An Outside Chance

Remembering Iohan

We stared through the dark windows at the ice-covered street, wondering … “Is he still going to make it here tonight?” It was the evening of December 21, 2013, several hours after a huge ice storm settled over the north shore of Lake Ontario. Hundreds of thousands of people were without electricity, including everyone in … Read More

making arrangements

PHOTO POST Two birds move near each other. An insect hovers next to a flower. A ray of light sneaks between two big trees. Temporary arrangements all, sometimes enduring an hour, sometimes a second. But if you can arrange to get your camera into the right place at the right time, you might make the … Read More

Your gas tank is not an oil well. Your battery will not be a power plant.

Also published on Resilience My car comes with an amazing energy-storage, demand-management-and-supply system; perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s called the “gas tank”. Thanks to this revolutionary feature, if I get home and the electric grid is down, I can siphon gas out of the tank and power up a generator. In a more urgent energy … Read More

Sunshine, wind, tides and worldwatts

A review of Renewable Energy: Ten Short Lessons Also published on Resilience Fun physics fact: water carries so much more kinetic energy than air that “A tidal current of 3 knots has the same energy density as a steady wind stream at 29 knots (a fair old blow).” And consider this: “Ninety-nine per cent of planet … Read More

the otters and the others

PHOTO POST This post is mostly about “the others” – meaning those other herons who aren’t so well known as the Great Blue Herons. But some other others also have a way of popping into the photo opp when you least expect them. And even the Great Blues, which you see almost every time you … Read More

the fullness of summer

PHOTO POST The afternoon sun is hot, but the evening air cools. Gardens and marshes are lush and green, but golds and reds peek through. Fruits ripen, seeds swell. The fullness of summer is now. A young Spotted Sandpiper (the spots will come later) hunts in the shadow of lily pads. The full-grown pads easily … Read More

altered landscapes

Also published on Resilience My home sits beside one of the world’s great bodies of fresh water, Lake Ontario, and beside one of the precious shoreline marshes that even today offer refuge to more species of wildlife than most of us will ever see. Yet large-scale industrial transformations are visible in nearly all directions. This post … Read More

the crakes and their ilk

PHOTO POST Do we have Crakes in North America? That depends on whose definition you follow, but I like this one from Merriam-Webster: “any of various rails, especially a short-billed rail.” At least four species from the Rail family, including three short-billed ones, have made appearances within a kilometer of my home this year – … Read More

Reclaiming hope from the dismal science

Also published on Resilience “Empowering and elegiac” might seem a strange description of a book on economics. Yet the prominent author and former economics minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, chooses that phrase of praise for the new book Post Growth, by Tim Jackson. In many respects the book lives up to that billing, and in the … Read More

Healthy, peaceful and more equitable – life in the low-car city

Also published on Resilience “For as long as humans have been living in cities, and until only recently, streets were the main site where children grew up,” write Melissa Bruntlett and Chris Bruntlett, in the opening pages of their new book Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in Our Lives. Unfortunately city streets in … Read More

family planning

PHOTO POST In early June some marsh birds are still picking out their nest sites, while others are already preparing their hatchlings to leave home. The Marsh Wren (at top of page and below) is the tiniest bird in the marsh and not always easy to spot, but its song rings out far and wide. … Read More

small wonders

PHOTO POST Flowers. Birds. Bugs. The first two generally come as part of package deals that include the latter. Around here we happen to like cherries so we’re glad when pollinators discover the blossoms. Deeper into woodlands, the forest floor has been carpeted with Wood Geraniums. In the treetops a Baltimore Oriole eats bugs by … Read More