Today on the Scientific American blog there is a great article from the Editor talking about the different meanings of the term “Scientific Consensus.”

I highly recommend reading this article. It explains very well why precisely why the “debate” about human caused climate change is “over”. But in brief, it’s not because every scientist in the world agrees, but rather because a very large majority agree on a few key general principles and, in the words of the editor, “If I get one answer and everyone else gets a different one, my first inclination should be that I’m wrong, not that everyone else is.”.

Please read the rest and may it settle your mind.

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Today may be a truly historic day in the United Kingdom, and indeed the Commonwealth as a whole.

That is because today, Members of Parliament in the House of Commons (lower chamber) of the United Kingdom voted in favour of major reform of the House of Lords, which is the upper chamber of their Parliament, similar to the Canadian Senate, and indeed many other upper chambers in former British colonies.

Right now, many parliaments based on the Westminster System have an elected lower chamber (House of Commons), and an appointed upper chamber (House of Lords, or Senate).

Now though, UK MPs have set in motion what looks to be the near or complete end to appointed members in the UK parliament.

MPs have voted to reform the House of Lords by demanding all members are elected, rather than appointed.
There was a majority of 113 in favour of this proposal.

They were also allowed to pick more than one preference… so a 2nd preference, for 80% elected, 20% appointed, also got a smaller majority in the voting.

These votes are not binding on Tony Blairs government, but it seems clear that the Government is taking this decision and using it to craft new law in the UK to reform the Upper Chamber.

So what does this mean for Canada? Well, I’m surprised the MSM here hasn’t picked up on this at all… if only for the many Royalists out there… it’s a fundamental change of the “rules” that Canadian government is still largely based on. I’m sure that once these changes are made in the UK, it will likely mean for an even greater push for an elected Senate in Canada as well. Whether it’s “Triple-E”, we’ll see.. but it seems that major change is coming soon to a Senate near You. And that, hopefully, is good for Canada as a whole.

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The flood gates seem to be opening to independant power producers here in BC. And while i don’t like that BC Hydro isn’t doing the dirty work, clean power is still the most important thing in the long.

I saw the notice of purchase of Crown Land today in the Alberni Valley Times.

The application for the land is being submitted by the Barkley Power Group of Nanaimo, BC. I have not yet found who the actual purchaser and subsequent power provider, but I will speculate that it is likely another First Nations-based proposal similar to the China Creek
project near Port Alberni.

This application is halfway between Port Alberni and the Pacific Rim, on Highway 4 near Kennedy Lake. It’s on Canoe Creek.

In the process of doing a little research for this, I found an AMAZING tool on the BC government website:

The The BC Water Resource Atlas.

It’s a completely webbased (and cross-platform!) Atlas for BC that includes rivers, lakes, watersheds, minerals, fault lines, and ALL SORTS of other information. An incredibly powerful tool.

While I was looking for the funder of this project, I did come across 2 other projects in the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District area that I had not previously known of:

The Marion 3 and South Sutton projects provide 4.6 and 5.5MW each. Certainly not huge projects, but everylittle bit counts. And both of these were done with the expressed intent to leave as little footprint on the land as possible. This looks to have been done successfully! So good on them.

Vancouver Island, and especially the growing Pacific Rim, is in need of more reliable, and simply more, power.

All these projects are great news. I’m glad to be seeing so much activity. If these projects can be done low-impact, then there is little reason to oppose them. It’s in everyones interest for the generation load to be spread as much as possible, even if Run-of-River projects may not run 365 days a year.

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Second-hand word from a friend in the Forces indicates that there are rumours of new equipment coming soon to the forces.

This new equipment is in the form of 80 new Main Battle Tanks for the Canadian Armed Forces.

The only details I have is that the rumour is 60 new Leopard 2A4 and 20 2A6.

Currently the Canadian Forces, including the Lord Strathcona’s Horse deployed in Afghanistan are training on and using mainly Leopard C2 (based on the 1A5 design).

Up until late last year, the C2s were all slated to be decomissioned, but now, they are taking part in Canadas mission in Southern Afghanistan as the first CAF armour squadron to be engaged in combat since Korea.

We have 114 Leopard 1, “C2″ tanks. They are nearly 30 years old.

80 Leopards, while lower in number, is a significant upgrade, with better speed, range, defensive and offensive armament… it is a true current generation Main Battle Tank.

As far as cost. No doubt if this rumour is true, it could very well be in the budget in a couple weeks.

According to ArmyGuide.com the latest contracts to Turkey and Greece priced the 2A4 at about 1.4 to 1.7 million dollars US a piece. So 60 2A4s would likely cost around $CAD120 million

The 2A6M version of the tank, of which 20 are rumoured to be headed to Canada, has an upgraded 120mm gun and is hardened against mines, and runs around $US11 million each or $CAD260 Million for the batch.

So in all.. we’re talking around $380 million to upgrade Canadas main battle tanks.

No doubt. These are tanks that will enable Canadian forces to go places they can’t go now, and do so decisively, with the utmost in confidence.

But now is the time to ask. What do we see as the role of the Canadian Armed Forces in the world? Tanks are for war fighting. Nothing else. Now is the time to ask questions.

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