Canada – Page 87 – a sibilant intake of breath

Bikes and stop signs

Riding eastward across Ottawa from Booth Street towards Sandy Hill, it is far wiser to head north to the river and follow the riverside path than it is to push straight through Centretown. The most obvious reason for this is aesthetic, since the path offers a beautiful view of the river and Parliament Hill. A more technical reason has to do with traffic dynamics. As this paper on bicycle commuting explains:

Bicyclists can work only so hard. The average commuting rider is unlikely to produce more than 100 watts of propulsion power, or about what it takes to power a reading lamp. At 100 watts, the average cyclist can travel about 12.5 miles per hour on the level. When necessary, a serious cyclist can generate far more power than that (up to perhaps 500 watts for a racing cyclist, equivalent to the amount used by a stove burner on low). But even if a commuter cyclist could produce more than 100 watts, she is unlikely to do so because this would force her to sweat heavily, which is a problem for any cyclist without a place to shower at work.

With only 100 watts’ worth (compared to 100,000 watts generated by a 150-horsepower car engine), bicyclists must husband their power. Accelerating from stops is strenuous, particularly since most cyclists feel a compulsion to regain their former speed quickly. They also have to pedal hard to get the bike moving forward fast enough to avoid falling down while rapidly upshifting to get back up to speed.

For example, on a street with a stop sign every 300 feet, calculations predict that the average speed of a 150-pound rider putting out 100 watts of power will diminish by about forty percent. If the bicyclist wants to maintain her average speed of 12.5 mph while still coming to a complete stop at each sign, she has to increase her output power to almost 500 watts. This is well beyond the ability of all but the most fit cyclists.

In addition to stop sign frequently, terrain is also an important factor:

These problems are compounded at uphill intersections. Even grades too small to be noticed by car drivers and pedestrians slow cyclists substantially. For example, a rise of just three feet in a hundred will cut the speed of a 150-pound, 100-watt cyclist in half. The extra force required to attain a stable speed quickly on a grade after stopping at a stop sign is particularly grating.

This is especially true when there are drivers behind you freaking out because the time it takes you to accelerate will make them three seconds later in reaching the next red light or stop sign.

The whole article is worth a look. One fact most people will not know: Idaho allows cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs, allowing them to cycle through at normal speed if no other vehicles are near the intersection.

Language training

My command of French has been in long-term decline since I graduated from elementary school and left the immersion program – with upticks in facility corresponding to some university courses and the Summer Language Bursary Program. Now, I am considering options to get back in stride a bit. I considered taking courses at Oxford, but lacked the time, money, and immediate reason for doing so.

One possibility I am considering is Rosetta Stone: interactive language software used by a number of branches of the American government and military. Buying the software is quite expensive but, due to an odd quirk, you can get access for $30 a year by getting a library card in Chattanooga. Has anyone used this software? I have seen mixed reviews, and am not sure if it is the best choice to resurrect my lumbering zombie French. I hear that the software is quite engaging, but also that it lacks cultural sensitivity and sometimes teaches words that are technically correct but rare in popular usage. Also, it is presumably focused on Parisian French rather than the Quebecois variety – though I might be forgiven for seeing the appeal of the former type of pronounciation, if only because it might be more easily understood when visiting other French-speaking parts of the world.

Other ideas would be appreciated. I really dislike listening to the radio, so French language news is largely out as a refresher possibility.

Hot Air

Hot Air: Meeting Canada’s Climate Change Challenge is a concise and virtually up-to-the-minute examination of Canadian climate change policy: past, present, and future. Jeffrey Simpson, Mark Jaccard, and Nic Rivers do a good job of laying out the technical and political issues involved and, while one cannot help taking issue with some aspects of their analysis, this book is definitely a good place to start, when seeking to evaluate Canada’s climate options.

Emission pathways

Hot Air presents two possible emissions pathways: an aggressive scenario that cuts Canadian emissions from 750 Mt of CO2 equivalent in 2005 to about 400 Mt in 2050, and a less aggressive scenario that cuts them to about 600 Mt. For the sake of contrast, Canada’s Kyoto commitment (about which the authors are highly critical) is to cut Canadian emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012, which would mean emissions of 563 Mt five years from now. The present government has promised to cut emissions to 20% below 2006 levels by 2020 (600 Mt) and by 60 to 70% by 2050 (225 to 300 Mt). George Monbiot’s extremely ambitious plan calls for a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (75 Mt for Canada, though he is primarily writing about Britain).

