Sunday, December 10, 2017

Dark Side Of The Moon


On December 3rd the world was treated to a spectacular supermoon sighting. A supermoon being a full moon that approximately coincides with the closest distance the Moon gets to Earth in its orbit and thus makes it appear to be larger than usual. Because of the eliptical nature of the moon's orbit the distance from Earth to the Moon ranges between 357,000 and 406,000 kilometers; so when that 50,000 kilometers coincides with a full moon it really makes a difference.



But the Moon doesn't emit light it only reflects sunlight and only half of the Moon is lighted at any one time. It doesn't mean there is a dark side it just means we can only see up to half of the lighted side depending on where it is in relation to the earth and sun. The reason we are always looking at the same part of the Moon is because it takes 29 days to make a complete orbit around the Earth which is also the same amount of time it takes to make one rotation around its axis. The two happenings are locked together. 




Also locked together of course are the Earth and Sun as the Earth rotates around its axis while orbiting the Sun. Unlike the Moon, which is relatively upright and therefore having the same season year round, the Earth has quite a tilt to its axis and, over the course of the year, this causes the Sun's radiation to strike the hemispheres at different angles. Whichever hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun experiences winter and when tilted towards the Sun has summer. In the polar regions this can also lead to 24 hour sunlight or 24 hour darkness.


Near and Far Sides of the Moon

Thanks first to the 1959 Soviet Luna 3 probe and later NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2009 we now have images of the "dark side" of the moon or "far side" of the moon as it is more appropriately called. Prior to this the only humans to have seen this side of the moon were the Apollo astronauts who orbited it in exploratory missions or before landing on its surface.  Strange how, at this time of year as the days get progressively shorter and darker, it's the moonlight that seems to brighten our existence (even if it's only reflected sunlight from the near side).

Monday, November 13, 2017

Silence Is Golden/Sound of Silence

Nelson scuba diving - photo by Michael Mehta

One of the things I like best about swimming in the ocean or scuba diving is the silence. No sirens, honking of horns, or revving of engines. No garbage trucks roaring up and down the alleyways, no buses idling, no dump trucks and cement mixers grinding away. No mindless cellphone chatter, no beeping cash registers, not even any music.  Only yourself and what is around you.

Sunrise photo - by Junie Quiroga

Early morning is another good time to enjoy a little serenity. While most of the world is still sleeping I can have my coffee and newspaper, listen to the birds, and wait for everyone else to slowly wake up. No TV talking heads or radio announcers, no traffic reports or commercials, only peace and quiet and a chance to collect my thoughts.

Construction photos - by Junie Quiroga



However, peace and quiet is almost impossible right now in my neighbourhood, thanks to the overwhelming and incessant din of five different construction projects currently under way. Demolition crews taking down existing structures, drilling and excavating equipment in other places getting the sites prepared, and everywhere concrete being poured as the buildings slowly rise out of the mud. From early morning until end of day and sometimes into the evening the noise and attendant dust, fills the air.




Is there any end in sight? I doubt it and, as much as I love the bustle of city life, I can also see the bustling will only get more pronounced as more and more people move into the downtown and then have to find ways of getting around. In the meantime the decibel level keeps rising and we're all in danger of having our hearing damaged from all the construction noise.

Pigeons bathing - photo by Junie Quiroga

Still, if one takes a moment to step away from the hustle and bustle of our daily madness and look a little closer at our surroundings, there is always another perspective.  I may not appreciate a noisy cement truck blocking traffic and pouring water down the street but a group of pigeons was happy to take advantage of an ideal pop-up bathing facility. And for pigeons all these buildings are a good thing since they provide plenty of ledges to sit on.


But it was on Remembrance Day the sound of silence really hit home. For just a moment, at 11:00 a.m. things came to a sudden halt, people stopped what they were doing, and nobody spoke. Total silence. Such a profound way to mark the sacrifice of others and what an impact an absence of noise can make. It begs the question that if silence is golden why aren't we making more of it?


