The PenOpticon

Now that the moving vans have arrived to plunder the Dunlap Observatory, I'm reprising my original letter sent to U of T's Governing Council.  Recall, that U of T never once allowed anyone opposed to the sale to address the governing council. Remember that the university never once consulted with area residents over their plans. I briefly met a U of T librarian on the property this morning, but apart from her, the only official U of T representative I have seen in Richmond Hill since Oct 30, 2007 was a Cassels Brock lawyer at a Town Council meeting.

From Oct 30, 2007 Open letter to the Governing Council of the University of Toronto: 

This afternoon, the University of Toronto Governing Council will meet to decide the fate of the David Dunlap Observatory and its adjoining 189 acres of forests and meadows. This will be no ordinary meeting, and, if U of T's governing body decides to sell, it will be no ordinary sale. 

If these lands are permitted to be sold off and turned into houses and big box stores, it will require the consent and collusion of U of T’s governing council, the Town of Richmond Hill and the province.  In other words, the destruction of DDO forests and meadows will proceed only if the University declares the property to be surplus land, the Town of Richmond Hill council rezones it from institutional to residential/commercial, and the province (through Ontario Municipal Board hearings, if not ministerial intervention) allows bulldozers to begin scraping away the topsoil and trees. 

If these three entities collude to ensure the destruction of the largest remaining green space in the heart of Richmond Hill, it will demonstrate once and for all that our society has no interest in building sustainable communities or fixing the environmental mess we have gotten ourselves into.  It will show that despite the pretty words in a thousand press releases, no one really believes green space is important for the well-being of people and wildlife. 

After all, if one of Canada’s leading universities – an institution responsible for teaching conservation and sustainable development practices and for researching the social and environmental aspects of natural green space – is willing to sell the DDO to the highest bidder, what can we expect from rest of society? 

In fact, the sale of this land will undo much of the University’s institutional effort to become sustainable and environmentally sound.  The University of Toronto demonstrated leadership by opening a Sustainability Office in 2004.  Since then, it has launched numerous greening initiatives – from the LEED-certified Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre in Mississauga to extensive tree planting and naturalization projects on the St George campus. In an article on the University’s “Open Space Plan”, Mary Alice Thring writes “Trees are so integral to U of T that they appear in its crest and are invoked in its motto: Velut Arbor Aevo, which translates as ‘As a tree with the passage of time.’” She adds, “Trees are such a focus of all phases of the Open Space Plan that the landscape architects describe transforming the campus into an ‘urban forest’” (U of T Magazine, Spring 2004). 

Clearly, when it comes to its Toronto and Mississauga campuses, U of T’s administration understands the relationship between the environment and the health and well-being of people and all living things. 

But, will the greening of U of T’s 160-acre downtown campus mean anything if that institution sells off 189-acres of healthy forest and meadow lands in order to pay for future expansion projects? When the Dunlap property became part of the University in 1935, it was cultivated farmland. After seventy years of U of T’s stewardship, this land has been regenerated. It is now a crown of forest cover in the midst of Richmond Hill and a quiet haven for dozens of species of birds, deer, walkers – and astronomers. 

If the University proceeds with this sale, it will be in spite of the broad and deep environmental expertise of its own academics. A quick scan through the U of T undergraduate catalog turns up dozens of courses on the environment, forest ecology, conservation biology and other topics.  Dr. Mart Gross, for example, teaches courses which focus on “biodiversity; endangerment; habitat loss and fragmentation” as well as “moral philosophies, and political, economic and social justice issues surrounding biodiversity”.  In fact, U of T is home to Canada’s oldest forestry program and celebrated that Faculty’s centennial this month by hosting an international Congress to develop a “comprehensive Global Vision of Forestry in the 21^st Century”. 

What kind of “vision” will the sale and destruction of a major urban forest provide for the residents of Richmond Hill and their children? 

