the hits keep on comin' 8

Surely, the following movie will be in production soon. Who wouldn't want to see who the winner is in a battle between a 25-year old man from Arizona and a 125-year old saguaro cactus?

                Death by Misadventure: The Screenplay - Part 4

Yes, I know. Part 3 of my screenplay ended rather abruptly. We followed Grundman - from a safe distance - across a mile of desert and watched while he littered the ground with beer cans, cigarette butts, shell casings and a half-dozen saguaro corpses until he reached Ha:san. Then he and the story stopped dead.

No, our narrator didn’t walk out on us. I just wanted to add suspense. That’s show-biz. (FYI. There’s still been no word from anyone about a pet coyote.) 

Tom Miller, the movie's narrator and author of the book upon which the screenplay is based, will next read three short sentences directly from page 192, Jack Ruby’s Kitchen Sink.

“Finally David Grundman encountered Ha:san. A couple of rounds didn’t do it. Ha:san, 125 years old, remained erect.” 

The camera will move in for a close-up of Grundman’s sweaty face as he surveys the damage he has wrought thus far. 

Seconds slowly tick by. He casually takes the last swig of beer from the last can of his six-pack and a final draw on his cigarette. Just as casually he flicks the butt toward Ha:san's tough hide.

We have time to ask ourselves, What’s he thinking? Is he going to wise up? Curse himself for doing so much damage to other living things? Go get a bigger rifle?

Grundman bends down, reaches for the box of shells sitting at his feet.

The narrator reads, “He moved slightly to another angle and pumped a few more slugs into the splendid 3,000-pound saguaro, but it refused to fall. He tried again from farther over.”

Though Grundman’s face registers frustration he is determined to best the cactus. So he picks up a saguaro rib from the ground and starts poking at Ha:san’s lowest arm, which has grown almost five feet in its 70 years. 

(To those who are surprised by the man’s stubbornness or stupidity, or both, may I just say for the record that you shouldn’t be. Mankind has been doing much the same thing to the planet for the last 100 years in countless other ways. You should be used to it by now. Sorry, back to the screenplay.)

Grundman’s poking finally dislodges the arm, which rests about four feet above him and weighs close to 500 pounds.

I could stop right here to build more suspense, but instead, what follows will take place in ultra-slow-motion in true Sam Peckinpah-fashion.

The 500-pound arm falls ever-so-slowly and dramatically toward the ground, and it breaks Grundman’s neck on the way.

Then Ha:san, suddenly unstable, starts wobbling, and falls onto the lifeless man as well, piercing his face and torso in hundreds of places.

As the movie screen gradually fades to black so that the credits can roll, three things will happen simultaneously.

We’ll see the county medical examiner fill in Grundman’s toe tag with the following words; cause of death – external compression of the chest - 04/02/82.

We’ll hear the ballad 'Saguaro' that contains the line 'one mighty arm of justice came hurtling toward the ground'. (Michael Stevens, Austin Lounge Lizards)

We’ll be asked by the film’s narrator, “How will mankind’s movie end?”

Black.

***

Final notes.

There was one witness to David Grundman's death by misadventure., i.e., Jim. W., Grundman's travelling and drinking companion. His full name is given in Miller's book.

Tom Miller's book of short stories about America's South-West will be found today under a new title, The Revenge of the Saguaro.

Tom recently sent me the following note: "Your 2-part Londoner series on the saguaro incident goes in my archives at the U of Arizona Library. You have been preserved."

Years ago my mother canned a lot of fruits and vegetables to help us get through the winter so I'm not sure how to feel about being preserved. 

Live small and prosper.

***

Please click here to read the hits keep on comin' 7

the hits keep on comin' 7

Death by Misadventure: A Screenplay - Part 3

In my last post the slow growth of Ha:san, a stately 125-year-old saguaro cactus, is described in some detail. The cactus, found in the Sonoran Desert an hour’s drive northeast of Phoenix, Arizona is one of two main characters in a true story which one day may become a brilliant motion picture worthy of several Oscars.

The second character is David Grundman, a 25-year-old man wearing a dark-blue t-shirt, dusty jeans and scruffy leather boots, last seen “slipping a shotgun shell into his 16-gauge and preparing to blow two empty beer cans into smithereens”.

Twenty minutes before our protagonists meet for the first and last time, Grundman finishes loading his rifle, takes aim and confidently pulls the trigger. 

