From the Tuesday, October 30, 2007, Toronto Star, News section, page A3, the forest industry pledging to become carbon neutral:
CANADA'S FOREST INDUSTRY TO TURN OVER A NEW LEAF
Making plans to meet carbon-neutral pledge
Peter Gorrie
Environment Reporter
Canada's forest industry says it will be carbon neutral by 2015.
In what is likely the first such pledge by any major industry sector in the world, the forest companies say their logging, paper and pulp operations, and the products they produce, will, in effect, no longer be a source of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
And they'll do it, they say, without resorting to offsets - the controversial practice in which polluters continue to spew emissions, but contribute to projects elsewhere that claim to reduce them.
The effort must extend beyond forests and mills to wood and paper consumers, such as construction sites, homes and offices, Avrim Lazar, president of the Forest Products Association of Canada, said.
The aim is to protect both the environment and the industry's bottom line, said Lazar, who was to announce the pledge this morning at a conference in Ottawa.
Global demand for wood products is soaring, he said, "If people continue to do it the old way... it won't be very good for the planet."
The devastating spread of pine beetles in British Columbia - partly because winters are no longer cold enough to kill the insects - is a wake-up call, he said.
"We got a lesson in the impact of climate change before most of the rest of Canada."
As well, global buyers increasingly demand products from "sustainable" operations. That can be an edge for Canadian firms, which face fierce competition from China, Brazil and other places where trees grow faster, costs are lower, and environment rules can be lax.
The Canadian industry has reduced its greenhouse emissions 44 per cent since 1990, when its output increased by 20 per cent.
That puts it far ahead of Canada's Kyoto Protocol target - a 6 per cent cut.
Most of the industry's reductions have been at pulp and paper mills, which have become more efficient and, in many cases, converted from oil and gas to renewable fuels. But much of the effort will involve keeping wood and paper out of landfills where, as it decomposes, it releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
About half the paper used in Canada is recycled, Lazar said. To improve that figure, the industry will use publicity to target consumers in offices and apartment buildings, where recycling rates are low.
Another focus will be recycling wood waste at construction sites. The aim is to have it recycled into plywood, particleboard or paper; or sent to high-tech plants that burn wood for heat and electricity.
"We hope other industries will rise to the challenge" of doing the same, or better, said Lorne Johnson of World Wildlife Fund Canada, which is working with the association. Other green groups are on an advisory panel.
Johnson added the odds are good the industry will meet the target. "They're already doing a good job."
Shifting Into Neutral
How the Canadian forestry industry plans to meet its 2015 target:
* Become energy self-sufficient - switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
* Adopt energy-efficient technologies.
* Increase diversion of used forest products from landfills.
* Cap more landfills to prevent methane leaks.
* Increase cogeneration - using waste heat to generate electricity.
* Increase potential of forests and wood products to store carbon.
* Maximize recycling of paper and wood products.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
British Business Group & Climate Change Commitment
From the Business section of the Toronto Star, Tuesday, November 27, 2007, page B4:
U.K. EMPLOYER GROUP VOWS TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE
London - Britain's top employer's organization pledged yesterday to help combat climate change, saying the issue is an urgent priority for business, government and consumers alike.
The Confederation of British Industry has placed global warming at the heart ofits agenda at the start of its annual two-day conference in London.
Reporting the findings of its climate change task force, the federation called for fundamental change in British business and issued a series of pledges to help companies adopt greener practices.
Firms must "change their business models to meet consumers' and society's needs in an era of climate change," it said.
One key pledge was to "develop new products and services that will empoyer households to halve their emissions by 2020."
Another vow was to save an extra 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
Federation director-general Richard Lambert added: "This report makes clear that in the future, businesses will have to be green to grow."
The task force comprises top executives from 18 well-known companies, such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell and steel maker Corus, which employ some two million people.
"Today the ... task force has demonstrated its commitment to tackling climate change," said chair Ben Verwaayen, who is also head of telecommunications group BT.
Meanwhile, the federation has questioned the British government's ambitious targets to slash carbon emissions by 26 per cent to 32 per cent by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050.
"The U.K.'s carbon reduction targets for 2020 are likely to be missed , but that 2050 goal, whilst stretching, can be achieved at a manageable cost - provided a greater sense of urgency is now adopted, " it said, citing analysis by McKinsey consultants.
Agence France-Presse
U.K. EMPLOYER GROUP VOWS TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE
London - Britain's top employer's organization pledged yesterday to help combat climate change, saying the issue is an urgent priority for business, government and consumers alike.
The Confederation of British Industry has placed global warming at the heart ofits agenda at the start of its annual two-day conference in London.
Reporting the findings of its climate change task force, the federation called for fundamental change in British business and issued a series of pledges to help companies adopt greener practices.
Firms must "change their business models to meet consumers' and society's needs in an era of climate change," it said.
One key pledge was to "develop new products and services that will empoyer households to halve their emissions by 2020."
Another vow was to save an extra 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
Federation director-general Richard Lambert added: "This report makes clear that in the future, businesses will have to be green to grow."
The task force comprises top executives from 18 well-known companies, such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell and steel maker Corus, which employ some two million people.
"Today the ... task force has demonstrated its commitment to tackling climate change," said chair Ben Verwaayen, who is also head of telecommunications group BT.
Meanwhile, the federation has questioned the British government's ambitious targets to slash carbon emissions by 26 per cent to 32 per cent by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050.
"The U.K.'s carbon reduction targets for 2020 are likely to be missed , but that 2050 goal, whilst stretching, can be achieved at a manageable cost - provided a greater sense of urgency is now adopted, " it said, citing analysis by McKinsey consultants.
Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Climate Change Affects Poor the Most
From 24 hours, Wednesday, November 28, 2007, page 3, an article about the impacts of climate change that will unduly affect the poor:
CLIMATE CHANGE
Poor will suffer: UN
Rich countries must provide some $86 billion by 2015 to help the world's poor adapt to global warming, an expert United Nations panel warned yesterday.
The nearly 400-page Human Development Report comes just a week before a major new world conference convenes in Indonesia to negotiate a successor climate treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Accord.
It adds a dire economic perspective to previous UN scientific findings that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions must be stabilized by 2015 and then reduced.
Without the money, a warmer world "could stall and then reverse human development" in the countries where 2.6 billion people live on $2 a day or less, according to the UN Development Program panel.
Scientists have reported that temperatures have risen an average 0.7 degrees Celsius over the last 100 years, bringing the prospect of a century of extreme weather, rising seas, widening drought and disease and harm to fisheries, forests and farmland.
According to development officials, the consequences include women and young girls walking further to collect water in the Horn of Africa, people erecting bamboo flood shelters on stilts in the delta of the Ganges River in India.
"These impacts ... go unnoticed in financial markets and in the measurement of world gross domestic product (GDP)," the panel's report said.
"But increased exposure to drought, to more intense storms, to floods and environmental stress is holding back the efforts of the world's poor to build a better life for themselves and their children."
The Associated Press
CLIMATE CHANGE
Poor will suffer: UN
Rich countries must provide some $86 billion by 2015 to help the world's poor adapt to global warming, an expert United Nations panel warned yesterday.
The nearly 400-page Human Development Report comes just a week before a major new world conference convenes in Indonesia to negotiate a successor climate treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Accord.
It adds a dire economic perspective to previous UN scientific findings that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions must be stabilized by 2015 and then reduced.
Without the money, a warmer world "could stall and then reverse human development" in the countries where 2.6 billion people live on $2 a day or less, according to the UN Development Program panel.
Scientists have reported that temperatures have risen an average 0.7 degrees Celsius over the last 100 years, bringing the prospect of a century of extreme weather, rising seas, widening drought and disease and harm to fisheries, forests and farmland.
