Transit porn.

Plans for “Transit City”, by 2040.  Click for the beautiful coverage.

New Caplansky’s.

Toronto’s strong answer to Jewish inspired smoked meats, Caplansky’s, is re-opening at a new location on College Street sometime this week.  Needless to say I’ve heard enough buzzbuzz about this place to turn up very soon to take the smoked meat / pastrami test against Montreal institution Schwartz’s.   Not to say they should probably be compared, but an obvious blog post will undoubtedly ensue.  Evidently Gourmet magazine editor Ruth Reichl recently passed through and had the best knish she’s ever had.  Hmm.  Click for a good review here with delish pics.

Need it all.

[via BBC]

A UK Royal Society study has concluded that many engineering proposals to reduce the impact of climate change are “technically possible”.  Such approaches could be effective, the authors said in their report.   But they also stressed that the potential of geo-engineering should not divert governments away from their efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Sorry, but…. duh?  Sometimes sciencespeak is frustrating.  I understand one needs to deal with and incorporate scientific uncertainty in estimates or projections, but isn’t it worth a stopandthink when scientists make such obvious statements like this?  “Geoengineering could help, but beware”.  How does that help?  We know this.  I think this guy wrote the press release.

Some of my more “alarmist” friends are the also the same people that reject any form of geoengineering.  No both ways.  If the problems of climate change are that bad, then flicking off won’t do it all.  The sad reality is that we’re going to need both – proactive and reactive measures.   So enter in the $ billion band-aids.

Historically, these solutions can create a new set of (often slightly smaller) problems.  And that’s after hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D, lobbying, startup costs, and massive amounts of troubleshooting these new technologies.  Not saying it’s not worth it, but the cost/benefit ratio is unknown at this point, and will be significantly flawed alternative. For example, the most common examples of geoengineering these days are cloud seeding and carbon capture and storage.  Cloud seeding often uses silver iodide to help catalyse precipitation.  But what do you think happens to the water cycle when you add metal and ions to this water?  Ecological effects are inevitable. So whatcha wanna do?  Gotta get get.

Guest blorgger.

I have a guest spot on the Qatalyst magazine blog – click for it here.  I wrote about food markets in Toronto, Montreal, and K/W.  The quintessential white/urban throwdown.