Spittin’ and grinnin’

Thankfully, the Toronto Blue Jays season has ended. Their 74 wins against 88 losses was their worst record since 2019 when they finished with 67 wins and 75 losses.

They were a miserable team to watch this season. Too many ups and many downs, all played with sad sack faces.

This is one unhappy ball team. Vladimir Guerrero Jr, and Alejandro Kirk were the only players who seemed happy to be out playing baseball.

There is talk of many off-season changes but they won’t be the ones that are really needed. A major cleanout is required. It should start with the front office and include manager John Schneider.

Players? Do we really need 35-year-ol George Springer and his six-year $150 million contract? His batting average this season was only 220 with a mere 56 runs batted in.

Or Bo Bichette who missed large chunks of playing time to calf injuries this season, then returned to play one game before going back on the injured list with a broken finger. 

There are plenty of healthy young prosects who could replace those two for a lot less money.

Another reason for being thankful the Jays’ season is done is that I’m relieved from having to watch the games on Sportsnet. The Sportsnet crew seems to enjoy filming the spitting more than the baseball.

Spitting is a disgusting aspect of professional baseball. And the bigger the gobs the camera crews can film, the happier they seem.

The players and coaches spit on the field, in the batting boxes and in the dugouts. The soles of their playing shoes must be awash with spit that is tracked into the dressing rooms.

We live in an age of pandemics and top medical experts predict increasingly frequent outbreaks. They warn that we humans must significantly change our behaviour to reduce the spread of diseases.

Spitting always has been a part of baseball. But reducing spitting and walking around in it will help send the message that we live in a changing world in which limiting the spread of disease is critical.

Hopefully next spring we will see a Jays team of young, healthy players who show us some great baseball. And less spitting film from the Sportsnet crews.

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                                Cream of kitten soup?

Lock up your pets! 

That’s the message from this year’s U.S. presidential election campaign.

“They’re eating the dogs . . . they’re eating the cats!” an excited Donald Trump shouted during the recent election debate with Vice-President Kamala Harris.

He was repeating the racist story being circulated by his MAGA followers that criminal immigrants are eating people’s pet cats, dogs and birds.

This is just one example of how the election campaign has been one of the least substantive in recent history. It has been one of personal attacks, silly falsehoods and conspiracy theories. None of the really serious issues have received much discussion.

And there are very serious issues, not the least of which is health care and the addiction crisis.

The National Centre for Drug Abuse Statistics reports that as of 2000, more than 37 million people age 12 and over actively used illicit substances. Since 2000, almost one million people in America have died of drug overdoses.

Other reports show that 2.7 million people are addicted to opioids and 28.3 million suffer from some form of alcohol disorder.

It’s all part of the steady decline of American society. Despite continuing economic growth, the median American family is less well off. Its financial rewards remain stagnant while the wealthy have grown wealthier.

U.S. gun violence has increased steadily.  To date this year there have been more than 12,000 murders with guns and 23,000 woundings.

A new report from Johns Hopkins Centre for Gun Violence Solutions says that gun deaths among children ages one to 17 have increased by 106 per cent since 2013. 

Last year there were 2,526 gun deaths among one-to-17-year-olds, which is roughly seven every day.

It goes beyond guns. Polls have showed a distinct decline in social life, including close friendships, intimate relationships, trust, labor participation and community involvement.  

There have been documented reports of a rise in mental illnesses, diseases of despair and poor health generally. The Centre for Disease Control reported in 2022 that U.S. life expectancy fell to 76.3 year, roughly what it was in 1996. 

The U.S. has a national crisis but evidently no Churchillian leader to tackle it. For Donald Trump and millions of his lunatic followers it’s all about immigrants flowing into the country to eat people’s cats.

Meanwhile I’m wondering if cream of kitten soup or barbecued puppy dog tails are served with curry?

The reason I wonder is that Laura Loomer, Trump’s racist campaign trail buddy, says that if Kamala Harris, who has some east Indian heritage, is elected president the White House will start smelling of curry.

