Our Barometer, 4 January, 2018
End of 2018
It’s kind of a tradition for me to post my favourite image I made in the past year at year’s end. As we close out 2018, I can think of no more appropriate image than the one I took in early January of my barometer, as a low pressure system went by us and up the Bay of Fundy – a low that was so intense, my barometer could not accurately record it. Of course, that came with very high winds and over an inch and a half of rain!
It seems that big storms and changing weather may be the new “normal” for many on this planet. Here in Nova Scotia, we had a record dry and hot late spring and summer, followed by a record wet and cold fall. That pattern is playing out around the globe, and we see images of California, where the fires have become year around events, no longer “seasonal”. Glasgow, Scotland brushed 90° f with a temperature of 31.9°C (89.4°F), and the first five months of 2018 were the fourth warmest in global records going back to 1880. Climate change is very real and can easily be witnessed and recorded.
Here at home there are things we can do to help, it’s the slogan I’ve heard and tried to live by since I was a teenager – think globally, act locally. Nova Scotia is cutting down our forests at an unsustainable rate. That fact impacts our climate and our rivers and soil. We can all comment on this to our elected representatives and get it to stop. While we’re at it, we also need to urge the Government to explore other ways to encourage the abandoning of coal and oil as means of providing our power. Then, we can also all do the small things that can personally help out. My wife and I drive hybrid cars. We try to buy as locally as possible – for everything, not just food, although that’s the big one – and we shun plastics in our bags and straws.
As we go into 2019, it is my fervent hope that we as Canadians do not follow the same destructive path we see elsewhere, and that we continue, as a nation, to value our land and our environment. It is the outdoors that helps define us as Canadians, I trust we’ll all think about that and ignore those who would see to lessen environmental protections in the name of a false promise of a better economy. Long term, protecting the environment is actually better for the environment, and certainly better for us as citizens of this planet.
In 1968, an astronaut took the first image of the earth from space as Apollo 8 rounded moon, and we could see clearly the fact that this small marble in space is all we’ve got. We’re all in this together, and we need to do all we can to help out.
May 2019 bring us a renewed emphasis on the environment, and much happiness and joy as we celebrate this amazing habitat we call home.
Happy New Year.