According to development officials, the consequences include women and young girls walking further to collect water in the Horn of Africa, people erecting bamboo flood shelters on stilts in the delta of the Ganges River in India.
"These impacts ... go unnoticed in financial markets and in the measurement of world gross domestic product (GDP)," the panel's report said.
"But increased exposure to drought, to more intense storms, to floods and environmental stress is holding back the efforts of the world's poor to build a better life for themselves and their children."
The Associated Press
Friday, December 14, 2007
Heat Waves: Say Goodbye to Real Winters
I have never seen as many articles on global warming as I have this year. The media has finally realized the skeptics have been leading them down the garden path for years and they were too lazy to look into the issues to know what the consensus of real scientists had to say about it.
An Inconvenient Truth was an eye opener not just to people but also to journalists and others in the media. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report and/or the Nobel Prize won in connection with Al Gore on climate change helped put the nail in the coffin (except among ultra-right wing conservative think tanks funded by the dirty industries - oil, agribusiness, cars, and so on) that there wasn't enough certainty about the science on climate change.
The over-the-top weather events have worried some and given others first-hand experience of what climate change means. The mayor of Atlanta sure "gets" climate change this year after the long drought and effect on the city's water supply and that of the state's and adjoining states.
The increased media coverage of the the sea ice or ice shelves or glacier melts in Arctic or Antarctic or Greenland also underline the climate change probably dramatically.
From the Ideas section of the Toronto Star, Sunday, September 9, 2007, page ID2, here is an article under a picture of people moving a small boat from open water over ice.
A PICTURE AND A THOUSAND WORDS
Tempted to whinge about summer's latest (and maybe last) heat wave? Just remember this
Bill Taylor
Feature Writer
Lest we forget, now that our driest summer in 50 years has given us a valedictory blast of heat, this is what February was like. February in Quebec, but not a whole lot removed from what February was like on Queens' Quay, staring out across the lake to Centre Island.
It's painful just to look at this picture. It was even more painful to shoot it from the breezy deck of a ferry butting through the ice-choked St. Lawrence between Quebec City and Levis. The temperature? Minus way-too-much.
Nothing the five-person crew - so out of place on a river that, even in the depths of winter, is a perilously busy seaway - was wearing could possibly keep them properly warm or dry. The current was fast enough to make scrambling out of the boat and on to the harsh, unforgiving ice doubly perilous. An ice floe is really just a small iceberg with 90 per cent of its mass below the surface. Bigger and more dangerous than you might think, especially when it's careening along like a bus with no brakes.
In the distance, a small, blue-hulled tanker moved slowly upriver in the direction of Montreal. It's bridge was emblazoned with a huge "No Smoking" sign. A few minutes earlier, a big grey freighter had passed going the other way, heading for the ocean.
There was a tug bustling about its business, too, and two ferries criss-crossing. This was surely no place for cockleshell heroes to play, but the little green boat darted about like a demented water beetle, everyone having an uproarious time.
Local lore has it that in pre-ferry days, the mail-delivery contract went to the crew who could get across the river fastest, rowing between ice floes and dragging the boat over them. A highly competitive business. Now it's a highly competitive sport, a mainstay of Quebec's annual Winter Carnival; possibly the sport I most don't ever want to try. Alligator wrestling? Sure, bring it on.
Winter carnivals could become an endangered species. As could Canadian winters. Shovelling the walk. Weekend ski trips. Backyard shinny. Ontario icewine. Frostbite and snowboarding compound fractures. Ah, memories.
The UN World Meteorological Organization says this past winter was the warmest since record-keeping began in 1880. (Who, one wonders, first had the brainwave: "Hey let's write down the temperature today. And tomorrow and ..." And someone else must have said, "Wow, yeah, awesome!" Or words to that effect.)
According to New Scientist magazine, Britain's records go back to 1659, and last year was its warmest since then. That was the year, incidentally, that Richard Cromwell dissolved the English parliament and later resigned as the country's Lord Protector. And there was a drought in India.
Climatologists say this year could be even hotter, with a "very active" hurricane season. The ferry between St. Barbe, Nfld., and Blanc Sablon, Labrador, resumed service last spring earlier than ever before.
Last year, hardly any place in the world escaped without some weather aberration, New Scientist reports. Heat waves in Europe, the United States, Latin America and Australia (I was in Sydney on New Year's Day, 2006; the temperature hit 45 and the bush north of the city went up in flames); a crippling drought in China and its worst cyclones in years; floods in Europe, the United States and Africa, including the Sahara Desert.
In November, Vancouver had almost twice its normal average rainfall. Meanwhile, Arctic ice continues to melt at an ever-increasing rate. The U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research predicted last year that by 2040 - only 33 years from now - the Arctic Ocean could be devoid of ice.
Tourism's doing better and better, though. The European Union's recent embrace of an "open skies" policy will lower transatlantic fares, add planes and give travellers far more credit-card-friendly choices. U.S. and European airlines will be able to fly between any EU city and any American city.
As U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters put it: "Tearing down regulatory barriers allows us to foster more affordable and convenient air travel and gives our airline industry more opportunities to compete, innovate and thrive."
And pollute the hell out of the upper atmosphere.
It's expected to put tickets in to the hands of more than 26 additional people over the next five years. Airlines are scrambling to grab chunks of the new action.
This includes Virgin, whose founder, Sir Richard Branson, last year pledged the next 10 years' profits from his planes and trains - an estimated $3.5 billion - to fight global warming. More passengers, more planes, more profit, more pollution . . . That noise you hear is the jangle of irony.
We seem to be going to hell, not so much in a hand basket as in a cut-price seat on a jetliner leaving a destructive vapour trail across the more-crowded, less-friendly skies. Brown becomes the new blue and the seagulls turn tubercular and fall coughing from the air.
The diesel fashion label was quick to mount a footwear ad campaign showing such things as the Great Wall of China crossing a desert and parrots rather than pigeons in a city square, with the slogan, "Global warming ready." Cute.
One day, perhaps in our children's lifetime if not our own, winter might just be a word instead of a season. Songs about warm, woollen mittens and snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes will be an incomprehensible as "Sumer is icomen in, Lhude sing cucco" to anyone who hasn't studied Chaucerian English. The cuckoo will be sweating too much to sing, anyway, loudly or not.
When Vermont has lost its maple-sugar industry to Quebec. When New York is under water, an archipelago of skyscraper tips and the Statue of Liberty's bedraggled arm, not waving but drowning. When the grapevines flourish along the St. Lawrence and we're sitting on the upturned hulls of obsolete ice-boats sipping our Chateau Frontenac or Cotes du Heights of Abraham, all we'll have left will be fading pictures like this.
An Inconvenient Truth was an eye opener not just to people but also to journalists and others in the media. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report and/or the Nobel Prize won in connection with Al Gore on climate change helped put the nail in the coffin (except among ultra-right wing conservative think tanks funded by the dirty industries - oil, agribusiness, cars, and so on) that there wasn't enough certainty about the science on climate change.
The over-the-top weather events have worried some and given others first-hand experience of what climate change means. The mayor of Atlanta sure "gets" climate change this year after the long drought and effect on the city's water supply and that of the state's and adjoining states.
The increased media coverage of the the sea ice or ice shelves or glacier melts in Arctic or Antarctic or Greenland also underline the climate change probably dramatically.
From the Ideas section of the Toronto Star, Sunday, September 9, 2007, page ID2, here is an article under a picture of people moving a small boat from open water over ice.