Sounds like Ms. Loomer needs less refined sugar and more fruits and vegetables in her diet.

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                                 Canada’s leadership crisis

There are times when I am ashamed of being a Canadian. This is one of them.

I’ve been reading about Justin Trudeau and Governor-General Mary Simon appointing the obnoxious Charles Adler of Winnipeg to the Senate.

Adler is the broadcaster who has called indigenous people “uncivilized boneheads.” He also once referred to senators as whores. Now he is one, collecting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

There have been calls for Trudeau and Simon to rescind Adler’s Senate appointment. Anyone who makes such racist comments about any other Canadian should not be allowed anywhere near the Senate, let alone appointed to it.

Mary Simon, the first indigenous person to serve as governor-general, should never have agreed to Trudeau’s request to appoint Adler. She should have refused, and backed up that refusal with an offer to resign, if necessary.

Senate appointments are officially made by the governor-general as requested by the prime minister.

Manitoba First Nations chiefs have called for Simon and Trudeau to rescind Adler’s appointment. One of Trudeau’s cabinet ministers has criticized Adler’s appointment.

“There are many eminently qualified Manitobans who are better suited to represent our province than Charles Adler,” Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal said in a statement. Vandal was a five-term Winnipeg city councillor and deputy mayor before being elected to Parliament in 2015.

This fiasco is yet another example of the lack of leadership in Canada. Trudeau is a wealthy elitist and one of the least qualified persons ever to serve as prime minister. The leaders of the principal opposition parties are no better.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre displays little beyond a scowling meanness. Jagmeet Singh, the New Democratic Party leader is focussed on keeping the Liberal minority government in power so his 24 elected MPs can continue collecting their $165,000-plus salary and long string of federal benefits.

Canada needs better, We need leadership that works for the people, not the political parties. We don’t have it because of ourselves, complacent voters who look after our individual interests while ignoring the overall interests of the country and its people.

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Auto thefts hit epidemic proportions this year. The Ontario government reports that a vehicle is stolen in the province every 14 minutes. 

The Insurance Bureau of Canada reports 105,000 vehicles stolen in Canada in 2022. Auto theft claims last year totalled $1.5 billion, more than $1 billion in Ontario alone.

The bureau says these thefts cost us all money. That may be true but it is only part of the story. Auto theft has become an important part of our economy

Look at it this way:

You need a new car so pick one out at a local dealership and pay for it through a bank loan. The salesman is happy, the dealership is happy and the bank is happy to get the loan business. Government is thrilled, of course, because it gets a nice payday by collecting the tax on tens of thousands of dollars.

So, you drive home and park your new vehicle in the driveway. One morning you find the vehicle gone. It was stolen during the night.

Not much point calling the police. There is little they can do and they are busy dealing with a lot of other crime – much of it violent.  

The thieves have taken the vehicle to a car theft gang which pays $500 to $1,500 for vehicles, puts it into a rented container and ships it to some place like Ghana.  

So, we have a lot of happy people here – the car dealer, the thieves, the freight container and shipping companies and governments, which have collected taxes along the way. And, whoever owns your car now in Ghana is thrilled to have a new car at a cheap price.

You are not happy because you have to deal with the insurance company, buy another vehicle and start thinking about how to prevent it from being stolen.

The insurance company pays most, but not all, of the cost of replacing the stolen vehicle and contents but recovers its money easily. It raises everyone’s premiums.

More than 100,000 other Canadians go through the same scenario every year. Politicians babble about what might or might not be done to stop the auto theft epidemic. 

Nobody really wants to get serious about stopping it because it is a big business with little violence.

This is not just about stolen autos. Auto theft is a blaring signal of a collapsing society in which we see economic systems breaking down, violence increasing and natural disasters tied to human-induced climate change killing, injuring or displacing thousands of people.

