Gratitude makes the journey better and so does kindness

Category: Climate change Page 2 of 8

Weekly column: Why we ought to see more of the world

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News, on Tuesday November 5, 2019.

This column was to be about fish. Herring to start with. A few reputable conservation groups, including Pacific Wild, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Conservancy Hornby Island and the Association for Denman Island Marine Stewarts, are urging the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to rethink the roe fishery quotas for the herring in the Straight of Georgia (the plan is expected to be finalized in early December.) The stocks are almost 60 percent depleted, their press release said, and that’s happened in the last four years. Shocking isn’t it? Albeit not a local issue, it is a provincial one and a sign of a pervasive and challenging issue.

Weekly Column: Let’s keep the political conversations going – and include kids

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops on Monday, October 21, 2019.

By the time you are reading this (this was on Monday of course), the voting is in full swing. Did you vote? Please do, voting is defining democratic right that no one should take for granted. The campaign has been wild enough and many say politics is ugly. Yes, it is at times, but we cannot do without. And voting gets us closer to where we want to be. Hopefully. I know, it’s a nail biter.

Regardless of how one feels about the campaign, there is something we all need to acknowledge: it takes courage to put yourself out there as a candidate. The volume of nastiness that comes to wards those whose names are up resembles a tsunami of some sort; discouraging even, but such is the nature of the game.

Weekly Column: B.C.’s wolves are still being killed but will that save the caribou?

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on September 16, 2019.

I will save you the suspense. The answer is not likely, according to many wildlife researchers who have studied the issue from all sides because of what’s at stake, which is the balance of entire ecosystems. The conclusion, though not generally accepted because it depends who you ask, is that you cannot cull (kill, in plain language) a species to protect another, they say.

The wolf cull that has been going on in British Columbia for five years will now be followed by an even more intensive one, according to a leaked memo from the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. More than 80 percent of the wolves in certain parts of the province where the caribou herds are in steep decline are to be ousted, which will hopefully see the caribou surviving and thriving.

What would Dr. Seuss say…

One facet…

Two days ago, I read a thought-provoking article about the strategy (or one of them) that Dr. Seuss used to create his work. He was challenged (it was a $50 bet in fact) to write a kids’ book using only 50 words that a grade 1 student would understand and handle with ease. Green Eggs and Ham was born and if you haven’t read it yet, please do today because that it will make your day, and beyond. It has rhyme, reason (obviously) and quirkiness galore.

When the boys were little, we collected and read as much Dr. Seuss as we could. Quirky and funny and rolling off the tongue is the recipe for what children like in a book and parents can read many, many times over without wanting to tear their hair out of sheer boredom. Not with Dr. Seuss’s books. A healthy side-effect: They incited the boys to want to read by themselves. Just to have that silly rumble of words come out of their mouths instead of mine.

Weekly column: Good food grows close to home

Originally published on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on Monday August 1, 2019.

Have you read the one about the fake honey? There is lots of it in Canada, almost 23 percent of the tested samples proved to be sticky mix of corn syrup and sugar derived from various sources such as rice, beets and others, instead of pure honey. It would be helpful to have names for all the brands selling fake honey but that has yet to surface if at all.

For anyone who does not believe in getting rich via lies and deceit it’s frustrating to think we are at the mercy of food crookery. Come to think of it, one wonders what the consequences are for those who engage in such activities, given that our justice system is so lenient, but I’ll leave that for another column.

Weekly column: Yes, we can do without (most) single-use plastics

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on Monday June 10th, 2019.

I cannot tell you how many times I wished that Styrofoam food containers would disappear. Call it a pet peeve but it goes beyond that. They leach harmful (albeit slow-acting and invisible) endocrine disruptors in the food stored in them, they are non-recyclable and indestructible, and one too many can be seen lying around parks or washing on river shores once the humans that emptied them have long left the scene.

Weekly column: Sometimes we need a break from it all

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on May 27, 2019.

No matter how many times I see it, I never get tired of it: The emerald sheen of the surrounding hills this time of the year, the play of cloud shadows and sunshine which makes the grasslands look as if you’re gliding over in a boat and looking down at the sun-kissed grassy bottom of a shallow creek. It’s magical, there is no other way to put it. 

I am nursing a recently injured knee so I am cautious while hiking but there is too much beauty to miss if I hold back. After a few days of taking it easy, I venture up the trails again in my favourite park of all.

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