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...

Twilight!!

I have officially succumb to the Twilight hype. Who would have thought a love story with a vampires and werewolves would be so captivating and well written.

My sleep deprivation (am spending every night reading until the wee hours) began with watching Twilight this weekend, multiple times and then reading Twilight, New Moon and now Eclipse... I haven't been drawn into a story this deeply for a while now and am completely enthralled!

Babs

The Polar Bear Debate

Governments of 5 arctic countries agreed last Thursday at a summit in Norway that climate change has had a negative impact on polar bears and their habitat, calling it the largest threat against the large carnivorous.

The question now is how Canada will move forward with the situation. Canada holds 60% of the world's polar bear population and have ranked bears as a species of concern but not threatened as our American counterparts have. The issue is one of huge debate between environmentalist who claim the lack of sea ice is harming the survival of polar bears while Inuit groups claim there is a healthy, stable number of polar bears.

At the summit Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States all agreed to update the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, which was primarily concerned with protecting polar bears from hunting, and outlawed the practice for all but indigenous people. The new agreement outlined a shift in focus to include climate change as a priority for future conservation efforts.

"The parties agreed that long-term conservation of polar bears depends upon successful mitigation of climate change," the countries said in a joint statement. "[The] impacts of climate change and the continued and increasing loss and fragmentation of sea ice … constitute the most important threat to polar bear conservation."

Environmentalists are hopeful the agreement will spur each of the countries to pursue more aggressive strategies for battling climate change it, however, falls short of making a direct appeal for action to the United Nations climate conference, scheduled to take place in Copenhagen in December 2009, where countries will plan to negotiate a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

What do you think? Should Canada list polar bears as a threatened species against the wishes of Inuit groups or are the environmentalists making too big a deal of the impact of climate change on sea ice and its impact on polar bears? Please post your comments and any further links you might have on this subject and give your opinion on my blog poll.

Condoms won't stop the spread of aids, says Pope

That headline graced the covers of many newspapers today.

For the first time the Pope directly addressed the controversial issue which has divided much of the Catholic church. "You can't resolve it (aids) with the distribution of condoms," the Pope told reporters aboard his plane to Yaounde, Cameroon. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."(CBC NEWS)

The church officially promotes fidelity, chastity and abstinence in the fight against the aids crisis in Africa, however, health workers (including some from the church) promote condoms as an essential elements in the prevention and protection of sexually transmitted diseases.

Beyond the questions of basic protection an interesting question is raised - should the fight against aids be focused on the stalling the spreading of the disease (condom & abstinence) or is the education of the population and the availability of drugs where emphasis should be focused?

What do you think?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A few random info bits to ponder while enjoying green beer today.

• St. Patrick is considered a patron saint of Ireland and the March 17th celebration is a national holiday in Ireland.
• Originally blue was the colour of St. Patrick but as the celebration took on multinational proportions and its association Irish culture and shamrock symbolism grew it changed to Irish green.
• The three leafed shamrock was also used to explain the holy trinity to pre-christian Irish.
• The emphasis of drinking alcohol on St. Patrick's day can be linked to the pagan-Roman celebration of Bacchanalia on March 15 and 16, whose patron Bacchus was the Roman wine god.
  

In the 1990's the Irish government began a campaign to use St. Paddy's Day to showcase Ireland and its culture with three goals for the festival:

• Offer a national festival that ranks amongst all of the greatest celebrations in the world and promote excitement throughout Ireland via innovation, creativity, grassroots involvement, and marketing activity.
• Provide the opportunity and motivation for people of Irish descent, (and those who sometimes wish they were Irish) to attend and join in the imaginative and expressive celebrations.
• Project, internationally, an accurate image of Ireland as a creative, professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal, as we approach the new millennium.

Enjoy!

CaniX

Apparently there's a new cross country sport in town. It's being proclaimed as the newest in outdoor health for dogs and their owners. Now I've taken part in this sport for years and to me its just called running with your dog but give it a fancy name, some new equipment, media coverage and competition and you've got CaniX.

Great initiative to motivate owners and dogs to fit but can you imagine the mayhem at a large competition?
Check out Canicross UK website for more information.

In Like A Lion...

So the groundhog predicted 6 more weeks of winter but did he perdict the wonky weather we've had lately?

+9 to -9 last week and its been the same story for this week? I really shouldn't be complaining because I am enjoying riding and running in the warmer weather but one has to admit its a little weird. March always seems to come in like a lion and leave like a lamb and I believe this year will prove to be no exception - at least with the in like a lion part!