A PICTURE AND A THOUSAND WORDS
Tempted to whinge about summer's latest (and maybe last) heat wave? Just remember this
Bill Taylor
Feature Writer
Lest we forget, now that our driest summer in 50 years has given us a valedictory blast of heat, this is what February was like. February in Quebec, but not a whole lot removed from what February was like on Queens' Quay, staring out across the lake to Centre Island.
It's painful just to look at this picture. It was even more painful to shoot it from the breezy deck of a ferry butting through the ice-choked St. Lawrence between Quebec City and Levis. The temperature? Minus way-too-much.
Nothing the five-person crew - so out of place on a river that, even in the depths of winter, is a perilously busy seaway - was wearing could possibly keep them properly warm or dry. The current was fast enough to make scrambling out of the boat and on to the harsh, unforgiving ice doubly perilous. An ice floe is really just a small iceberg with 90 per cent of its mass below the surface. Bigger and more dangerous than you might think, especially when it's careening along like a bus with no brakes.
In the distance, a small, blue-hulled tanker moved slowly upriver in the direction of Montreal. It's bridge was emblazoned with a huge "No Smoking" sign. A few minutes earlier, a big grey freighter had passed going the other way, heading for the ocean.
There was a tug bustling about its business, too, and two ferries criss-crossing. This was surely no place for cockleshell heroes to play, but the little green boat darted about like a demented water beetle, everyone having an uproarious time.
Local lore has it that in pre-ferry days, the mail-delivery contract went to the crew who could get across the river fastest, rowing between ice floes and dragging the boat over them. A highly competitive business. Now it's a highly competitive sport, a mainstay of Quebec's annual Winter Carnival; possibly the sport I most don't ever want to try. Alligator wrestling? Sure, bring it on.
Winter carnivals could become an endangered species. As could Canadian winters. Shovelling the walk. Weekend ski trips. Backyard shinny. Ontario icewine. Frostbite and snowboarding compound fractures. Ah, memories.
The UN World Meteorological Organization says this past winter was the warmest since record-keeping began in 1880. (Who, one wonders, first had the brainwave: "Hey let's write down the temperature today. And tomorrow and ..." And someone else must have said, "Wow, yeah, awesome!" Or words to that effect.)
According to New Scientist magazine, Britain's records go back to 1659, and last year was its warmest since then. That was the year, incidentally, that Richard Cromwell dissolved the English parliament and later resigned as the country's Lord Protector. And there was a drought in India.
Climatologists say this year could be even hotter, with a "very active" hurricane season. The ferry between St. Barbe, Nfld., and Blanc Sablon, Labrador, resumed service last spring earlier than ever before.
Last year, hardly any place in the world escaped without some weather aberration, New Scientist reports. Heat waves in Europe, the United States, Latin America and Australia (I was in Sydney on New Year's Day, 2006; the temperature hit 45 and the bush north of the city went up in flames); a crippling drought in China and its worst cyclones in years; floods in Europe, the United States and Africa, including the Sahara Desert.
In November, Vancouver had almost twice its normal average rainfall. Meanwhile, Arctic ice continues to melt at an ever-increasing rate. The U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research predicted last year that by 2040 - only 33 years from now - the Arctic Ocean could be devoid of ice.
Tourism's doing better and better, though. The European Union's recent embrace of an "open skies" policy will lower transatlantic fares, add planes and give travellers far more credit-card-friendly choices. U.S. and European airlines will be able to fly between any EU city and any American city.
As U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters put it: "Tearing down regulatory barriers allows us to foster more affordable and convenient air travel and gives our airline industry more opportunities to compete, innovate and thrive."
And pollute the hell out of the upper atmosphere.
It's expected to put tickets in to the hands of more than 26 additional people over the next five years. Airlines are scrambling to grab chunks of the new action.
This includes Virgin, whose founder, Sir Richard Branson, last year pledged the next 10 years' profits from his planes and trains - an estimated $3.5 billion - to fight global warming. More passengers, more planes, more profit, more pollution . . . That noise you hear is the jangle of irony.
We seem to be going to hell, not so much in a hand basket as in a cut-price seat on a jetliner leaving a destructive vapour trail across the more-crowded, less-friendly skies. Brown becomes the new blue and the seagulls turn tubercular and fall coughing from the air.
The diesel fashion label was quick to mount a footwear ad campaign showing such things as the Great Wall of China crossing a desert and parrots rather than pigeons in a city square, with the slogan, "Global warming ready." Cute.
One day, perhaps in our children's lifetime if not our own, winter might just be a word instead of a season. Songs about warm, woollen mittens and snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes will be an incomprehensible as "Sumer is icomen in, Lhude sing cucco" to anyone who hasn't studied Chaucerian English. The cuckoo will be sweating too much to sing, anyway, loudly or not.
When Vermont has lost its maple-sugar industry to Quebec. When New York is under water, an archipelago of skyscraper tips and the Statue of Liberty's bedraggled arm, not waving but drowning. When the grapevines flourish along the St. Lawrence and we're sitting on the upturned hulls of obsolete ice-boats sipping our Chateau Frontenac or Cotes du Heights of Abraham, all we'll have left will be fading pictures like this.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Canada's Environmentally Dreadful Oil Sands
From the October 8, 2007, National section of Maclean's, an article about the toxic outcome for Alberta of the oil sands. I have always thought that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's reticence to cap emissions stems from his protectionism over the development of the oil sands in the province he is from. Apart from that, getting oil from the oil sands is a dirty business and will further ruin additional areas of that province.
Doomsday
Alberta Stands Accused
A huge fight between East and West - over the oil sands - is just starting
By Nicholas Kohler
Left unfettered, Alberta's energy sector will, by the end of this century, transform the southern part of the province into a desert and its north into a treeless, toxic swamp. Driven both by global warming and oil and gas developments, temperatures in Alberta will soar by as much as eight degrees. The Athabasca River will slow to a trickle, parching the remainder of the province's forests and encouraging them to burst into flame, generating vast quantities of CO2. "They're going to be the architects of their own destruction," says journalist William Marsden, whose new book outlines the environmental threats posed by Alberta's energy industry.
Even now, fish pulled from the Athabasca downstream of the oil sands taste of gasoline and smell of burning galoshes in the fry pan. The landscape is perforated by more than 300,000 oil and gas wells. Water in some areas to the south can be set alight with a match, likely due to coal-bed methane developments. Doctors administering to Aboriginal communities not far from the oil sands report high rates of thyroid conditions and rare diseases such as cancer of the bile duct. Some from those communities have been employed at the oil sands raking in the carcasses of ducks floating on vast pools of rotten water, the by-product of the sands' oil-extraction methods.
Such are the claims contained in Marsden's upcoming Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn't Seem to Care), which presents a scenario almost too frightening to contemplate and suggests Alberta may already be too far gone for redemption - indeed, that it is environmentally doomed. "When you start digging up an area equivalent to the state of Florida, when you start carpet-bombing your province with oil and gas wells, and at the same time, you've got global warming drying up the glaciers and your rivers - you're kind of looking at a doomsday scenario," he says. "It sounds bizarre, but it's an absolute possibility that they could be literally destroying themselves."
Marsden argues Alberta's political leadership has consistently neglected - in an almost willful, pathological way - to curb the destruction wrought by industry. Former premier Ralph Klein for years rejected placing controls on Alberta's energy sector and, according to Marsden, ordered the dismantling of oversight bodies that might have monitored the degradation, the extent of which remains somewhat unclear today as a result. Marsden charges the province with marginalizing scientists who sound warnings on the environment, quoting Rod Love, Klein's long-time chief of staff, dismissing them as "flakes."
