I first moved to Richmond Hill in 1972. As a 12-year-old who grew up with the Gemini and Apollo space programs, I was interested in science and astronomy and owned a small telescope and a subscription to Sky and Telescope.  In the pages of that magazine, the names such as Palomar, Mount Wilson, Yerkes and David Dunlap Observatory occurred frequently and resonated deeply. These were wonderful, inspiring, exotic places of science that generated deep intellectual attachments in thousands of young men and women.  I was thrilled to move to Richmond Hill, primarily because it was the home of David Dunlap Observatory

After attending one of the public lectures and seeing the 74-inch telescope for the first time on my 13th birthday, my friends and I made many trips to the DDO.  A few years later we moved to Weldrick Road and the observatory became a favorite place where I could walk, write and take photographs. Continue reading »

The Toronto Star’s Catherine Porter has written a lovely catalogue of the global warming horrors that await Toronto and the GTA in the coming decades: drought, flash floods, algal blooms, power shortages, water shortages, mosquito-borne disease… you get the idea.  My only quibble is that nowhere does Porter acknowledge that all of these problems will be exacerbated by population growth and development.  Prosperity in Ontario is fueled by population growth and that population is rapidly pushing east, west and north around the Golden Horseshoe. The Ontario government has decreed that four million additional souls will feed off this land over the next 25 years. God knows how many of us will be sustained in 2050.

This growth will come largely because of federal immigration policy which is slated to admit some 300,000 immigrants per year.  As a Queen’s University study notes “Immigration has become the central dynamic in both population and labour force growth in Canada.”  The authors of this study explain that in the late 1980’s Canadian immigration policy moved away from setting immigration levels to match short-run economic conditions.  Instead, our government now takes  an optimistically long view of things and ignores current unemployment and economic performance when setting immigration targets.  I would add that the feds also ignore environmental factors and the carrying capacity of the land when setting these levels.

Instead, the problem of where to house those extra four million bodies has been downloaded to Ontario.  And Ontario, with dubious wisdom, has cranked out the “Places to Grow” plan. This “plan” is really more like a menu that details how the southern half of this province will be carved up and served to developers. I ranted over the folly of this plan a while back, and groups such as the Neptis Foundation have found their own faults with it.  They point out that Ontario’s Places to Grow plan:

1. Does not contain measures that would result in the better, more productive development of currently unbuilt areas within urban boundaries, nor in significantly increased re-urbanization of the built-up areas of the region.
2. Does not provide strong protection for environmentally sensitive lands not associated with the Greenbelt. Much stronger policies are needed in a growth management plan.
3. Does not protect agricultural land across the whole region. The proposed policies retain the standards currently in force, which have failed to protect farmland.
4. May not decrease automobile use and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the plan’s support for transit, complementary measures to reduce automobile dependence are not included.
5. Contains few specifics on how success will be tracked and measured.

Even the Neptis critique, while it makes valid points, never questions the fundamental assumption that Ontario’s population needs to grow significantly beyond current levels.  Of course, the issue of immigration — since the majority of Canadians are immigrants or the children of immigrants — is a touchy one. But it is an issue that must be addressed if we are to make real progress in reducing our environmental footprint in order to ensure long-term survival and a decent life for our children.

Apparently Chinese scientists have "succeeded" in implanting electrodes into the brains of pigeons in order to  remotely control their flight. Does this mean we should now be wary of pigeons carrying cameras or tiny pieces of plutonium?  Is that white splotch on your shoulder pigeon shit or anthrax? Scary stuff.

But can we even trust the authenticity of this particular atrocity? After all, this Xinhua news agency story was fed to Reuters, filtered into English, bounced 10 thousand miles around the planet and then regurgitated in CNN's "Offbeat News" feed.  If true, this momentous leap for science took place at the Robot Engineering Technology Research Centre at Shandong University of Science and Technology. There is even a quote from the lead 12-year-old animal torturer/scientist:

"It's the first such successful experiment on a pigeon in the world," Xinhua quoted the center's chief scientist, Su Xuecheng, as saying. 

Perhaps this misguided, waste of time is a symbol of what is going on in China these days: rampant pollution, out of control growth, human rights abuses, a tanking stock market. Maybe I don't really believe that — I'm just goofing around. China is a big, complex place, with plenty of scientific resources that can be used for good as well as for sci-fi horror purposes. Perhaps the Chinese were just responding to America's own efforts in the remote-controlled animal race. A casual Google search for "American remote-controlled animals" yields this website, a site which details that country's long and checkered history of using remote-controlled "spy animals" for combat and national security. An excerpt:

The American spy cow is the newest addition to a series of radio controlled robotic farm animals which were developed by Armorobotech Weapons, Inc. for the US Army's Military Farm Animal Operations Program or MFAOP to innocently walk into enemy territory where they would be mistaken for real harmless farm animals. The program was first used during the gulf war when explosive chickens were used to attack people and buildings in enemy cities. After the war MFAOP was used by the FBI to track down and chase dangerous criminals. In 1994 a mechanical race horse chased a convicted murderer from the scene of a fatal hostage situation for an hour and a half before he finally collapsed from exhaustion. The Animals were also used for rescue purposes. In 1993 a team of 5 Mechanical Ducks rescued a five year old from the raging waters during the Great Mississippi River Flood. After the Oklahoma City bombing skinny tom cats were used to search through the rubble for survivors. Since the Gulf war 42 different species of farm animals have been developed for various uses. 

