Showing posts with the label landscape

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What's Happening at Tabaret?

The University of Ottawa recently announced that construction is beginning on the Tabaret / Grand Allée project. Essentially, the whole project is an extension of the Grand Allée (or the Grand Alley in English but no one really calls it that). There are a lot of good things about the project and a few sad things about it too. A recent article in the uOttawa Gazette spoke about the "makeover" of the space and some of the features. But I feel that more should be done to explain some of the details about the project. In fact, the project is more of a restoration than a makeover. So here is our contribution to what is happening in front of Tabaret. As it stands right now, the Grand Allée extends from the FSS tower all the way to Laurier. This new segment would include the other side of the street betweet Tabaret and Academic Hall, essentially bringing the space in front of Tabaret to the same standards as the rest of the Grand Allée. And it kind of needed it, I mean ...

Hey remember acid rain? Yeah... not cool

As I drive along a road to my grand-father’s house on the week-end, I can’t help but notice the monster smokestacks that spoil Sudbury’s landscape. They can be spotted from miles away; towering over the (unusually) short vegetation and blackened granite. You can actually see a line where the exposed rocks have been blackened, and the recently broken or weathered rocks are pink and light grey (their natural color). Then it happened; a terribly geeky science moment! I remembered reading about acid rain problems in Sudbury being the cause for the lack of lush forest and bountiful wildlife; all because of the mega-smokestacks: Acid rain is produced when pollutants such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) are chemically transformed to sulphuric acid in the atmosphere; they are then transported and eventually deposited in the form of rain or snow. Over 90% of acid rain in North America is the result of burning fossil fuels for energy (such as coal), and more importantly smelting or refining sulphur...