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 Ever since the assassination attempt on Donald Trump there has been much talk about his ears.

He had a pillow-sized bandage on this right ear after it supposedly was grazed by a bullet. I haven’t seen any photos of the ear with the bandage off and what scarring there might be.

I’m not, however, the least bit interested in Trump’s ears. I’m fascinated by his eyes. 

Medical observers have said that Trump’s eyeballs are unnaturally large. They say the largeness could be the result of disease, injury or what he sprays on his face to give it that weird orange glow.

Reading about his eye size got me thinking about ostriches, which have the largest eyes of any land animal. Eyeballs take up so much room in an ostrich head that there is little room for a brain. That’s probably why the ostrich is considered the dumbest animal on the planet.

The ostrich is so dim-witted that it stretches its body along the ground thinking it will make it look buried and therefore hidden from predators. Only blind predator would fall for that one!

I’ve been wondering whether Trump has the same problem as the ostrich. Big eyes leaving little room for a brain.

The dumb things he says and does seem to confirm that. Like saying immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America. And, that “millions and millions of people” are taking jobs away from Black people.

Or that Vice-President Kamala Harris is East Indian but turned herself Black to win votes.

Or, as the New York Times reported, he called his Secret Service director Dumbo.

He believes that some bloodlines produce people who are superior to others. He, of course, comes from a superior bloodline.

Many of Trump’s allies and aides have abandoned him, some calling him a moron or a dope. One of his professors in university reportedly called him “the dumbest . . .  student I ever had.”

Trump the weirdo is not the saddest part of this story. The saddest part is that American voters made him president and might do so again in November. 

Americans are unsophisticated voters. They vote for entertainers and will continue to elect bad actors like Trump. 

Maybe one day we’ll even see an ostrich as U.S. president.

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Smoke in our future

From Shaman’s Rock

By Jim Poling Sr.

This hot, relatively dry summer is making me nervous. I won’t be unhappy to see the start of autumn with its cooler temperatures, and hopefully, more rainfall.

Many of us live surrounded by trees, many of which are getting too dry for my liking. Snow and rain falls have been below normal for many months now while temperatures have been higher than normal.

Southern Ontario has received big storms but they have missed, or been much lighter, in some areas north of Barrie, where the real forests begin.

It’s great to have such a blue-sky summer, but the TV images from wildfires out west are unsettling. There were more than 400 wildfires burning in British Columbia and Alberta this week.

Also worrisome is the fact that these wildfires no longer are rare events. Last year wildfires burned a record 185,000 square kilometres (71,429 sq miles) of the country, an area the size of Syria.

Another worry is the fact that 163 of last year’s fires went underground and smouldered until spring, which fire services refer to as "overwintering" or "holdover" fires.

So far this year Ontario has not had any catastrophic forest fires. However, a trend to warmer, drier weather is a worry. 

Canadian Forest Service (CFS) researchers predict that eastern Canada will see a 200-300 percent increase in fire friendly dry, windy days 

“There is a lot more fire in the future, and we better get used to it,” CFS researcher Mike Flannigan has been reported as saying. 

Getting used to it means that all of us must be more aware of the dangers and do whatever we can as individuals to prevent fires. We need to think more about how we handle hot ashes from BBQs, how we dispose of cigarette butts and seriously follow rules about campfires.

Also, we all need to work at reducing our carbon footprints by changing our energy sources. Some things individuals can do are listed at:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/651b116ede324e5b7a7c7abd/t/65c12a04a3bd1f7d0c2439a8/1707158020193/ClimateResponsible_Checklist_v02.pdf.

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Star-spangled boozing

No word yet that country singer Ingrid Andress has actually checked into an alcohol treatment centre following her drunken performance at baseball’s annual Home Run Derby.

She said she would after rattling tens of thousands of eardrums with a wildly off-key drunken version of the U.S. national anthem. 

“I’m not gonna bullshit y’all, I was drunk last night,” she wrote on her social media accounts. “I’m checking myself into a facility today to get the help I need.”

