10:50 p.m. - 2002-10-31
Sugar and Water
The Trickster seemed to be active in everyone's life today. You know, things going sideways just enough not to be a big issue but just enough to be an irritant - unless one decides to laugh along. Might as well!
It was a nice day and evening today, weatherwise, but even so we didn't have as many trick or treaters as usual; only about 80 instead of the usual 120. I bought juice boxes this year - sealed items and healthy. Maybe the grapevine was active "don't go there - no sugar fix". There were a number of commercial "Haunted House" locales offered this year too - that's not the norm. I imagine the novelty and the sense of control some parents might have gained would be a draw. It doesn't matter though, the boys will polish off the juice and I won't be fighting the urge to nosh as was usual in years gone by.
When the boys were small, I used to confiscate about half their Hallowe'en candy and freeze it. At Christmas I had a recipe that made enough chocolate chip cookie dough to create two "gingerbread" houses. The boys would divide into teams to assemble their own creations using the Hallowe'en candy as decoration. My job was to make the dough and the icing. I'd disappear during the creative time, because I couldn't stand the mess, then come back to clean up after. Took hours because the icing dried very hard, very fast and my guys were somewhat extravagant with their creative efforts/gestures - I'd find it in the oddest places. However, everyone had fun, the art was suitably admired, and then given away to grandparents.
I've received a lot more information about the Kyoto accord and conservation issues from the Canadian Institute of Resources Law, Faculty of Law - www.acs.ucalgary.ca - since the workshop a month ago. The most recent mailing had an analysis of the attempt to harmonize provincial conservation and resource laws. Right now, the laws are all fragmented along the lines of the industry affected - agriculture, forestry, oil and gas, ranching, and tourism. That means the same single acre of land can have half a dozen land use plans all of which hold to different standards, measures, and interpretations. Same amount of water, same amount of soil, but all divided and redivided like a pie being cut first in quarters, then recut in thirds, then cut again in fifths. Big mess. The other document had an analysis of a variety of unexamined consequences of the proposed Kyoto Protocol. I now know carbon sinks are a positive asset for a nation, carbon sequestration means holding carbon by-products until they evolve into something not harmful to the environment, and that there are a number of doors and windows left in the legislation that allow a lot of cheating to occur with respect to these defined terms, if the inclination is there. For example, a country could clear cut all its current forests and create monoculture plantations that destroy whole species of plants and animals, but gain overall with respect to carbon credits because the only thing measured is the green house gas variance created by the carbon sinks. Also, there is no mechanism in place to require a purchaser of an area to conform to the legislation signed by a nation. This is exemption by default, favouring selling off the resources held in trust for the people of a nation by their government to private enterprise.
Another document I came across today detailed this privatization process already happening in poorer countries with respect to access to water. It makes sense for people to pay for the supply of services like water and sewage treatment systems because then engineering regulations ensure health and safety standards. To actually deny someone water because they have no money is an obscenity; yet it is already happening. Another facet of the privatization problem was clearly demonstrated in the Canadian province of Ontario. Privatization of their water services by the Provincial government resulted in masses of deaths in small communities where private businesses made their profit by not maintaining the water treatment plants, doctoring lab tests that would have revealed the problem, and paying off various parties to keep quiet. Apparently, this is the norm for privatized water management not the exception. What next? Make everyone wear an oxygen tank where you have to purchase your supply of air too or strangle to death?
I think I need to verify some of the data presented and I know I need to learn more about these issues.
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