The noise alone would have knocked over the beer cans had the red-hot stream of buckshot not found its mark. Before the large spray of dust and gravel settles, every tiny creature within a one-mile radius of the blast has skittered off to find safe refuge.

Grundman spits toward the middle of the dirt road, opens his third beer, lights a cigarette, turns and walks into the desert. And as he hikes unknowingly but unerringly toward Ha:san he passes several wolfberry shrubs and squat mesquite trees but shoots not a one, intent on shooting saguaros only. They make easy, immobile targets, almost humanlike with their arms in the air.

He starts with smaller saguaros and works up to bigger ones, each time shooting at their ribs, so that without support, the cactus falls over dead. In the silent desert the final fall of each cactus makes an abrupt noise, and as Grundman’s sixth victim, a statuesque 18-footer, crumbles before our eyes, we hear Johnny Cash singing the chorus of a gritty funeral dirge, as follows;

“And you could have it all, my empire of dirt.
I will let you down. I will make you hurt.” 
(Hurt, American IV: The Man Comes Around)

Sixteen gauge shells, beer cans, cigarette butts and dead saguaros create a meandering and filthy trail across the desert abutting a dirt road northeast of Phoenix. A few feet beneath them, in burrows and dry, dusty shelters, hide various desert critters from our loud, careless, chain-smoking menace.

Finally, around the last bend so to speak, David Grundman encounters Ha:san.

Photos by GH

***

Please click here to read the hits keep on comin' 6

the hits keep on comin' 6

If I turned a true story (by American writer Tom Miller) of one man's attempt to out-muscle his natural environment - and the consequences - into a dramatic film it would go something like this (link to Part 1 below) - 

Death by Misadventure: The Screenplay - Part 2

["One day to appear on big screens everywhere!"]

As B.B. King’s wailing fades into yesterday we are briefly introduced to the film’s protagonists 30 minutes before they meet on Feb. 4th, 1982 for the first and last time.

The first is a splendid 125-year-old, 3,000-pound saguaro cactus situated one or two miles east of a dirt road that passes through the Sonoran Desert. It is an hour northeast of Phoenix, Arizona, in an area governed by the Bureau of Land Management. The cactus is called Ha:san (pronounced hah-shin), the word for saguaro within the Tohono O’odham nation.

[photo from commons.wikimedia.org]

The second is David Grundman, age 25. He is slightly over six feet tall, has brown hair and blue eyes and weighs 200 pounds. 

(Note to self - Ryan Gosling, a past Oscar nominee, is perfect for the part. Give him a call.)

Grundman parks his old Ford pickup at the side of the same dirt road and leisurely collects several items from the dusty, cracked leather seat. Juggling a cold six-pack of beer, a 16-gauge shotgun and a large box of shells he exits the truck and expertly kicks the door shut with one scruffy boot. 

["More shells are under the bench seat": photo by gah]

As the noise from the truck door races across the desert we magically seem to follow (through the miracle of modern motion picture technology) and are escorted backwards in time to 1857 and to the small patch of soil where Ha:san’s birth took place.

Tom Miller, the story's author will tell the story from this point onward.

Tom will say the saguaro flowers fertilize each other under particular conditions only, that some of the resultant fruit occasionally falls to the ground, is eaten by a bird or animal and is deposited throughout the desert.

(Note to self - Has anybody got a trained coyote?) 

He’ll also say that a seed may germinate under perfect conditions and if it can survive for two full years (which is highly unlikely - one slight bump and it will be dead) the new plant will become the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

Fortunately, in our case, Ha:san did survive and by 1867 is one and a half inches tall. 

In 1887, at age 30, the saguaro is two feet tall. (Don’t worry. I’ll get Tom to read these parts in dramatic tones. It will be gripping. Especially the close-ups.)

In 1912, at age 55, our cactus is eight feet tall and weighs 800 pounds. A flower crowns its top for the first time, providing nectar for its airborne visitors. Soon seedlings from Ha:san’s own fruit will reach the desert floor, the same ground upon which Ha:san’s 39,999,999 siblings have perished. 

In 1932, at age 75, the saguaro is in peak form, with one mature arm growing nicely and another on the way. 

In 1957, in Ha:san’s centennial year, David Michael Grundman is born in New York State.