While Monbiot’s plan aims to reach stabilization by 2030, a much more conventional target date is around 2100. It is as though the book presents a five-decade plan to slow the rate at which water is leaking into the boat (greenhouse gasses accumulating in the atmosphere), but doesn’t actually specify how to plug the hole before it the boat sinks (greenhouse gas concentrations overwhelm the ability of human and natural systems to adapt). While having the hole half-plugged at a set date is a big improvement, a plan that focuses only on that phase seems to lack an ultimate purpose. While Hot Air does not continue its projections that far into the future, it is plausible that the extension of the policies therein for a further 50 years would achieve that outcome, though at an unknown stabilization concentration. (See this prior discussion)

Policy prescriptions

Simpson, Jaccard, and Rivers envision the largest reductions being achieved through fuel switching (for instance, from coal to natural gas) and carbon capture and storage. Together, these account for well over 80% of the anticipated reductions in both scenarios, with energy efficiency improvements, agricultural changes, waste treatment changes, and other efforts making up the difference. As policy mechanisms, the authors support carbon pricing (through either a cap-and-trade scheme or the establishment of a carbon tax) as well as command-and-control measures including tightened mandatory efficiency standards for vehicles, renewable portfolio standards (requiring a larger proportion of energy to be renewable), carbon management standards (requiring a larger proportion of CO2 to be sequestered), and tougher building standards. They stress that information and subsidy programs are inadequate to create significant reductions in emissions. Instead, they explain that an eventual carbon price of $100 to $150 a tonne will make “zero-emissions technologies… frequently the most economic option for business and consumers.” This price would be reached by means of a gradual rise ($20 in 2015 and $60 in 2020), encouraging medium and long-term investment in low carbon technologies and capital.

Just 250 pages long, with very few references, Hot Air takes a decidedly journalistic approach. It is very optimistic about the viability and affordability of carbon capture and storage, as well as about the transition to zero emission automobiles. Air travel is completely ignored, while the potential of improved urban planning and public transportation is rather harshly derided. The plan described doesn’t extend beyond 2050 and doesn’t reach a level of Canadian emissions consistent with global stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations (though it would put Canada on a good footing to achieve that by 2100). While the book’s overall level of detail may not satisfy the requirements of those who want extensive technical and scientific analysis, it is likely to serve admirably as an introduction for those bewildered by the whole ecosystem of past and present plans and concerned with understanding the future course of policy.

Vancouver ticket booked

My flight is booked and I can now say with certainty that I will be in Vancouver from the 21st of December until the 2nd of January. Hopefully, that span will include a big gathering of friends in North Vancouver, akin to my pre-Oxford departure party. Saturday, December 29th is a plausible date for the event.

Already, nights in Ottawa are developing a chilly edge. By late December, I expect that it will be with the most concentrated of joy that I trade the icy windswept streets of Ontario for the rainy windswept streets of British Columbia.

PS. My planned trip to B.C. was mentioned before.

[Update: 23 October 2007] According to the NativeEnergy carbon calculator, my flights to and from Vancouver will collectively generate 1.761 tonnes of CO2. As with my thesis, I decided to offset the emissions through the capture of methane. While offsets are far from perfect, they are quite probably better than doing nothing.

I was surprised to see that travelling the same distance by train would produce 0.727 tonnes of CO2. While that is 60% lower, we generally think of trains as being really dramatically greener than flying. I suppose the difference is largely that nobody travels very long distances by train.

Holidays ahead

Though it feels like the Labour Day weekend just happened, I now find myself on the cusp of another three day break from work. The Thanksgiving weekend is shaping up to include a good combination of activities. Some cycling will doubtless occur. On Sunday, I am doing my first trip with the Ottawa Hostel Outdoor Club (mentioned before). About twenty people are going on an exploratory hike to Ramsay Lookout. That evening, I have been invited to Thanksgiving dinner by a co-worker. I will have to make some kind of interesting veggie dish. Any suggestions (or recipes) would be most welcome.

Next Thursday, Meaghan Beattie is arriving in Ottawa. The next day, Tristan is coming from Toronto. Spending the weekend exploring Ottawa with them promises to be excellent. We should, for instance, finally visit the Civilization Museum over in Gatineau. October 16th marks the three-month point in my job. Between the 24th and 28th, I will be in Montreal. The first three days are for a conference, whereas the weekend is reserved for having fun in the city. I really enjoyed living there for a couple of months, back in 2003. I am told the train ride from Ottawa to Montreal – through all that autumnal deciduous landscape – should be very beautiful.

