Canada – Page 79 – a sibilant intake of breath

May Critical Mass

Following Ottawa’s interminable winters, Critical Masses of decent sizes have resumed. While some thin-skinned individuals were scared away by a few low-lying clouds, it was ideal cycling weather: warm and overcast, with no danger of discomfort of any kind.

For the most part, this was a civilized ride. There were a lot of first-time participants, so it was unusually important for people who knew what’s what to direct the mass. There were a couple of insane things done by taxicabs. The mass was heading up along the eastern edge of the Rideau Canal, along a two-lane road. Unwilling to wait a few minutes, to taxicabs decided to gun it the wrong way up the road, beside the mass. The second cab came within a couple of metres of crashing spectacularly into oncoming traffic.

Anyhow, here are some videos from yesterday’s mass:

I look forward to the ride next month.

‘Door prizes’ for cyclists

The ‘door prize’ is apparently the most common type of accident to injure bike riders in cities. Riding along beside a row of parked cars, someone opens a door on the driver side, leaving too little time for an approaching cyclist to stop. The cyclist thus slams into the door, quite probably injuring themselves. Sometimes, it can be lethal.

Awareness seems like the first mechanism for avoiding such accidents. While it is theoretically possible for cyclists to ride in the middle of lanes, doing so requires extremely thick skin, so as to endure the endless rage of motorists who want to go faster. Cyclists can avoid door prizes by keeping an eye on whether someone is sitting on the driver’s side of a car: as well as for clues like lights being on and engine noise. Well justified concern about the door prize risk makes me do this, though I find that it makes me less situationally aware overall. Having to check one parked car after another leaves less time and mental focus for evaluating other threats, such as cars passing you on the left or making right turns in front of you.

Drivers can be aware that cyclists may be passing them and do more to check for cyclists before opening doors. Glancing at the side-view mirror and back over their shoulder only takes a moment, and will protect the people stepping out of their cars from oncoming vehicles, as well. Doing so is sometimes an explicit legal obligation, as under section 208 of the Manitoba’s Highway Traffic Act:

No person shall,

(a) open the door of a motor vehicle upon a highway without first taking due precautions to ensure that his act will not interfere with the movement of, or endanger, any other person or vehicle; or

(b) leave a door of a motor vehicle upon a highway open on the side of the vehicle available to moving traffic for a period of time longer than is necessary to load or unload passengers

Section 203 of British Columbia’s Motor Vehicle Act is similar, as is section 165 of Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act. Drivers can also partially open doors for a little while, so as to make them more visible to anyone approaching.

Potentially, some kind of automated system could help. I don’t know how much it would cost, but it should be possible to set up a motion sensor that looks backwards on the driver’s side of a car. While it might sometimes be obstructed by vehicles close behind, one would think it would more likely be able to spot cyclists that drivers might have missed. Some kind of light could then give a warning against sudden door-openings, or even prevent doors on that side from being opened.

Arguably, the best solution is to isolate car and bike infrastructure from one another in city centres. I would personally be delighted if most downtown areas were car-free. There would be dramatically more social space, less noise and pollution, and arguably more of a neighbourhood feeling. In the absence of such a transition, perhaps we can aspire to more bike lanes physically separated from car traffic (by a barrier, not a painted line), as there are in the Netherlands and some other European states.

Border guards and copyright enforcement

According to Boing Boing, Canadian border guards may soon be in charge of checking iPods and other devices for copyright infringement. If true, the plan is absurd for several reasons. For one, it would be impossible for them to determine whether a DRM-free song on your iPod was legitimately ripped from a CD you own or downloaded from the web. For another, this is a serious misuse of their time. It would be a distraction from decidedly more important tasks, like looking for illegal weapons, and probably a significant irritant to both those being scrutinized and those waiting at border crossings.

Hopefully these rumours of secret plans – also picked up by the Vancouver Sun are simply false.

Health and organs

Today, I registered for the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). Once I get the card, I will no longer need to pay $60 up front and time I want to see a doctor.

I also took the opportunity to register as an organ and tissue donor (any organ or tissue they want, for transplant or medical experiments). If I do manage to die in a sudden and non-organ-destructive manner, there is no reason for which my loss should not be someone else’s gain.

Ottawa Coolness Assessment I

During my ten months in Ottawa, I have had significant difficulty identifying aspects of the city that might be considered cool. Thankfully, someone much cooler than me is in the city and willing to conduct an authoritative evaluation. Below is an awkward combination of a United Nations Security Council resolution and terms of reference for a contractor:

Date: 27 May 2008

Preamble:

Appreciating that Ottawa is the capital of Canada and a significant city within Canada.

Acknowledging that capital cities and significant cities are centres of arts and culture.

Recognizing that Milan Ilnyckyj has failed to find evidence thereof up to the present date.

Hereby resolves that:

A special rapporteur shall be appointed to identify what, if any, artistic or cultural merit is possessed by the city of Ottawa.

The rapporteur shall devote a minimum of one hour per day to this task.

The investigation conducted shall continue for one month past this date unless specifically authorized to do otherwise.

