1–6 of 267 entries categorized:

Rants

The sociology of avoiding travel, due to climate change

June 27, 2009

in Politics, Rants, The environment

Adopting a personal ethical position where you don’t fly or otherwise travel long distances because of climate change is rather problematic: it has no upside, and a lot of downside. There is no upside because nobody is willing to copy you. Even people who agree that the science on climate change is compelling, that our [...]

{ 11 comments }

Getting serious about climate change

June 26, 2009

in Canada, Economics, Politics, Rants, Science, The environment

The key thing that is required for dealing with climate change, and which our society does not yet possess, is seriousness. Seriousness of the kind that accompanied winning the Second World War – far more seriousness than we are displaying now in Afghanistan. We can afford to effectively lose that war, watching control pass back [...]

{ 16 comments }

Lack of vision in the Australian senate

June 23, 2009

in Economics, Politics, Rants, Science, The environment

Australia may be the rich state with the most to lose from climate change, in the near- and medium-term. Almost all of the country is already either unsuitable or marginal for agriculture. They have major problems with erosion, invasive species, drought, and salinization. They are also one of the rich countries closest to low-lying poorer [...]

{ 6 comments }

Scrolling in XP and Mac OS X

June 12, 2009

in Geek stuff, Rants

For those with a scroll wheel on their mouse, Mac OS has one nice feature that is annoyingly absent in Windows XP. In Mac OS, if you put your mouse cursor over a window and scroll, it scrolls the contents of that window – a document, a webpage, whatever. In Windows XP, it will only [...]

{ 6 comments }

The value of private cars in cities

May 31, 2009

in Rants, The environment, The outdoors

In the midst of the discussion about the ethics of traveling to Vancouver, the issue of how cars have benefited and harmed people living in urban areas came up. It is undeniable that they have been a major transformative force, when it comes to the shape and character of cities.
To me, it seems that private [...]

{ 23 comments }

Balancing the environment and economy

May 30, 2009

in Canada, Economics, Politics, Rants, Science, The environment

When dealing with climate change, politicians often talk about the need to ‘balance the economy and the environment.’ I think this is a misleading categorization for two reasons.
Firstly, the balance has always been tilted virtually 100% towards the economy, in Canada at least. When the government talks about the need to scale back climate mitigation [...]

{ 6 comments }

← Previous Entries