All posts by Chris Tindal

Warm Out Today. Warm Out Yesterday. Gonna Be Warm Out Tomorrow.

air, climate crisis, cycling, energy

I’ve been experimenting with different ways of getting to work. I’ve tried driving (took me 35 minutes), walking (30 minutes), taking the subway (20 minutes) and biking (15 minutes).

This morning I wanted to try something new, so I swam to work. You know, through this soup we Torontonians sometimes refer to as “air.”

Southwestern Ontario is seeing some of its highest temperatures ever recorded today, and last night was Toronto’s warmest evening on record. Add to that the deadly pollutants that make up smog, and we’ve got one thick, sticky, stinky situation on our hands. (Stephen Colbert has started referring to environmentalists as “airhuggers.” As in, crazy hippies who are so out of touch with reality that they think breathing air is important.)

Unfortunately, all this heat doesn’t appear to be a coincidence. The Earth is warmer than it’s been in 400 years or longer, and the science suggests that human activity is the cause.

One of the best ways we know of to heat this planet up as fast as possible is by using lots of energy on things like air conditioners. So, when it got hot today, of course the natural thing to do was crank the AC. People in my office building have been shivering all day, and during one meeting I noticed pronounced goose bumps on my arms — it’s genuinely cold. (That might have something to do with what the people who make the decisions are wearing.)

The result is, we’ve burned too much fuel, which is making it too hot in here, so we’re going to turn up our air conditioners, which necessitates burning even more fuel, which in turn will make it even hotter. And the circle of life goes on. (Never mind that a recent 40-year study showed air pollution deaths in Toronto outnumber deaths caused by extreme heat 8 to 1.)

Heat was the number one story on the radio this morning, with the IESO predicting we’d break another energy consumption record by 5pm today.

They were wrong — it only took us until noon. Ontario’s demand for power reached 26,331 megawatts, topping last July’s record 26,161 megawatts. Power consumption has continued to break records every hour since. The IESO is now predicting that we’ll hit 27,225 megawatts any minute now. Brownouts and blackouts are a serious possibility, though not as serious as the increased numbers of people who will show up at emergency rooms and/or die prematurely today because of smog-related respiratory problems.

What should the government do? For one, make energy prices reflect their real cost. The fact that my office is still too cold for comfort, even in the face of all this, is a pretty good indicator that energy prices are too low.

What can you do (besides turn stuff off)? I recommend making use of this handy vacation planning calendar.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go change into my swimsuit for the long swim home.

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Hard-Wired to be Partisan?

democracy and good government, green party

Have you ever noticed that politicians you disagree with are really stupid? The way they just don’t make any sense, contradict themselves, and constantly exhibit hypocrisy?

Lord knows I have. Yet, at the same time I’ve always believed that politicians are generally good people doing what they honestly think is right (I wouldn’t have become one if I didn’t). Sometimes it’s been difficult to reconcile this apparent contradiction.

As it turns out, there may be a biological explanation. According to a report in the Washington Post, our brains actually do the psychological equivalent of plugging our ears and running into the other room going “na na na I can’t hear you” when, for example, I hear Stephen Harper talk about transparency.

    Psychological experiments in recent years have shown that people are not evenhanded when they process information, even though they believe they are. (When people are asked whether they are biased, they say no. But when asked whether they think other people are biased, they say yes.) Partisans who watch presidential debates invariably think their guy won. When talking heads provide opinions after the debate, partisans regularly feel the people with whom they agree are making careful, reasoned arguments, whereas the people they disagree with sound like they have cloth for brains.

The result, the author argues, is that we’re hardwired to be increasingly partisan.

As one blog points out, however, there’s a lot of nurture going on here too. We’re taught “with us or against us,” and “liberal or conservative,” as if there are no other options. We’re taught to only see black and white, never gray.

Likewise, we can unlearn it. At a campaign event early this year a supporter came up to me and told me that “the ideology of the Green Party is pragmatism.” Indeed, that’s one of the things that had attracted me to the party. I really do believe we’ve taken the best of all the other parties and incorporated it into our platform as much as possible. Now that we’re increasingly popular, one of our greatest challenges is to maintain that openmindedness.

Now that us humans know we may be pre-disposed to closemindedness, we can fight against it even more strongly. That may be the most useful application of this report.

I’m doing my part. Why, last week I even found two things that Margaret Wente and I agree on!

Ok, Maybe They Honestly Don’t Know What Those Words Mean

conservative party, democracy and good government

When the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is criticizing the Conservatives, you know something’s up. (Jason Kenney used to be their CEO, and all of the federation’s provincial directors have roots in conservative parties.)

Today, they’re upset that the government tried to keep a pay raise for senior officials under wraps. “What’s got my goat,” explained the CTF’s John Williamson, who gets extra points for using that goat expression I love so much, ” is that this is a government that was elected to be more transparent and accountable.”

Wait a minute…he’s right! It’s almost as this is becoming a bit of a recurring theme.

Bees is a Funny Word

ecology, economy, food

Last night I watched a Nature of Things documentary called “Beetalker: The Secret World of Bees.” (In my defense, I didn’t know the name of the documentary before I started watching it.) Anyway, it was pretty interesting, made even more so by supplementary interjections by my girlfriend, Claire “Bees are so cool!” Salloum.

At one point in the doc, Dr. Mark Winston claimed that, “without bees, human society as we know it would not exist.” Now I’m a pretty eco-conscious guy, but even I wanted to laugh at such a silly statement. That is, until he explained that without bee pollination, the overwhelming majority of our agriculture couldn’t exist.

That would be a problem. Because, like, we humans totally love to eat.

That’s why I was a little concerned today to learn that diversity in bees and wild flowers is declining, bees are being killed by pesticides, and that bumblebees could even face extinction.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Sure Chris, I understand that we need bees to make food, and I like to eat, but protecting bees will hurt the economy, and that’s the most important thing. I want jobs, not bees!”

Good point. However, according to Simon Potts from the University of Reading, the economic value of pollination worldwide is over $100 billion Canadian each year. (And according to Doug Woodward–a Green Party member from St. Catharines who may or may not know what he’s talking about–Potts is “low by a factor of maybe 1000.”)

In conclusion, whether you’re into survival, money, or both, bees are your friend.

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