Global Warming Hurting Winter Sports

A report published by the David Suzuki Foundation (DSR) warned that global warming could cripple winter sports and winter tourism in Canada.

"If heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions are not significantly cut, global warming stands to wipe out more than half of Canada's ski season later this century with few exceptions," said the DSF study.

The report was released in Vancouver targeting the opening day of the world conference on sport and the environment. The report estimated that if immediate action is not taken against climate change by 2050 a range of Canadian sports and pastimes would be obsolete. Skiing, snowboarding, outdoor skating and ice fishing will all be drastically impacted by climate change. A shorter winter across Canada would drastically cut into the $5 million winter sport industry.

The foundation called on Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games to track, measure and offset all major emissions during the games, including emissions from spectator travel. Later Monday, VANOC announced at the same conference that they have set a target to neutralize up to 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from Games.

PR Coup for RIM

Research In Motion Ltd. won a huge public relations coup when President Obama was able to persuade his security staff to let him keep his Blackberry.

RIM makes all Blackberry devices and runs the network that all messages pass through and is RIM (Research In Motion Ltd.) based in Waterloo, Ontario gained a huge public relations coupknown in corporate and government circles for its superior security system (encrypting, redirecting and then reassembleing messages).

SLF Fundraiser Halted

Recently a Calgary Catholic Teachers Association fundraiser for the Steven Lewis Foundation (SLF- grassroots AIDS awareness and aid) was halted by a Calgary Bishop. The Catholic church objects to the promotion of birth control as a tool to help stem the aids epidemic.

Steven Lewis, a Canadian and a former special envoy for the United Nations, replied that condom use is only one part of his foundation's strategy to combat AIDS. He said his group also promotes abstinence and fidelity — two things that are in line with the beliefs of the Catholic church. "I think the bishop is making a mistake in allowing doctrinal dogma to overtake common sense," Lewis said Friday. "I don't want to get into a stormy brew with the bishop. I just think that's it not really terribly fair. It is in a sense a violation of human rights for the bishop to say to Catholic teachers, you cannot support an organization you want to support."

How much further can the Catholic church push their anti birth control doctrine in the face of progressive AIDS prevention around the world without serious backlash?

G20 Summit

April 1st brought world leaders together in London, England to discuss the global economic crisis and drew over 4,000 protesters to the financial district.

President Obama claims the summit marks a turning point in the economic crisis as leaders of the world's largest economies work together to fix a failing system. "It was historic because of the size and scope of the challenges we face and because of the timeliness and magnitude of our response," he said.

The resulting deal:

• Bankers' pay and bonuses will be subject to stricter controls
• A new Financial Stability Board will be set up to work with the IMF to ensure co-operation across borders and provide an early warning mechanism for the financial system
• There will be greater regulation of hedge funds and credit ratings agencies
• A common approach to cleaning up banks' toxic assets has been agreed
• The world's poorest countries will receive $100bn extra aid
• G20 countries are already implementing the biggest economic stimulus "the world has ever seen" - an injection of $5tn by the end of next year

Danger of Social Networking

Social networking is rapidly becoming one of the most popular methods of communication and interaction in North America but many don't realize the amount of personal information they're giving away by keeping an active blog, facebook or twitter account. Social networking sights make a profit by offering targeted advertisging to companies based on your personal information and college and university students are 27% more likely to have their identity stolen largely due to the vast personal information they unknowingly give away online. Status updates tell a criminal or prediator exactly where you'll be, how you're feeling, your personal habits and hobbies. Advertisers, criminals and friends alike gain invaluable insight into your life by what you share online.

* Never, ever give out your social security or driver’s license numbers
* Consider unique user names & passwords for each profile
* Vary your passwords and change them regularly
* Don’t give out your username & password to 3rd parties (even if it helps you connect to others and build your network
* Avoid listing the following information publicly: date of birth, hometown, home address, year of high school or college graduation, primary email address
* Assuming you plan to be active in social media, minimize the use of personal information on your profiles that may be used for password verification or phishing attacks
* Only invite people to your network that you know or have met vs. friends of friends and strangers
* For password security verification questions, us a password for all answers (rather than the answer to the specific question)
* When age-shifting to protect your real birthday, keep the date close, otherwise, you may expose yourself to age discrimination
* Watch where you post and what you say, as it can be used against you later.
* Google yourself regularly and monitor your credit

Be smart and avoid making yourself a target.

Earth Hour

Developed by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Earth Hour is meant to encourage people to shut off the lights, or at the very least dim them, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time to help raise awareness for climate change.

This year, nearly 4,000 municipalities in 88 countries are expected to take part and a number of key landmarks will fade to black, including New York's Empire State Building, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

"Turning off our lights for an hour isn't going to solve climate change, but what it does do is show individuals that they can make a difference in the fight against global warming and sends a really strong message to world leaders that action is needed now," said Tara Wood of WWF Canada.

Google Street View

I'll admit, Google Earth is quite cool; being able to zero in on your street, neighborhood or town is fun and can be useful. What worries me is the new ability to watch your street and house... Google Street View launched in the spring last year in select cities and give subscribers the ability to literally watch their street. Apparently license plates and faces are blurred but that doesn't really give much protection to those being watched and the original files are still out there to be seen by someone.

Google Street View, when operated, displays photos that were previously taken by a camera mounted on an automobile, and can be navigated by using the mouse to click on photograph icons displayed on the screen in your direction of travel. Using these devices, the photos can be viewed in different sizes, from any direction, and from a variety of angles.

As cool as that sounds doesn't it creep you out a little? To me it sounds a little too much like Big Brother's watching...