planted city

Canada, Our Changing Climate & ‘The Winter That Wasn’t’

Canada’s environmental agency recently released a weather bulletin reporting that:

The national average temperature for the winter of 2011/2012 was 3.6°C above normal (1961-1990 average), based on preliminary data, which makes this the third warmest winter on record since nationwide records began in 1948.

It also noted that Canada’s:

winter temperatures have been at or above normal since 1997.

The infographic above summarizes some of regional impacts of the winter of 2011/2, a.k.a. ‘The Winter That Wasn’t’. 

Related reading:

- ‘Last winter was third-warmest in decades: Environment Canada’ (Postmedia News)

- ‘Ottawa locks in emissions with delays in carbon rules, agency warns’ (Globe & Mail)

- ’Record high greenhouse gases to linger for decades’ (Reuters)

- ‘Extreme weather to worsen with climate change: IPCC’ (Reuters)

- ‘NASA says Canada in ‘hot spot’ of ecological change’ (CBC)

- ‘Great Lakes show massive ice loss, study says’ (CBC)

(Infographic source: The National Post)

WalkScore ranks the ‘Top 25 Most Transit Friendly US Cities’ 

From Triple Pundit:

The rising gas prices are forcing everybody to take a second look at how they commute. Now WalkScore is helping people do this. They recently released a report of the most transit-friendly cities in the United States.

Cities were graded on how commuter-friendly they are, not just by ranking the quantity of transit available but also how convenient it is to citizens. Walkscore calculated the Transit Score of over 1 million locations in the largest 25 cities and used a combination of algorithms and heat maps to come up with the ranking.

These rankings will help people who are looking for a new home to pick a city with good transit systems.

The scores will also help city officials figure out which transit lines are weak in their cities so they can make improvements.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo credit: Triple Pundit)

From The Vancouver Sun:

Companion planting has been around for centuries, a method that many organic gardeners use to try to protect certain vulnerable crops from insect predation, for instance, using marigolds to deter beetles and carrot fly.

Or — less believably — to improve the flavours of certain vegetables, such as planting basil among tomatoes.

But you can use an amped-up form of companion planting — succession interplanting — to double the output of each of your garden beds by pairing up plants that will grow together in close quarters without interfering with each other and then following with a full second crop for fall and winter. It is possible to get as many as four crops per bed in a single growing season.

You won’t end up with nice rows of identical plants like you see in magazines, those mini-mono-crops. But the esthetic loss is diversity’s gain and it’s not so hard on your soil.

If you have a lot of space, try some or all of these mixed bed plans. If space is tight, try one to start and see how it works for you.

There are no tomatoes in this plan. Grow them in a separate bed with plenty of space around them. Some plants can’t be crowded and few are more likely to disappoint when things don’t go their way than tomatoes.

Check out the rest of the article here and Wikipedia for a list of companion plants.

(Infographic credit: New Scientist via SeaCoast Eat Local)

From The New York Times:

IT’S a lot like one of those math problems that gave you fits in sixth grade: a salesman leaves home in Denver and drives his electric car to a meeting in Boulder. At the same time, a physicist driving the same model electric car sets out from her loft in Los Angeles, heading to an appointment near Anaheim.

For both, the traffic is light, and the cars consume an identical amount of battery power while traveling the same number of miles. Being purely electric, they emit zero tailpipe pollutants during their trips.

The test question: are their carbon footprints also equal?

The answer may be a surprise. According to a report that the Union of Concerned Scientists plans to release on Monday, there would be a considerable difference in the amount of greenhouse gases — primarily carbon dioxide — that result from charging the cars’ battery packs. By trapping heat, greenhouse gases contribute to climate change.

The advocacy group’s report, titled “State of Charge: Electric Vehicles’ Global Warming Emissions and Fuel Cost Savings Across the United States,” uses the electric power requirements of the Nissan Leaf as a basis for comparison. The Leaf, on sale in the United States for more than a year and the most widely available electric model from a major automaker, sets a logical baseline.

The California part of the story is upbeat: a hypothetical Los Angeles Leaf would be accountable for the release of an admirably low level of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, about the same as a gasoline car getting 79 miles per gallon. But the Denver car would cause as large a load of greenhouse gases to enter the atmosphere as some versions of the gasoline-powered Mazda 3, a compact sedan rated at 33 m.p.g. in combined city and highway driving by the Environmental Protection Agency. In simple terms, the effect of electric vehicles on the amount of greenhouse gases released into the environment can span a wide range, varying with the source of the electricity that charges them. California’s clean power makes the Leaf a hero; the regional mix of coal-dependent utilities serving Denver diminish the car’s benefits as a global-warming fighter.

…

According to 2010 data from the United States Energy Information Administration, 45 percent of the country’s electricity is generated by burning coal, the dirtiest fuel. Natural gas, a much cleaner fuel, accounts for 24 percent of electricity production, a figure that is shifting rapidly with price swings. Nuclear plants generate 20 percent of the nation’s power, while wind, solar and geothermal sources provide 3 percent.

While the report puts hard numbers on the current situation, it also points out the need for fundamental changes.

“To prevent the worst consequences of global warming,” the report concludes, “the automotive industry must deliver viable alternatives to the oil-fueled internal-combustion engine — i.e., vehicles boasting zero or near-zero emissions.”

Check out the rest of the article here and a map of the GHGs associated with driving an electric car in specific regions of the U.S. here.

(Infographic credit: Union of Concerned Scientists)

Word Cloud: Visualizing the IPCC report on Climate Change & Extreme Weather 

You can check out the report and more here.

(Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change via RealClimate)

From The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Climate Progress:

Changing Paradigms: New vs. Old Thinking

Last week I went to a talk on “leadership and creating a sustainable future” out at UBC’s brand new and ultra green Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability. (I’ll post some shots of the building in another post).

Above is a slide from Göran Carstedt’s presentation highlighting the “new logic” central to creating large-scale, transformational change. If it’s the type of thing that floats your boat check out his 2010 TEDxAthens talk, which covers much of the same territory. 

Infographic | Climate Change and Fossil Fuels: What Do You Think is More Likely? 

(Source: I Heart Climate Scientists)

* I’ve got one quibble with the infographic. It’s actually 97% of climate scientists, not 90%, that agree that human activity (i.e. burning fossil fuels, deforestation) is driving global climate change. 

From FastCoDesign:

Check out the article from which the infographic came here. You may also want to check out the ABC News article, ‘World running out of resources: UN’.

The infographic accompanies the Globe & Mail article, ‘Switch off the lights, here comes the sun’, which highlights a promising solution to increase the energy efficiency of buildings:

Technology being commercialized in British Columbia aims to transform building interiors — providing practical, affordable illumination by harnessing the natural light of the sun. It’s light that will be brighter, more attractive, less expensive and more sustainable than electric light, according to Tony Formby.

Mr. Formby is president of SunCentral Inc., a company developing technology based on breakthroughs made by University of British Columbia physics professor Lorne Whitehead. That technology uses computerized collector panels located on the sun-facing exterior walls of buildings to gather and concentrate sunlight, which is transported and dispersed inside the building by special light guides.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Infographic source: Globe & Mail)