Monday, September 4, 2017

Summer of Love


As the 50th anniversary of the Summer Of Love comes to an end perhaps it's worthwhile to pause for a moment and compare the two summers. In the U.S. it all unfolded in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco where the counter culture hippie movement, use of drugs, and music scene came together but, while some of that spilled over into Canada, our main focus was the 100 year anniversary of Confederation and Expo 67 in Montreal. 1967 was a landmark year in many respects, particularly in terms of culture and politics but 50 years later it's hard to tell if any of it really mattered or if anything really changed. Sonny & Cher's song The Beat Goes On illustrated that no matter how much we think we modernize, the underlying things still stay the same.



In 1967 the drugs of choice were marijuana and LSD. The marijuana wasn't even a tenth of the strength of today's pot and the LSD promoted by Timothy Leary for "turning on, tuning in, and dropping out" was perfectly legal. The drugs in 1967 got you high and stimulated creativity and exploration. Today the drugs of choice are high test marijuana (which is now legal), cocaine, crystal meth, and fentanyl none of which are conducive to anything artistic and in fact are causing fatal overdoses in epic proportions.



The music scene however was an incredible mix of psychedelia, love and whimsy that produced a rich catalogue of unforgettable songs that contrasts sharply with whatever passes for music today. This was the year of the Beatles Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, & Magical Mystery Tour albums and all the hit songs they contained, Jefferson Airplane White Rabbit, Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze, Procol Harum, Whiter Shade of Pale, Moody Blues Tuesday Afternoon, Strawberry Alarm Clock Incense & Peppermint, Traffic Dear Mr. Fantasy, Small Faces Itchycoo Park, Up Up And Away by the 5th Dimension and Vancouver's own Tom Northcott with Sunny Goodge Street. It was also the year of the Monterey Pop Festival that featured The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Mamas & Papas, and Eric Burdon and the Animals who would later immortalize the event with the songs San Francisco Nights & Monterey. The songs of love included Love Is All Around by the Troggs, the Association Never My Love, Donovan's Wear Your Love Like Heaven, the Doors Light My Fire & Love Me Two Times, Jefferson Airplane Somebody to Love, Spencer Davis Gimme Some Lovin, Mamas & Papas, Dedicated To The One I Love, Happy Together, by the Turtles, Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl, Motown's Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson with Love Is Here And Now You're Gone, Ain't No Mountain High Enough, and I Second That Emotion, The Letter by the Box Tops, the Rascals How Can I Be Sure, and the Rolling Stones Let's Spend The Night Together. And for whimsy what could beat the Rolling Stones Dandelion, Kind Of A Drag, by the Buckinghams, The Rain The Park And Other Things, by the Cowsills, Easybeats Friday On My Mind, Grassroots Let's Live For Today, Monkees Daydream Believer, the Tremeloes Silence Is Golden, I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night by the Electric Prunes, Blues Magoos We Ain't Seen Nothing Yet. the Rascals Groovin or Simon & Garfunkel's Feeling Groovy.





But it wasn't all love, in 1967 the U.S. was in the middle of an unwinnable war in Vietnam, just as it is today with the war in Afghanistan and the Middle East. The difference is back then there were massive protest marches led by students who wanted to see an end to the injustice and atrocities whereas today we just have massive indifference. 1967 was also the year of the 6 day war that saw Israel seize control of the Sinai in Egypt, the West Bank in Jordan, the Golan Heights in Syria, and East Jerusalem resulting in over 400,000 refugees being displaced. Fifty years later the situation is even more chaotic in the Middle East with an estimated 5 million Syrian refugees alone living outside their country.



In 1967 Che Guevara, the famous guerrilla and revolutionary partner of Fidel Castro, died. The left wing ideologies of the 1960's have all but disappeared now with the Soviet Union and China just as ruthlessly capitalistic as the rest of the world and, instead of rejecting the status quo, we have all become voracious consumers and slaves to the forces of marketing and banking. At the end of 2016, almost exactly 50 years later, Fidel Castro also died and now Cuba is trying to join the rest of the economic order and do something for its long suffering citizens.



