have to look very far to see monstrous examples of global warming. The Arctic shows some very obvious and extensive examples. I spent 5 years in the Arctic in the 1960's. We would fly from Inuvik to Sach's Harbor on Banks Island, which is a distance of about 450km. In July and August there was open water about 15 to 25 km from shore. The rest of the way was loose ice, and some years there would be large areas of solid ice. Today all of the ice in the Beaufort Sea melts in the summer. Small boats will cross from Cape Bathurst or Cape Parry. To me this is an appalling change. This is all the evidence I need to become alarmed about the dangers of climate change caused by man. Seals and polar bears use the ice as habitat and are in great peril as a result.

This year, Hiawatha House is going to run a number of posts on global warming. We have to push our governments to take action on reducing green house gases.