David Tracey » environment

Nobody Walks in L.A.?

David Tracey — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:46:27 +0000

People will tell you Los Angeles is all about the car. That’s partly true, and much of the problem, although they have been trying lately by building new transit lines and bike lanes. But the city-wide no-walking-zone rumours are not true. It turns out that politicians, voters and plenty of volunteers have managed to preserve a huge chunk of the city in the Santa Monica Mountains for future generations — and hikers today. Not all of the 8 million people living there know it, but there are more than 500 miles of hiking trails within the city.

From garden city to farm city

David Tracey — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:52:33 +0000

The Vancouver Sun has an article in this morning’s paper about (kicking my instep and tugging my forelock in embarrassment)… me.

So long, Methuselah

David Tracey — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:29:25 +0000

Dang, another one of those thousands-of-years-of-life-about-to-end tales. This one is about the venerable bristlecone pines of high Colorado California. They’ve evolved to withstand almost every harsh condition there is, dating back to before the time of Alexander the Great, but not the kind of crap our own era puts out. It looks like a double whammy of white pine blister rust from Asia and the same mountain pine beetle that used to be kept in check by winter cold but with global warming has been free to torch huge swaths of British Columbian forests.

Amid the NYTimes story comes this curious tidbit of grad school shenanigans. Imagine having your bonehead mistake remembered, in print, 46 years later. Donald Rusk Curry, did you remember to say you’re sorry?

The oldest tree here is more than 3,000 years old. This grove was once home to the oldest known bristlecone, Prometheus, but in 1964, a graduate student named Donald Rusk Currey was studying tree ring data and got his drill bit stuck in the tree. He cut it down to fetch his tool. Later, when he counted the rings, he found the tree was at least 4,900 years old.

UPDATE: Thanks to an alert reader named Darren for the following correction.

Your report on Methuselah is incorrect.

The grove is in California, not Colorado.

And no need to say “so long” to Methuselah, as it was Prometheus (on the slopes of Wheeler Peak in Nevada) that was chopped down by Donald Curry. Methuselah is alive and well in the Schulman Grove of the White Mountains of California.

O No Canada

David Tracey — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:00:35 +0000

Of all the smoke-churning, oil-sloshing, toxin-weaving, carbon-spewing, lie-mongering nations of the world, which one is the most despicable?

Read it and weep, Canadians. We’re a menace.