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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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