Trip to Toronto
The days of summer camp and Georgian Bay faded behind us and we headed to the harbor front of Toronto as a “high contrast” finish for our vacation.
I have some intimacy with this city. Apart from flying in and out hundreds of times, I used to run around this town selling CAD software. And I must say that my memory of it does not square with the current reality.
In my mind’s eye I always equate Toronto with the Peter Ustinov quote: “New York run by the Swiss,” but this visit squares with Jane Jacobs vision of a run-down city short on services and vision.
We visited the Royal Ontario Museum today, in search of dramatic dinosaur bones. Standard fare for any Ontario school kid. But closed for renovations. They are doing a monster expansion that might one day do Albertasauras proud, but for now diminishes the experience dramatically.
Tami and Kaitlin vanished into shops on Queen St., leaving the boys and I to wander through Queen’s Park. Rather than fecund, shady and full of birdlife, it was tawdry, full of litter and piled with trash. I couldn’t tell if the dead grass was due to the misapplication of chemicals or from a persistent drought.
Arlo and Zafer had a chance to chase the black squirrels of my childhood, which was rather neat. There is a genetic mutation in these parts that turns the eastern grey squirrel jet black.
I couldn’t help but think of Glen, who routinely travels to Queen’s Park in endless attempts to influence Ontario government energy policy. He likes to say it “moves at a snail’s pace, which is an insult to snails everywhere.”
Today I finished Ross Gelbspan’s The Heat is On: The Climate Crisis, The Cover-up, The Prescription. I pinched it from Glen’s bookshelf. Normally I borrow the books from Glen, Scott borrows them from me, and they then end up on the shelf at the refinery, where I am pleased to see interns do read them, and coop members. We do have some book circulation at Piedmont Biofuels. Glen’s library is the general loser in the deal.
I have to say Gelbspan’s writing impressed me. My copy was last updated in 1998, which made it sort of a journalistic/historical document on climate change negotiations with some fascinating looks at the way big oil and big coal have purposefully obfuscated the conversation about our use of their products.
Each year we park about 6 billion tons of carbon waste into the atmosphere, and the number is growing. There is some question about how long our climate can endure this rate of disposal.
I notice on the net Gelbspan is lampooned for a marketing message that refers to him as a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. I couldn’t find reference to that in my copy, nor would I care. But there appears to be some controversy surrounding the claim. Apparently he worked for the Boston Globe and provided editorial leadership to a series of stories that won a Pulitzer. I guess he wasn’t one of the writers, and never received the official recognition. He’s vilified on a number of websites for making false claims, and he is referred to as “a cheerleader for global warming.”
I liked the book, and tonight after taking the family out for some Thai cuisine on Church St. we hiked over to the old Eaton’s Center where we bought a stack of books. Included in the pile is Ross Gelbspan’s more recent work on global warming: Boiling Point, where it does say “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize” on the cover.
Pulitzer smulitzer. I’m a fan. And I’m looking forward to wading into what Rachel sometimes refers to as “another depressing climate change book.”
Can’t wait.
The streets of Toronto were abuzz tonight, and like this morning there was an undeniable whiff of sewage in the air.
It seems this city has lost ground in the last decade. Increased panhandlers, increased homeless people, increased litter, increased trash, all set against a warm breeze of sewage scent, along a harbor that is no longer fit for swimming. Perhaps it is population growth. Or perhaps it is bad policy shifts. Maybe the Canadian electorate lost interest in this former jewel of a city.
Or maybe it is just time. I don’t need to read Ross Gelbspan to notice that children can no longer maintain backyard skating rinks in southwestern Ontario anymore.
Yesterday was a scorcher in Lion’s Head. We all crossed the street, wound our way down the rocks, and took a last dip in Georgian Bay. Nowadays swimming in Georgian Bay is still shockingly cold. But there is a difference. Nowadays when you walk out in the ankle deep water to the edge of the shelf, you slip and slide on a green algae like substance that clings to the rock. It’s pollution. It’s a slippery nutrient load that wasn’t there years ago. We don’t need “depressing books” to tell us that our pristine swimming spots are no longer so.
Tomorrow we burn a ton of hydrocarbons returning home from vacation, so put me down as a huge part of the problem.
I’m looking forward to jumping back into the tangle, which is Piedmont Biofuels.
Posted by Lyle at July 12, 2005 08:00 AM
