Climate Catastrophe

Dont tell me its the wind that is the problem :roll_eyes:

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Pretty impressive I agree, and must have some real power to shift through that at that speed.

I could easily see myself liking Canadian wildlife photography, that mixed with a healthy doe of landscape stuff. Spectacular part of the world I feel.

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I am guessing it was somewhere out West and it is a nice dry snow with not much packing, maybe the moose is just out to get first tracks in fresh powder - still absolutely awesome power though. Decent impression of this:

I think of this whenever I hear about ‘leaves on the track’ causing train delays in the UK.

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Yes the only problem is is we are actually going in the other direction. Underclass should be on the lips of western politicians (rather than working class as that has all but dissapeared) yet they have trickle down on their minds. I think any constructive help for poorer states is a wild dream.
On the climate we haven’t even started on pragmatic solutions to world trade. Massive transports still sail our oceans spewing out tonnes of real toxic shit and those in ‘charge’ of it haven’t any intention do do anything about it.
I sit here at my keyboard and just wonder at where you can start. Which just goes to show how late we have left all this.

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As is addressing Climate Change I feel. For me, I think the two are ultimately related. As a species we need to live in harmony with the planet. I think that becomes easier the playing field is a little more level.

yes I agree, I think we are too late.

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Fucking amazing, love the finger wiper.
How long was that train and how many tonnes was it in total? (no need to reply) I mean it must have been longer than Devon is large.
Also noticed some trees lining the track so what do they do in canada about leaves when they fall?

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Who ducked?

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Canada’s passenger rail service is mediocre - there are some great tourist trips, but as a system that moves us around for day-to-day purposes, it is nowhere near a European standard, nor even that of the US Northeast. So the vast majority of traffic is freight, which are both much heavier on the lines and less likely to be stopping, starting, speeding up and slowing down, which is I gather where the slippery track problem really matters.

That train was in New Brunswick, so would not be longer than 3700 metres and 20k tonnes, but likely not far below that either. On the western network they can routinely be up to 4200 metres. That much snow accumulation is becoming rarer and rarer.

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Excluding Maine. We have six stations in the whole state!

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Maine used to have quite a few, but the post-war shift to automobiles annihilated those systems. I think all of New Brunswick has less than a dozen left.

It amazes and infuriates me that here we shut down a streetcar/commuter rail system in the early 1950’s, and now as we build out a commuter rail system, we are spending billions on lines because there is no space left for them.

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I go for walks on the old tracks sometimes near Augusta. The station is still there, sort of, but the line is now unused because they chose to cut it off at Brunswick in the 50s. I wonder if Augusta is the only state capital not connected by rail?

There are always stories about them resurrecting the line up to Bangor but like you say it would costs billions to do it now.

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My take is that they should be forced if possible. The justification is obvious: common good and the long-term survival of human civilisation as we know it. But without a full-fledged revolution, with heads on spikes and all, I can’t see how they could be forced.

So, the logical conclusion is that the key to change lies in everyone of us. Once we recognise that there is a problem, we are more and more ready to make the effort to address it.

This makes me think about the following, beautiful French expression, possibly originating from China: Les petits ruisseaux font les grandes rivières.

(is there any English traduction for this? Literally it means Small Streams Make Mighty Rivers).

While you are still in a minority (like me), compare the current state of mind of many people these days with the one of twenty years ago. Yes, there are still many indifferent people, but there is a change. So, more and more small streams are joining yours, mine and others’ as we speak, and in the end, all of them will make a big, mighty river. The question here is when, not if, and it could happen more quickly than we all expect.

Until then, as we have no choice, we must walk through the storm, but with our heads held up high, and doing as well as we can. We can’t save the world on our own, and there is no magical receipt to do it. But we can do our part, in all honesty.

And: after a storm, there is a golden line on the horizon, and the sweet, silver song of a lark, ain’t it?
(I love that song!)

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Doubt it is related to Chinese as it’s a 16th century saying popularised by Antoine Furetière in the 17 century. It’s very popular saying in France often relating to money and small saving becoming a big pot.
Still trying to find an equivalent in English I am sure it wouldn’t be anywhere near as poetic. :wink:

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It obviously heard that Guardiola is on his way.

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We have a similar, but another one that expresses a similar idea is ‘mighty oaks from little acorns grow’

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Hmm, looks like we might be done fucking around. Government just announced the carbon tax is going to $170/tonne by 2030, which is actually in the range of a number to get something real done.

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Now we just need the rest of the world to follow suit.

I won’t hold my breath…

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…impossible to 2030, even for you.

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I don’t think $170 is impossible, but that is a steep escalation. We are at $30/tonne now, up $10 on January 1, with the plan having been set previously to $50/t in 2022. So that curve is going to bend upwards sharply. It will definitely have consequences, Alberta will not be happy. But there is no free path out there, either you tackle the problem, or you don’t. When I was very active in emissions trading over a decade ago, there were analyses that suggested we could need to set the carbon price as high as $80/t, and that was attacked as absurd. Inaction has merely pushed that number up.

At somewhere around an additional $0.40/litre of fuel (based on increase from today to 2030), those electric cars are going to start looking fairly good.

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