Children now the only adults in the room

We live in unprecedented times. You hear this every day. But the ultimate example is that little children are now our only leaders. While their parents and grandparents sit like stoned zombies as the clock runs out on keeping our planet livable little kids are taking action. They realize that it is their future that is being squandered.
School kids everywhere have for years been the best recyclers and reducers of waste. They have been making posters, planting trees and writing stories on how to save the planet which they instinctively know is their one and only home. These were things that little people could do. They are too young to drive so they can't make choices on what type of family vehicle is best for the environment. They can't vote for adults to represent them in government. They would seem to be the most helpless members in society to affect change. Well, no more. Now they are organizing and taking the U.S. government to court.
They must hurry because if they wait to become adults to take action their brains will be so loaded with hydrocarbon particles from breathing gas and diesel fumes they will end up sitting in a stupor just like the old folks. CBC television's The Nature of Things revealed new research that is finding hydrocarbon particulates penetrate the blood-brain barrier. Brains of people who are exposed to lots of auto fumes resemble those with Alzheimer's.

Check out this moon; it's Super

Moonrise is a big event at our house, just because we have such a good view to the east. This Super Moon, so called because the moon is closer to the Earth than normal, was one of the best on Tuesday.

Do we need to quit eating meat?

This is one of the more popular myths you hear about fighting climate change. The usual story goes that it takes so much fuel and chemicals to raise animals -- actually always depicted as beef -- that if we really are serious about fighting "the global warming thing" we should only eat lentils, wear sandals and dress in sack cloth.
Have you heard that cow farts and belches contribute to greenhouse gas too? Of course you have. That is because the richest and most powerful industry and lobby in the world, the fossil fuel industry, is keeping this and many other ridiculous stories alive through their well-heeled propaganda machines. Just Google "climate change skeptic organizations" for a list. They are using the same tactics formerly employed by the tobacco industry to sow doubt and confusion on a subject for which science reached a conclusion many decades ago.
Here is the real story: 83 per cent of each individual's contribution to climate change comes from his burning of fossil fuels either in his vehicle or to heat or cool his buildings. Cow farts and people's farts, for that matter, fall within the remaining 17 per cent of our carbon footprint. They are spit in the ocean compared to the big problems.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we need to cut our fossil fuel use by 45 per cent in just the next 12 years or it will be too late to prevent catastrophe.
I've been thinking about our own situation. We actually reduced our gasoline use by 50 per cent  when we owned the camp by switching to four-cycle outboard engines. That was 15 years ago. Although we had to borrow in order to make that switch the savings in gas paid for the loan.
It seems to me this is always the case: spend a little to save a lot.
Now that we have retired we have cut our use of propane for home heating by installing a high efficiency wood burning stove and building a sun room. The sun room heats the house on sunny days and the stove heats it mornings and evenings and on cloudy days. We still rely on the high efficiency furnace at night. Will we cut our propane use by 45 per cent? We will know in a couple of months when our propane tank is refilled but my guess is there will be a substantial reduction.
We have already witnessed a 30 per cent reduction in our electricity or hydro bill. There are two reasons for that: we switched to an on-demand propane hot water system, and we have not needed to supplement our furnace with electric space heaters. In the past we used the space heaters during especially bitter nights. This year the wood stove has provided the extra needed BTUs. The propane water heater does, of course, use a fossil fuel. Our electricity does not; it comes from a hydro dam in Kakabeka Falls. However the money we save from not keeping a 30-gallon tank perpetually hot in the basement can be used toward other fossil fuel cuts, like a hybrid car when we are ready for a new vehicle.
Incidentally, next to solar and wind energy firewood is about as green a fuel as can be. Burning it does emit carbon dioxide but growing new trees takes the carbon back out of the atmosphere. Certainly it can't be used in cities but it is a viable alternative for people like us who live in the country and grow our own trees. Our high efficiency Napoleon stove is practically smokeless.
Other fuel-saving things we have done over the years include triple-glazed windows and an original house design that maximized solar gain and insulation as well as controlling air movement with enclosed door entries. Ventilation comes from a heat recovery system.
Any further carbon reductions will probably need to come from our vehicles. My four-cylinder truck although 10-years old is still about as fuel thrifty as more modern models although they are more powerful. Our three-year-old Grand Caravan gets amazing mileage on long trips but could be better for around town.

Beautiful sundog this morning

It was a beautiful, if cold, morning in Nolalu today. This lovely sundog greeted us right after dawn. The temperature at our home was -24 C and the vicious winds of yesterday are gone. I got chilled to the bone yesterday snowblowing the driveway as I cleaned up from Wednesday and Thursday's dump of snow. All told we probably got 15 cm or about six inches. It was the second such snowfall in a week. We now have about 30 inches on the ground.
Temperatures are more or less normal for this time of year. Nobody misses the -40 C stuff we had two weeks ago.

Lynx move on snowshoe hares

I wondered when lynx would discover the abundant snowshoe hare population on our property this winter. The trail camera pics are from yesterday.
Hares are virtually the only prey of lynx.
These two animals follow a wild 11-year cycle that has been documented for hundreds of years by the fur trade and undoubtedly for millennia by First Nations.
Why 11 years? There is an 11-year solar cycle too. This fluctuation in solar intensity also created cycles in forest fire destruction; however, I believe climate change has now upended that schedule. The worst fire season now is always just the previous year.