By Dr. Royann J. Petrell Assoc. Prof. Emeritus UBC BA: Biology All of us can stop the continual population decline of the Threatened Western Screech Owl (kennicottii subspecies) by demanding the end to fragmentation or widespread cut-clearing. Wide wildlife corridors that consist of old growth trees and snags, or older second-growth trees with lots…
Eunice Newton Foote, an American scientist, was the first to discover the gas CO2
Eunice Newton Foote, an American scientist, was the first to discover the gas CO2 can have a heating effect on the planet. She did this by filling glass jars with different amounts of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and air. She compared how much they heated up in the sun, and then presented her data to…
2022 September 27th Photo shows the Comox Glacier continues to melt
Anybody reading headlines recently will see that drought is a serious problem, from China’s Yangtze River, to the formerly “Mighty Colorado,” in the USA. Right now, we see the second largest freshwater delta in the world, the Peace-Athabasca in Alberta — is drying out. Here in the Comox Valley, the news is the same….
Kananaskis Before the Storm
4K video of the Kananaskis area, just before the first significant winter blizzard of the season hit the region.
2013 to 2021 Comox Glacier Ice Loss
Estimated 95 foot vertical Ice loss Between 2013 and 2021 In 1988, NASA climate scientist James Hansen’s powerful testimony [link] to the US Congress made clear the threats posed by climate change. At that time, the carbon in the atmosphere was 348 parts per million, [ppm] measured at the observatory on Mauna Loa, Hawaii….
Emily Carr’s Blunden Harbour
This is the south east view of Kwakwaka’wakw the Village of Ba’a’s (Blunden Harbour) in 1901. Vancouver Art Gallery, all rights reserved Emily Carr used this photograph taken by Charles Frederick Newcombe in 1901 as a template for her famous painting. Almost nothing of the buildings and totems at Blunden Harbour survives today. Blunden…
Comox Glacier lost 80 vertical feet in 7 years. 2013/2020
September 28th 2020 On September 28th, 2020, continuing an ongoing seven year project, I took a close-up photograph of the Comox Glacier, showing new rock exposure on all sides of the glacier, and a new big exposed rock right in the middle. This means the glacier will probably continue to melt not only from the…
BC hydro Dams environmentally could be as bad as the Alberta Oil Sands
Homes are heated by wood, oil, gas, and BC Hydro. The hazards of wood, oil and gas are well known but there is a major environmental cost of BC Hydro’s dams, a lot of it unseen, and little known to the public, which must be included in this discussion. 1- Thousands of productive salmon runs…
Comox Glacier 2013 to 2019 Ice Loss
2013 to 2019 Before and after slider (above ) The photo on the left was taken the 4th week of September, 2013. The photo on the right was taken the 4th week of September, 2019. All the glacier photos have been shot from the bird observation deck on the Dyke Road in Courtenay, BC, about…
An Open and Shut Case of Ecocide at East Creek, Brooks Peninsula
Use the before and after Slider to see how Lemare Logging drove in deep and as fast as possible to make sure it was unusable for saving. 2014 to 2016 [Google Earth Image]
Where have all the Tyee gone?
If you were a sport fisherman in the Comox Valley before the 1990’s, you know how good the fishing in the Strait of Georgia used to be. Chinook, Coho, and Pink were plentiful, though Tyee [30 pounds plus Chinook] had already been declining in our waters for several years. But even then we heard tales…
Adopting: The Personal Carbon Cap or PCC
Adopting: The Personal Carbon Cap or PCC I want to start with these numbers and graphs from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. One graph shows the CO2 increase from 2016 to 2020, and the other one shows the increase from 1960 to 2020. You are all probably quite familiar with these graphs and measurements…
The No/Fly Movement
Whether you’re on the ground supporting the no-fly movement, or because of COVID-19 your travel life has been a little odd over the last couple of years – maybe you found different or other things to do. Perhaps you discovered a kind of recreation that wasn’t available to previous generations in times of lockdown or…