Customer: Hi.
Me: Hello, what can I help you with?
Customer: These books, do you buy or do you borrow?
Me (in disbelief): Excuse me?
Customer: do you buy, or can you borrow?
Me (my mind having been blown): Um...no, you can't borrow.
Customer: Oh. okay. Thank you.
My dear and wonderful cousin Iris,
who was welcomed into her parents' arms just yesterday. I only have this to say:
It's a strange and wonderful world. Sometimes it can be a bit messy. Hopefully, by the time you start finding your place in it, we'll have left it in better shape than when we first started looking around.
Update (Feb. 25): ...and by 'yesterday', I meant two days ago (Feb. 22). Like I said, it's a strange and wonderful world, where no one actually told me when you were born and I ended up inferring the wrong day. My bad.
Courtesy: City of Toronto, Rogers Marvel Architects
About a year and a half ago, there was an internship with the City of Toronto to lay out the background work for what would become the Nathan Phillips Square redesign competition. The interviewer and I discussed what I would've done to the square and needless to say we disagreed in our views (I wanted the colonnade gone, he didn't...as it turns out, the entire property is under heritage designation so any redesign efforts couldn't remove it completely). I also didn't get the internship, which I was bummed about.
Fast forward to yesterday, and a shortlist of designs (4) were presented to the general public yesterday at Toronto City Hall. Torontoist gives a very good summary of all the design presentations (mainly because, well, they were kinda there). So go over there and read about the designs and then come back for my *ahem* expert opinion...
Welcome back. Have the designs fresh in your heads? Good. I agree with Torontoist in that there were definitely good and bad points in each of the designs. Overall though, I liked Rogers Marvel Architects' design the best (which is why it's the only one pictured here). There were two things that sold me on the design. One was the new opening on the East side off Bay street. It makes the colonnade less constricting while providing a new pedestrian entrance. The other reason is the sloping hill. I LOVE IT. You can access this hill from the square OR the colonnade and it incorporates the green space that was previously separated from the west portion of the raised walkway. It literally brings that green space into the square.
I would've liked to see the peace garden moved so that it's not stuck out there like an island, since I can't really envision quiet reflection in the middle of the goings-on of a public square. While I did like Baird Sampson Neuert's idea for the peace garden, incorporating that into the Rogers Marvel's design would make the square too 'west-heavy'. The Ziedler partnership design, while striking and different (especially the undulating green roof), it seems to lack sophistication for what is also the seat of power *cough* of Toronto in addition to the square being a public space. However, I did like the idea of glass railings fort the colonnade, which would make the square more visually accessible.
Therefore, I hope the committee chooses the Rogers Marvels design while incorporating the eco-design features presented by Baird Sampson Neuert and Plant Architects and the glass railings for the colonnade from the Ziedler design. That would be my dream square. I would go there EVERY DAY (and by every day, I mean, whenever I have the chance). It's the least they can do for not hiring me in the first place.
Update (9:14 PM): It's never too early for an update. Dylan Reid of Spacing Wire and I pretty much agree. He also elaborated on several points that I didn't cover. One interesting note from a commenter. The campfire in the Rogers Marvel design is pretty unrealistic. They could've done better with that. A minor quibble, but still.
I was hoping to be able to stop from posting on Climate Change, as already done HERE and HERE.
But once again, we have another fine piece of reporting from Peter Worthington of the Toronto Sun.
And while The Sun is noted for its journalistic excellence by SO MANY Torontonians, I just had to comment on it b/c his readership is so much bigger than mine and I wish it was oh, I don't know, accurate.
First, this comment:
"Rarely mentioned is the global warming threat is not anchored in scientific fact or research, it is a hypothesis, a theory, that has yet to be proven."Hmmm, could he be using a rhetorical device to link global warming (Hi, this is 2007, the accurate term is actually climate change, but welcome to the 1990s) to another supposed disputed scientific controversy (that shouldn't be disputed at all, by the way)....*cough* evolution *cough*. Sorry, I had a piece of antarctic ice core stuck in my throat. I would LOVE to know if he's read ANY of the many scientific papers that's been released on the changing climate that point to this serious issue. Because those thousands of papers couldn't possibly actually weigh as much as an anchor, could it?
"The IPCC report is based on writings of some 2,500 scientists (few of them climatologists, and many geneticists, environmentalists, etc.), and their findings are compressed into a “Summary for Policymakers” which is a political document, not a scientific one, compiled by UN spinmeisters."UN spinmeisters, eh? well, let's see. I've addressed the authors debacle previously, both the number of scientists (2500 are the REVIEWERS, not the authors) and who they are. And while I said I addressed this issue already, it's kind of fun. Here's a list of the authors from the 2001 IPCC climate change report. Now, the 2007 list of authors isn't released yet, but judging from the 2001 list, I'm sure what they'll have done this time around is fire the whole lot of them and replaced them with geneticists, environmentalists and the boogeyman (I've been told he's on the UN payroll too).
"Talk of “consensus” in science is nonsense. Consensus is not truth, nor proof, it is compromise. In science, everything should be tested and becomes either true or false, or undecided."If the scientists were just sitting around the coffee table making stuff up and agreeing that it's true then yes, consensus would be nonsense. However, when they're doing independent research and testing their hypotheses gathering information, affirming that their results are in agreement with each other, that's a whole different story. And no, consensus isn't always a compromise. It can be, just not every time."Whether Earth is round or flat is not a matter of “consensus.” Ask Galileo. Consensus at Salem in 1692 was that witches took over childrens’ bodies."
