There are a number of words that one rarely hears or reads anymore. Ones that I would like to resurrect – like henceforth, niggardly, daft and kerfuffle. Codswallop is a lovely sounding word, probably new to most. I could use it to react to the current doom and gloom regarding ‘climate change’.
Yes, the world is experiencing hotter weather, but surely not all the blame can be attributed to fossil fuels.
A rather remarkable photograph of Mary Vaux, one of the early climbers of the Selkirk Mountains, shows her standing in front of the vast Illecillewaet Glacier in 1899.
With her father and brothers, the Philadelphians returned to Canada for many years to climb and conduct studies of glaciers. Between 1898 and 1906, the Illecillewaet receded 84 feet. An impressive photograph of Mount Duncan taken in 1909 shows the prominent Beaver Glacier in the foreground. Two generations later it had melted completely out of view.
And Brewster Transport had only just started to tour people around the parks so motor vehicles can’t be blamed.
Maybe if we went back to using weather instead of climate change, we would sleep a little easier. In my long life there have been many natural disasters caused by hurricanes, tornados, mudslides and fires. We can do what we can to slow down the effects, but cycling to downtown from Tuscany is not going to make much of a difference.
+
And that leads, of course, to electric cars. Pressure from governments and already huge financial investment by auto makers means production will grow quickly. How fast must installers work to provide sufficient charge stations? There would be few plug-ins along the long road out of Yellowknife for those escaping the flames.
+
I rarely get upset, not too much really bothers me, but the off-handed brusque way in which Kimberly Clark decided to tell Canadians it was pulling Kleenex from our shelves, ticked me off.
“Thanks for all of your loyal support over the decades, but we’re big boys now and don’t need you anymore!”
Just have to look for an alternative like KP Tissues or use more hankies. If Kimberly Clark doesn’t need me, then I don’t need them – as I worry about getting older there must be an alternative to Depends.
+
Into my inbox comes yet another proposed rail service. I was emailed a clipping from Okotoks Online showing a CP train under an announcement that the province is to explore a commuter rail service between Okotoks and Airdrie.
Also in the cards is a downtown-to-Calgary airport connector – which means there would also have to be an Edmonton International Airport to downtown Edmonton link – and besides the huge and increasing capital costs of the Calgary LRT, there are plans well underway for two rail links between this city and Edmonton and a Calgary/Banff line.
Seems like an awful lot of money to spend on a fairly small number of potential riders.
+
It was suggested to me that if I found myself feeling useless, I should remember it took 20 years, trillions of dollars, thousands of lives and four presidents to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
+
Final Words: As I watch this generation rewrite history, I can be sure of one thing: it will be misspelled and have no punctuation.
