Blog Action Day '09: Climate Change

As of right now, there are over 10,000 bloggers, with a combined readership of over 14,000,000, participating in Blog Action Day. This year's issue is Climate Change.

The question is, what can I say that 10,000 others haven't already said? Maybe I can help you get over some of the intuitive hurdles many of you may have, but it will require a lot of numbers and I hope I get it right because I'm not a climate scientist either.

First, to understand the urgency, the atmosphere is currently around 390 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide (CO2). That doesn't sound like much, except that before the Industrial Revolution, it was closer to 280, and the experts think we need to get back to 350!

Second, the scale of the problem. At fueleconomy.gov, you can find the "carbon footprint" of your vehicle based on the miles you drive in a year. Just picking a random vehicle, a 2009 Lexus GX 470, with all the default assumptions, it produces over 12 tons of CO2 a year. That's a shocking number, very unintuitive because we tend not to grasp the actual mass of the exhaust.

Multiply that by the estimated 500 million vehicles in the world, you get 6,000,000,000 tons (6 gigatons) of CO2 a year, just from driving. Add air travel, heating, electricity generation and all the other human activity, it starts to make the annual global emissions estimate of 27 gigatons CO2 a little more understandable.

The total CO2 currently in the atmosphere weighs approximately 3,000 gigatons, so you can see that the amount we're dumping every year is almost 1% (27/3,000) of the total. That huge man-made contribution can't help but change the composition of the atmosphere after 10, 20 or 100 years, regardless of natural "sources" and "sinks".

Third, the solution isn't as hard as you think. The reduction target scientists are recommending is 20% less than 1990 levels by 2020. I sold my minivan in 2006 and bought a Prius and cut my gas consumption (and therefore, my CO2 emissions) by 2/3. That's a 66% reduction, without any change in lifestyle. I've saved over $8,000 in gas (and over 20 tons of CO2!) in those 3 years, so the car is going to pay for a huge portion of itself in gas savings alone.

Or maybe you want to look at my wife's scenario. Just by replacing her normal Camry with a Camry Hybrid, she's saved $2,000 (and almost 5 tons CO2) in 2 years.

So it's not impossible to take meaningful personal action. It's all about 2 things: energy efficiency and lifestyle change. Do like I did and go for the energy efficiency first, worry about the lifestyle change later.

And demand that your government be part of the solution, not part of the problem!

Sign the KYOTOplus petition

Demand Canada take action to combat climate change. Sign the petition at http://www.kyotoplus.ca/en/index.html

Some pages related to my Bowles family

I found this family tree page in an old email from my brother Doug. It includes my mom and dad, but is really focused on a different branch of the Bowles family in Nova Scotia.

It also references a separate page, "Shaw, Leslie, Myers and Andrews Families of Nova Scotia". My great-grandmother was Edna Andrews. Amazingly, this page features the above wedding photo of Edna and Ernest Bowles.

There is a separate page I found long ago, with information about the Bowles family from when they lived in Guernsey, including my great-great-grandfather, Henry Le Poidevin.

Thanks, Doug!!!

Moon, International Space Station and Iridium flare

Moon...

ISS...


... and Iridium flare...

... by Paul.

Here's a fun panoramic shot of Anna and Rocky

Nea Kameni, Santorini, Greece

Obama 2008 - Yes We Can!!!

This is a "word cloud" generated by wordle, loosely based on Obama's acceptance speech last night.

Dr. Michael Shermer on "The Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything"

Not normally something I would blog about, but I liked it so much...

Here's the commencement address Michael Shermer gave at Whittier College in May 2008. The funny thing is, I just can't imagine a positive reception for this address in today's America. Ten years ago, probably much better.

The Feel Good Video of 2008

(click the photo, and make sure to watch in high quality)

And the link to his website Where The Hell is Matt?

Canoe the Credit - June 1

This is just one of the over 200 photos that Anna has posted from Canoe the Credit on June 1.

My New Favourite Song - Hell Yeah!!!

(click the photo)

Rock Band

Here's a typical Easter get-together for the stone1343 family...

More of Anna's pictures (from zooomr)

Anna has a bunch of photos posted at zooomr, many of them are *really* good. Check them out...

Here's just one of my favourites

Pssst, can you keep a secret?

There's a hot new game out for PS360, I hear it's kewl, phat and even sick. Don't tell Nick or Dale, but this is what they'll be getting from me this Christmas...

I figured this was a pretty safe place to tell you, the odds being close to zero that anyone actually reads this blog!

Check it out!

The City of Mississauga had a photo contest, of course Anna had to enter (I tease her that she doesn't need to record EVERY pixel of her life!!). The results were published this week, she had two honourable mentions, shown below. I especially like the one with the sparklers.

Honesty in a clothing label

I don't want to get too political here, but I just can't resist this one...

George dresses up (for Halloween, so he says!)

That's George on the right, I've already asked him not to dress up as a woman ever again!

Paul's photo of Comet 17P/Holmes

Tigers win the Tigers tournament, as it should be...

This weekend was the annual Streetsville Tigers tournament, Nick is on the Streetsville Tigers Minor Bantam team (1994 age group, 'AA' level). We won 2 and lost 1 in the round robin to make the playoffs. In the semis, we faced the London Jr Knights. Regulation time ended with a scoreless tie, which is not to say that it was a boring game, it was exciting, end-to-end hockey with plenty of close calls both ways. We scored quickly in 3-on-3 sudden death overtime, and the crowd went wild!

In this morning's championship game, we faced the Guelph Storm, the one team that had beaten us in the round robin. It was scoreless after 1 period, and 1-0 after 2. We had some penalty problems in the 3rd but solid goaltending kept the score at 2-0. They scored with a minute to play, pulled their goalie and put on the pressure. We managed a couple good shots on their empty net and held them off to take the championship, 2-1.

It's especially sweet to win our own tournament, because we can see the banner hanging in Vic Johnston arena every week!

Here's the team website, that I maintain.

Here's one I should've posted long time ago

On Thanksgiving weekend Nick's hockey team traveled to Erie, Pennsylvania for a tournament. They won all four games, including the championship against the home team Erie Lions. Plus they had a ton of fun at the hotel!