Fans at the event were stunned; some saying the performance left their ears bleeding.

Much fuss about the revered anthem being blurted out with alcohol-stewed vocal chords. It’s not the first time, however, that the melody has been sent floating on waves of alcohol.

The Star-Spangled Banner music was first composed in the late 1700s and became the tune for a drinking song titled “To Anacreon in Heav’n.” Anacreon was a Greek poet known for his drinking songs and erotic poems. 

The song was the constitutional anthem of the Anacreontic Society, an elite London, England-based amateur music society. I’m assuming the singers were well oiled with alcohol when singing the club song because back then water was not safe to drink. Even children drank beer to avoid the bacteria, parasites and other bad stuff in the water.

Th tune later drifted across the Atlantic to become a popular American drinking song. Then in 1814, as the British-American war raged, someone noticed that after the bombardment of Baltimore “our flag was still there.” 

Words were put to the tune, and the sheet music was printed in the September 20, 1814 edition of the Baltimore Patriot. However, it wasn’t until 1931 that the song officially became the U.S. national anthem after Congress received a five-million signature petition saying the country should have a national anthem.

Other singers have struggled when singing the anthem. Christina Aguilera forgot the words at Super Bowl XLV. Michael Bolton wrote some words to the song on his hand so he wouldn’t forget them.

Music experts say the song originally was meant to be sung by a group. It’s a difficult solo because of the range of its notes, some of which are very high.

So, I guess you really can’t blame Ingrid Andress for climbing into her cups before picking up the mike.                     

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We live in a world in which there is plenty to worry about – in fact too many things to worry about.

It’s a world of cascading crises. There’s climate change and environmental disasters, destructive artificial intelligence, pandemics and nuclear holocaust threats. 

Then there is worry about biodiversity losses in which species of plants and animals become extinct and human life is affected. For instance, when India’s vultures began disappearing in the 1990s, human deaths increased from rotting disease-ridden animal carcasses normally cleaned up by vultures.  

These are serious matters that deserve our attention. But there is one crisis not ge tting the attention it deserves – declining effective leadership. There’s been a startling drop in leadership quality in recent decades. 

DDI, a leadership consulting firm, reported in its 2023 Global Leadership Forecast a “worrying pattern in the quality of leadership around the world.”       

That study showed only 40 percent of leaders reporting their operations had high-quality leaders, the lowest level of quality leadership levels in a decade. More than 50 countries and 24 industries were represented in that study, which analyzed data from 1827 human resources experts and 13,695 leaders.

Lack of quality leadership is easily seen in North American politics. Joe Biden, current United States president, confuses names, forgets what he plans to say and walks like a 100-year-old with a full diaper. Donald Trump, the man who likely will succeed him in November, has the brain power of a worm and a garbage can mouth.

Our Canadian federal leaders are not much better. Justin Trudeau, an arrogant aristocrat, is probably the least qualified person ever to become prime minister. He is a wild spender, having driven federal personnel spending up 68 per cent since he was elected in 2015.

Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader expected to defeat Trudeau and his Liberals, never has had a real job outside politics. As a teenager he worked doing telephone collection calls for Telus.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was a criminal defence lawyer whose main political goal seems to be keeping his New Democratic Party alive and active by supporting the minority Liberal government.

Decent folks, no doubt, but lacking the combination of street smarts and 21st century skills needed to combat issues much more complex than those of the 20th century.

We need new leaders with new ideas and new skills. Leaders who are visionary and inspirational. Leaders committed to the common good instead of the good of themselves and their political parties. Polarization, political and otherwise, has become a serious disease that ultimately will cripple democracy.

One reason that we don’t have the high-quality, effective leadership that we need is because it is not a priority in our educational systems. Leadership education should be a priority in all educational classes from kindergarten to university.

Leaders are not born; they are made. The earlier we teach our children about leadership, the more high-quality leaders we will have for the future.  

