One shovel worth of potatoes from the garden today.
Remote
Ed Wiebe
@edwiebe@scribili.masto.host
mastodon 4.7.3Science - Photography - Woodturning - Climate - Weather - Curious - Running - Cycling - Computing - Sense - Nonsense
82 Followers
279 Following
50 Posts
Joined March 21, 2026
Web:
Location:
Victoria, BC
Territory:
I acknowledge and respect the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples on whose traditional territory I live and work.
Me:
He,Him -- I'm a working educator and scientist in atmospheric, oceanic, and climate science.
"The future of electricity is wind and solar, new report says. Canada is lagging behind"
Duh.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/solar-wind-ember-renewables-electricity-9.7170953
I'm slowly working through the Climate Action Plan of the municipality I live in, #Saanich #BritishColumbia. I appreciate the inclusion of these challenges as a barrier to taking effective action:
"There has been escalating lobbying by fossil fuel industries, ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and incentives, and a disconnect between climate policy and fossil fuel expansion aspirations with the use of renewable energy for fossil fuel extraction and exports."
1/2
#ClimateChange
Beyond GDP.
"The world is facing a paradox: despite decades of positive economic growth as reflected in rising Gross Domestic Product (GDP), many people report dissatisfaction with economic and political systems, and the planet is experiencing mounting crises. There is a clear dissonance between what GDP measures and what people value, and this dissonance has become particularly acute over the last decade."
Besides being in the headline this is unfortunately, left until the last line in the article.
"the best way to solve it is to just stop burning fossil fuels."
It's the entire story. It's the entire story for many articles about the impacts of #ClimateChangehttps://www.cbc.ca/news/science/wildfire-climate-emissions-smoke-9.7274862
#Canada
RE: @RunRichRun@mastodon.social
"As the biggest fossil fuel producer, #Canada’s intervention completely missed the mark. Canada’s delegation was the only country that did not name fossil fuels, instead making references to decarbonized energy and net zero by 2050. This belies their participation as one of the coalition of the willing."
https://cape.ca/press_release/santa-marta-big-health-gap-while-canada-misses-the-mark/
Replying to
@andykm@mstdn.ca Do they have an about page? A description? An explanation? Any information? All I see is "Download the app". Why do we need yet another app? It's not at all helpful. I'm not downloading an app.
RE: https://flipboard.com/@cbcnews/arts-entertainment-b925nl3mz/-/a-nVX1kCqCTDm0DwdxugWD9w%3Aa%3A107108217-%2F0
“Meet them where they are at” is redundant. Meet them where they are.
I’m never going to a theatre again.
Quoting
Time to clutch your pearls: Theatre etiquette is changing
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/theatre-etiquette-is-changing-9.7246366?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Arts & Entertainment @arts-entertainment-cbcnews
Open quoted postReplying to
"The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority says it has received all federal permits to allow for the dredging of Vancouver's Burrard Inlet, making room for larger oil tankers."
Every day we seem to take another step backwards in #Canada.
https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/dredging-of-burrard-inlet-approved-to-make-room-for-big-oil-tankers-12469336
#ClimateChange
"At least ninety percent of the employees at my location were men, yet the women’s restroom used more than twice as much hand soap."
https://yeastconfections.substack.com/p/i-fed-the-people-building-the-metaverse
the plan is to use the money to make #ClimateChange worse so, no. #Canada
Replying to
"While El Niño could lead to very extreme conditions later this year, it's not the reason to freak out. #ElNiño is a natural phenomenon. It comes and goes. #ClimateChange, [by] contrast, gets worse and worse and worse as long as we do not stop burning fossil fuels, and it's already a much stronger influence on many extremes than most natural modes of variability"
“We have normalized a public health emergency by failing to name it as one. Those who contributed the least to this crisis are often those paying the highest health costs, but that is the equity scandal at the heart of everything we are discussing today.”
Replying to
@ObsidianUrbex@mstdn.social I learned this word through the movie Made in Britain, which I saw in 1983 when I was young and impressionable. I have never forgotten this movie.
I haven't heard the word for years but it immediately brought this to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_Britain
Replying to
@norootcause@hachyderm.io I learned it as a slur for a person deemed stupid when and where I was a child.
Replying to
@drj They shoud do it but they all run Microsoft everything so they would just provide github.