The rapporteur appointed to this task is to be Emily Rachel Horn originally of Surrey, British Columbia.

Signed: Emily Horn, Milan Ilnyckyj

We shall see what she produces in the course of her official duties.

Net neutrality

Today, there is a rally on Parliament Hill in favour of net neutrality. Basically, these people are arguing that internet and telephone companies should not sift through the kind of data their customers are using: designating some for the fast stream and letting some linger or vanish.

In general, I am very supportive of the idea of net neutrality. On the one hand, this is because packet filtering has creepy privacy and surveillance issues associated with it. On the other, it recognizes that established companies will usually do whatever they can to strangle innovative competitors. Without net neutrality, its a fair bet that we would never have had Skype or the World Wide Web.

At the same time, there are legitimate issues about bandwidth. There are people out there exchanging many gigabytes a day worth of movies, music, and games. I am not too concerned with piracy and intellectual property, but that traffic is a real strain on the network and a burden to others. It pushes up costs for everyone as ordinary users subsidize excessive ones.

The best solution seems to be to allow bandwidth capping but disallow packet filtering. That way, sending a terabyte a month of illegally copied films will be restricted, but Skype-like new services will continue to emerge and there will be fewer general opportunites for telecom companies to abuse.

I cannot go to the rally myself, since I will be at work, but I would encourage those who are free and feeling a bit activist to attend.

Tundra dangers

One of the biggest climatic dangers out there is that warming in the Arctic will melt the permafrost. The tundra is heavily laden with methane – a potent greenhouse gas. In total, the ten million square kilometres contain about 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon (3,670 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide). The permafrost contains more carbon dioxide equivalent than the entire atmosphere at present.

If even a fraction of a percent of that gets released every year, it would blow our carbon budget. Even with enormous cuts in human emissions, the planet would keep on warming. Right now, humanity is emitting about 8 gigatonnes of carbon a year, on track to hit 11 gigatonnes by 2020. If we were to stabilize at that level, emitting 11 gigatonnes a year until 2100, the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere will surpass 1,000 parts per million, creating the certainty of a vastly transformed world and a very strong possibility of the end of human civilization.

As such, it is vital to stop climate change before the planet warms sufficiently to start melting permafrost. This is especially challenging given that warming in the Arctic is more pronounced than warming elsewhere. There is also the additional challenge of the sea-ice feedback loop, wherein the replacement of reflective ice with absorptive water increases warming.

The actions necessary to prevent that are eminently possible. Unfortunately, people have not yet developed the will to implement them to anything like the degree necessary. Hopefully, the ongoing UNFCCC process for producing a Kyoto successor will help set us along that path before it becomes fantastically more difficult and expensive to act.

[Update: 4 February 2009] Here is a post on the danger of self-amplifying, runaway climate change: Is runaway climate change possible? Hansen’s take.

[Update: 19 February 2010] See also: The threat from methane in the North.

Growth in Vancouver

Sightline Daily has an interesting post about urban development in Vancouver. The interactive map is also worth a peek.

Historical emissions and adaptation costs

It is widely acknowledged that developing countries will suffer a great deal from climate change. They are vulnerable to effects like rising sea levels and increased frequency and severity of extreme weather. They also have more limited means available to respond, as well as other serious problems to deal with. Providing adaptation funding is therefore seen as an important means of getting them on-side for climate change mitigation. It could be offered as an incentive to cut emissions.

That being said, there is a strong case to be made that developing countries should not need to do anything in exchange for adaptation funding. Making them do so is essentially akin to injuring someone, then demanding something in return for the damages they win against you in court. The historical emissions of developed states have primarily induced the climate change problem; as such, developing states suffering from its effects have a right to demand compensation.

Very roughly, the developed world as a whole is responsible for about 70% of emissions to date. The United States has produced about 22% of the anthropogenic greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere; Western Europe is responsible for about 17%; Canada represents something like 2% of the total. It can be argued that – by rights – states like Bangladesh and Ghana should be dividing their total costs for adaptation and sending the bill to other states, on the basis of historical emissions.

That being said, it is only fair to say that developed states are only culpable for a portion of their total emissions, on account of how the science of climate change was not well understood until fairly recently. Exactly where to draw the line is unclear, but that doesn’t especially matter since developing states simply don’t have the power to demand adaptation transfers on the basis of past harms. States that developed through the extensive use of fossil fuels will continue to use the influence they acquired through that course of military and economic strengthening to make others bear most of the costs for their pollution.

New Canadian emission data

The Canadian government has published the official National Inventory Report: Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks in Canada for 1990 to 2006. Emissions in 1990 were 592 megatonnes (Mt). By 2000, they were 718 Mt. Here are the most recent figures:

2003: 741 Mt
2004: 743 Mt
2005: 734 Mt
2006: 721 Mt

Maintain and deepen that downward trend and we might just do our part in sorting out this unprecedented problem. Moving to a low-carbon global society would be quite a human achievement – even more so if we can also transition from fuels that are running out to those that never will.