Given the repeated warnings of coming climate change and environmental degradation from UN panels such as the IPCC; given the fact that southern Ontario – and much of North America – is in the midst of a multi-year drought; given that Great Lakes water levels are at all-time lows and central plains aquifers are being depleted; given that our electrical grid has been pushed to the limit while geologists tell us that Peak Oil will occur – or has occurred – within our lifetime; we must ask whether now is the time to diminish our environment further by destroying the David Dunlap Observatory lands. 

Again, I would draw attention to the Spring 2004 edition of U of T Magazine: “People need trees, and lots of them. Each year, Toronto’s trees absorb roughly 28,000 tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of the output of thousands of cars. They also absorb about 1,500 tons of other pollutants, such as smog-causing nitrogen oxides. Not only do we need trees to maintain our health, we need them to nourish our souls.” 

Alumni and friends of the University of Toronto have responded generously to the University’s desire for trees.  By taking “minimum” donations of $750 per seedling, the University has planted hundreds of new trees on its downtown campus.  To celebrate U of T’s 175^th anniversary, for example, F. Ross and Susan L. Johnson made a gift of  175 trees and perennials along King’s College Road and the Sir Daniel Wilson and Knox College walkways.  Are not such wonderful gifts diminished if the University forges ahead with sale and destruction of the DDO property – a thriving urban forest that is considerably larger than the St. George campus? 

Over many decades, thousands of Richmond Hill students have paid millions of dollars in tuition fees to attend the University of Toronto. To this day, these students graduate with deep technical and critical thinking skills and a desire to build rich lives and communities. After 70years, it is unthinkable that the University would threaten the health of a vibrant community by removing the 189-acre heart that sits in the middle of it.

The fact that these healthy forests and meadows can be sold off for millions of dollars with out regard for, or consultation with, the people who live next to it is emblematic of many of our current social and environmental problems. The ability to speculate, to buy and sell remote tracts of land, mineral rights, water resources and currencies while remaining disconnected — or willfully ignorant of local consequences — explains a great deal about how we have moved close to the brink of our own destruction.

I do not see how the U of T Governing Council, the Town of Richmond Council and the Province can support the sale of David Dunlap Observatory.  There is time.  And the University should use it.

Sincerely,

Rod Potter

Member of the Richmond Hill Naturalists Executive and long-time Richmond Hill Resident

YouTube is famous for prank videos and bone-crushing skateboard mishaps, but video clip culture also allows the world to sample pockets of beauty and skill that would never have seen the light of day a few years ago. These days anyone can "make it" — all you have to do is make it.  That's what Andy McKee did. Check out this gorgeous piece of music that blends complex tapping, harmonics and guitar percussion techniques to create a rich, mesmerizing sound.  Clearly,  Andy McKee has listened to and learned much from the likes of Michael Hedges, Don Ross and other players who have redefined the acoustic guitar for the digital age. Thanks for sharing this Andy:

Between work and the weather it’s been hard to find a spare minute to post this past week, but I did manage to listen to Richard Dawkins’ intriguing lecture on the Strangeness of Science on CBC’s Ideas. I haven’t read Dawkin’s The God Delusion, yet,  but it’s definitely on the list.  Now that you are thinking about the Supreme Being, have a gander at Mr. Deity’s hilarious and clever take on the problem of God and evil:

From the looks of it, Mr.Deity, deserves to become an ongoing series, though so far there are just four episodes on YouTube. Between The Daily Show’s "This Week" in God and our collective memory of  Dana Carve’s Church Lady, I don’t know  if the world of Godless Secular Humanist comedy can find room for Mr. Deity’s cosmic humour. But it should.

