I feel like I came down pretty hard on the future in my column last week. I didn’t mean to spew negativity about the bleak outlook for society, simply because the Gulf of Mexico is turning into a ‘Texas tea’-pot. So, in order to slickly blot out anymore thoughts of oil running amok down south, I’d like to address a few developments that I do think bode well for the future.
Better Place, a US firm specializing in electric vehicle development, has teamed up with Nihon Kotsu, Japan’s largest taxi operator, for what seems like a promising collaboration.
They recently began testing electric cabs in Tokyo, and are optimistic the tests will lead to the eventual modernization of the city’s entire taxi fleet — 60,000 vehicles in all.
The vehicles’ rechargable Lithium-ion batteries can travel about 300 kilometres on a charge, before drivers must return to a ‘switching station’ where a fresh battery can be installed in less than a minute.
This seems like a strong step towards achieving Japan’s ambitious plan to lower carbon dioxide emission levels 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, which far outdoes similar pledges from Canada and the U.S. who have agreed to only reduce emissions by 17 per cent compared to 2005 levels by 2020.
The provincial government has a slightly more robust goal in mind: 15 per cent fewer greenhouse emissions compared to 1990 levels by 2020, and an 80 per cent reduction by 2050.
To this end, one possible measure I’ve heard about is a high-speed rail system that would ‘knit together’ Ontario cities around the Golden Horseshoe, and could possibly stretch from Windsor all the way to Ottawa. It would come with a price tag between $25 and $35 billion, but I think that would be worth it if I could get from London to Toronto in 37 minutes.
It’s too bad Canadians can’t improve their ecological footprint by logging onto the Internet — they certainly know how to do that; according to a recent study we’re actually getting better at it.
According to Statistics Canada, 80 per cent of Canadians, or 21.7 million people, used the Internet for personal reasons in 2009, up from 73 percent in 2007. The most connected provinces were Alberta and B.C., with 85 per cent surfing the web, while Ontario was close behind, with 81 per cent.
Finally, it seems that in the near future the entire collection of human digital output — made up of things like blogs and digital photos and tweets and online videos — will soon exceed one zettabyte of information.
To put that into context, a single five-inch wide digital photo takes up about three Megabytes (or 3,000,000 bytes). A zettabyte is equal to one sextillion bytes — or a ‘1’ followed by 21 zeroes.
What an incredible mass of knowledge we’ve been able to collect since the dawn of the information age! Now, let’s just hope nobody pulls the plug.Memorial organizer Bruce Davidson, front left, walks with residents during special commemorative ceremonies Sunday, recognizing the 10th anniversary of Walkerton’s water tragedy.