The number of "significant" natural catastrophes in North America causing more than $1 billion in losses of more than 50 deaths, 1950-2012: Number of natural catastrophes in North America, 1980-2011: For the climate change skeptics in the audience, these charts come not the Ecology Action Centre, the Natural Resources Defence Council, or the Pembina Institute, but from Munich Re, a $265-billion company that is one of the world's leading reinsurance brokers. (A reinsurer is an outfit that re-sells insurance liabilities when the risk becomes too great for a single retail firm, so it is on the front lines when catastrophic events loom.) Bear...

10 July, 2013

...and doesn't like what it sees: [Video Link] Yoram Bauman, an environmental economist at the University of Washington, does double duty as a stand-up comic. He spoke to a convention of the American Economic Association this month in San Diego. H/T: Richard Stephenson...

23 January, 2013

Richard Stevenson, one of the province’s top water and sewer engineers, spends a lot of time thinking about how the province can cope with its crumbling municipal infrastructure. He has come to the conclusion HRM’s stringent regulations governing development actually work against the stated goals of the city’s planning department. HRM espouses a policy of increasing the density of the urban core, but its own planning regulations result in lower population densities. R-1 single family zoning limits population density to 20 persons per acre, or 45 persons per hectare (to protect us against barrio-like overcrowding, I presume). The city also requires that we...

24 April, 2012

What's that ghostly visage cruising over Halifax on an overcast Fourth of July, 1936. Hint: take a closer look at the logo emblazoned on the airship's tail. It's Luftschiff Zeppelin #129, better known as the Hindenburg, on a transatlantic flight just 10 months before its catastrophic docking at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. The photo is one of many fascinating images on a Nova Scotia Archives web display called An East Coast Port: Halifax in Wartime, 1939-1945. The Hindenburg overflew the city at about 1000 feet, causing the Halifax Herald to fret two days later over the possibility “those aboard the Hindenburg were...

23 December, 2011

What to make of the Layton's remarkable late-campaign surge in Quebec? Contrarian friend Richard Stephenson suggests an explanation: We have been told repeatedly that the voters are tired of these frequent (and expensive) elections. I suspect many are tired of the stories the Bloq and the Liberals have been telling. Having voted consistently for the Bloq over the past decade, maybe the people of Quebec are tired of the story they've been sold, and are now looking for a Federalist party they can trust...

21 April, 2011

Writing in Democracy, Jonathan Chait plumbs American right's aversion to taxes: The conservative movement’s embrace of taxophobia is probably the most important development in American political life over the last three decades. It is the one quality that most distinguishes American conservative elites from conservative elites in other countries. They’re more likely to question climate science, more sanguine about people dying for lack of health insurance, and less xenophobic (which is rather nice). But above all—far above all—they hate taxes. Understanding the American Right is critical for Canadians, because if voters make the mistake of giving Stephen Harper a majority on May...

16 April, 2011

An A.W. Leil crane capsizes while attempting to place a large wall panel during construction of the new Yarmouth High School January 28. The fun begins at about the 2:40 mark. No one was hurt in the incident. H/T: Richard Stephenson....

10 February, 2011

Google's ability to produce its Street View images still leaves me gobsmacked. Now see what the land survey industry has been up to in the digital technology department: Using a portable, eye-safe, laser scanner, and traveling at posted speeds, this vehicle collects data and imagery with survey grade accuracy: Yes, they need a better video, but still...

19 January, 2011

Here's a curious Olympic postscript: a printout of Halifax water consumption on the afternoon of the Olympic gold medal hockey game: The spikes correspond with the three intermissions, and with the immediate aftermath of Crosby's sudden-death goal and the medal ceremony. Epcor, the company that runs Edmonton's water system, produced a similar graph for that city on the same afternoon, with the previous day's spikeless consumption superimposed in green: Hat tip: R.S....

09 March, 2010

Thirty-nine years ago last night, Jimi Hendrix died in a London, England, apartment. He was 27 years old. Halifax bluesman Roger Howse honored the anniversary with an all-Hendrix third set at Bearly’s House of Blues & Ribs on Barrington Street. Contrarian friend Richard Stephenson writes: A fixture at Bearly’s over the last decade, the Roger Howse Band draws praise for the power of its music and the precision of Roger's guitar work. About 12:30 this morning, following a longer than usual break, the band returned to the stage and, without fanfare, charged headlong into a ninety-minute set featuring nine Hendrix songs....

19 September, 2009