The book is bound to enrage Alberta and its energy sector. "Why are Albertans so stupid?" Marsden asks an Alberta scientist at one point in the book. Designed to be provocative, Stupid to the Last Drop will come under intense fire as an exercise in fearmongering and West-bashing by a Montreal journalist. Yet it will be applauded by others who fear that the environment gets short shrift in Alberta. "I think it's useful to have books like that - it scares people, I guess," says David Keith, an expert on carbon capture at the University of Calgary.
Still, the fight Marsden is picking with Alberta may be a harbinger of a more titanic one to come. Alberta has become the country's economic engine - churning out money at the same time it spews huge emissions - and the rest of Canada, whether out of jealousy or genuine concern, may soon demand environmental controls be placed on the province, the country's worst industrial greenhouse gas emitter. Experts, from constitutional scholars to former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, are predicting a battle, and at the centre of that coming feud is the issue of how far the federal government can go in controlling a resource Alberta owns. It's a fight some fear may tear Canada apart.
Known mainly for his reporting on organized crime in Canada, Marsden has written a polemic on the Alberta environment that looks at first blush to be a departure. Marsden disagrees."Frankly, I think what's going on in Alberta is a crime," he says. "You get these kinds of political factions and gangsters, almost who have literally taken over a province - and are reducing it to catastrophic shape."
The riches generated by Alberta's energy sector are astounding, the stuff of breathless business stories and promises by the likes of Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the province is on the cusp of becoming an 'energy superpower." Earlier this year, Calgary-based EnCanada earned profits of $6.4 billion, a record-breaking sum. The provincial government's last budget showed a surplus of $8.5 billion. So dynamic is Alberta's energy boom that it's become, what with Ontario's struggling manufacturing sector, the real power in the economy. Remove Alberta from the Canadian economy, some say, and the country would now be in recession.
There is no denying, however, that the wealth comes at a huge environmental cost. In a rollicking, wry style Stupid to the last Drop outlines that environmental degradation, as well as the energy industry's appetite for wild schemes. Marsden dredges up, for example, a little-known plot hatched by an American geologist in the 1950s to free oil from the tar sands by detonating a nuclear device beneath an Alberta creek, a plan that came surprisingly close to execution. And yet, Marsden argues, what is going on right now is almost as outrageous.
Consider the millions in cubic metres of water that three oil sands projects - 20 more are in the works or pending approval - extract from the Athabasca river each year. The water, which in heated form is used to melt the bitumen free of the sands, is crucial; between two and six barrels of water are required to produce a single barrel of oil. Oil sands outfits are sucking 215.2 million cubic metres of water a year, twice what's required for the city of Calgary. Extractions form the Athabasca could triple in the next decade.
As a result of both global warming, which is melting the mountain glaciers that nourish Alberta's waterways, and oil sands extractions, flow in the Athabasca has been reduced by 30 per cent since 9170. By 2020, the oil sands could use as much as half the river's flow in winter, a time when it is at its lowest ebb and fish populations are most stressed. At such levels, says the Pembina Institute's Chris Severson-Baker, "You run the risk of killing the ecosystem." More, Marsden cites scientific research that suggests the 20th century was unusually kind to Alberta in water terms - a desert in its south is a real possibility, he says and warns that industry may be taking advantage of a natural anomaly.
Alberta's oil sands operations also struggle with the problem of what to do with the water once it's been used. Only eight per cent can be made sufficiently clean to go back to the Athabasca. The rest stagnates in huge ponds. "Birds that land on them never take off," David Schindler, an ecologist at the University of Alberta, told Maclean's. Oil sands operators now float buoys in the ponds equipped with hard-hat-wearing scarecrows and propane cannons, whose booming sounds are designed to prevent the water fowl from landing.
Consumption of natural gas, another critical oil sands ingredient, also boggles the mind. By the end of 2005, the industry's daily consumption could heat 3.2 million homes for a day. Marsden notes that present consumption could triple in the oil sands by 2015. Environmentalists have long decried the absurdity of wasting such huge quantities of reasonably clean energy to extract dirtier oil.
Then there's the question of greenhouse gas emissions. The Sierra Club of Canada says oil sands operations spewed 23.3 megatonnes of them in 2000 - about three per cent of Canada's total emissions. Those emissions are predicted to rise between 57 and 97 megatonnes by 2015, making the oil sands Canada's largest single contributor to global warming. The University of Calgary's Keith says the province is responsible for roughly 36 per cent of Canada's CO2 emissions, though most originate in the electrical power industry (the most significant emitters of any industry countrywide). Alberta, Keith points out is "only 11 per cent of the population - it's pretty asymmetric."
The projects are at the same time decimating Albert'a northern boreal forest, which forms an umbrella above a vast, metres-thick deposit of peat, a carbon sink that begins bleeding CO2 into the atmosphere upon excavation. "The boreal forest per unit area actually contains more carbon than the Amazon does," Schindler says. Adds Severson-Baker: "The public has been really focused on the critical role of the tropical rainforest, but the boreal forest plays a similar role" in regulating the earth's climate. The remainder of the boreal forest will soon become a tinderbox of forest fire activity due to a global warming-related pine beetle infestation and an increasingly dry Alberta, Marsden says. The Canadian Forest Service says global-warming models show the area burned by forest fires will double over the next century. High forest fire years already spew emissions equal to 90 per cent of industrial emissions, says Schindler.
It's a startling litany of environmental abuse. but some in Alberta point out that the province has already begun meeting these challenges by bringing in green legislation earlier this year more stringent than federal law. Others believe Marsden's Armageddon won't happen because industry will become cleaner through innovation. "We have a history of meeting those challenges," says Calgary-based Annette Hester, of the Centre for International Governance Innovation. "If it wasn't for meeting those challenges, we would never have an oil sands development in the first place." Oil sands outfits are required by the province to plan for land restoration. And cleaner and more efficient practices - carbon sequestration that buries CO2 or nuclear power as a replacement for natural gas - are in the offing.
Nor does Keith believe doomsday scenarios like those presented by Marsden. Though effects like an eight-degree rise in temperature - one potential outcome included in the book - are possible, "that prediction is contingent on people's choices," says Keith. "My actual prediction is, we won't get close to that." He adds: "Do we have serious environmental problems? Of course. is it true that eventually we will have to close down the entire industry here - the entire industry of producing oil for putting in cars - because of environmental concerns? At some level yeah. Is there going to be a desert? No."
But Marsden believes the future he describes should persuade Alberta to halt further oil sands developments. "I think that you have to put a moratorium on any further growth in the oil sands until that province really figures out where it wants to go," he says. "Then the people of the province - and the people of Canada, too because these are vital resources for all of Canada - can decide how they want to proceed on this." Although such a suggestion may be blasphemous to some - particularly in Alberta - no less a figure than former premier Peter Lougheed has called for a slowdown, in part to study how the oil sands developments are effecting the environment.
Marsden has another point to make. Driving the breakneck pace of Alberta's oil boom, he says, is Canada's commitments to the U.S. under the North America Free Trade Agreement, which he says promises the U.S. an inordinate amount of our oil. Marsden, in effect, argues Canada has sold its soul. "We have ourselves in a corner over NAFTA," says Marsden, "because we've surrendered soverignty over our energy." Stupid to the Last Drop has Lougheed, who helped negotiate NAFTA, predicting that the U.S. will manhandle Canada fiercely should China or India, say, make grabs for a share of the sands. Paraphrasing Lougheed, he writes: Alberta under Ralph Klein...essentially surrendered its control over its resources to the free market, and the Americans have walked in and taken control."
Now Alberta's resource-development surge has put it on a collision course with central Canada's devotion to Kyoto. Lougheed, who predicted this clash of interests in a speech last month in Calgary, warned that Canada's very national fabric could be threatened when Alberta's desire to exploit its resources conflicts with any renewed federal government push to regulate them.