Mr. Miller will pause and we will be swept away from the base of the proud Ha:san and back to the side of the dirt road where, 25 years later, Grundman is slipping a shotgun shell into his 16-gauge and preparing to blow two empty beer cans into smithereens. 

[photo - 123rf.com]

More of Death by Misadventure to follow.

***

Please click here to read the hits keep on comin' 5

the hits keep on coming 5

If insurance company records are to be trusted, the cost of weather-related damages is increasing dramatically year by year. 

["On a collision course? We're heading in that direction"]

And based on figures related to global economic production of wealth in the late 1990s, there will likely come a day in many of our lifetimes when global wealth will not be able to pay for the cost of damages to our surroundings. (The chapter about the relationship between weather-related damages and global economic wealth in Dr. R. Nielsen's book, The Little Green Handbook, was very interesting in a "look at that wicked car-crash" sort-of-way). 

["the cost of damage is increasing rapidly"]

One day it will become apparent to us all that we cannot produce wealth fast enough to pay for the rapidly rising costs of extreme weather events related to climate instability, climate change or global warming. In other words, we'll learn we cannot out-muscle Mother Nature and discover that our unsustainable production of goods based upon the almost uncontrollable burning of fuels will not build a better future for all.

A few years ago I came across a true story that illustrated the inevitable cost of trying to out-muscle the natural environment. The story is 12 pages long and appears as part of the sixth chapter of a book entitled Jack Ruby's Kitchen Sink (Adventures in America's South West) by Tom Miller. And as I read the story for the first, second and third time, a movie based upon its actual events played inside the theater of my mind.

If I turned the story into a dramatic production, it would go something like this -

Death by Misadventure: The Screenplay - Part 1

The movie begins with a black screen and the crisp, clear sounds of B. B. King singing some heart-rending blues number like “I’ve Up and Lost Everythin’ for the Tenth Time”, and as he sings a hand-drawn cartoon will slowly appear, a few pixels at a time (dramatic, eh?), and fully come into view just as B. B. belts out his last verse:

Oh, I can’t,
Oh, no I can’t 
I’m tellin’ you right now that I can’t
You hear what I’m sayin’ that I can't?
I can’t belieeeve that I been sooooooooo stupid.

[cartoon at tabtoon@telus.net]

More of Death by Misadventure to follow.

Photos by GH

***

Please click here to read the hits keep on comin' 4

the hits keep on comin' 4

"However."

However, it seems our global income is taking a hit as the years go by and as global damages increase, as if exponentially.

["Weather-related damages and costs are increasing quickly"]

Nielsen asked, "How long can we cope with weather-related economic losses?" Then he added, "If global income increases more slowly than the losses, it is worthwhile to calculate how long the money will last."

That makes sense to me, but I've never seen many instances of people in a position to know or care, e.g., insurance companies, government officials from local to federal levels, economists, or financial wizards, explain what the future may hold related to economic or financial health if we continue "business as usual" both economically and environmentally.

Nielsen continues re 'how long the money will last' (page 103, The Little Green Handbook):

To estimate this period I have analysed the data for weather-related economic losses and for gross world-product (GWP), both expressed in 2001 US dollars.

Preliminary examination of the data shows that the prospects are not encouraging, because the losses are increasing much faster than income. As we have seen, global weather-related losses per decade increased from $86 billion to $474 billion, or 450 per cent, in the last two decades of the 20th century. However, GWP increased from $291 trillion per decade to $386 trillion, or 33 per cent, during the same period. GWP is still greater than the weather-related losses, but the losses are increasing much faster, and in time they might match global income. That would mean global bankruptcy.

... The two calculated curves cross in 2045. If about that time we decide to repair the damage there will be no money left for anything else.

Dr. Nielsen does not mention which countries will fare better or worse or who will suffer the greatest blows amongst the rich and poor, but he does go on to say the following:

global bankruptcy could occur earlier than 2045, for two reasons. First, the costs of weather-related damages might drain global resources to a critical level, even if they are lower than global income.

The above statement reminds me of details related to a recent air disaster. A jumbo jet filled with passengers came in for a landing at a reduced speed (according to black box data and recorded conversations in the cockpit), i.e., at substantially fewer knots per hour than required for a safe landing, and the jet dropped too quickly out of the sky. The plane suffered great damage and two passengers were killed upon impact.

