The Manitoba Legislature, home of the provincial parliament, is a pretty impressive building, and a monument to the ambitions this city had in the early days of the 2oth cewntury. Winnipeggers owe a lot to the people of that day, whose entrepreneurship ensured that the city now has a lot of historical buildings with lots of character, and not just urban sprawl and blight.

We got a free tour of the building, but strangely enough, among all the trivia our tourguide had to offer (fossils in the walls — that’s pretty cool), she didn’t mention it was heavily influenced by freemasons who may have intended it to be a replica of King Solomon’s temple… The CBC produced a very interesting documentary about this, see it on youtube (quality isn’t very good).

I had to have a memory also of the incredible flatness and vastness of the prairie. Of course, there was fairly much vegetation in the corner of it that we saw. And we truly only saw a corner! The prairie stretchess thousands of kilometres to the south, all the way to Texas if I’m not mistaken more or less without stop, through the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. In short, tornado alley. But it was a pretty corner we saw, with all the rapeseed fields.

Jenna took this picture of me :P I have to admit it’s a good representation of me–always with a camera!

The picture was taken at Winnipeg Beach–not in Winnipeg–with Lake Winnipeg in the background.

I went out to take pictures of the sunset, and finally try out my Cokin graduated neutral density filters. I bought them back in April, and I still hadn’t had an opportunity to use them. I found out that I just had to make myself an opportunity, so I went out.

I took this picture of the Assiniboine River around 10:30PM, long after the sun had set. The picture was taken with a 10 second shutter speed, but with max aperture. To control the light I used all three Cokin filters, which darkened the sky while letting through all the reflection from the river. Hence the camera picked up lots of red wavelength from the sky, and the the water looks like a vibrant blue veil. I’ve not done any post-processing at all (let me know if you think it needs it!).

Notice the family of geese in the lower right corner!

See the previous post, Maskwa.

Here’s a sunset shot. It was so incredibly clear, the colours were really stark. And it was completely quiet… except for the rustling of the wind, the tweeting of birds… not a manmade sound to be heard… very tranquil. I miss that.

Around this time we saw a beaver swimming past. It came back several times. I followed it upriver, and as I came through some bushes I was right on the riverbank, and I saw bubbles right by the shore. I point my camera in that direction and the beaver surfaced, scarcely two metres away! It was more surprised than I was; it made a big splash and disappeared. I got a great picture of the splash. Fun though.

Ahh, it’s been too long since the last post. Get ready for a flurry of pictures.

I went with some colleagues from work to a cabin at a place called Maskwa. It’s a couple of hours north of Winnipeg, east of Lake Winnipeg, on a small river. This was a few weeks ago, mid-June. This being Manitoba, spring was just starting to really get under way. It was the first really warm weekend; until then it was rather cold.

We had a really good time there, canoeing a little on the river, sitting by the fire grilling hot dogs and enjoying the first hint of summer. It was beautiful there, and it reminded me a great deal of Norwegian nature. This is the first I’ve seen of Canadian wilderness (I know, it’s a shame… I’ve been here for five years now).

This picture shows some rapids. Yes, actual rapids. Manitoba is pretty flat, but go a little north and you’ll at least get some ‘gentle sloping’. And — totally off-topic, but can you believe it — Winnipeg has a ski hill! Yes! It’s located on the inside of the giant floodway that circles the city, with a drop of something like 30 metres (I’m guesstimating). Saw it on our way back.

I haven’t said anything about why I’m in Winnipeg . So what exactly what am I doing in this city in Manitoba, on the Canadian prairie?

I have an internship this summer at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). IISD is dedicated to precisely the kind of issues I care about: climate change mitigation and adaptation, natural resource management, sustainable international development and trade and more. I’m very happy (and lucky I gather) to be there, although it means I have to be away from Jenna and the two furballs for until the end of August (Jenna will hopefully visit :).

While I’m here I’m going to research Arctic governance. There’s been a lot of noise over who get’s the right to the fabulous riches hiding under the Arctic seabed (or not: the calculations by the US Geological Survey about how much oil and gas there is under there are pretty sketchy (I’ll find a source for this later)). At any rate, the polar bear care very little about the sabre rattling by the Great Powers and more about what’s happening to it’s habitat — the ice. There are some serious environmental challenges that will have to be resolved in the Arctic. Not just climate change, which will hit the Arctic and its inhabitants both human and animal disproportionately hard, but also pollution, increased shipping and overfishing. And this is where I come in; I will be writing recommendations for where the Canadian government should put its resources in the future. Principally, that means recommending that Canada continues its tradition as a multilateralist and internationalist, and put its weight behind the Arctic Council — the environmental governance and cooperation agency of the Arctic.

