Readers’ Forum

Keep Aboriginal Articles Coming

 

We welcome Readers’ Forum letters of interest to the professions. Send them to George Lee, glee@apega.ca. Keep them to 300 words or less — longer letters published at the editor’s discretion. Letters represent the opinions and not necessarily the expertise of writers. The PEGG reserves the right to edit or reject any letter.

Re: A History of Violence, by Robert Laboucane, The PEGG, October 2008, and Laboucane Articles on Aboriginal Issues Don’t Belong in PEGG, by Konstantin Ashkinadze, P.Eng., Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, November 2008.

I congratulate the editors of The PEGG for publishing Mr. Laboucane’s articles. I urge them to continue such articles to enhance the education of our members on Aboriginal issues.

The cited letter demonstrates that improved education of our members on Aboriginal issues is needed. The writer questioned whether we as professionals are “liable for the actions of our distant predecessors who conquered this land.”

Our distant predecessors did not conquer our Aboriginals. Rather, they enlisted them as allies in their disputes with other colonizers and as partners in the fur trade.

The current land claims by Aboriginals are based on legitimate treaties and agreements. The exact intent of these agreements is of course subject to interpretation. That is the duty of our governments and our courts to resolve.

This is not something that we as professionals can dismiss or ignore. Indeed, we should be encouraging those responsible to resolve these long-standing disputes in a timely fashion.

Jim McKendry, P.Eng.
APEGGA Life Member
Calgary

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I believe that we should all be concerned about Aboriginal awareness in our lives today, and this should be reflected in The PEGG. A lot of the issues are not from a different time and place; they are still happening now, very recently or in people’s living memories.

As part of APEGGA’s Aboriginal Mentoring Program, now well established in Calgary and in development in Edmonton, I see firsthand the needs of the youth of today who are looking for role models, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, to come into their schools and connect with them. This is a great challenge and opportunity that professional engineers and geologists should definitely be a part of.

Marie-Eve Caron, Geol.I.T.
Calgary

* * *

I have appreciated APEGGA’s efforts to raise members’ Aboriginal awareness via the series of articles by Robert Laboucane, all of which I have read.

I think it is now time for Mr. Laboucane to outline some solutions. He can start by describing the need for and consequences of removing the current Indian Act, giving some background about the act, why it is failing, how it needs to be changed or remade, and the expected outcomes for First Nations and individual Aboriginals.

With that information and awareness, APEGGA members will better understand what can be done and appreciate what they can do, if necessary, via their local politicians to improve the life of Canada’s First Nations and Métis peoples.

There are other topical solutions regarding Aboriginals that Mr. Laboucane could address as well, but the changing or removal of the current Indian Act has been a recurring theme in his columns.

Bruce Calderbank, P.Eng.
Offshore Guyana

Points Made On Both Sides in Gore Debate
Re: Member Trains with Al Gore for Climate Message, The PEGG, September 2008; PEGG Criticized for Story on Al Gore Training, Readers’ Forum, The PEGG, October 2008; and All Climate Change Viewpoints Should be Welcome in The PEGG, Readers’ Forum, November 2008.

I was not surprised to find valid points on both sides. The original article did not appear to endorse any viewpoint. It was a factual reporting of a training course, which the editor confirmed in the footnote in October.

The first Readers’ Forum respondents perceived it as an endorsement of the Al Gore course, which I did not. Had it been an endorsement their criticism would have been valid.

I did not see any specific criticism of Kae Shummoogum, P.Eng., beyond the statement that he has no formal qualification in climatology. Rather, the October letters were objections to the perceived endorsement and content of the Al Gore presentation.

The facts regarding the gross errors and exaggerations in the Gore presentation and the fact that it was banned as a part of the British school curriculum were correct, so to use the term “unsubstantiated,” as a November writer did, was inappropriate. These facts and critiques have been widely published.

I have for a long time subscribed to the philosophy, “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend with my life your right to say it.” I only wish the supporters of the doctrine of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were of the same mind. It is a trained reflex by the IPCC faithful to condemn any criticism of the panel with the shrillest and most emotional rhetoric, albeit sadly lacking in scientific detail.

Clearly the IPCC has declared that the science incontrovertible and that there is no longer need for debate. It talks of scientific proof, where all it has is the correlation of flawed and manipulated data, from which empirical formulas are derived and computer programs generated.

All 23 of the panel’s general circulation models have been proven hopelessly wrong by the climate data of the last 10 years. Just in case someone out there has not noticed, the world has been in a precipitous temperature decline since the beginning of 2007 and the hottest recent year was 1998, 10 years ago. So where is the crisis and why the condemnation of dissent?

If anyone has some solid scientific proof, please present it.

The media reported some time ago that David Suzuki thought politicians not acting in accordance with the IPCC’s opinion on climate change should be jailed. Intimidation of IPCC critics is so rampant that many government and university scientists who do not subscribe to the IPCC doctrine are afraid to speak out. This combines with the unwavering support of Reuters, AP and CNN, creating the basis for “consensus” — another IPCC falsification.

With regards to the traditional, pompous defence of the IPCC, as an English playwright once wrote, “ Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

The PEGG has published many of my letters and I try very hard to keep them accurate and factual. I find it strange that at no time have any of the IPCC devotees challenged me, instead limiting their comments to vague, emotional and unsubstantiated rhetoric.

