Tag Archives: Permian era

Robert Bringhurst on local history, science, poetry, the ridge where he lives and much more

On Saturday Robert Bringhurst (RB) brings his own brand of literature, local history, science and humour to the stage of the Quadra Community Centre. He just gave Cortes Currents a taste in a rambling conversation that at one point went off topic to include remarks about Cortes Island, Campbell River and Whistler. Bringhurst started out by describing his intentions in the epic description of ‘the Ridge’ on Quadra Island where he lives.    

RB: “I wanted to make good poetry out of, among other things, good science. I wanted  to walk the ridge and relish it as one does without any thought of scientific measurement or accuracy, but I also wanted to think about it as a real place in historical time and to look at the species in relation to other species on the planet, and at the rocks in relation to other rocks. I began to wonder how much biology, geology, astronomy and climatology I could put in this poem without sinking it. The answer turned out to be quite a bit.” 

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Another Major Extinction

Originally published on Greenpeace International

By Rex Weyler

Earth’s living community is now suffering the most severe biodiversity crisis in 65 million years, since a meteorite struck near modern Chicxulub, Mexico, injecting dust and sulphuric acid into the atmosphere, and devastating 76% of all living species, including the dinosaurs. Ecologists now ask whether or not Earth has entered another major extinction event, if extinctions are as important as general diversity collapse, and which emergency actions we might take to reverse the disturbing trends.

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