Climate Change was Re: [NatureNS] Slowdown & Wildlife

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From: Lois Codling <loiscodling@hfx.eastlink.ca>
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2020 22:18:18 -0300
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Hi Dave,

My husband is from Sask., and this is his comment:
"What Dave proposes is easy to do in Europe, where distances are short 
and population dense. What kind of public transit helps a Saskatchewan 
farmer whose nearest neighbours are about a mile away?"

Even here, we are about 1/2 hr. from the Halifax hospitals, and we spent 
over 6 yrs. driving my father there for dialysis 3 times a week.  Public 
transport was not an option for him, even by Access-a-bus.  Unless 
Canadians live in a large city I think we do need our cars and thus our 
roads, though I have a lot of sympathy for your good reasons for doing 
away with highways.

Lois Codling
L. Sackville

On 3/29/2020 12:26 PM, David Webster wrote:
> Hi Burkhard & All,
>
>     You open the door to some important topics.
>
>     While the rapid response to Covid-19, in most jurisdictions, shows 
> that governments can respond to an 'imminent hanging', Covid-19 is a 
> Sunday School picnic compared to the consequences of run-away Climate 
> Change. It has been obvious for at least 60 years that Climate Change 
> was the only real problem the world faces but action has been limited 
> to vague promises to meet targets by some future date. Many European 
> countries have acted responsibly but on a per capita basis Canada and 
> the USA are slackers.
>
>     And the solution is self evident; replace 90% of auto and truck 
> traffic with efficient public transit and rail respectively. The big 
> question is--- How does one convince a corruption of cheerful liars, 
> AKA politicians, to act responsibly ?
>
>     And this high volume of vehicle traffic, in addition to the 
> release of fossil carbon, has a huge impact on the natural world; 
> directly and indirectly. Brooklyn St. in Kentville runs West from 
> Cornwallis St. along the North side of the Cornwallis meadow. I often 
> have walked along this road over some 50 years. Road kill Painted 
> Turtle were fairly common there shortly west of the Hospital road 
> until  about 2000 (guess); none since. So I have concluded that the 
> local PT colony has been exterminated.
>
>     Small man-made barriers are huge for small animals. A highway cut 
> in that same area has generated a Toad barrier. They can not get where 
> they think they must go. Some decades ago a grader had generated a 
> ridge of gravel, about a foot high, in the middle of the rail trail. I 
> watched a fair sized Garter Snake attempting to cross that; not possible.
>
>     If small changes have such impacts one should contemplate the 
> enormous impact of the 100 series highways which have fragmented the 
> landscape into untold numbers of isolated shards.
>
>     The typical back country road  had no ditches to speak of until 
> urban sprawl forced 'improvements', so in spring there was a necklace 
> of isolated pools each with numerous tadpoles; which in turn became 
> frogs or toads. Back about 1942-50 when I helped mow swails, which 
> were too wet for the horse, with a scythe the swails were alive with 
> frogs. Plop, plop, plop with every scythe swing, and the same when you 
> carried a fork load of mowed sedges to dry ground. One year in 
> college, ca 1952, the usual frogs for dissection were unavailable so 
> the proff. asked me to collect 25. No sweat. It would be difficult 
> now. Fred somebody, at Acadia, did a survey of amphibia populations 
> but refused to allow historical comments; how useful.
>
>     We had a cottage at Sunken Lake from 1970 to 1991. Initially, the 
> wave lapped beach gravel swarmed with penny toads in season and at 
> night the cottage wall was covered with insects. Long before 1991 the 
> toads were gone and by 1991 one insect on the wall was an event. The 
> public road, where there was never more then slow and light traffic, 
> fresh road kill snakes and Dragon flies were predictable.
>
>     So I am absolutely sure that motor vehicle traffic is very 
> destructive of the natural world, both in the short and long term. The 
> solution must be to somehow renew public transit so it displaces the 
> lure of wall to wall motor vehicles.
>
>   Yt, DW, Kentville
>
> On 3/29/2020 10:15 AM, Burkhard Plache wrote:
>> Given the current slowdown of life,
>> vehicle traffic has been reduced significantly.
>> It is likely to early to say if this has an impact
>> on vehicles killing wildlife. Also, many birds
>> have not arrived yet, turtles have not emerged yet, ...
>> Simply curious,
>> Burkhard

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