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From Shaman’s Rock

By Jim Poling Sr.

 

Readers of my weekly Minden Times column might notice that it is missing from the physical paper and Facebook this coming week. That’s because I have stopped writing for The Times.

 

I’ve stopped because the paper told me that my J. K. Rowling “column was insensitive to the LGBTQ2SPlus community due to JK Rowlings firm stance on the anti trans community.” The newspaper leadership implied that the column should have said how Rowling has written and spoken out against the trans community.

 

Journalists write every day about newsmakers who have faults or prejudices but we don’t include those in every story we do on them. For instance, when Justin Trudeau announces a new feed-the-poor program we don’t write “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was scandalized for wearing blackface some years back, announced today . . . . “

 

Or, “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was accused of groping a female reporter, announced today . . . .“

 

We do so when there is a direct connection with the story.

 

My Rowling column was about a well-known, very wealthy author who donates much of her income to charities. She is the UK’s second most important charitable donor, following behind only the singer Elton John.

 

No readers had complained about the column, so the insensitive-to-trans concern came from within the newspaper. That’s disturbing.

 

People who work in newsrooms have opinions and the right to express them. But they should not use their personal opinions and feelings to influence how the news is reported. That is unprofessional.

 

I have been a professional journalist for six-plus decades. I can’t allow myself to be connected to anything unprofessional. That’s why I will no longer write for the Times.

 

I will continue to write the From Shaman’s Rock column occasionally. For anyone interested it can be found at: https://onshamansrock.blogspot.com/

Food programs worldwide are struggling with funding shortages that are limiting their efforts to feed the millions who are hungry every day.

The World Food Programme reports that 309 million people in the 72 countries it serves face acute levels of food insecurity this year. There isn’t enough funding to buy the food that all the hungry need.

Hunger is not an issue, however, on Government of Canada airplanes. The politicians, bureaucrats and others who travel on the planes are quite well fed.

An example: A House of Commons document shows in-flight catering for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s six-day trip to Indonesia and India last fall totalled $223,000.

Folks on that trip were fed beef brisket with mashed parsley potatoes with truffle oil, pan fried beef tenderloin with port wine sauce, braised lamb shanks with steamed broccoli and boiled baby potatoes, and baked cheesecake with pistachio brittle.

The document also showed a $900 request for pop, chips, and other snacks on board and “cases of Flow Water.” Flow Water, is an expensive brand of premium alkaline spring water preferred by Trudeau, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).

The federation also has said that Gov.-Gen. Mary Simon’s trip to Dubai in March 2022 racked up $100,000 in airplane meals 

“Is the government running a secret contest to see who can order up the most expensive meals while flying around the world?” Franco Terrazzano, CTF federal director has said.

“You shouldn’t need a focus group to recommend telling the prime minister to turn down the baked cheesecake with pistachio brittle when Canadians are lining up around the block at the food bank.”

And, lining up they are. Food Banks Canada reports almost two million visits to Canadian food banks in March of last year – an increase of 32 per cent over the previous March and 78.5 per cent over March of 2019.

The Salvation Army says it served 3.2 million community meals to the hungry last year. It also provided 257,000 school meals.

Last week the Trudeau government announced a plan to create a National School Food Program. The program will provide meals to up to 400,000 more kids every year, beyond those served by existing school food programs. The government plans to invest $1 billion in  the program over five years.

That’s certainly an admirable commitment. But the political-bureaucratic class still needs a major mind reset on wasteful spending. Especially considering the Canada’s national debt now is $1.4 trillion and will cost $47.2 billion to service this year.

The politicians are quick to deny any responsibility or knowledge of top-level spending on government aircraft flights. They blame the department of national defence, which operates most of these flights, or others who arrange catering.

"I have no idea the context of these flights or how these things are done," Dominic LeBlanc, the Trudeau minister responsible for democratic institutions, said when the governor-general’s trip costs were being questioned.