I was prepared to happily ignore Apple’s new iPhone, but waking up this morning I was assaulted by the voice of CBC’s Metro Morning host, Andy Barrie, on the subject of Apple’s latest gadget.  Barrie and his guest, technology analyst Jesse Hirsh gushed endlessly over both Apple and the iPhone.  Even for Barrie, who never misses an opportunity to praise his collection Mac toys, this morning’s segment was bloody awful.  Have a listen, but it’ll make your teeth hurt.  To be fair, Hirsh subsequently blogged a more balanced assessment of the iPhone. Therein, he points out they will actually cost about $4000 after Rogers and the rest collect their monthly fees for two or three years.   In other words, cellular providers may profit more from this innovation than Apple will.

No doubt Apple’s new toy will quickly find its way into the meaty hands of every CEO in North America (Andy Barrie will probably snag one also).  But many others will balk at the cost — both the monthly service fees and the cost of breaking an existing contract in order to share in Apple’s chic.  On the otherhand, the iPhone may spark more innovation from Nokia and Motorola and may even force cell providers to slash bandwidth costs over time. If the planet survives another five years, the cellular phone landscape will look much different than it does today. If it comes about, Apple can certainly take some credit.

But for the moment, Cisco is suing Apple for trademark infringement. That may slow things down a little, but most likely Apple will prevail on this one. Someone on Slashdot suggested Apple rename it the iConn.  In response, I suggested any of following: iSpend, iJob, iSue, iHype, iTod, iSore, iBore, iScream.  I don’t think it will ever become the i Formerly Known as Phone, however. And if you consider yourself a "Mac person", it will always be an iPhone.

For the record — I don’t own a Mac or an iPod and will probably never own an iPhone. But the device is impressive. A boatload of elegant software embedded in a slick piece of hardware.  But I don’t need it, can’t afford it and would probably break or lose it if I had one.  It won’t cure cancer or diabetes or stop global warming, but that iPhone thingy is still a thing of beauty.  And it has a nice ring to it as well.

I stuck toothpicks in my eyes to stay awake for Stewart and Colbert last night, hoping for some good humour and insight — some fake insight at least.  Not much to be found there these days, though Jason Jones’ report on two lunatics (one trying to give guns to teachers and one trying to give students Kevlar textbooks) was funny and smart.  Meanwhile, in what passes for reality, we still don’t know what caused the Big Stink in the Big Apple yesterday, but the media’s great bloodshot orb has moved on to cover the U.S. air strike against al Qaeda in Somalia and the oil dispute between Russia and Belarus. 

So why am I thinking about Easter Island?  Today’s NY Times has an interesting piece by Larry Rohter on the issue of whether to restore the giant stone moai on Easter Island. Although about 50 of these large familiar gods have been restored over the years, hundreds more remain scattered around the island. The trouble is that it costs upwards of $500,000 to restore each one and many Easter Islanders feel that enough have been restored to sustain a healthy tourist industry. In fact, it seems that 45,000 visitors a year is already straining the island’s resources.

Rohter’s article describes the conundrum nicely, but fails to explain why there are hundreds of broken moai scattered around the island in the first place. For this information, we can turn to Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse: by deforesting the island in order to build these things while struggling to grow food for up to 30,000 people, the islanders essentially depleted the soil and used up their primary source of fuel. Competing tribes built the moai to appease the gods in order to "improve" food production. As resources grew scarce, it became easier to destroy your neighbor’s moai and harder to build new ones. Diamond provides a wealth of evidence on the island’s population growth, deforestation and subsequent food production problems.

Fearing for the sustainability of their island (and probably wanting to use the land for other purposes), modern Easter Islanders have no desire to restore all of the old gods so that  foreigners can gawk at "old stuff".  There is a good deal of irony and powerful metaphor here, ya think? Diamond thinks to so, also, and views Easter Island as a microcosm of humanity’s struggle on this planet.  The fact that some of us want to waste more resources to raise up hundreds of pieces of rock on a remote island (while others tear down "gods" like the giant statue of Saddam and the Bhuddas in Afghanistan) shows shows just how far we haven’t come.

The fact is, hundreds of old broken moai will teach us more about Easter Island — and ourselves — if we just leave ‘em alone.