Doomsday
Alberta Stands Accused
A huge fight between East and West - over the oil sands - is just starting
By Nicholas Kohler
Left unfettered, Alberta's energy sector will, by the end of this century, transform the southern part of the province into a desert and its north into a treeless, toxic swamp. Driven both by global warming and oil and gas developments, temperatures in Alberta will soar by as much as eight degrees. The Athabasca River will slow to a trickle, parching the remainder of the province's forests and encouraging them to burst into flame, generating vast quantities of CO2. "They're going to be the architects of their own destruction," says journalist William Marsden, whose new book outlines the environmental threats posed by Alberta's energy industry.
Even now, fish pulled from the Athabasca downstream of the oil sands taste of gasoline and smell of burning galoshes in the fry pan. The landscape is perforated by more than 300,000 oil and gas wells. Water in some areas to the south can be set alight with a match, likely due to coal-bed methane developments. Doctors administering to Aboriginal communities not far from the oil sands report high rates of thyroid conditions and rare diseases such as cancer of the bile duct. Some from those communities have been employed at the oil sands raking in the carcasses of ducks floating on vast pools of rotten water, the by-product of the sands' oil-extraction methods.
Such are the claims contained in Marsden's upcoming Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn't Seem to Care), which presents a scenario almost too frightening to contemplate and suggests Alberta may already be too far gone for redemption - indeed, that it is environmentally doomed. "When you start digging up an area equivalent to the state of Florida, when you start carpet-bombing your province with oil and gas wells, and at the same time, you've got global warming drying up the glaciers and your rivers - you're kind of looking at a doomsday scenario," he says. "It sounds bizarre, but it's an absolute possibility that they could be literally destroying themselves."
Marsden argues Alberta's political leadership has consistently neglected - in an almost willful, pathological way - to curb the destruction wrought by industry. Former premier Ralph Klein for years rejected placing controls on Alberta's energy sector and, according to Marsden, ordered the dismantling of oversight bodies that might have monitored the degradation, the extent of which remains somewhat unclear today as a result. Marsden charges the province with marginalizing scientists who sound warnings on the environment, quoting Rod Love, Klein's long-time chief of staff, dismissing them as "flakes."
The book is bound to enrage Alberta and its energy sector. "Why are Albertans so stupid?" Marsden asks an Alberta scientist at one point in the book. Designed to be provocative, Stupid to the Last Drop will come under intense fire as an exercise in fearmongering and West-bashing by a Montreal journalist. Yet it will be applauded by others who fear that the environment gets short shrift in Alberta. "I think it's useful to have books like that - it scares people, I guess," says David Keith, an expert on carbon capture at the University of Calgary.
Still, the fight Marsden is picking with Alberta may be a harbinger of a more titanic one to come. Alberta has become the country's economic engine - churning out money at the same time it spews huge emissions - and the rest of Canada, whether out of jealousy or genuine concern, may soon demand environmental controls be placed on the province, the country's worst industrial greenhouse gas emitter. Experts, from constitutional scholars to former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, are predicting a battle, and at the centre of that coming feud is the issue of how far the federal government can go in controlling a resource Alberta owns. It's a fight some fear may tear Canada apart.
Known mainly for his reporting on organized crime in Canada, Marsden has written a polemic on the Alberta environment that looks at first blush to be a departure. Marsden disagrees."Frankly, I think what's going on in Alberta is a crime," he says. "You get these kinds of political factions and gangsters, almost who have literally taken over a province - and are reducing it to catastrophic shape."
The riches generated by Alberta's energy sector are astounding, the stuff of breathless business stories and promises by the likes of Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the province is on the cusp of becoming an 'energy superpower." Earlier this year, Calgary-based EnCanada earned profits of $6.4 billion, a record-breaking sum. The provincial government's last budget showed a surplus of $8.5 billion. So dynamic is Alberta's energy boom that it's become, what with Ontario's struggling manufacturing sector, the real power in the economy. Remove Alberta from the Canadian economy, some say, and the country would now be in recession.
There is no denying, however, that the wealth comes at a huge environmental cost. In a rollicking, wry style Stupid to the last Drop outlines that environmental degradation, as well as the energy industry's appetite for wild schemes. Marsden dredges up, for example, a little-known plot hatched by an American geologist in the 1950s to free oil from the tar sands by detonating a nuclear device beneath an Alberta creek, a plan that came surprisingly close to execution. And yet, Marsden argues, what is going on right now is almost as outrageous.
Consider the millions in cubic metres of water that three oil sands projects - 20 more are in the works or pending approval - extract from the Athabasca river each year. The water, which in heated form is used to melt the bitumen free of the sands, is crucial; between two and six barrels of water are required to produce a single barrel of oil. Oil sands outfits are sucking 215.2 million cubic metres of water a year, twice what's required for the city of Calgary. Extractions form the Athabasca could triple in the next decade.
As a result of both global warming, which is melting the mountain glaciers that nourish Alberta's waterways, and oil sands extractions, flow in the Athabasca has been reduced by 30 per cent since 9170. By 2020, the oil sands could use as much as half the river's flow in winter, a time when it is at its lowest ebb and fish populations are most stressed. At such levels, says the Pembina Institute's Chris Severson-Baker, "You run the risk of killing the ecosystem." More, Marsden cites scientific research that suggests the 20th century was unusually kind to Alberta in water terms - a desert in its south is a real possibility, he says and warns that industry may be taking advantage of a natural anomaly.
Alberta's oil sands operations also struggle with the problem of what to do with the water once it's been used. Only eight per cent can be made sufficiently clean to go back to the Athabasca. The rest stagnates in huge ponds. "Birds that land on them never take off," David Schindler, an ecologist at the University of Alberta, told Maclean's. Oil sands operators now float buoys in the ponds equipped with hard-hat-wearing scarecrows and propane cannons, whose booming sounds are designed to prevent the water fowl from landing.
Consumption of natural gas, another critical oil sands ingredient, also boggles the mind. By the end of 2005, the industry's daily consumption could heat 3.2 million homes for a day. Marsden notes that present consumption could triple in the oil sands by 2015. Environmentalists have long decried the absurdity of wasting such huge quantities of reasonably clean energy to extract dirtier oil.
Then there's the question of greenhouse gas emissions. The Sierra Club of Canada says oil sands operations spewed 23.3 megatonnes of them in 2000 - about three per cent of Canada's total emissions. Those emissions are predicted to rise between 57 and 97 megatonnes by 2015, making the oil sands Canada's largest single contributor to global warming. The University of Calgary's Keith says the province is responsible for roughly 36 per cent of Canada's CO2 emissions, though most originate in the electrical power industry (the most significant emitters of any industry countrywide). Alberta, Keith points out is "only 11 per cent of the population - it's pretty asymmetric."
The projects are at the same time decimating Albert'a northern boreal forest, which forms an umbrella above a vast, metres-thick deposit of peat, a carbon sink that begins bleeding CO2 into the atmosphere upon excavation. "The boreal forest per unit area actually contains more carbon than the Amazon does," Schindler says. Adds Severson-Baker: "The public has been really focused on the critical role of the tropical rainforest, but the boreal forest plays a similar role" in regulating the earth's climate. The remainder of the boreal forest will soon become a tinderbox of forest fire activity due to a global warming-related pine beetle infestation and an increasingly dry Alberta, Marsden says. The Canadian Forest Service says global-warming models show the area burned by forest fires will double over the next century. High forest fire years already spew emissions equal to 90 per cent of industrial emissions, says Schindler.