12 Graphs That Explain the State of AI in 2026
"the community that believes in the existence of Bigfoot has a database of all the sightings, and it's a dataset that's perfectly suited to this exercise. So by demonstrating how the method works on realistic data, we're taking a step back from the biology itself."
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-machine-method-uncertainty-biodiversity-scenarios.html
The north sky seen from #UVic in April 2026. Each day of the month is shown from the first (top left) to the 30th (bottom right).
Replying to
@davidculley@infosec.exchange Maybe she was reading Günter Anders.
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16167448-are-born-obsolete-how-technology-makes-feel-ashamed
"the path to net zero is electrification" ... "the plan, which is called Powering Canada Strong, will lower the cost of electricity for seven in 10 Canadian households by expanding the role that natural gas plays in the energy mix."
Elsewhere, such as in the United Kingdom, electricity is more expensive that it has to be because of the use of fossil gas.
Further, it's obvious to all except the government that increasing fossil fuel burning is not a path to net zero.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carney-clean-energy-regulations-announcement-9.7198953
Here’s an excellent discussion of ‘#AI’ BS. Professor Teresa Heffernan, Literature Versus the AI Industry: Techno Monarchists and the Drive to Reduce the World to Numbers.
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16208906-literature-versus-ai-industry
I'm shocked.
"Hallucinated citations highest in social sciences preprints site"
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01545-1
See also: stop calling language model output hallucinations. Call it what it is: bullshit.
Replying to
@skaphle@social.tchncs.de @metacosm@mastodon.social @hausfath@fediscience.org
Imagine a green war. We kill people, innocent people in a building for example, with green weapons. Yay, that's great for climate change! We can do more killing and it's not a problem.
Replying to
@MetalheadDana@metalhead.club
"The Minister may appoint a person as an inspector to conduct an inspection for the following purposes:
(a) to inspect any matter relating to the management, administration or operation of a public library;"
https://docs.assembly.ab.ca/LADDAR_files/docs/bills/bill/legislature_31/session_2/20251023_bill-028.pdf
Replying to
An expensive frame.
Replying to
@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social Just light and age I think. I found an ancient Mac at work like this. The plastic had become quite brittle and crumbly, as well.
"the Divine Comedy can now be viewed not only as a literary masterpiece, but also as a geophysical gedankenexperiment that unexpectedly parallels aspects of modern meteoritics while still differing from contemporary scientific models."
"can be" covers a lot of ground here. 🤔
https://scitechdaily.com/dantes-inferno-may-secretly-be-about-a-planet-destroying-asteroid-strike/
Replying to
@cinebox It’s not sequestered if it’s in lettuce. Sequestered carbon is removed from the active carbon cycle. Lettuce is part of the active carbon cycle.
This article about hat protocol was actually more interesting and entertaining than I had imagined it would be.
But, most entertaining is the the name of the historian, Bernard Capp.
RE: https://flipboard.com/@blackpressmedia/saanich-jruah1srz/-/a-8N4JpsmjQuO49IY42JxpbQ%3Aa%3A3177150469-%2F0
It's drivers who are the problem. We can change this. Talk to the municipal and provincial election candidates in your ridings.
#BCPoli
Quoting
School District to support Kelowna families, children affected by crash involving 2 students
https://saanichnews.com/2026/09/25/school-district-to-support-kelowna-families-children-affected-by-crash-involving-2-students/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Saanich @saanich-BlackPressMedia
Open quoted postReplying to
@overholt@glammr.us The destruction of physical books to feed digital information systems is a theme of Vernor Vinge’s 2006 novel Rainbows End.
Replying to
@metacosm@mastodon.social @hausfath@fediscience.org Not much. War is bad because its war not because of emissions. The aircraft and whatnot were flying and driving around anyway.
Radiative Forcing and Ozone Depletion of a Decade of Satellite Megaconstellation Missions
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025EF007229
Replying to
@drmorrisj It’s sarcasm meant to illustrate the point that ‘AI’ is never going help solve climate change.
@ketan
Newsflash: Earth is flying.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260513221751.htm
"One type of wet weather pattern was largely replacing another, meaning the total number of wet systems was not the key factor. The storms themselves are simply becoming more intense in terms of rainfall."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260512202337.htm
Is an orchard that grows olives for oil at $625/L even still agriculture? It feels like luxury goods production and the land could be used for something better.
https://saanichnews.com/2026/07/17/dream-job-on-salt-spring-canadas-only-commercial-olive-farm-up-for-auction/