Second, we also have to consider the cost of other natural disasters... (i.e.,) the so-called great natural disasters. They do not happen often, but they are responsible for enormous economic losses, and their number has increased from about two per year in the 1950s to 9 per year in the 1990s. (pg. 104)

In the wake of recent flooding in Alberta, blows to the economy of one of Canada's richest provinces and government promises to send a billion in relief funding (likely a small portion of what will be needed for all repairs), there may be a growing concern about how long we can cope with such damage, economically and environmentally.

["Are governments studying important, recent data?

Will they keep their citizenry fully informed?"]

Nielsen makes an excellent point about what is needed to determine an answer today:

The first 10 - 20 years of this century will be crucial in determining whether weather-related economic losses will lead to global bankruptcy. The cost of damage is increasing rapidly, and the additional sets of data will make the analysis more reliable. (pg. 104, TLGH)

Though accurate information may be long in coming from worried insurance companies and national governments, we should make every effort to stay informed while - at the same time - cleaning up one economic and environmental mess after another.

Photos by GH

***

Please click here to read the hits keep on comin' 3

the hits keep on comin' 3

["High Rover, Alta." Photo @ cbc.ca]

When it comes to natural disasters, including those that are weather related, research centers and insurance companies do a lot of tabulating and record keeping, a lot of mathematical calculations, and it's not for their own pleasure.

For example, "records of the Swiss Re insurance group show that the number of natural catastrophes in the world increased from 30 per year in the 1970s to 140 per year at the end of the 20th century. Of the worst 40 natural disasters, only six were not related to the weather." (pg. 102, The Little Green Handbook) Such records, in part, likely help the insurance companies know what rates to set in order to remain solvent. Occasionally, we'll catch a glimpse of research center and insurance company stats in the newspaper and a bleaker future - related to natural disasters and heavier financial hits - seems to be the forecast.

["Both clips from the London Free Press"]

Below are a few relevant notes from pg. 102 - 103 of The Little Green Handbook (seven trends shaping the future of our planet) by Ron Nielsen, DSc.

re The probability of global bankruptcy. Perhaps the best and the most convincing short-cut to the problems associated with studying the slow process of climate change and extreme weather lies in weather-related economic losses. The relevant records are not only well documented and scrutinised, but are also expressed in terms of a single quantity we can easily understand and appreciate - the money we have to pay for weather-related damage. These records are maintained by insurance companies, and it is in their interest to make them reliable.

According to Munich Re, global weather-related economic losses increased from $3 billion per year in 1980 to $80 billion per year at the end of the 20th century. Losses per decade increased from $86 billion for 1980-89 to $474 billion for 1990-99. (On average, only 26 per cent of weather-related losses were insured... but someone has to pay for them.)

How long can we cope with weather-related economic losses? If global income is substantially greater than the losses, and if it increases at least as fast as the losses, we have nothing to worry about. There will always be enough money to repair the damage.

If we stop there, and think Nielsen's final words 'there will always be enough money' make a definitive statement of fact from the insurance companies we would be stopping too soon. Based on what Mr. Nielsen writes next he could have said the above another way:

I.e., "If global income is (always) substantially greater than the losses, and if it (always) increases at least as fast as the losses, we (will always) have nothing to worry about (because) there will always be enough money to repair the damage."

And his very next sentence could easily have started with "However."

["Collision in the future? Our future?"]

Stay tuned for the wrap up.

Photos by GH

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Please click here to read the hits keep on comin' 2

the hits keep on comin' 2

["Walk this way?" photo cbc.ca]

Residents of High River, Alberta will have to wait for several more days before they can "walk this way." Elsewhere in Alberta, thousands of others are in the same boat, counting the days before they can resume a somewhat normal routine, perhaps feeling that a new normal is what lies ahead.

["Tough, wet times in Alberta" June 22, London Free Press]

And it does, in more ways than one for many people. The 'wild wet' West is not the only part of the world suffering consequences from unusual or extreme weather events and if news reports are accurate, the financial costs of such events are staggering. Some costs are covered by insurance companies but the majority are not.

["The bulk of the damage... isn't covered"

spokesperson, Insurance Bureau of Canada]

Such reports make me wonder, though economies of many nations produce fabulous lifestyles for some citizens, will they one day be burdened to the limit by damages from the growing number of extreme weather events? Will there come a time when human effort can no longer out work the weather?

