Natural disasters & Parks Canada's 100. anniversary

The winter has made its departure even from Edmonton. In fact the last couple of weeks have been sunny and warm (up to 20 degrees C). And it's been so dry that Alberta is fighting its first wave of forest fires. The current extend of the roughly 100 forest fires, a quarter of them out of control, is covering an area equal to the whole area destroyed by fires in the 2010. And the fire season has only started ... The community of Slave Lake, 250 km north Edmonton, will hope to see no more of it since half the town has already been flattened by fires. Meantime Manitoba is being flooded and those who still have dry feet are trying to escape too much water. The USA has seen a huge number of tornadoes; the Mississippi has reached a 500-year-flood level.  


I hate to say straight away it's all due to global warming. But no doubt the first months of this year have seen a lot of natural disaster all over the world. At a point where lots of people possibly hate the forces of nature that they have to give in to it's hard to advocate for the protection and conservation of exactly that nature. Mind you, nature has always done its thing, only human beings have never been so numerous and therefore find themselves in nature's way just about anywhere. 



Parks Canada is celebrating its 100 anniversary this weekend. But doubts are rising that Parks Canada is not true any more to its original vision of preserving the wonderful landscapes of Canada's national parks. Although visitor numbers in Canada's national parks have remained steady over the last decade, compared to a noticeable decline in US national parks, Parks Canada seems to allow more and more installations in its parks to promote "more fun activities", trying to compete with the virtual worlds that modern gadgets offer. Some of those installations and what comes along with them do in fact threaten some already endangered species even more. People who long to have those installations should find them somewhere else, outside national parks, that's my opinion. If you can't enjoy a hike without blasting music into your ears, stay in the city and walk in the park there. Obviously, Parks Canada raises money through park entrance fees which in the end help to fulfil their duties but honestly, there's no point in wanting to have everybody in for the money's matter. Where people create more damage than good they might as well be kept away. I'm almost glad some of Canada's national parks are pretty much inaccessible, especially for cars.        
  




 

Go, solar power, go

The nuclear power plant issues that Japan's dealing with right now are in the news everywhere so I just leave it with that. But there's obviously a movement towards solar power now. Solar power shines amid Japan's nuclear woes. Investors are chickening out from the threats associated with nuclear power in naturally unstable parts of the world (there are not many places on this planet though that can't be hit by a natural disasters). This is not the way I would have hoped for solar power to gain popularity but it's great any way. The stocks are still a different story though to the intentions and the actions (two very different things!) of governments. I love the following article: Germany becomes a real clean energy leader   

Here a few facts stated in the article:   
- 17% of all electricity used in German homes comes from a renewable source
- in Germany solar installations doubled in 2010 alone
- Germany is the largest photovoltaic solar market in the world, with new systems producing over 7 GWp, or approximately half of the global market
- Germany produces 16% of all wind power in the world and is Europe’s biggest user of this form of clean energy

From current to future: 
- Germany aims for 35% renewable energy by 2020, and 80% by 2050
- In 2006 Sweden pledged to become an oil-free nation within fifteen years
- The United States is hoping to have 10% renewable energy by 2012, and 25% by 2050, in addition to reducing greenhouse gases by 80% in the same year (how??)
- the US's goal to become a climate change leader seems thin considering Congress is loaded down with fossil fuel loving, budget cutting happy politicians

Natural disaster

First New Zealand, second Japan, third ?. One time after the other our lovely planet Earth demonstrates is violent forces and causes a natural disaster, as we like to call it. And every time it will not be the last time. If one thing is for sure then it is the fact that we can not tame Earth's forces. We will always be exposed and vulnerable to earth quakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and the like. Yes, they are sad events but reading the news about Japan I also had two thoughts that might be a bit weird. 

The articles I read reported on three different nuclear power plants that were affected by the earth quake. Nuclear power plants! For what sane reason does a country like Japan have nuclear power plants? If the statistics are right, Japan receives 20% of the strongest earthquakes, that is a magnitude of 6.0 and up, on Earth. They experienced the devastating forces of nuclear power in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But they have nuclear power plants. Yes of course, one would think, how could they live without. Japan is a densely populated country that wants and needs energy independence, especially considering who their neighbouring countries are. Lots of people use lots of electricity and sun, wind and other renewable sources of energy have not made it big style yet in most countries. Hydro - I don't know much about Japan's rivers but a breaking dam seems less disastrous than a nuclear power plant breaking apart during an earthquake. When the infrastructure gets wrecked within minutes how would they want to deal with this kind of event? Currently, it sounds like the nuclear power plants are doing alright but how well can they be assessed under the circumstances? I was not too impressed either with the oil refineries. At least one of them has gone up in flames that reach 30 metres (90 feet) into the sky. Exactly what's needed now. They are not going to stop that from burning until the oil is gone. Lot's of oil wasted for nothing, lots of emissions for nothing but never mind most conventional oil comes from the unstable middle east where oil tends to burn for no good reason. At least nobody, like BP or Exxon, can be blamed because it's a catastrophe due to natural forces. Did somebody there think they were invincible?     
 
We are a damn selfish species. If a natural disaster occurs we always think about the people who got hurt, not about the nature, the flora and fauna. I suppose half of all human beings think that plants and animals don't have feelings to start with. But let's face there's no food without plants and animals. So why is there never a mentioning of roughly how many animals died, if a national park or other area of outstanding ecological importance was affected for example, or if just another species got wiped out. New Zealand has lots of endangered species that only live there and nowhere else. What if the last kiwi bird got killed in an earth quake, would anybody care when that same earth quake killed people? Unlikely. Might be because we harm our nature all the time already any way, so why would we care if nature "hurts" itself. No, I don't think our planet actually thinks about that and considers the consequences, it simply does not care, just like us.