Barry A. Moore, P.Eng.
Calgary

Climate Change Déjà Vu — All Over Again
I have read with increasing dismay the litanies about climate change that have persisted for many years in these pages. I am dismayed because of the very strong positions adopted by so many readers on both sides of the fence, with opinions regularly based on inadequate data. Let us all hope and pray that this approach does not flow freely into their professional work.

Final resolution of the enigma (if this should ever be possible) is currently beset by a myriad of serious problems for which, as yet, we have no solution. We are on the horns of a dilemma, between the quixotic, tilt-at-windmill forces and the paralysis-by-analysis forces.

Let me appeal, once again, for us Albertans to step back from the arguments about the details (yes, even the basics) of climate change and take refuge on ground we all should be able to agree on — we are running out of oil and gas. Therefore, if we take all reasonable, non-draconian measures to preserve oil and gas, we would reduce CO2, thereby making the climate change folks happy and conserving a precious resource at the same time.

Is this not a win-win approach?

The Parliament of Canada needs an example of decorum. We APEGGA folks can demonstrate how it is done!

R. F. (Dick) Wilson, P.Geoph.
APEGGA Life Member
Calgary

Less Use Of Fossil Fuels is Essential
The continuing debate about climate change and whether to do anything about is about as relevant as debating whether the world is round. Take, for example, the policies of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers.

ASHRAE sets standards for institutional, commercial and industrial buildings the world over. It concluded years ago that our current rate of energy use is unsustainable for both ecological and economic reasons, and it has shouldered the responsibility of bringing its membership up to speed on overcoming the barriers to building and retrofitting more efficient buildings.

Anyone still having doubts about the science and where opposition to the conclusions of Nobel Prize-winning scientists has originated could access CBC’s Fifth Estate archive, where the documentary The Denial Machine is still available. It turns out that one denier, a Dr. S. Fred Singer, is the same person linked to the tobacco industry while defending its views.

There are compelling reasons for making the shift to conservation and efficiency quite apart from ecological carnage and human impacts, and they relate to a competitive economy. A November 2008 Doing Business item in The PEGG suggests a $5-billion expansion of Alberta’s electrical grid will go ahead, even though there has been no public debate about whether that upgrade is even required. Yet in a comparison between the cost of expanding capacity and achieving the same result with a combination of efficiency upgrades and renewables, the latter is a clear winner.

There are a host of proven tech-nologies such as electronically commuted motors, compact fluorescents and micro cogeneration that can achieve quantum leaps in efficiency and dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas and pollution outputs.

Putting all our eggs in the obsolete basket of ever-increasing energy use will brand us an irrelevant backwater while the rest of the world leaves us behind. The U.S. economic revival will not include encouraging consumers to borrow more money for huge SUVs — it will revolve around investments in the efficiency required to wean its economy from imported oil.

The only question remaining is whether we want to lead or be dragged along.

Emile Rocher, P.Eng.
High River

APEGGA Members Play Major Role in CSCE Conference
The annual conference of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering provides an excellent opportunity to present practical, multi-faceted approaches to economic, environmental and societal challenges associated with the construction and restoration of infrastructure. I was lucky enough to attend the 2008 CSCE conference, held June 10-13 in Quebec City.

The conference provides a platform for productive exchanges among engineers, technicians, suppliers, researchers and decision-makers in the public and private sectors from around the world. Last year’s was the 37th annual edition, and the theme was Partnership for Innovation.

This event also included the 10th International Environmental Specialty Conference, the sixth International Structural Specialty Conference, the seventh International Transportation Specialty Conference, and the first International Forum on Construction Innovation. Also, the technical and student affairs committees held the annual student competition. There was, in other words, something for just about anyone connected with or interested in civil engineering.

APEGGA members were well represented. The major Alberta contribution was 22 papers (19 presentations) on construction. Six more APEGGA papers were presented in the general category, two in environmental, eight in structural and two in transportation.

The credit for making the first International Forum on Construction Innovation so successful goes to two University of Alberta professors — Dr. Simaan M. AbouRizk, P.Eng., who is the NSERC Senior Industrial Research Chair, and the Dr. Mohamed Al-Hussein, P.Eng. Both have also been active at past CSCE conferences as technical editors and advisers.

Dr. Daniel Smith, P.Eng., a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, was keynote speaker for the Environmental Specialty Conference. He talked about the movements and reactions of contaminants of emerging concern, their effects and detection techniques.

Dr. Smith commented on current technologies to reduce adverse effects of the contaminants and discussed future directions for study and development. In his opinion, however, the most important approach is legislation putting public and environmental health protection ahead of economic benefit.
Over 300 papers were presented and over 500 delegates participated, comprising engineers, technicians, suppliers, researchers and decision-makers in the public and private sectors from around the world.

The conference was a great success, and it was wonderful to be a part of an Alberta team sharing knowledge with other researchers and working professionals.

Under the theme, On the Leading Edge, the next annual conference will be held in St. John’s from May 27-30.

Mukesh Mathrani, P.Eng.
Edmonton

Editor’s Note: The writer is a civil and environmental engineer with Colt Engineering Corporation, A Division of WorleyParsons Canada, and also the treasurer of the APEGGA Edmonton Branch. His employer provided financial support to allow him to present a CSCE conference paper titled Site Containment and Drainage Improvements at Enbridge Pipeline Facilities in Western Canada.