I have some other tasks too, relating mostly to updating and playing with a community website for Arctic youth (ookpik.org).

And that’s how I came to be here.

So I’m in Winnipeg right now, and for the rest of the summer (why? More on that later, maybe tomorrow — I should have written about this sooner). As I was walking around, taking in the sights, I was looking for scenes that would capture the essence of this prairie city. Winnipeg is a fairly large city and downtown is dominated by highrises. But nothing you haven’t seen elsewhere. I settled on the Manitoba Legislature — the stately home of the provincial assembly — built during an age of tremendous optimism, when Manitoba’ s future looked golden. It still is — though not fantastically rich (at least not in a Beverly Hills 90210 sense) , it looks like Winnipeggers have done a lot to make this a very liveable and friendly place. I look forward to exploring more of what this city has to offer, and hopefully see some of the rest of the province.

Trying to get a little bird perched on the bench, I scared it away, leaving me with a picture of just the bench instead. I like it, standing there in the midst of the tall grass.

And this one is actually clutching a fish — well, half a fish (as opposed to this one)!

This osprey lives in a state park on Honeymoon Island in Florida, near Clearwater (and Tampa). Birds are fun — and difficult — to photograph.

I also saw a baby bald eagle in its nest this day, from 330 feet, the closest you are allowed to an eagle’s nest under federal rules. I never saw his (her?) parents though, but it was still cool to see a (not yet) bald eagle (the characteristic white head is developed later). Here is the baby, which was born around Valentine’s Day and was appropriately named Cupid.

There were lots of osprey, however, bringing fish in to feed their young ones. Yes, I realise this particular one doesn’t clutch a fish, but it’s one of the better pictures I took. I used the 300mm, which is an okay lens despite being very basic and cheap ($200).

What is geoengineering, you might ask

While there is no single and universally agreed-upon definition, suffice it to say here that geoengineering is actively and intentionally attempting to change the global climate (geoengineering is sometimes used to describe geotechnical engineering, which is unrelated). There are two fundamental ways of changing the climate: either control the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mainly carbon dioxide (CO₂); or, attempt to control the temperature of the Earth directly, through solar radiation management. While the former is almost by definition more benign (depending on how it’s done), the latter is for the most part significantly easier and less costly. It has indeed been calculated that releasing sulphur dioxide (SO₂) into the stratosphere—for the purpose of cooling the planet by deflecting sunlight—could cost as little as $30 billion a year using a fleet of Boeing 747s. For the time being, I will leave you to ponder what possible negative consequences that could have (what could possibly go wrong…). I will blog more about geoengineering later.

Excerpts from my MRP proposal:

Why study geoengineering?

While humankind is gaining the technical capability to change the climate and the body of scientific literature about geoengineering is quickly expanding, the political, economical, social and security implications of such a capability are still largely unexplored. Also, the lack of progress in climate change mitigation and the high risks associated with climate change, combined with tremendous uncertainty about how it is going to unfold, give the issue further urgency.

As climate change becomes more pronounced, world leaders, politicians, economists, scientists, newspaper columnists and the wider public may start to demand geoengineering solutions, especially if the climate deteriorates rapidly—a climate emergency. Such an event cannot be ruled out, as we cannot assume that the global climate change trend will be linear or orderly or that the climate models of the IPCC are accurate. However, the potential effects of the various geoengineering schemes on the environment are as poorly understood as the climate itself, while the stakes will be astronomical.

Questions I will ponder:

Primary Question

1. What are the geopolitical consequences of geoengineering in the event of a climate emergency, and what would be the role of global governance under such a scenario?

Secondary questions

1. What organisations currently exist that could deal with a climate emergency?
2. What would be the role of the Security Council (SC)? How could the SC be adapted to cope with the challenge?
3. Is securitisation of the problem desirable? What are the benefits and drawbacks of this?
4. What happens if a country, group of countries or a private interest party acts unilaterally? What are the geopolitical ramifications, whether the implicated party is one of a host of undemocratic and poorly governed countries or a member of the Security Council P-5?

Further reading

For a short introduction to geoengineering, I recommend reading the entry for geoengineering in the Encyclopedia of Global Change, written by David Keith, one of the foremost geoengineering scientists.

Link to PDF.