More on Trees...

@ http://racinette.blogspot.com/2005/08/forestry-as-good-thing-news-article.html

by Dr. Patrick Moore, chief
scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in Vancouver.

Excerpts:
There is a misconception that cutting down an old tree will result in a net release of carbon. Yet wooden furniture made in the Elizabethan era still holds the carbon fixed hundreds of years ago.
__________















Although old trees contain huge amounts of carbon, their rate of sequestration has slowed to a near halt. A young tree, although it contains little fixed carbon, pulls CO2 from the atmosphere at a much faster rate.

__________

Using wood sends a signal to the marketplace to grow more trees and to produce more wood.
That means we can then use less concrete, steel and plastic -- heavy carbon emitters through their production.

Treehuggers nomore?

Their Bark Is Worse For Our Blight
Decade-long study says trees may not be good at offsetting carbon

Step away from the vegetation, treehuggers, and find something else to embrace. New research finds that when it comes to offsetting greenhouse gases, trees may not be up to the challenge. For 10 years, Duke University researchers plied a stand of North Carolina loblolly pines with higher-than-normal levels of carbon dioxide; they found that the foliaged friends grew more than non-gassed trees, but did not consistently absorb significantly higher levels of CO2. "The responses are very variable according to how available other resources are -- nutrients and water -- that are necessary for tree growth," says researcher Heather McCarthy. "It's really not anywhere near the magnitude that we would really need to offset emissions." For tree planting to have a discernible offsetting effect under the conditions they tested, the amount of fertilizer required would impact groundwater quality at a level "intolerable to society," says project director Ram Oren. Sigh. Ocean-hugging, anyone?

straight to the source: Wilmington Star-News, Associated Press, Margaret Lillard, 08 Aug 2007

straight to the source: LiveScience, Andrea Thompson, 08 Aug 2007

Easter Dinner

This is Sam, a Quebequois. You can tell he’s from Québec because he is eating potatoes, and pouring over them a yummy brown sauce.

Except it’s not gravy, it’s maple syrup!

I tried, it’s surprisingly good.

But then, I was so happy to spend Easter weekend with Sam, Marie-Eve, and the Robert clan, and the food was so scrumptious, that my taste buds might not have believed me and just assumed they were eating something yummy.

Merci Ma femme pour la belle vaccance!

A Haiti night

The last month or so I've been thinking about Haiti even more than usual, and last night I thought for a minute or so that I'd been transported back in my dreams: I awoke in the middle of the night because I was too hot, because my fan had turned off, because the power had gone out. People who've live in Ottawa longer tell me it is as normal an experience here as in Haiti, which just goes to show you...something.

Probably, that even when you think you're open minded and not unnecessarily patronizing, that your perception may not match the facts.

or maybe just that Canada isn't entirely a frozen waste-land.

Please...No More

Hmm... my blog is rapidly becoming just another advertising billboard. Sorry about that- nothing in my life right now seems worth you spending your life reading about. I volunteered at an outdoor movie theatre, ate a bag of candy, spiral bound a report at work. Oh, and I read a bunch of books about Haiti. If you want to read about them, you might as well just read them. In the mean time, adverts:

An orphanage that I visited in Haiti has since built a school. I think that is neat, because the orphanage kids will not get lower quality education, nor be completely isolated from their peers who are not institutionalized. The community students also get a chance to go to school, which is exciting. (Schools aren’t free once you factor uniforms & books (and often in indebted countries, tuition), so many Haitian children don’t attend.)

In exciting news, their latest update included the following bit of information:

A child, Tia, in the Twillingate area of Newfoundland, at age 5, saw a child sponsorship program on TV and with tears on her face ran to her father wanting to help the children who did not have what she had - food, clothes and medical help, etc. Seeing Tia's passion for the children, inspired her father, Randy Hann, an artist, to do a drawing of his daughter, Tia, with tears on her face holding the globe. This drawing is called "Please ... No More", and is on sale at the art shop of Randy and his family in Twillingate. All sales from the drawing have since been used to fund child support programs.

The Orphanage director was in Newfoundland visiting family, and met with the Hann family, who will now partner with HATS-Haiti to use the funds from the sale of this drawing "Please . . No More" to help start a lunch program for the school children from the community . That’s pretty cool- amazingly generous of Mr Hann, and the existence of generous people makes me happy, so I wanted to advertise for him here. (Although I don't support organizations who give away tiny amounts of the profits they've made from labourers, this is a different sort of fish, I hope)

http://www.randyhann.com/drawingsstyles.htm

Spiderella exposure

A friend sent me a note a while ago, that her friend's boyfriend made a movie, and it is so cool that I am still thinking about it, so thought I would share it with you.

The message reads:

I am writing to alert you to a new show on the CBC called exposure, showcasing some of Canada's amateur talent.

The lovely Paul, with whom i am madly in love, has submitted his most recent movie, entitle "Spiderella " to the website.

It is now up to us to view and vote for his movie. Bear in mind that it was conceived and directed entirely by Paul Fryer, including the piano soundtrack. The animation is a bit crude, but imagine what he could do with the proper equipment.

The movie is just under ten lovely minutes, and i hope you enjoy.

REMEMBER TO VOTE, and rate this movie, if you liked it (and even if you didn't - vote cause i told you to ). The top rated movies will recieve Exposure on the CBC tv program of the same name. Tell your friends. Get them to vote. I promise you, this is only the tip of what Paul is capable of. I know that i am biased, but this movie is
only one example of the millions of reasons that i love him. Give him a chance, his creative talents will win you over too...

http://www.cbc.ca/exposure/node/4589

Another new word

A bromide ion is a bromine atom with charge of −1.

Compounds with bromine in formal oxidation state −1 are called bromides. This can include ionic compounds such as caesium bromide or covalent compounds such as sulfur dibromide.

Bromide compounds, especially potassium bromide, were frequently used as sedatives in the 19th and early 20th century. This gave the word "bromide" its colloquial connotation of a boring cliché, a bit of conventional wisdom overused as a sedative.