Oh really? So, what then are we paying him two or three hundred thousand dollars a year to do then? 

(Canadian members of Parliament now are the world’ second-highest paid elected officials. American elected officials are the world’s highest paid.)

No one needs a gourmet meal on a government aircraft making the six-plus-hour trip from Montreal to Paris. Surely a sandwich and a cup of tea would suffice, especially considering a 2022 Statistics Canada estimate that 22.3 per cent of Canadian families experienced food insecurity over one year.

Much of the work of food banks and meal programs is being done by volunteers. They gather food and distribute it, or cook it and serve it on their own time and without pay or other physical reward.

A typical volunteer meal program will serve simple dishes of rice, chicken, corn and salad. There might be an apple or cherry pie for dessert. Not as fancy as braised lamb shanks and baked cheesecake, but certainly filling, nutritious and a lot less expensive. 

The $100,000 spent on airplane meals for the governor-general’s Dubai trip, or the $223,000 for Trudeau’s Indonesia trip would go a long way to feeding the hungry.

It certainly would buy a lot of chicken and rice.

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Keep calm. Keep pouring

From Shaman’s Rock

By Jim Poling Sr.

I learned this week that the world has too much wine. We are fermenting more grape juice than we are drinking.

Australian wineries are reported to be sitting on more than 256 million unsold cases of wine—more than two years of inventory. And, the European Union has paid France $172 million to destroy more than 80 million gallons of excess wine. It will be distilled into ethanol that can be used in perfumes, cleaning products and hand sanitizers.

There are similar stories from most of the world’s wine producing areas, British Columbia and Ontario included.

Far too much wine and fewer people drinking it. I’ve been drinking my share to help restore a balance, but it’s not been enough. I’m going to try harder.

Wine drinking world-wide declined six per cent between 2017 and 2022. In Canada, wine sales have declined at their fastest pace in more than a decade. They fell by four per cent in 2021/2022, the largest decrease since Statistics Canada began tracking alcohol sales in 1949.

Falling wine sales have led wine producers around the world to cut production, some drastically. Extreme weather and changing drinking patterns are cited as the main reasons for decreased production and falling sales. Many producers have deliberately cut back on vineyard sizes, while others have seen wild weather reduce their crop sizes. 

British Columbia has reported huge crop losses resulting from summer droughts, fall flooding and extreme winter cold and snowfalls during the last couple of years. Provincial grape growers say extreme weather has caused a 54-per-cent reduction in grape and wine production for the 2023 vintage.

But the other big factor is that people are changing their drinking habits. Inflation has increased wine prices, forcing some drinkers to go to lower-priced drinks such as beer.

Wine is losing favour among the world’s younger people. Many younger wine drinkers are not drinking red wines, preferring sparkling wines like whites and roses. There also is a growing preference for ciders and coolers.

Polls indicate, however, that younger people in general are rethinking any alcohol use. One poll shows that more than one-third of respondents 18 to 35 said they were drinking too much alcohol and said it has negative effects on their health.

More than half of those young people responding to the poll said they have cut back on alcohol consumption, many noting they have participated in alcohol cutbacks such as ‘Dry February.’ 

They have found an easy alternative in marijuana. Canadian alcohol sales have fallen while recreational drug sales have boomed since the federal government legalized cannabis five years ago.

Statistics Canada reports cannabis sales have increased annually since legalization, with Canadian spending $4.7 billion on the recreational drug in 2022/2023. That’s a $0.6 billion jump from the previous year.

StatsCan also reports that cannabis spending now averages $150 a year for every Canadian of legal age. 

Whether wine drinking will continue to fall is anyone’s guess. The wine industry says sales of premium wines are increasing, but that seems to be a reflection of the growing divide between rich and poor Canadians.

Canadians with money will buy more expensive cars, bigger houses and premium wines. Those without will continue to cut back on all goods they find too expensive – wine included.

