Clover works better than grass or turf
Re: 鈥淟angford turfs grass for the artificial kind,鈥� March 13.
It seems to me a good alternative to real or fake grass on the medians and roadsides would be clover. It stays green, doesn鈥檛 need mowing, requires little water and, best of all, would supply food for the bees.
Andrea Racicot
View Royal
Exams offered illusion聽of objectivity
Re: 鈥淏.C. admissions could be at risk,鈥� March 15.
The letter-writer put forth the case for standard examinations as a way to fairly compare students from one district to another. There was a time when I would have agreed with everything he says.
I graduated from high school in 1963, when all 91原创 provinces had rigid examination systems, and I loved it. By 1967, I had become a teacher and I delighted in training students to write these examinations.
But slowly, year by year, I began to realize that they were not as objective as they seemed. In Manitoba, the top marks tended to go to the city schools that attract the more experienced and the better teachers.
High school graduation rates in rural communities, and particularly in the First Nations in the North, were abysmally low. I encountered many talented and able students who simply were not good at taking examinations and never got the recognition that they deserved.
When the examinations disappeared, the school system gradually changed, as teachers began to modify their courses and take into account the interests and needs of their students. The education of the best students improved immensely, as opportunities arose for them to go beyond the fixed curriculum.
The writer is right that this makes it difficult to compare students. He is wrong in his belief that the standardized examination system made such comparisons possible. It offered only the illusion of objectivity. In reality, student comparisons were as flawed then as they are today.
John Barsby
Winnipeg
Take new perspective on climate change
The first global conference on climate change was in 1979. CO2 emissions then totalled 19,594 megatonnes, according to the Global Carbon Atlas. The second gathering occurred in 1990, after these emissions had increased to 22,182 megatonnes. The Paris Accord of 2015 saw emissions at 35,463 megatonnes, an increase of 80.99 per cent over 1979. In 2017, the output was 36,153 megatonnes.
Global oil consumption increased from 62.73 million barrels per day in 1978 to 93 million barrels per day in 2018. (I have used the 1978 figure due to the oil crisis of 1979.)
It is interesting to note that the increase in emissions (80.99 per cent) is far higher than the increase in oil consumption (48.25 per cent). The increase from sources other than oil and gas is 62.66 per cent of the total increase.
This clearly indicates that the hypothesis brought forward by the environmentalists and politicians has been wrong. They have been self-serving and myopic throughout.
The longer we procrastinate, the more drastic the remedial measures become. Their rhetoric has got us nowhere.
Ian Kimm
Duncan
Is tunnel a solution for聽the Malahat?
Re: 鈥淭ackle Malahat delays with transit lanes, speed cameras, councillors say鈥� 鈥淎 bridge is the answer to Malahat problem,鈥� letter, March 12.
Rather than a bridge from Mill Bay over to Deep Cove, perhaps a tunnel might be the answer.
Oops, that might look too much like a pipeline.
David Tonken
North Saanich
Wildlife-killing contests held in B.C.
How disappointing to see the Environment Ministry鈥檚 response to the revelation that there are three wildlife-killing contests occurring in our province today, that we know of. The assertion that wolf populations are 鈥渉ealthy and self-sustaining throughout the province鈥� is without basis, as researchers have acknowledged that wolf numbers are 鈥渄ifficult to obtain鈥� due to the shy nature and large ranges of the animals.
With no bag limits for wolves in 10聽management units in Region 5, the Chilcotin Guns contest in Williams Lake will be an unmitigated disaster. The 鈥渨olf whacking鈥� contest states 鈥渢he most wolves wins.鈥� How long are those populations going to remain 鈥渉ealthy and self-sustaining鈥� when a full-scale slaughter is allowed?
The Creston Valley Rod and Gun Club is targeting coyotes, raccoons, wolves and cougars. The bag limit for cougars is two animals in nine management units in Region 4. Every hunter with a tag is going to attempt to achieve that limit. There is no bag limit for coyotes.
In Region 8, the West Kootenay Outdoorsmen are offering $500 for each wolf killed. The bag limit for that region is three. That鈥檚 a lot of incentive to kill three wolves per tag.
How is the ministry going to ensure that these enthusiastic hunters with varying degrees of expertise take only lawful bag limits? How many conservation officers are going to be needed to monitor these legal events if they are allowed to continue year after year?
Kelly Carson
DeerSafe Victoria
Dead dinosaurs will聽power us for years
I hope my low-information friends on the left recognize that we have two new huge gas stations in Lantzville/Parksville. No matter what Premier John Horgan tells you, dead dinosaurs are likely going to be powering your car for some time and definitely powering the truck that brings most goods to you.
There is more stored energy in a barrel of oil (about 17 times) than the best battery pack Tesla offers. And that battery pack weighs more than 1,200 pounds, compared with 275 to 300 pounds for a barrel of oil.
If you replaced that battery pack with gasoline, you鈥檇 likely be able to travel more than 4,700 miles, compared with just over 200 miles. And, of course, it takes less than 10 minutes to fill your car and 75 minutes to fully charge a Tesla at one of its supercharging stations.
I鈥檓 thinking that Energizer bunny has gas.
Grant Maxwell
Nanaimo
Don鈥檛 let kids play in聽the street
Re: 鈥淒aylight time is not more dangerous,鈥� letter, March 14.
So, the letter-writer laments that with standard time, children 鈥渕ight be playing in the street in the dark鈥� after school.
When will people (and the companies that encourage this with 鈥渟low down, kids playing鈥� signs) wake up to the fact that traffic today is not the traffic of our childhood and that allowing children to play in the street, instead of in a safe backyard, is a form of child abuse and totally irresponsible parenting?
The U.S. has an appropriate term for this 鈥� reckless endangerment.
Roger Love
Victoria
U.S., Canada suffocating Venezuela
Re: 鈥淰enezuelans need all the help they can get,鈥� comment, March 12.
What is surprisingly absent from the discourse on human-rights violations in Venezuela is the testimony from the human rights investigator designated by the UN to assess that crisis. Alfred de Zayas鈥檚 report was distributed at the UN General Assembly on Aug. 3, 2018.
De Zayas states the hardships being experienced by the Venezuelan people are a direct result of illegal economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and others.
鈥淭he effects of sanctions imposed by presidents [Barack] Obama and [Donald] Trump, and unilateral measures by Canada and the European Union have directly and indirectly aggravated the shortages in medicines such as insulin and anti-retroviral drugs. To the extent that economic sanctions have caused delays in distribution and thus contributed to many deaths, sanctions contravene the human rights obligations of the countries imposing them. Moreover, sanctions can amount to crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
鈥淭he democratically elected government of Venezuela is being suffocated through external economic warfare.鈥� It appears the U.S. intends to create a situation in which the people or the military will topple the government and prepare the path for the one per cent to acquire what might be the largest oil reserves remaining on the planet.
The U.S., Canada and others named in the report are directly responsible for the current situation in Venezuela, and the fact these governments are using the resulting crisis to overthrow the legitimate government is not only illegal, it is immoral.
C.W. Wrench
Victoria