December should be really exciting. By taking four days off work and using the various statutory holidays, I should be in Vancouver from late on the 21st until the 3rd of January. It will be my longest span of time in the city since the summer of 2006. A big gathering of friends in North Vancouver should definitely be arranged, akin to my pre-Oxford departure party and previous such food-and-friend-laden gatherings. I feel guilty about the flight (0.8 tonnes of CO2 for the total journey of 7100km), but I am regrettably unable to take two months off work to cycle there and back.

The coming cold

Presenting the mean monthly temperatures of Vancouver, Ottawa, and Oxford on the same graph generates an interesting image. Vancouver is basically Oxford plus a couple of degrees in the winter and about five degrees in the summer. Ottawa is much more variable. In the zones where the lines intersect (around April and October), the mean temperatures for all three places are fairly comparable. That may partly explain why I have been finding the weather so pleasant recently.

I wish I had some data that included standard deviations of temperature on a month-by-month basis. I really have no idea which of the three places would have the most intra-month variability, though my suspicion is that it would probably be Ottawa.

The data for Oxford is from the Radcliffe Meteorological Station. The data for Vancouver and Ottawa is taken from the Meteorological Service of Canada.

Cycling in southern Ottawa

This was an ideal day to explore the Ottawa environs par velo. It was bright and pleasantly cool, and the fall leaves are changing colour. Mostly, I explored the paths south of Centretown on the side of various watercourses: the Rideau Canal, Rideau River, etc. I found Carleton University by accident, and discovered a very nice 10km loop that begins and ends at my house: you head north through the Lebreton Flats to the Ottawa River, then take the riverside paths to the Rideau Canal locks beside Parliament. Ride up that hill (it is good that it is near the beginning of the route), then follow the path alongside the canal until you reach the point where it widens to a well-sized lake. At one end of that lake is a kind of grey floating pavilion, which is actually at the southern foot of Preston Street. Returning to the road system there, you can cycle through Little Italy and back to my flat in a few minutes.

All told, I went a bit more than 46km. The bulk of it was excellent, though my hill-climbing muscles definitely need some re-conditioning after more than two months of bikelessness. Another well-learned fact is that it is foolhardy to cycle along most of the major roads in Centretown. It’s just one red light after another, with irate drivers all around you furious that you seem to be delaying their arrival at the next stopping point by up to three seconds.

I think a bit more random wandering in in order, before I get a cycle map. As with the lake pavilion / Preston situation, it is quite satisfying to have two pieces of your mental map of a city click together on the basis of exploration, rather than the consulting of a pre-prepared guide.

Wheels and muscles

The new bike and I did Critical Mass tonight. This is the third city where I have participated, along with Oxford and Vancouver. This one had the narrowest demographic; every person there looked like they were a stereotypical leftist undergraduate. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it would be good for the event to represent a wider cross section of the bike-using community.

In any case, I am planning to put some kilometres on these wheels tomorrow – perhaps heading along the river until I get bored and/or completely lost, then finding my way back by GPS. Suffice it to say, I am thoroughly excited about this new mode of transport.

Something that caught my interest

I learned something new about my student loans today: while I knew there was a ‘grace period’ of six months between finishing school and starting repayment, I did not realize that you got charged interest over the course of it. On the first day of the seventh month, you need to either pay the interest for both your federal and provincial loans (about $500 on every $10,000 of loans) or have that interest added to the principal, increasing each of your subsequent monthly payments.

In any particular month between then and when your loans are fully paid, you cannot pay less than 1/120th of the total amount you owe. This is to ensure that full repayment takes place within ten years of the first payment. Both the federal government and the government of B.C. offer you the choice between a fixed interest rate (prime plus 5%, based on the rates at the time of your first payment) or a floating rate of prime plus 2.5%.

I guess I know what I will be doing with that ‘extra’ paycheque.

Refraction and arctic solar canines

Both for work and my own interest, I am reading Richard Alley’s The Two Mile Time Machine, as recommended back in Oxford by Henry Shue. A relatively informal history of ice core science, it also includes some interesting facts and observations about the polar regions. For instance, I learned about the phenomenon of sun dogs or parhelions.

In the Arctic, ice crystals in cirrus and cirrostratus clouds sometimes produce a refractive effect, framing the sun with a pair of luminous partners. It gladdens me somewhat to know that the Arctic summer has at least one visual effect to compensate for the drowning out of the Northern Lights by constant sunlight. I once had the good fortune Aurora Borealis myself – from Neal’s balcony in the Gage Towers during a period of exceptional ionic activity in the upper atmosphere. Perhaps I will be lucky enough to see a sun dog before the Arctic changes beyond all recognition.