Friday, April 19, 2013

Teaching

"To teach  is to learn twice." Unknown Source. I couldn't agree more and hats off to all teachers.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

TURNING SNOW INTO CASH!

Some places have too much of everything. This year, there is more snow in most Canadian cities. In my city (Regina), we have had to cancel events because of too much snow! It is not that snow is falling every day. What has accumulated over the winter period however is so much that most streets have been reduced to a single lane and making it impossible to park cars on the street. Technically, April is spring time in western Canada when flowers should be blooming but it feels like winter everywhere! Records low temperatures were broken yesterday, with Broadview SK reporting (-22oC). Today, there is a snow storm warning centred around central western SK (N. Battleford and Saskatoon). A significant part of my training is Meteorology (weather and climate sciences) and so I spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out what is going on (scratching at the surface only since all knowledge is God’s.” The thought that always crosses my mind is “can we turn the snow into something good and useful especially for places where they don’ have snow?” The majority of my friends tell me that this is an academic question. Academic or not, I feel that  there ought to be at least a partial answer. I keep reminding my friends that a while back, excessive wind and hot temperatures were just a nuisance and academic issues. Now, wind is a source of energy and wind farms are becoming common place in Canada and world-wide for that matter. The abundant sunlight is now an energy source. We now have more solar powered gadgets than electrified homes in the developing world (I think). I am convinced that there must be some other use for the “extra” snow apart from its value in the hydrological cycle and energy balance equations. Let me know if you have an idea of turning snow into cash.

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