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magazine / jun09
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June 2009 issue |
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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
Wind and water
Like granite, limestone, maple and pine, this nation’s abundant wind and water have enormous value — as
planetary elements, as environmental building blocks and as natural resources. Wind and water also waft and roil
through our 14th annual environment issue.
More than a year in the making, John Lorinc’s cover story on the state of Canada’s wind-energy industry shows that
nothing on Earth is simple, not even a breeze. Flying a kite is one thing, but trying to convert a gust into even one watt of
electricity opens up a Pandora’s box of engineering and environmental
hurdles. And trying to generate enough electricity to power a home or a small town or a postindustrial urban
infrastructure exponentially increases the scope of the logistical and ecological challenges.
Other drivers of large-scale power generation — carbon, uranium, water — require a more audacious economic and
engineering investment than wind, and they all hold more immediate environmental impacts or risks. Generating power
from the infinite wind is a worthy pursuit, but in the details are these bedevilling questions: Where do you put the towers?
What is their impact? What if the wind does not blow? What if it blows too hard? How do you move the electricity from
the tower to the grid? How do you make a profit?
Lorinc tackles these questions and more by dropping in on one of Canada’s recent wind-farm installations, on the gusty
slopes near Murdochville, Que., some 800 metres above the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. “Given our shamefully high
greenhouse-gas emissions,” he concludes, “we need to seize the enormous opportunity that wind provides for the transition to
a renewable-energy economy.”
Included with the issue is a wind-energy poster map, produced in partnership with the Canadian
Wind Energy Association, showing, for example, where our strongest and steadiest breezes blow, where wind farms are up and spinning
and how much wind-energy capacity has increased in the past eight years. We have also expanded The
Canadian Atlas Online with new wind-energy modules and downloadable lesson
plans for elementary, middle and high school teachers.
Ron O’Dor, our 2009 Environmental
Scientist of the Year, knows a thing or two about water or, more specifically, about
the 230,000 or so species that live in the oceans. As chief science officer of the ambitious international Census of Marine Life,
O’Dor and 2,000 other scientists are mapping those creatures and assessing their population sizes. An example of this work is
shown in this issue’s “À la carte,” depicting changes in tuna, marlin
and swordfish population densities. Water is also at the heart of writer Terry Glavin’s analysis of the contentious reservoir-free
run-of-river hydro development on waters feeding Bute Inlet on
the British Columbia coast. And Alanna Mitchell’s latest book, Sea Sick, makes the point that changes in oceanic chemistry
triggered by global warming mean the oceans are coming to, as reviewer Brian Harvey puts it, a biological boil.
Finally, my heartfelt thanks go out to my family, friends and colleagues, and to the magazine’s many contributors, past,
present and future, who have offered words of congratulations and support as I take over The Royal Canadian Geographical
Society’s top editorial post. But it takes a virtual village to make
this magazine. For starters, check the cast of characters in our mastheads, bylines and photo credits: we are a nationwide network
of like-minded devotees to the Society’s mandate and to this formidable country. The dedication of Rick Boychuk, my
predecessor and friend, took this magazine to a pinnacle of craft and accomplishment that will be a challenge to maintain, never
mind exceed. But the privilege and pleasure will be in trying.
— Eric Harris
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