A geography lesson by the soon to be geographer.

First off I want to applaud Ontario for their tree planting initiative. Ontario has committed to planting 50 million tress costing $79 million. Many people are upset with this number and say that it is too much. The first question I would like to ask these people is: "how do you expect to breathe if we don’t have trees? Did you happen to forget that they create O2 for us?"

Trees make up areas known as ‘carbon sinks’. During there life cycles they remove carbon from the atmosphere, making the air cleaner and reducing the affects of climate change. As are bodies of water, and soils.

Now a pet peeve of mine is the assumption that ‘global warming’ actual elongates Canadian summers. What some people believe is that since the globe is warming it results in longer and warmer summers for areas in Canada like Ottawa for ex. Areas that have 4 distinct seasons.
But this is completely false. Global warming does result in global temperature rise but that is just the beginning. It means that we will have erratic storms, bigger storms, flash storms, and hail in areas -and at temperatures- that normally don’t experience hail for ex.

Basically it does not mean that you can enjoy 25C in Ottawa during September on a consistent basis, it means that we could experience drought -kind of like what we are in now- where we may have a ‘flash’ rain storm that will not be absorb in the water table reducing the amount available for plants, trees, and our own drinking.

Places like Bangladesh are sinking at alarming rates. Increased deforestation and flash storms in the western US are creating wild fires and drought. These are the conditions of global warming, not beach weather in September and October in Ottawa.

Last pet peeve for the day. Sea levels are rising, but it is not melting glaciers that are causing it. Some people are under the impression that ice bergs and open water glaciers are the cause, this is not so. The ice caps are playing a roll in rising sea levels as they do not take up space from the oceans.

What I mean is; think of a glacier as an ice cube in a glass of water. If a glass has an ice cube at the bottom of it and you fill the glass with water ¾ full, and then allow the ice to melt, the water level will not rise past the ¾ mark. The ice cube is part of that ¾ of volume. That is what a glacier is.

An ice cap on the other hand is like filling an empty glass with ¾ full of water and then adding an ice cube once full. If you now let that ice cube melt the water level will rise.

I am not attempting to be condescending or make the assumption that whom ever is reading this did not already know these facts, I am merely relating what I have had people say to me, and what they deem to be correct without finding the facts. I study environmental; change, law, policy, history, science and the affects humans have on it and visa versa and much more. In every class I take at university we deal with the environment on small and large scales. And the biggest thing I learned is that as individuals we have to try and do our part at least on a regional and day to day level.

By the way I don’t believe the sky is falling and that we are doomed, but it is obvious that there is a change to be made and in the long run we will all be a little healthier for it and I really don’t see anything wrong with wanting to be healthy and for our generations to come to live in a healthier world.

Policies, initiatives and other governmental ideas towards the environment are usually only created to get someone money or votes or both. They are usually not worth the paper they are printed on. So try to do what you can and maybe one day my kids and my kids, kids, won’t have to suffer through our bad decisions.