<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><font size="2">If you are getting a duplicate of a previous posting that came as one copy of written articles, the individual ones are edited on their way to print. Edits are minor, so if you had read a previous one, the edit is more of a finessing than anything else.</font>
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<div><font size="2">The usual caveat goes without saying: if curious, you are welcome; not, see you at the bend.</font></div>
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<div><font size="2">j'aime la vie<br>
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<div style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial; color: black;">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Jaime R Vergara <pinoypanda2031@aol.com><br>
To: editor <editor@saipantribune.com><br>
Sent: Wed, Jul 23, 2014 6:06 am<br>
Subject: Jaime for Thursday, July 24<br>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"><b>Canola and rapeseed</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">I asked my seatmate in the bus to Edmonton, Alberta last
week if the yellow field abundant by the highway was planted with
"rapeseed". I was told it was
"Canola", the rich vegetable oil with a healthy dose of Omega-3 widely
used for cooking. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">From the fields in Manchuria towards NE Nei Menggu, I saw
the same type of fields covered with "rapeseed" but I kept my mouth
shut while I googled (yes, the bus had WiFi) the subject. Sure enough, the oil comes from the seed,
Canola being a brand name for "Canada oil". Our thought now is about the oil and the
seed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">I am using this innocuous subject to get me past the month
of July. The first of August is a
significant turning point in my journey, and since evidently, the Canada
portion held more tails of recall and tales of encounter simply by proximity to
brain wave than anything else, I thought I would close the month with its
mention. It also gives me one more
stroke at the recently completed journey and farewell to North America.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">But first, the oil.
There is the edible oil for cooking, Canola from the rapeseed. It is abundant in Alberta's agricultural
prairie. The other is the subterranean
oil, evident as pumps seen from the highway brought out the fluid fossil fuel
in fields around Red Deer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">The Athabasca <i>tar
sands</i> (diplomatically referred to as <i>oil
sands</i>) are now subject of international debate; a pipeline to transport the
liquefied gas to Nebraska is the subject of concerted protest among
environmentalists. But as my host,
retired Pinay Med GP in Edmonton opined, the oil sands are in demand, and if
one was going to mine and process it, "it might as well be conscientious
Canada." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Some might consider the lady delusionary given Canada's
track record on copper mining, but there is no question about the strength of her
convictions. Nor do 80% of the folks I
talked to at the local parish in Calgary where I attended Mass who are employed
by one sector or the other of the energy industry have any doubts about the
reputation, integrity, and reliability of their employ.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">But the planting of seeds in Alberta is more focused on the
business of Agrium (the chemical inputs like fertilizers, insecticides and
pesticides into the commercial growing of field plants); the growth of rapeseed
proliferates. Also, of hay that feeds
the cattle and horses, and other exotic animals in ranches (e.g., elk and
bison) and farms, recently on display at the Calgary Stampede grounds. The bales of hay lie under the summer sun in
the fields, and Alberta this season is adequately watered and gets enough sun
to make this year's growth a bumper crop.
Ag in Alberta in 2014, compared to drenched Saskatchewan and Manitoba,
will be a good year.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">But like the drenching of Manitoba, the planet is undergoing
a major shift in global climate that began more than a decade ago. Weather patterns are shifting so much that
there was one day when it was warmer in Alaska than it was in Alabama. "Weird and unusual" has suddenly
become "casual and normal" as the flooding in South China and
Manitoba, and the drought in California and British Columbia strike different
parts of the world that had not been the focus of such weather extremes before. But even the familiar ones, like typhoon <i>Rammosun</i> in the Philippines and Hainan, came
with Mama Gaia's vengeance this week.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Back to Alberta's oil.
Sympathetic to our GP friend's sentiment that conscientious Canada can
responsibly handle oil harvests, there is, however, a larger picture on oil
drilling, petroleum production and gas distribution that has been the province
of corporate management not previously known for environmental friendliness nor
distributive justice. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">All of this is nothing but mental masturbation without the
urgency of challenge on our individual lives.
We used the Canola and the rapeseed obviously as a metaphor to our
dependence as a society on fossil fuel for power, and the need to seed our
future with alternative sources of energy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">I encourage the use of hydrogen, now commercially viable as
supply and demand increases. In Canada,
I learned of the auto industry's efforts to stamp down electric cars since it
revolutionized production methods that threatened existing industry. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">The production of photovoltaic cells has been a source of
tension between China and U.S., with the U.S. charging China at WTO of trade
practices inimical to U.S. interests.
The WTO recently handed a ruling exonerating China of alleged illegal
protection of the nascent industry. Oil is
not abundant in China, so harnessing a free resource like the sun comes
naturally. Hydropower and biomass are
also in the running, along with wind and ocean wave turbines. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">The point is that the technologies that do not endanger the
life of a planet whose holding capacity now exceeds by more than half its
innate regenerative power are present and affordable. Albertans need to go beyond the comfort of familiar
fossil fuel extraction, of crude oil, natural gas, and oil sands, to be the
Canada of ethics and conscience it claims itself to be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">I shall make it my role to remind them of their choice and story.</font></div>
<br>
<div style="font-size: 18px; clear: both;"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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