It's a startling litany of environmental abuse. but some in Alberta point out that the province has already begun meeting these challenges by bringing in green legislation earlier this year more stringent than federal law. Others believe Marsden's Armageddon won't happen because industry will become cleaner through innovation. "We have a history of meeting those challenges," says Calgary-based Annette Hester, of the Centre for International Governance Innovation. "If it wasn't for meeting those challenges, we would never have an oil sands development in the first place." Oil sands outfits are required by the province to plan for land restoration. And cleaner and more efficient practices - carbon sequestration that buries CO2 or nuclear power as a replacement for natural gas - are in the offing.
Nor does Keith believe doomsday scenarios like those presented by Marsden. Though effects like an eight-degree rise in temperature - one potential outcome included in the book - are possible, "that prediction is contingent on people's choices," says Keith. "My actual prediction is, we won't get close to that." He adds: "Do we have serious environmental problems? Of course. is it true that eventually we will have to close down the entire industry here - the entire industry of producing oil for putting in cars - because of environmental concerns? At some level yeah. Is there going to be a desert? No."
But Marsden believes the future he describes should persuade Alberta to halt further oil sands developments. "I think that you have to put a moratorium on any further growth in the oil sands until that province really figures out where it wants to go," he says. "Then the people of the province - and the people of Canada, too because these are vital resources for all of Canada - can decide how they want to proceed on this." Although such a suggestion may be blasphemous to some - particularly in Alberta - no less a figure than former premier Peter Lougheed has called for a slowdown, in part to study how the oil sands developments are effecting the environment.
Marsden has another point to make. Driving the breakneck pace of Alberta's oil boom, he says, is Canada's commitments to the U.S. under the North America Free Trade Agreement, which he says promises the U.S. an inordinate amount of our oil. Marsden, in effect, argues Canada has sold its soul. "We have ourselves in a corner over NAFTA," says Marsden, "because we've surrendered soverignty over our energy." Stupid to the Last Drop has Lougheed, who helped negotiate NAFTA, predicting that the U.S. will manhandle Canada fiercely should China or India, say, make grabs for a share of the sands. Paraphrasing Lougheed, he writes: Alberta under Ralph Klein...essentially surrendered its control over its resources to the free market, and the Americans have walked in and taken control."
Now Alberta's resource-development surge has put it on a collision course with central Canada's devotion to Kyoto. Lougheed, who predicted this clash of interests in a speech last month in Calgary, warned that Canada's very national fabric could be threatened when Alberta's desire to exploit its resources conflicts with any renewed federal government push to regulate them.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Emissions Cap and Trade in the U.S. North-East States
There are ten north-eastern American states that are now part of a greenhouse gas emission cap and trade system. From the November 17th-23rd United States section of The Economist, www.economist.com, page 36:
Cap-and-trade in the north-east
EMBRACING REGGIE
A scheme that tries to avoid Europe's mistakes
Could America's first experiment with a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases go awry? That is the fear of some observers of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an agreement among ten north-eastern states to cut emissions from power plants by 10% between 2009 and 2018.
The states in question formed RGGI (pronounced "Reggie") out of despair at the federal government's failure to tackle emissions growth. Some states in the West and midwest are working on similar schemes. But RGGI will be the first to start up: emissions will be capped from January 1st 2009.
RGGI's designers hope to avoid some of the flaws that have dogged the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the European Union's ongoing experiment with cap-and-trade, European governments handed out emissions permits to existing power plants and factories free of charge; that turned out to be a windfall for big polluters, who were able to sell on unneeded permits for huge profits.
Moreover, it gradually become clear that governments had handed out too many permits, causing their price to fall to almost nothing in the first phase of the scheme, which ends this year. If permits are so cheap, why cut emissions?
Under RGGI, by contrast, state governments will auction almost all permits. But Veronique Bugnion of Point Carbon, an energy consultancy, suspects that - at the start of the scheme, at least - there may be more permits on offer than utilities need, thanks to a recent contraction in the RGGI states' emissions. During the early years of the decade, when RGGI's emissions cap was being set, the price of oil was relatively low. It has since risen sharply, not only in absolute terms but also relative to natural gas. That has led utilities to use more gas and less oil for power generation in the RGGI states; and since gas-fired generation produces fewer emissions than the oil-fired sort, overall emissions form the RGGI states have fallen too.
RGGI's permits, unlike those of the ETS, are valid for the lifetime of the scheme. So firms will have an incentive to buy up any excess during the early years for use later on, when the cap begins to fall. That might help to prevent an embarrassing price crash like Europe's. RGGI states are also considering setting a reserve when they auction permits.
But even if these measures succeed, it remains true that RGGI covers a relatively small area in which unusual weather, the refurbishment of a few big power stations or the opening of a new transmission line for imported power could move the whole market. The correct response to any teething pains RGGI may suffer, its defenders say, is not to curb the scheme but to expand it.
Cap-and-trade in the north-east
EMBRACING REGGIE
A scheme that tries to avoid Europe's mistakes
Could America's first experiment with a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases go awry? That is the fear of some observers of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an agreement among ten north-eastern states to cut emissions from power plants by 10% between 2009 and 2018.
The states in question formed RGGI (pronounced "Reggie") out of despair at the federal government's failure to tackle emissions growth. Some states in the West and midwest are working on similar schemes. But RGGI will be the first to start up: emissions will be capped from January 1st 2009.
RGGI's designers hope to avoid some of the flaws that have dogged the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the European Union's ongoing experiment with cap-and-trade, European governments handed out emissions permits to existing power plants and factories free of charge; that turned out to be a windfall for big polluters, who were able to sell on unneeded permits for huge profits.
Moreover, it gradually become clear that governments had handed out too many permits, causing their price to fall to almost nothing in the first phase of the scheme, which ends this year. If permits are so cheap, why cut emissions?
Under RGGI, by contrast, state governments will auction almost all permits. But Veronique Bugnion of Point Carbon, an energy consultancy, suspects that - at the start of the scheme, at least - there may be more permits on offer than utilities need, thanks to a recent contraction in the RGGI states' emissions. During the early years of the decade, when RGGI's emissions cap was being set, the price of oil was relatively low. It has since risen sharply, not only in absolute terms but also relative to natural gas. That has led utilities to use more gas and less oil for power generation in the RGGI states; and since gas-fired generation produces fewer emissions than the oil-fired sort, overall emissions form the RGGI states have fallen too.
RGGI's permits, unlike those of the ETS, are valid for the lifetime of the scheme. So firms will have an incentive to buy up any excess during the early years for use later on, when the cap begins to fall. That might help to prevent an embarrassing price crash like Europe's. RGGI states are also considering setting a reserve when they auction permits.
But even if these measures succeed, it remains true that RGGI covers a relatively small area in which unusual weather, the refurbishment of a few big power stations or the opening of a new transmission line for imported power could move the whole market. The correct response to any teething pains RGGI may suffer, its defenders say, is not to curb the scheme but to expand it.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Amazon Deforestation
From the October 15, 2007, Environment section of Maclean's magazine, pages 86-88:
Environment
FIRE IN THE AMAZON
Brazil says less rainforest is disappearing, but deforestation is continuing at an alarming rate
by Isabel Vincent
When Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva addressed the United Nations General Assembly last month, he certainly wanted to come across as one of the world's "green" leaders. He pushed biofuels, and pledged Rio de Janeiro as a venue for a global environmental conference in 2012. Near the top of his agenda was trying to end deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. To this end, he said, his government was working hard, and in the last three years the rate of deforestation in the Amazon region has been cut in half.