Wine prices were expected to increase significantly next month when the feds planned to boost the alcohol excise tax by almost five per cent. However, Ottawa has backed off that increase and has said the excise tax will remain capped at a two-per-cent increase for two years.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation welcomed this year’s reduced tax boost but said alcohol should not be taxed at all. It has said that taxes already account for roughly 65 percent of the price of wine. 

“Canadians are struggling with inflation and the last thing we need is the feds making it more expensive to enjoy a cold one at the end of a long work week,” Franco Terrazzano, a federation director has said.  “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should be trying to make life more affordable and that means scrapping his alcohol tax hikes.”

I’ll drink to that!

 

Many folks are cheering the recent arrival of snow that has been missing for most of this unusual winter.

Lack of snow in October, November and December has been tough on businesses that rely on winter activity spending. Ski hills, snowmobile services, restaurants, confectionary and grocery stores and others all have been hurt by the snowless first half of winter.

Some regional tourism officials estimate financial losses in the millions of dollars because of the lack of snow. So, the recent snowfalls finally have given them reason to cheer.

Plants and animals can’t cheer, but if they could their voices would be loud and happy.

We humans often see winter as a time pretty much devoid of life. Bears and some other animals are hibernating; many birds have gone south. However, unseen by us are life activities beneath the snow. Life that is preserved by the snow.

A snow pack of just a few inches can stabilize soil temperatures, providing just enough warmth to keep snakes, bugs and small animals like voles and mice from freezing. The snow also gives them some protection from predators.

Some plants continue to be active beneath the winter snow. It insulates their root systems from extreme cold, while mosses, fungi and even flowers continue to function and even germinate beneath the snow. 

Without snow, life becomes more difficult for animals that don’t hibernate or go south.

The lynx with its snowshoe-like paws has a harder time pursuing prey. Others, like some hares whose coats turn white when snow arrives, are more exposed to predators.

Wolverines, which have been making a bit of a comeback in Ontario, do not reproduce well in the absence of snow. Snow cover in areas where they reproduce has been diminishing. 

Some Rocky Mountain regions are said to have two fewer weeks of snow cover than 50 years ago. One study has found that the Alps in Europe could lose as much as 70 per cent of its snow cover by 2100.

These changes are increasing scientific interest in winter ecology, the study of relationships between living things and their winter environment, Scientists studying climate change are documenting how less snow is creating changes in the global environment.

They are concerned that a warming planet with less snow and ice is forcing some plants and animals to move from regions they have occupied for centuries. For instance, areas with less annual snow melt could become unsuitable for growing food. Animals like the wolverine could abandon areas where less snow has reduced their ability to survive and reproduce.

Researchers are finding that earlier spring melting, and less of it, might be a reason why we are seeing more severe forest wildfires. Some research has found that landscapes burned by wildfires had less water from snowmelt than unburned areas. And, snow melted nine days earlier in burned areas compared with unburned areas.

There is a lot of talk and worry about melting glaciers, but the effects of disappearing glaciers are tiny compared to shrinking snow packs. Snow holds huge amounts of moisture that is released slowly as temperatures rise, nourishing plants as they need it.

Melting snow also becomes a natural reservoir system providing water for human communities. For instance, one-third of the water used by California cities and farmland comes from melted snowpacks.

Perhaps the most important factor of snow is that it helps regulate the temperature of an increasingly warming planet. 

Snow is highly reflective, sending the sun’s radiation back into the atmosphere instead of into the ground where it increases the earth’s temperature.

Scientists say that new snow cover can reflect up to 90 per cent of the sun’s radiation back into the atmosphere. Sea ice reflects only roughly 60 per cent back to the sky, land without snow 10 to 20 percent and open ocean a mere six per cent.

So like it or hate it, winter’s snow is a critically important part of our world. We can live without the inconveniences it brings, and even the pleasures of winter recreations. But we cannot live without the water it provides to maintain our health and grow the food we need to survive.