K-OS: Canadian
“The Seekwell”; ‘Atlantis‘ (2006)
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The First Five News Stories On CBC, 10pm 02/02/07:
01) Climate Change Report: The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change released their report today. Apparently nothing good will ever happen ever again. Rising sea levels, environmental refugees, the Arctic is melting… and apparently it’s all the fault of Canada’s Conservative government. Canada was one of the original brokers of The Kyoto Accord. Then, after signing, our Liberal Party of Canada did what every other government did: they ignored it for fifteen years. Since signing Kyoto, Canada’s carbon emissions went up aboot twice as fast as the Americans, who didn’t sign on. Now, with the Liberals dethroned, there seems to be an expectation among the more left in Canada, that the Conservatives must meet the Kyoto protocols which, at this point, would pretty much mean shutting Canada off for sixteen hours a day and all day on Thursday.
02) Floridian Storms: Tornadoes and severe storms tore across Florida from Tampa Bay to cape Canaveral leaving nineteen people dead and a lot of homes torn apart. This kind of story always gets mentioned in Canadian news, any kind of weather, traffic or event causing deaths in the United States gets a slot in Canadian newscasts. Outside of general interest, there are a lot of Americans living and working here. Tonight, however, the reporter tied it to the Climate Change story. “Living in Florida is always a gamble and people have again paid with their lives” — Neil MacDonald, CBC’s most pessimistic reporter.
03) Highway 401 Accident Cleanup: There was a fairly dramatic accident on Canada’s busiest highway yesterday, just north of Toronto. The highway basically connects Quebec City to Windsor to Detroit. In terms of dollars moved and industry relliance it’s one of the busiest highways in the world. Two people were killed and 100 trucks were lined up overnight as the highway had to be resurfaced.
04) Gaza Battles: The ongoing power struggle between Fatah and Hamas “ripped apart over factional lines” leaving seventeen dead and 254 injured. This was during a ceasefire. Canada’s never really had much of a role to play in Palestinian politics. Until recently we did supply a significant amount of cash to the Palestinian Authority/Government, but most of that has been cut off since Hamas was elected. Canada’s official position, if anyone’s really interested, is a ‘two-state’ solution. If you want to see how Canada’s (and America’s and Australia’s) voting record on the sbuject: [here].
05) Soccer Riots In Italy: A week after a man was killed in a soccer riot, a police officer was killed in another riot after an explosive device blew up in his face. All of the weekends games have been cancelled. That’ll show them. Remember a few years ago when a drunk, shirtless father and son jumped onto the field and attacked an umpire at an MLB baseball game? I think it was in Boston. Then there was the 2004 “riot” between the NBA Pacers and Pistons that looked like a bunch of classic science nerds flailing away at each other. Then there was a fan at an NHL game who broke through a barrier and fell into the penalty box with Toronto Maple Leaf cement-head Tie Domi. Those are normal. Even as unique incidents which will never happen ever again, they are within the boundaries of normal. Bringing flares, tear gas, molotov cocktails and/or explosive devices to a sporting match is not normal. Maybe, maybe, after a championship game you might turn over a car or give a cop the finger, but blowing a cops face off before the game’s even started? It’s. Soccer. It’s. Not. Even. A. Real. Sport. Maybe it’s a good thing hockey hasn’t taken off in Italy or Great Britain.
Bonus Track: Shakespeare In Afghanistan — The CBC ran a thirty minute feature on Afghan actors and actresses putting on Shakespearian plays in Kabul and in the Northern Provinces. It’s something put together by a Canadian actor and director named Corinne Jaber. The play they were practicing was “Love’s Labours Lost”. According to one of the actresses “traditionally in Afghanistan actresses are considered to be prostitutes.” And even a single man and woman clasping hands is a taboo. But in the play not only do single men and women hold hands, the women also go bare-headed and with their hair down. The reporter made a point of showing how the director was having to teach the women actors, who had taken off their hijabs, how to walk while men were staring at them. In the plays the men, also going against tradition, walk around with their shirts off (but only when it’s essential to the script). The audience for the first show had aboot 200 men, six women and there was a lot of laughter and applause. The reporter didn’t make this connection, but to me it looked like a Roman era cultural exchange from The City to the rural Provinces. It was pretty remarkable.
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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
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0_o
cultural sn:afu 
just wanted to say “happy birthday ” :-)
Climate change? Conservatives must meet the Kyoto protocols which, at this point, would pretty much mean shutting Canada off for sixteen hours a day and all day on Thursday. Well don’t worry yourself about it, the “Liberal” government in BC is paying half the cost for pipelines and roads to make it easier for the oil companies to drill in our province. Mind you all these politicians are doing photo ops and telling how green they are, how we must invest in “alternative” energy. Well invest in BC oil market, it is an alternative to the Alberta oil patch.