Taken on its own, the figure may seem to be a tremendous accomplishment for Lula's centre-left Workers Party government, which had made ecology one of its cornerstones during this first term in office, beginning in October 2002. But when you consider that, under the Lula government, deforestation in the Amazon reached its highest level ever, the Workers Party ecological records starts to look incredibly grim. "What Lula is saying now that after deforestation reached a peak in his first three years of government, it is slowing down," says Roberto Smeraldi, director of Friends of the Earth's Sao Paulo chapter, which focuses its efforts on the Amazon. "You have to read this in context, because during his time in office it went up higher than it ever had, and on average it is still higher than at any other time in the past."
Already, fully 20 per cent of the Amazon rainforest has been lost to deforestation, experts say. Between July 2005 and July 2006, 14,000 square km of forest disappeared as ranchers and others slashed and burned vegetation in order to make way for agribusiness ventures, such as cattle raising and soy bean production (in the Amazon, the cattle population is increasing by more than two million head per year - a huge threat). The year before, 21,000 square km of rainforest were lost. In 2005, parts of the Amazon also experienced the worst drought the forest has seen in a century. Scientists say that if the trend continues, the Amazon rainforest will start to die.
As it is, the burning of the Amazon in Brazil has made the country the third-largest source for carbon emissions in the world, after China and the United States. Moreover, scientists say that information on the reduction of deforestation is still very partial and unclear, and they are waiting for satellite images scheduled to be released at the end of the year, in order to make up their minds on whether deforestation has indeed dipped by 50 per cent. But what remains clear, Smeraldi says, is that "a huge area of forest is being converted every year in the Amazon, beyond any social and economic rationale."
Globally, that is a huge concern. Recently, diplomat Hans Blix, the former head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and inspection Commission, called global warming "a greater long-term threat to mankind than weapons of mass destruction.' He said that "a vital part of tackling the problem is to halt the destruction of tropical rainforests as a matter of urgency." Scientists and environmentalists around the world agree, and consider the preservation of the Amazon of vital importance. Recently, a group of them began the Forests Now Declaration from Brazil to Bali, an initiative that calls on governments to take urgent action on deforestation in the tropics, which contributes up to 25 per cent of global carbon emissions, second only to the use of fossil fuels. The declaration, which is being signed by leaders and environmentalists around the world, will be presented to the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali in December.
But the destruction of the Amazon also has a very direct regional environmental impact. "We're all obsessed with carbon emissions, but if I were Lula, i would be concerned about rainfall l and the disruption in trade winds that are resulting from Amazon deforestation," says Hilton Philipson, a trustee of the Global Canopy Program and a force behind the Forests Now Declaration in London. "If you take away the moderating influence of the forest, you get stronger upswellings of hotter air, rains are more powerful, and there will be more violent weather patterns originating in the Amazon basin." Already, scientists have blamed an upsurge in hurricanes in the Caribbean on deforestation in the Amazon. The strong force of hurricanes such as Katrina are also blamed on problems originating in the Amazon rainforest, they say.
But what to do about an area that environmentalists are lobbying to keep untouched - and which many Brazilian administrations have seemed eager to develop and exploit? As lula himself noted during his first year in office, "This region cannot be treated like it was something from another world, untouchable, in which the people don't have the right to the benefits." Ever the pragmatist, Lula set about pledging to complete work on such projects as the BR-163, a highway connecting the central farming state of Mato Grosso with the Amazon region, so that soy beans can be easily transported for export to the iver port of Santarem. Also under development is the Transoceanic Highway, a continuation of the TransAmazon Highway, which will link the town of Rio Branco in the deep Amazon to Perus' Pacific ports. Environmentalists fear that in two years, when the road is scheduled to be completed, there will be an asphalted connection linking the Amazon region to the Pacific and China, which is keen to improve its access to the forest.
"I'm not in the game of blame, but it seems to be that the structure of the world economy is not giving Brazil a chance," says Philipson. Favourable world-market grain and beef prices actually increase deforestation in the Amazon as ranchers seek to expand their productivity and burn more forest to accommodate more cattle. Last week, Lula also announced plans to plant sugar cane in devastated forest areas in order to increase Brazil's production of ethanol (the country's vehicles have been running on ethanol for more than 30 years and Brazil is a world leader in the production of biofuels). It was a move that brought further criticism. "Lula is presenting himself to the world as a mascot for biofuels rather than as a statesmen for ecology," said Marcelo Leite, a political columnist writing in the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
Environmental critics fear that farming and infrastructure projects will only bring more development to the Amazon, as speculators occupy land when it is still cheap, before highways are paved or other projects such as dams are built. But Philipson notes that Lula has done some good in the Amazon, especially by demarcating the 17,000-square-km Raposa Serra do Sol native reservation in the Amazon state of Roraima in 2005. And he says the answer to the preservation of rainforests around the world is simple: money. If you want to save the rainforest, pay the Brazilian government for "environmental services," and treat the forest as "a giant utility." Insurance companies, for example, ubiquitous around the world, could be taxed and the money sent to governments to administer tropical forests. "There is a whole new industry there in the export of environmental services to the world," says Philipson. "The only way we are going to save the forest is money, and the recognition that the forest delivers environmental services to mankind."
Brazilian scientists Antonio Bonato Nobre agrees. A federal researcher with the National Institute for Amazon Research, he says every hectare that is currently being used for agri-business in the Amazon yields US$22 per year. "If we could find a way of ascribing more than $22, we don't have to worry about anything, the forest will be protected," he said, adding that at least one Amazon governor is behind the plan and has already started telling other politicians they could earn more money under a scheme to leave the forest alone. "What is happening to the Amazon is not the fault of the Brazilian government, but of the international economic system," says Nobre. "Money talks because people are selfish. Everything else is hypocrisy,and it won't protect the standing forests."
Environment
FIRE IN THE AMAZON
Brazil says less rainforest is disappearing, but deforestation is continuing at an alarming rate
by Isabel Vincent
When Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva addressed the United Nations General Assembly last month, he certainly wanted to come across as one of the world's "green" leaders. He pushed biofuels, and pledged Rio de Janeiro as a venue for a global environmental conference in 2012. Near the top of his agenda was trying to end deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. To this end, he said, his government was working hard, and in the last three years the rate of deforestation in the Amazon region has been cut in half.
Taken on its own, the figure may seem to be a tremendous accomplishment for Lula's centre-left Workers Party government, which had made ecology one of its cornerstones during this first term in office, beginning in October 2002. But when you consider that, under the Lula government, deforestation in the Amazon reached its highest level ever, the Workers Party ecological records starts to look incredibly grim. "What Lula is saying now that after deforestation reached a peak in his first three years of government, it is slowing down," says Roberto Smeraldi, director of Friends of the Earth's Sao Paulo chapter, which focuses its efforts on the Amazon. "You have to read this in context, because during his time in office it went up higher than it ever had, and on average it is still higher than at any other time in the past."
Already, fully 20 per cent of the Amazon rainforest has been lost to deforestation, experts say. Between July 2005 and July 2006, 14,000 square km of forest disappeared as ranchers and others slashed and burned vegetation in order to make way for agribusiness ventures, such as cattle raising and soy bean production (in the Amazon, the cattle population is increasing by more than two million head per year - a huge threat). The year before, 21,000 square km of rainforest were lost. In 2005, parts of the Amazon also experienced the worst drought the forest has seen in a century. Scientists say that if the trend continues, the Amazon rainforest will start to die.
As it is, the burning of the Amazon in Brazil has made the country the third-largest source for carbon emissions in the world, after China and the United States. Moreover, scientists say that information on the reduction of deforestation is still very partial and unclear, and they are waiting for satellite images scheduled to be released at the end of the year, in order to make up their minds on whether deforestation has indeed dipped by 50 per cent. But what remains clear, Smeraldi says, is that "a huge area of forest is being converted every year in the Amazon, beyond any social and economic rationale."