In 1967 there were huge race riots in major U.S. cities with Detroit suffering hundreds of casualties and millions in property damage. Today there are again race riots thanks to the recent rise of white supremacists. 1967 was the year the movie "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" debuted as well as "The Graduate" and "Bonnie & Clyde". Movies back then were trying to explore social issues whereas today that role is being left to streaming TV series and the movies are all about special effects and make believe. In 1967 Thurgood Marshall was appointed the first black Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and in 2017 the first black President of the U.S. stepped down.



In 1967 revelations about President Lyndon Johnson's incompetence in handling the Vietnam War led to him not bothering to seek re-election the following year. 2017's litany of screw ups may turn out to have the same result for Donald Trump, the presidential clown currently occupying the oval office. It was China in 1967 that conducted its first hydrogen bomb test while today it's North Korea trying to play the nuclear arms game.



1967 was Canada's 100 year birthday celebration just one year before Pierre Trudeau would become Prime Minister. 50 years later a more muted celebration would take place under the eye of his enigmatic son Justin. Gordon Lightfoot penned Canadian Railroad Trilogy a history of the nation building railway through the country's vastness. Unfortunately these celebrations ignore the fact Canada has been around much longer than just since Confederation with First Nations people living on the land long before European traders and settlers arrived. In addition to long stalled treaty negotiations throughout North America with these First Nations people Canada also has the shame of having to now address the cultural genocide and abuse it supported with the residential school program.



In 1967 the space race between the Russian Soyuz and the American Apollo programs was well under way, in spite of occasional tragic set-backs, and the Cold War was in full swing. Today the Russians rent out their launching facilities to various commercial enterprises and in the U.S. the space program race is primarily between various private enterprises including Elon Musk (Tesla) SpaceX and Jeff Bezo (Amazon) Blue Origin with Richard Branson (Virgin) Virgin Galactic in Great Britain also competing.  Interestingly 1967 was also the year the Soviet Union and the U.S. signed a treaty banning nuclear weapons in outer space and today both countries actively share responsibilities for the international space station.



In the movie "The Graduate" the actor playing Mr. Robinson tells the hero Dustin Hoffman that the future is in plastics, a product of the petrochemical industry and something that today would seem to be on the wane in the wake of global warming and the massive plastic garbage patch circulating in the Pacific ocean. 2017 however marked a year of pipeline protest in both the U.S. and Canada as the world looks to find alternatives to oil & gas. In 1967 the first automated teller machine was introduced but, after 50 years of PCs, laptops and smartphones, the future of computing is now all about quantum physics.



If the heart symbolized love what could have been more symbolic than the first ever successful human heart transplant being completed in 1967 by Dr. Christiaan Barnard. The first successful liver transplant also happened in 1967.  Today we treat transplants with about as much awe as flying on an aeroplane with heart, lung, kidney, liver and other organ transplants happening by the thousands every month. As miraculous as these transplants and other medical advances have been it hasn't translated into looking after our health any better. Instead it has made us all very complacent and lazy with nearly 50% of the population now obese or overweight as opposed to only 10% in 1967.



As a prelude to the summer of love what could have been better than Elvis and Priscilla Presley getting married in the spring of 1967. Marriage and divorce rates have changed since then with people delaying getting married until later in life but, as a result, the divorce rate is also starting to decline. It's also possible for people of the same sex to marry one another. With love and marriage some things never change.



Summertime always makes me feel nostalgic especially now that all of us who were alive in 1967 have become pensioners. It's a time of sunshine and taking a break from work or school. It's when you go on holiday road trips, hang out by the water, and fall in love. It was also that magic year when it all came together in a very special place that maybe now is the centre of high tech but was once a place where you wore flowers in your hair.  The year was 1967 and, while the summer of love has long since passed, at least the music lives on in Scott Mackenzie's San Francisco Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair.

Sunday, August 20, 2017

If You're Going To The North Country part 2

Back Bay, Great Slave Lake
This summer I had the pleasure of visiting two of Canada's northern territories; North West Territories and Nunavut. Both contain vast areas of land and water but NWT is primarily in the boreal forest zone while Nunavut is in the treeless tundra. The water bodies in NWT are mostly fresh but in Nunavut it's salt water.