Climate change isn’t really aboot oil field development. It does have a lot to do with what happens after the oil gets to the engines. We’re always going to have plastics and synthetics. So Canada’s always going to have derricks somewhere.
How and why politicians start taking this stuff seriously doesn’t matter… eventually they all would because eventually enough citizens would. Politicians don’t act, they react. If only 20% of the voters are rabidly against something nothing will be done to change anything. But there’s been a critical mass over the last two years, the numbers have become high enough that politicians can react with a safety net.
The Liberals did exactly what the majority of Canadians wanted them to do: sign into Kyoto, then ignore Kyoto… because back then the vast majority of Canadians didn’t give a shit. So now the Conservatives are going to start mapping out plans, just like every other Western Democracy.
I just don’t like the idea that the Conservatives are somehow at fault for 15-years of Liberal non-policy… but I am looking forward to Canada becoming the New Riviera. I’m guessing The New Cannes Film Festival will be held in Winnipeg, depending on how far inland the new “Lake Really Superior Ontario Erie Huron Michigan” moves.
Thanks Hellboy. Only eighteen more years to go.
Climate change = Warmer Summers/Warmer Winters … ta da!
It’s really, really difficult to impress upon the ‘normal’ Westerner, how utterly massive and far-reaching the damage that climate change is causing to this beautiful world we all live in.
Basically because, as an English person, the only effect we can really perceive, is the effect on our English Summer/Winter. And, we’re not that ‘arsed’.
I have missed our English Winter. I love my country because we have always had definitive seasons. We have Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter. Now we have snowdrops and crocuses in January.
And, no snow.
Snow, is a no-show.
This is only going to get worse, and worse and, worse.
So, how can the ‘man-in-the-street’ slow this down.
Quite simple really.
1. Turn off lights when you leave a room, the same goes for t.v.’s/stereo’s/gaming stations etc. and, don’t leave them on standby … it costs money and it’s just damn lazy.
2. Switch off the central heating when you are so warm in your lovely comfy home that you are sweating and can’t breathe because the heating is depriving you of oxygen.
3. Take a train when you simply have to go to that business meeting or that visit to the relative in another part of your country – don’t get on a plane. The country that you pass through on your train, may make you realise why you love it so much, and why you are making a choice of train and not plane.
4. Re-cycle. Re-cycle. Re-cycle. Those bins, brown and blue and green that your local authority provide (if you are lucky – ha!), they’re not there to make your rubbish look pretty. They are there to put your different kindsa crap in, not to use as compost dumps for your once-a-year plants you get from the garden centre. It’s not that difficult. Come on, how stupid/selfish can a person be? Don’t answer that.
5. Take your kids to school sans car. Take the bus to work, take the train to work (and yes, it’s expensive, and it’s crowded, and you may have to spend the journey sniffing someone’s armpit … boo hoo!) … walk, yes, remember that thing you used to do with your legs? It actually saves the money you spend each month at the ‘gym’!
6. Read a book, play cards, play cluedo, stop watching tele. Or, watch tele together, in the same room, not four tele’s in different rooms, separated.
These are the 6 ways I can think of, off the top of my head, for the ‘common man’, to help slow down climate change.
If you want to know others, follow this link …
http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/794
All I did was use google. Maybe I should practise what I preach, and not spend so much time on the puta. But, the heating is off, the lights are turned off in every room apart from the one I am, and yes, my daughter is in her room, on her gaming station, with the light on.
I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite.
I recycle. I walk to work or get the bus. I am not joining a gym, because the 10 minutes I spent on Thursday night, running on a ‘running machine’ made me realise, I could have run around the block for the same amount of time and not only saved myself some money, but saved electricity.
It’s difficult for everyone to change the ‘habits of a lifetime’, I know this, I empathise and I am as guilty as ‘the next man’, but … I have started, I am trying, to change my ‘habits’. This is all anyone can ask, of anyone.
I repeat: ‘It’s not that difficult’ … how stupid can one person be?
How stupid, can the whole of humanity be?
Don’t answer that.
xx
The most important step in reducing carbon emissions will be when the car industry realizes they’re not the fuel industry. They have to understand they’ll make a few bucks off the sale of a car whether it’s powered by electricity or the blood of Australian babies. However, the fuel industry does control the fueling stations, so there is that.
As for the actual climate changing all of a sudden… we could shut everything off for the next ten years, it won’t change what’s happening. It’ll take longer than a few decades of cave-dwelling to turn this planet’s climate around. Whatever we do, whether it’s stuffing carbon dioxide back into the earth, or building a greenhouse-gas pipeline to Mars (‘Total Recall’), those glaciers are going, going, going and gone and it’ll take another 12,000 years of gradually cold, cold, colder weather to get them back. In the meantime it may be a good idea, marketing wise, to reposition Canada as “New Cuba”.