["Today, i.e., 2013, we seem to be out working the weather"]

["But what about in 20 years? 30 years?"]  

According to some insurance analysts, if the hits keep on comin' in growing numbers, we will one day be involved in a financial collision - not entirely accidental - with Mother Nature, a mighty force we have toyed with for decades. Taller hip waders will not save the day.

Photos by GH

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Please click here to read the hits keep on comin' 1

The hits keep on comin'

Since last week I've been watching the news about the floods in Alberta, and Calgary particularly. A June 22 headline 'Wild Wet Disaster' (London Free Press) makes just a start at describing the impact such floods have on a town, city, province or - at a level most of us can better understand - an individual family's life and livelihood. It will be several years before some families and towns get back to a normal life, and that's only with a great deal of support from government and humanitarian resources. And some never will.

[Calgary's mayor says "the fallout now will

be worse than after the 2005 floods"]

As news outlets are programmed to do, it wasn't long after the floods began that articles appeared - like the one in our local paper - entitled 'Insurance hit ripples nation-wide.' Damages will be examined in detail and costs - some, not all; chiefly financial ones - will be tallied. "It will be a significant hit," says Steve Kee, a spokesperson for the Insurance Bureau of Canada. (June 22, London Free Press)

["All Canadians will share the pain of Alberta flooding"]

Though Alberta's damages will bring about a significant hit to policy holders across Canada, the hits keep on comin'. Spokesperson Kee reminds us that the bulk of damage "caused by overland flooding or overflowing rivers, isn't covered by insurance." The provincial government, federal government and individuals will bear part or much of the cost, and unfortunately that process doesn't always help everyone get back to their normal life or livelihood.

What is also unfortunate is that costly disasters and stunning financial fallouts appear to be increasing. The list supplied by the local paper, documenting some of the costs from past disasters (e.g., $5.4 billion cost associated with an ice storm in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick in 1998) is likely a very small part of a very long and extremely costly list. That being said, Calgarians should take note that of the 'costliest natural disasters in Canadian history', they appear five of nine times. ("Move East, young man. Move East!" might soon be heard across the land).

The financial fallout of flood, ice and hail storms hasn't buried us yet, but I wonder if we shouldn't become more aware of the causes and effects of extreme weather events and whether we'll be able to afford increased damages and costs in the future.

Photos by GH

***

Please click here to read more about $$$ costs going North

Climate Change Concerns: Warming trend continues. Change.

["January ended with much rain. My backyard became a swamp."]

The job of finding average global temperatures is not rocket science but I still like to turn to NASA for their annual updates and reports concerning global warming. It should come as no surprise to many that NASA's recent report about 2012 temperatures begins with the following:

NASA scientists say 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. With the exception of 1998, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record. 

["February began with snowy, windy days. Much preferred, says me."]

In other words, climate instability, including extreme weather events, will continue to be the new normal because of, for the most part, human-based activities. The recent report out of NASA is very clear.

"One more year of numbers isn't in itself significant," GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said. "What matters is this decade is warmer than the last decade, and that decade was warmer than the decade before. The planet is warming. The reason it's warming is because we are pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat and largely controls Earth's climate. It occurs naturally and also is emitted by the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Driven by increasing man-made emissions, the level of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere has been rising consistently for decades.

Though trustworthy signs could not be clearer that a global decrease in man-made carbon emissions is absolutely required, some will still say global warming is over because it snowed last night.

Change.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for more Climate Change Concerns

Zoom w a View: "Snow is back"

It doesn't take much more than a light dusting of snow to bring a smile to my face and a significant change to the appearance of the landscape outside my back door.

Thanks to global warming one can no longer depend on a smooth change of seasons. January ended with rainy weather, February began with strong winds, then a powdering of snow. I'll get used to the instability in time, and will keep a camera handy.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for more Zoom w a View

Climate Change London: "Squirrels are on the prowl"

I saw the thick thick layer of December snow this morning and raced for a pencil. I wrote: "Snow is on the spruce boughs, squirrels are on the prowl." Then I stopped because I couldn't quickly come up with a word that rhymes with prowl.

I also thought, when will NASA post the average global temperature for 2012?

