crazed monkey

CBC’s Metro Morning ran an item this morning regarding a photo of the Toronto skyline in all its smog-laden splendour. A postcard with the same picture is being auctioned off on eBay in order to raise awareness of the dangers of air pollution.

A 2000 report put out by then City of Toronto Medical Officer of Health determined the number of deaths due to air pollution:

We quantified the air pollution risk in Toronto using two different methods and found that there were between 730 and 1,400 premature deaths, and between 3,300 and 7,600 hospital admissions each year associated with air pollution breathed by the public at large.

In addition, Health Canada performed their own survey for Ontario:

Health Canada says smog is responsible for 7.7 per cent of all the premature deaths in Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, London and Windsor.

If a similar report came out with “SARS” substituted for “air pollution” and “smog”, you can bet that the entire southern portion of Ontario would be placed under an immediate alert and long-term quarantine amid calls for a massive overhaul of the provincial health care system. Instead, the province is calling for limits on BBQ usage and, in true fashion, attempting to place the blame on someone else, none of which are solutions. The province needs to start by introducing strict mandatory emission controls instead of voluntary caps which are easily broken. If the province truly intends to keep the coal-burning plants running until 2015, we can start with those. Sure, it will cost money in the short run, but it will save thousands of lives and could very well create jobs in the process.

Posted on June 26th, 2003 in science - No Comments »

Science Magazine has an article detailing an experiment with a female New Caledonian crow where the bird, in order to retrieve food from a vial, fashioned a hook out of wire to use as a tool. The food was in a small bucket which the crow lifted up using the wire tool. This is quite amazing, considering that although chimpanzees, thought to be our most intelligent primate cousins, have been known to use tools, they have never been known to construct them. Even more amazing is this video documenting the action.

Also curious is that the female formed the hook after a male crow, also in the experiment, stole a previous man-made hook from her. Once the female retrieved the food, the male would then steal it from her. This begs the question of which of the two crows is more intelligent: the female who crafts a wire hook to retrieve the food, or the male, knowing that the female will go to the trouble of obtaining the food, uses a strategy where he waits and then steals the food once it has been obtained.

Posted on August 9th, 2002 in science - No Comments »

Horrors of horrors, the lions are inbreeding! How can we as a responsible society let this happen to our animal brethren? Personally, I am appalled that this has been allowed to occur and urge everyone to boycott the Scottish zoo. This is proof positive of the moral depravity inherent in those of Scottish heritage! For shame!

In other news, The Globe & Mail now has sane links to their articles. The complicated URLs, an example of which can be found in this weblog entry, seem to have gone. Now if only the Globe would provide an RSS channel. The closest I can find is this service which provides some XML data, but no RSS feed. Perhaps when I have the time I will write a short script to convert the data to RSS and make it available to Radio users.

Posted on July 30th, 2002 in science - No Comments »