The CBC had Navius Research analyze the platforms of the four major federal political parties in this month’s election “to project the impact of each party’s climate policies.”

Here’s the chart that says it all:

Only the Green Party has a plan to reduce CO2e emissions to a level will surpass Canada’s (already unambitious) target of 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

While GDP is a blunt instrument for measuring population health, those that would fear an economic collapse from the Green plan can be reassured by the study’s conclusion about the Green plan’s impact on the economy:

“When I look at that GDP data I’m actually pretty reassured,” said Carter. “I mean even the Greens have what we’ve been calling the most radical policy here. They are not bringing us into recession. This is not a recessionary picture at all.”

(If you want to talk to Green Party leader Elizabeth May about the Green plan, she’ll be at the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market tomorrow morning).

Oliver and I cycled out to the Zero Waste Night Market tonight at Riverview Country Market. There was a good crowd of people in attendance, including a healthy cross-section of the Green caucus, sampling the wares of vendors gathered in the parking lot. There was soap and cider and chocolate and coffee and tomatoes and all manner of bulk shampoo.

The evening wasn’t religiously zero-waste; less-waste or sorry-for-the-waste were predominant. But it certainly scored better than a night at Sobeys. Especially because we came equipped with reusable containers.

It’s pretty easy to get to Riverview from downtown by bicycle, with the multiuse trail along Riverside Drive; the route could use some improving, though, both in trail upkeep and in the confusing need to navigate Park Street to get to and from Confederation Trail. We talked about this at this week’s meeting of the Mayor’s Task Force on Active Transportation, and I’m hopeful improvements will come, especially when the Provincial Government Garage closes.

Oliver and I went to Baba’s for supper one night last week, his first time there, what with it being primarily a bar and all. I have a good meal every time I eat at Baba’s, and during the day and early evening it’s almost never crowded, so you have the place to yourself (and the ghosts of musicians past).

The service is always good too; this is to be expected from a person named “Night Bartend,” of course, who was presumably being groomed for the position since birth.

On Sunday morning Oliver alerted me that Darcie Lanthier, our Green candidate for Charlottetown, had put out a call for volunteers to meet that afternoon on the Confederation Centre of the Arts plaza to accompany her around Farm Day in the City for a video shoot. Without entirely knowing what I was getting myself into, I asked Oliver if he wanted to go and, of course, Green-blooded Oliver said yes.

It was an interesting process to simultaneously watch and be a part of. Mille Clarkes was shooting the video, and it was “B-roll” that she was after–shots of Darcie walking around and talking to electors that would run under Darcie’s voiceover. I can attest that this wasn’t a pantomime: Darcie actually took the opportunity to talk to actual electors about actual things. Here she is talking to an elector-to-be while Mille is shooting:

My primary role in all of this, other than accompanying Oliver and keeping him out of trouble, was to carry Darcie’s cloak, cast off when it became apparent that it was actually quite balmy out. I think I did a good job of cloak-carrying.

What I didn’t completely grasp is just how much of me and Oliver would be in the “B-roll.” Given my affinity for Darcie’s candidacy, I’m fine with that. And I was happy to see that I was apparently enjoying myself, as I’m smiling throughout.

The end result–turned around in amazingly short order–is as heartfelt and genuine a campaign video as I’ve ever seen.

With the release of MacOS Catalina yesterday, I was reminded that it’s no longer possibleto run 32 bit applications if I upgrade.

If you’re a Mac user, you’ve likely wondered about dialog boxes like this that have been popping up in recent years:

The “not optimized for your Mac” is kind of a misnomer, especially because the meat of the issue is in smaller print below in the “this app will not work with future versions of macOS.”

MacOS Catalina is that version.

And so if I were to upgrade my Mac to Catalina today, for example, I could no longer use the app installed for my Doxie scanner.

Indeed, according to the maker of the scanner, the software will not be updated, so if and when I update to Catalina, I’ll no longer be able to use the scanner at all.

You can get a list of all of what Apple now refers to as “legacy software” by clicking the Apple menu, then About This Mac, System Report, and, finally, Legacy Software in the left-hand sidebar: this will show you all the 32 bit applications currently installed on your Mac that won’t run if you update to Catalina.

Here’s what’s on the list for me:

• AccountEdge Pro v2019 (it will be updated, but not yet)
• BBEdit (an update is available; I just need to install it)
• CoolTerm (an update is available; I just need to install it)
• Doxie (no update available)
• Google’s Android File Transfer (no update available)
• GraphicConverter (a paid update is available)
• Logitech Camera Settings (no update available)
• PDFpenPro (a paid update is available)
• Sound Studio (a paid update is available)

The only real deal breaker for me (other than bricking my scanner) is AccountEdge, which I use for bookkeeping, so cannot be without. So I’ve turned off automatic updates, and I’ll wait for the update to be released.

Jeremy Cherfas talks to Laura Valli about porridge, and the Estonian porridge café she helped to found, on the latest episode of Eat This Podcast.

Ten top simple field recording tips from Cities and Memory; includes:

You might think that’s only a gentle breeze, and it can’t possibly do anything to your recording, but IT WILL. Even a light wind sounds like someone’s ripped your mic in half, and will render your recording unusable. Use wind shields, use shelter, avoid wind at all costs.

The recording here is a classic example of it: riding our bicycles by the metal fence surrounding the Charlottetown Event Grounds on Saturday, I noticed the the gusty winds were making beautiful music through the slats. So I pulled out my phone and pressed “record,” trying to shield it from the wind. I failed. So you’ll have to take my word for it.

See also diy (do it yourself) from Quiet American.

Link provenance: William Denton to Radio Apogee to this exhortation to make field recordings of decent quality.

A couple of years ago I wrote about how the CBC was A/B testing different headlines on its local news website. They’re back at it again today, testing the headlines “P.E.I. plastic bag recycling cut ‘to almost nothing’ by ban” and “P.E.I. plastic bag recycling troubles disappear with ban” on this story:

Using the little hack I wrote back when this first appeared, you can see which headline is “winning” (which is to say “most clicked upon by readers”):

I’d love to sit in on the meeting where the results of this test were discussed: if “to almost nothing” is the winner, what would the instruction to headline writers be?

From my friend Vivian comes a pointer to Our Happy Life, an exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture that closes this week:

The exhibition Our Happy Life is a three-act study on the new spatial models founded on the measurement of happiness; including a dissection of the political project behind methods of city data collection and application, an investigation of the emotional component of the real estate market, and a demystification of the idea of social space. Our Happy Life is a narrative anti-manual which explores and interprets recent paradigms that are shaping our present perception of place, giving new identity to the materials of the private space of our homes, reconceiving our working environments, and transforming development itself through the planning of our cities.

Photo by Vivan Beer
Our Happy Life: Architecture and Well-Being in the Age of Emotional Capitalism
Installation view, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, 2019. © CCA

Oliver and I have now been bicycling to the Charlottetown Farmer’s Market every Saturday for two months.

Since we began in August, quite literally from a standing start, the weather has turned cool and the trail’s gotten a little muddy, but Oliver’s cycling has improved, bit by bit, every week.

As the University of PEI is only a few hundred metres up the trail, every Thursday we also cycle the same route up to campus for Oliver’s Thursday afternoon class.

Our only real issue now (other than the incline from Joe Ghiz Park to the 1911 Jail, which we both complain about every time we encounter it uphill), is that I haven’t found a safe way to transport Ethan the Dog with us, so he’s had to stay home on Saturdays and Thursdays.

We’re going to try and keep this up until the snow means we can’t.