"Prof. Lindzen is a genuine scientist, ever probing and questioning. He cites scientists who’ve been fired, denied post on panels, or whose research has been rejected not for merit, but because they challenge the prevailing UN view that global warming is man-induced, and not a cyclical occurrence of nature. As for Canadians (and PM Harper), the Calgary-based website friendsofscience.org is more instructive than the IPCC."
And yet, Mr. Worthington couldn't give his readers one example of who those scientists that Prof. Lindzen talked about were. Didn't he watch the show? He couldn't have jotted one name down? Prof. Lindzen is a 'genuine scientist', but all those people writing for the IPCC? They're clearly not because they don't hold tenure or publish papers in scientific journals. They're merely genetics-quoting hippies. Yep. That's clearly who they are.
"Predicting climate change is more than computerized models — and far more complex than predicting the weather change — which is 50% wrong at best. Just witness no warning of the tornadoes that ambushed Florida last week."
"Lastly, why the excessive fear of carbon dioxide, essential for agriculture and plant life? CO2 is not pollution. And it’s man-made pollution that threatens the environment, and planet."I'm so tired of pointing this out. Really. Predicting any complex system is...wow, complex. So does that mean we shouldn't try? And it's not like these computer models are based on variables pulled out of thin air. It's using historical data and trying to infer what will likely happen. Yes, there's uncertainty but there's uncertainty in any model. Again, my point is not to disparage economics, but why is it that uncertainty in economic forecasts are much more accepted than say, climate change predictions? Both are large complex systems, both use mathematical and computer models to predict behaviour, so why is the risks in one more accepted than another?
"As for global warming, if indeed it is more than a cyclical event, surely more food will be produced and more people will have a more comfortable life."Yes, all those people who live in low-lying coastal areas who may get flooded from sea level increases due to melted ice caps will be SO MUCH more comfortable.
Apparently, the Fraser Institute released an "Independent Summary Report for PolicyMakers" (ISPM) in response to the IPCC's Summary Report for PolicyMakers (SPM). As much as I would enjoy refuting the ISPM (I really wouldn't), both RealClimate and DeSmogBlog already beat me to the punch. Which is fine, because they actually probably would've had more fun doing it than me.
Though once again, I'm sure contrarians will believe the 10 authors of the ISPM moreso than the 1250 authors and 2500 reviewers. Because, if anyone's tried to get consensus within a small group knows, it's nigh-impossible. You get this large group of scientists to agree about one thing, and it's clearly they're ALL crazy and lying about the consensus, right?!
I don't want to say that I'm better than the Editorial Page of the Wall Street Journal, but did they even read the recently released IPCC Summary for PolicyMakers (SPM)?
Two easy examples:
"The document that caused such a stir was only a short policy report, a summary of the full scientific report due in May. Written mainly by policymakers (not scientists) who have a stake in the issue, the summary was long on dire predictions."Written BY policymakers? It was written FOR policymakers. I've read Jonathan Overpeck's (one of the authors) papers in a class on Global Environmental Change. He's a scientist, not a policymaker. Google any of the other names and you'll find them to be scientists.
"More pertinent is the underlying scientific report. And according to people who have seen that draft, it contains startling revisions of previous U.N. predictions. For example, the Center for Science and Public Policy has just released an illuminating analysis written by Lord Christopher Monckton, a one-time adviser to Margaret Thatcher who has become a voice of sanity on global warming."Now, 17 inches is 0.4318m. In the IPCC SPM report's Table SPM-2, they used 6 different scenarios to predict what the projected sea level rise would be by 2100 (technically 2099). According to this, the lowest project rise to the highest projected rise will be between 0.18 to 0.59m. That's 7.08 inches to 23.22 inches. Whether almost two feet is vastly different from the three feet is up to you. It's still not the 17 inches that they publish as the 'high end'. Now there's only one other place where the number 17 comes up:
"Take rising sea levels. In its 2001 report, the U.N.'s best high-end estimate of the rise in sea levels by 2100 was three feet. Lord Monckton notes that the upcoming report's high-end best estimate is 17 inches, or half the previous prediction."
"Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003, about 3.1 [2.4 to 3.8] mm per year. Whether the faster rate for 1993 to 2003 reflects decadal variability or an increase in the longer-term trend is unclear. There is high confidence that the rate of observed sea level rise increased from the 19th to the 20th century. The total 20th century rise is estimated to be 0.17 [0.12 to 0.22] m. {5.5}"Now, I'm not saying that's exactly where they got it from, but I have no other explanation for how they came up with that number, except that this Lord Monckton is wrong, in which case, the Wall Street Journal should stop quoting him.
"The IPCC report should be understood as one more contribution to the warming debate, not some definitive last word that justifies radical policy change. It can be hard to keep one's head when everyone else is predicting the Apocalypse, but that's all the more reason to keep cool and focus on the actual science."I agree that we should keep cool and focus on the science. It's just too bad they haven't. This summary, plus the final report coming out in May, was written by 450 scientific authors with input by another 800+ contributing authors and peer-reviewed by another 2500 scientists. And they're ALL telling us the same thing. What more do they want? Again, have one scientific paper (Soon and Bailunas comes to mind) that calls into question climate change BUT has refuted on a scientific basis, and the whole science is called into question. Have a report written, read and edited by thousands of scientists (because surprise, climate change has so many complex factors that you need oceanologists, paleoclimatologists, atmospheric scientists etc. to weigh in on the forcings and the impacts) and it's "ONLY a contribution to the warming debate".