According to their website, their monthly and yearly results are posted automatically and I'm predicting I won't see the 2012 result until mid-January. I know last summer was quite hot but that' might not lead to a "hot town, summer in the city" trend. And I've been told by members of the cold conservative circle that global warming is over ("If there ever was such a stupid thing", some will say) based on a cooling trend somewhere. So, NASA's yearly results will fill in more of the factual story.

Until then I'll enjoy the thick thick layer of snow and try to finish my latest poem.

Owl? Scowl? Towel?

Link to NASA for more climate change details that affect London.

***

Please click here for more Climate Change London

Climate Change London: "What does a warm hat mean?"

Last Friday, within a 10-minute time span, I spotted three warm hats atop heads - human and non-human. To me the hats were a good sign. Winter is coming. Needed cold weather is coming ("It kills the bugs," my dad used to say.) And Santagoyle is coming to town.

Two hats I spotted atop pedestrians crossing the Thames River. The last was atop the hard round head of a quiet, stone-faced man, who can be seen daily crouching on a neighbour's porch in Old South, using both hands to (apparently) keep other small bits of stone-work warm.

Some people in the cold, conservative circle will take these hats to mean that global warming is over, that a natural cycle of earthly cooling is now well under way and the human population should continue to drive the economy as we have since the end of WW2. Business as usual. No need to worry about environmental concerns expressed by a growing number of others.

As we know, there have been cooling trends in the past, even a few short ones in the last 100 years. For example, average global temperatures were cooler in 1991 and 1992. After that, however, the warming trend grew ever steeper. The change in global temperatures have evened off on occasion too in the last century, but to say a significant cooling trend is now underway - as do many inside a cold conservative circle - is dangerously foolhardy and ignores the evidence related to averaging global land and ocean temperatures since 1880.

Please link to NASA records for more detailed information.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for more Climate Change Concerns

Climate Change Concerns: London's wet, mlld winters

For many years London, Ontario found itself at the center of a toxic triangle. We heard much about high CO2 measurements found in Sarnia (thank you to Chemical Valley), centres along the north shore of Lake Erie (thank you to many coal-fire energy plants in the Ohio Valley) and Burlington (thank you to Hamilton). We knew about high numbers of smog days in the summer.

["London is known for wet, warm winters" Photo by GH]

Now we find ourselves in the center of a cold conservative circle, where in spite of much evidence to the contrary, the average citizen is expected to believe that global warming is a thing of the distant past, and the cooling trend a few people have heard about somewhere should become cause for much celebration.

  ["Link to NASA for hot news."] 

Though it isn't rocket science to read thermometers at 100s of meteorological centers around the world, record temperatures year by year on land and water, and average the results, I still like to seek out information from NASA, and not people within the cold conservative circle. Though 2011 may have been cooler than the previous year, on average, it still ranks as one of the top ten hottest years in the last 100 years. (Only 8 years have been warmer since 1880). We've experienced cool years on occasion in the past, but the trend since 1908 cannot be denied.

I feel a much smaller lifestyle is in order and the best purchase for the future is a small home or apartment near a bus stop. After a few more hot years or wet, mild winters, more people will likely agree.

***

The only thing that might be cooling is the amount of news about climate change in conservative newspapers. Do you know of one?

Please click here for more Climate Change Concerns

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Economy” 1

Headlines are funny things. They come and go so quickly, like  stormy weather. Their intensity level is blaring, like a siren in the night. They can assert themselves like blockbuster movies, but are soon forgotten. 

News and headlines about The Economy often rule the day because we feel so much is at stake, i.e., jobs, our lifestyle, a second car, a night at the movies, paying down the mortgage, an education fund, putting an addition onto the house.

But in spite of a very small headline, I feel a recent piece of news deserves more play. If we fail to heed the warning, The Economy (and most things we link to it) will shrivel.

‘RECORD LOW LAKE LEVELS’

The news isn’t about changing our water-usage habits for the next two years, e.g., the need to take a 60-second shower or reduce the number of days we wash our car or water the lawn. It’s about the way we built our communities during the last 70 years and the need for a gigantic shift in the way we do business for the next 70 years.

And it’s not ‘new’ news with gigantic, captivating headlines. Here in Canada, home to thousands of lakes, rivers and streams, it may not even be on many peoples' radar.

More to follow.

Photos by GH

***

Should water levels be of great concern?

Please click here for a blurb about ‘lifestyle.’

.