Great Slave Lake

Both are good for swimming, though of course the water can be quite cold if you aren't wearing the right gear. In NWT I had the pleasure of swimming in the beautifully clear waters of Great Slave Lake every morning while staying in Yellowknife and Little Doc lake in the Nahanni National Park. I didn't swim in Nunavut per se but I did get to swim in the waters of Hudson's Bay which borders Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Nunavut.

Little Doc Lake
There weren't any creatures joining me for a swim in any of the lakes in NWT but in Hudson's Bay I was surrounded by beluga whales, the gentlest companions anyone could ask for. I've swam with seals, sea lions, and dolphins but nothing could have prepared me for an encounter like this. Out of the hundreds of belugas in the area at the time I don't know how many came by to check me out but they kept coming in groups of 5 or so, with their babies in tow, clicking and beeping away as they used their echolocation to size me up.

Swimming with belugas in Hudson's Bay

  


It was a beautiful experience that gave me a whole new perspective on marine mammals, the north country, and swimming in the wild. So glad the government has long ago put a stop to capturing these magnificent creatures for the sake of aquariums. Nothing beats seeing animals in their own natural habitat but, if you're going to the north country, make sure you have a thick wet suit.

Little Doc Lake

Friday, August 4, 2017

Come Rain Or Come Shine

Beaver Lodge
Following a recent trip up North there were two things in particular that really struck me; the vastness of the boreal forest that makes up 55% of Canada's land mass, and how much of it was actually made up of water.  Everywhere you looked there were lakes of varying size and, set up in the middle of nearly every one was a beaver lodge. With all that water on display it was easy to see how Canada can lay claim to 20% of the world's fresh water.


What I didn't realize, is there's a huge difference between non-renewable water that's in lakes, underground aquifers and glaciers, and what is actually considered renewable. Renewable water is water that generally operates on an annual cycle where it falls from the atmosphere as precipitation, runs off the land surface in rivers and streams that eventually reach the ocean, and is then evaporated by solar energy and returned to the atmosphere to fall again as precipitation. When viewed in this way our supply of the world's renewable water is only at 7%.

Beaver Lodges
Water conservation isn't something we think about until of course we are threatened with a shortage. Beavers on the other hand worry about this all the time and do everything in their power to stop water from running off to the ocean. Their whole purpose in life is to conserve any moving water into little lakes and they sure do a good job if they are left alone to do their job.


Thanks to the various continental divides that ensure all water flows downhill, more than half of our renewable water flows into the Arctic Ocean and Hudson's Bay, reducing even further the amount of water available to the rest of the country where most folks live. But, just because the water is renewable doesn't mean it's drinkable. "Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink" said the Ancient Mariner in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem that could just as easily apply to much of Canada where, to our great shame, one in five First Nations people who do live up North lack access to clean, safe, and sustainable drinking water.

Beaver Lodge
While poorly designed and/or maintained water treatment plants are the main problem for these communities it isn't much of a concern to the beavers whose little ponds seem to meet all of their requirements and those of some waterfowl and moose as well. I don't suppose they would object to a few more pool toys, satellite TV, and a decently stocked wet bar but, as the song goes, "you can't always get what you want". Keeping safe from wolves and bears is more important.




Non-renewable water can take up to millions of years to accumulate and, over using it, could mean ages again before it ever refills. This is the current situation with the Ogallala aquifer in the U.S. midwest, one of the world's largest, which is rapidly being drained for drinking water and by irrigation for the farming industry. In Canada our non-renewable water could also start to disappear with our glaciers melting as a result of global warming or if we started to drain our lakes by exporting water to the U.S. which has been proposed numerous times over the years.

Beaver Lodge
Beavers certainly aren't going to part with their water no matter how much Coca Cola or Nestle have to offer but they do wonder why we are so eager to pay for bottled water in the first place. The warmer this planet gets the more important our water will become and maybe before we let it all run off into the ocean we might want to think about things like collecting rainwater in cisterns, changing our attitude towards having a green lawn, or dam it as the beavers would say. Come rain or come shine we need to be paying more attention to our water no matter how much we think we have.