Clearly, American science has been quite creative in putting remote-controlled animals to work. In contrast, the Chinese report "did not specify what practical uses the scientists saw for the remote-controlled pigeons". May I humbly suggest there can only be two uses for this technology: fiction and satire. And I'm afraid that when it comes to remote-controlled animals, the Yanks may well be winning the satirical race.

It is strange and peculiar that a large swath of Queens and La Guardia airport in NY has been without electricity for five days. Utility workers are  repairing feeder lines and transformers, but they have not yet found the root cause of the failure. Con Edison officials told the New York Times that damage was “significant and extensive.”

So where has all the power gone? If I didn’t know better, I’d guess that the protagonist in Ralph Ellison’s 1952 Invisible Man just might know the answer. Ellison’s guy is alive and well and living near Harlem, but in order to survive, the Invisible Man must live underground, must operate beneath the radar of a dominant culture that refuses to include him. He writes:

I have been carrying on a fight with Monopolated Light and Power for some time now. I use their service and pay them nothing at all, and they don’t know it. Oh, they suspect that power is being drained off, but they don’t know where. All they know is that according to the master meter back there in their power station a hell of a lot of free current is disappearing somewhere into the jungle of Harlem… My hole is warm and full of light. Yes full of light. I doubt there is a brighter spot in all New York than this hole of mine, and I do not exclude Broadway. Or the Empire State Building on a photographer’s dream night.

In many ways the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and almost everyone in southern Lebanon seem to be invisible these days. How else can one explain the indiscriminate way in which Israel has been pulverizing Beirut? Who would drop bombs on young children if they were not invisible? Of course, Hezbollah and Hamas are living in a dream world if they do not believe in Israel’s right to exist. But, at the same time, the only way Israel can truly disarm these militant factions is by offering Palestinians a full share of life in the region. They could start with an equitable distribution of water and electricity. Since israel bombed a power station serving Gaza City, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have gone with out electricity and without enough water (since electricity is required in order to pump it). As far as water goes, it is interesting that Israel wants to push Hezbollah north of the Litani river. As Marq De Villiers noted in Water:

The Israelis have never really given up thinking of the Litani as rightfully theirs. And since almost half the water used in Israel is already captured, diverted, or pre-empted from its neighbors, why stop there?

Although much of the electricity in Queens, Lebanon and Gaza has gone “missing” of late, it will ultimately be restored with the help of engineers and line workers. But these electrical repairs will only be temporary fixes unless we also repair cultural and economic circuit breakers. Anything less and the global grid will remain broken and increasingly unreliable. The displaced and the invisible will get some of what they need one way or another.

The House Sparrow is a tough, adaptable species that has become a North American de facto standard. Look out any window, stare at any telephone line or check the pavement next to any hotdog vendor and chances are you’ll see four or five or fifty of these things. Though they seem to own the place, House Sparrows are a fairly recent import in North America. It is said they were first introduced by Nicholas Pike in 1850 when he brought eight pairs over from England and released them in Central Park. It took several tries, but within a few years, House Sparrows learned how to make a go of things in North America — largely by eating grains, animal feed and feasting upon horse dung and garbage in cities. It is estimated that there are at least 150 million House Sparrows in North America today.

The House Sparrow and other European species was introduced for both esthetic and environmental reasons. Pike and others mistakenly expected the birds to help control worm infestations in forests. Between 1872 and 1874, the Cincinnati Acclimatization Society introduced 4000 European songbirds (18 species), but only House Sparrows and Starlings found a foothold and spread. They wanted to “aid people against the encroachment of insects” and to make sure that the “ennobling influence of the song of birds will be felt by the inhabitants”. Unfortunately, these exotic introductions helped cause a major decline in the population of North American native songbirds by driving away Bluebirds, swallows, warblers and other species. It is sadly ironic that because House Sparrows are primarily seed-eaters, their introduction in North America actually encouraged more widespread insect infestations.

A few years ago, Graeme Gibson wrote an interesting book called The Bedside Book of Birds: an Avian Miscellany. It’s a collection of writings from many places and times that deal with the symbolism of birds. I’d like to suggest that in North America, at least, the House Sparrow has nothing to do with symbolism and everything to do with realism. The lowly House Sparrow is more of a mirror — a direct reflection of our strivings and our capacity for colossal error.