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<div>I also came across a story a f This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------B497830BFD34FD2B74B95BC2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Patrick & All, Good point. Electric vehicles especially make sense for stop/start functions such as transit because conserving momentum, by running a generator to act as a brake, makes it possible to in effect reuse part of the momentum. DW,Kentville On 3/31/2020 12:45 PM, Patrick Kelly wrote: > Electric vehicles are another way. Alberta is currently home to > Canada's largest wind farm and is about to became home to its largest > PV array. Both are in Vulcan County... which is only logical :-) They > could easily do the same in Saskatchewan. > > https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/largest-solar-installation-alberta-greengate-1.5261539 > > I also came across a story a few years ago of a fellow who is > converting diesel farm tractors over to electric ones. (Google > electric farm tractor) One side benefit that one farmer noticed right > away is that they are so quiet he can actually talk to people while he > is using it! > > Pat > > > On Mar 29, 2020, at 10:18 PM, Lois Codling wrote: > >> CAUTION: The Sender of this email is not from within Dalhousie. >> >> 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 ki