Globally, that is a huge concern. Recently, diplomat Hans Blix, the former head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and inspection Commission, called global warming "a greater long-term threat to mankind than weapons of mass destruction.' He said that "a vital part of tackling the problem is to halt the destruction of tropical rainforests as a matter of urgency." Scientists and environmentalists around the world agree, and consider the preservation of the Amazon of vital importance. Recently, a group of them began the Forests Now Declaration from Brazil to Bali, an initiative that calls on governments to take urgent action on deforestation in the tropics, which contributes up to 25 per cent of global carbon emissions, second only to the use of fossil fuels. The declaration, which is being signed by leaders and environmentalists around the world, will be presented to the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali in December.
But the destruction of the Amazon also has a very direct regional environmental impact. "We're all obsessed with carbon emissions, but if I were Lula, i would be concerned about rainfall l and the disruption in trade winds that are resulting from Amazon deforestation," says Hilton Philipson, a trustee of the Global Canopy Program and a force behind the Forests Now Declaration in London. "If you take away the moderating influence of the forest, you get stronger upswellings of hotter air, rains are more powerful, and there will be more violent weather patterns originating in the Amazon basin." Already, scientists have blamed an upsurge in hurricanes in the Caribbean on deforestation in the Amazon. The strong force of hurricanes such as Katrina are also blamed on problems originating in the Amazon rainforest, they say.
But what to do about an area that environmentalists are lobbying to keep untouched - and which many Brazilian administrations have seemed eager to develop and exploit? As lula himself noted during his first year in office, "This region cannot be treated like it was something from another world, untouchable, in which the people don't have the right to the benefits." Ever the pragmatist, Lula set about pledging to complete work on such projects as the BR-163, a highway connecting the central farming state of Mato Grosso with the Amazon region, so that soy beans can be easily transported for export to the iver port of Santarem. Also under development is the Transoceanic Highway, a continuation of the TransAmazon Highway, which will link the town of Rio Branco in the deep Amazon to Perus' Pacific ports. Environmentalists fear that in two years, when the road is scheduled to be completed, there will be an asphalted connection linking the Amazon region to the Pacific and China, which is keen to improve its access to the forest.
"I'm not in the game of blame, but it seems to be that the structure of the world economy is not giving Brazil a chance," says Philipson. Favourable world-market grain and beef prices actually increase deforestation in the Amazon as ranchers seek to expand their productivity and burn more forest to accommodate more cattle. Last week, Lula also announced plans to plant sugar cane in devastated forest areas in order to increase Brazil's production of ethanol (the country's vehicles have been running on ethanol for more than 30 years and Brazil is a world leader in the production of biofuels). It was a move that brought further criticism. "Lula is presenting himself to the world as a mascot for biofuels rather than as a statesmen for ecology," said Marcelo Leite, a political columnist writing in the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
Environmental critics fear that farming and infrastructure projects will only bring more development to the Amazon, as speculators occupy land when it is still cheap, before highways are paved or other projects such as dams are built. But Philipson notes that Lula has done some good in the Amazon, especially by demarcating the 17,000-square-km Raposa Serra do Sol native reservation in the Amazon state of Roraima in 2005. And he says the answer to the preservation of rainforests around the world is simple: money. If you want to save the rainforest, pay the Brazilian government for "environmental services," and treat the forest as "a giant utility." Insurance companies, for example, ubiquitous around the world, could be taxed and the money sent to governments to administer tropical forests. "There is a whole new industry there in the export of environmental services to the world," says Philipson. "The only way we are going to save the forest is money, and the recognition that the forest delivers environmental services to mankind."
Brazilian scientists Antonio Bonato Nobre agrees. A federal researcher with the National Institute for Amazon Research, he says every hectare that is currently being used for agri-business in the Amazon yields US$22 per year. "If we could find a way of ascribing more than $22, we don't have to worry about anything, the forest will be protected," he said, adding that at least one Amazon governor is behind the plan and has already started telling other politicians they could earn more money under a scheme to leave the forest alone. "What is happening to the Amazon is not the fault of the Brazilian government, but of the international economic system," says Nobre. "Money talks because people are selfish. Everything else is hypocrisy,and it won't protect the standing forests."
Friday, December 7, 2007
Climate Change Affects Children More
This article about the adverse affects global warming will have on children is from the Stop Global Warming website, http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_read.asp?id=12391410292007:
Global warming may hit kids harder, pediatrics group says
by: Marilyn Elias 29 October 2007
Global warming is likely to disproportionately harm the health of children, and politicians should launch "aggressive policies" to curb climate change, the American Academy of Pediatrics said today.
In the first major report about the unique effects of global warming on kids, U.S. pediatricians also were advised to "educate" elected officials about the coming dangers.
There's evidence that children are likely to suffer more than adults from climate change, says the report's lead author, Katherine Shea, a pediatrician and adjunct public health professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
"We already have change, and certain bad things are going to happen no matter what we do," Shea says. "But we can prevent things from getting even worse. We don't have the luxury of waiting."
More greenhouse gases and a warming Earth will leave children particularly vulnerable in several ways, the report says:
•Air pollution does more damage to children's lungs, causing asthma and respiratory ailments, because their lungs are still developing, they breathe at a higher rate than adults and are outdoors more.
•Waterborne infections, such as diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems, hit children especially hard. These infections rise sharply with more rain, which is expected as the climate warms.
•As mosquitoes are able to move to higher ground, the malaria zone is expanding. Kids are especially vulnerable; 75% of malaria deaths occur in children younger than 5.
The report briefly mentions that mass migrations are expected as regions become uninhabitable. "Children fare very poorly in these major population shifts," says Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and president of the Children's Health Fund. "They're more fragile medically and nutritionally," says Redlener, who wasn't involved with the report. "They're less resilient, less likely to survive."
No matter what the risks, the pediatrics academy shouldn't be sending its members out to lobby, argues Janice Crouse, director of a think tank affiliated with Concerned Women for America, a conservative public policy group. "Let them issue a scientific report, and people can judge whether it has validity. For a scientific group to use children as a means of advancing a political agenda is beyond the pale," she says.
Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, briefed a Senate committee on the health risks of global warming last week. She mentioned increasing asthma, malaria and waterborne diseases but not children's vulnerability.
The Associated Press reported that Gerberding's speech was "eviscerated" by the White House, but CDC spokesman Tom Skinner denied it, adding that Gerberding said everything she wanted to say without constraint.
"This is not a political issue, it's a public health issue," Shea says. "If we know the health of children and future children is threatened, we have an obligation to act."
Global warming may hit kids harder, pediatrics group says
by: Marilyn Elias 29 October 2007
Global warming is likely to disproportionately harm the health of children, and politicians should launch "aggressive policies" to curb climate change, the American Academy of Pediatrics said today.
In the first major report about the unique effects of global warming on kids, U.S. pediatricians also were advised to "educate" elected officials about the coming dangers.
There's evidence that children are likely to suffer more than adults from climate change, says the report's lead author, Katherine Shea, a pediatrician and adjunct public health professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
"We already have change, and certain bad things are going to happen no matter what we do," Shea says. "But we can prevent things from getting even worse. We don't have the luxury of waiting."
More greenhouse gases and a warming Earth will leave children particularly vulnerable in several ways, the report says:
•Air pollution does more damage to children's lungs, causing asthma and respiratory ailments, because their lungs are still developing, they breathe at a higher rate than adults and are outdoors more.
•Waterborne infections, such as diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems, hit children especially hard. These infections rise sharply with more rain, which is expected as the climate warms.
•As mosquitoes are able to move to higher ground, the malaria zone is expanding. Kids are especially vulnerable; 75% of malaria deaths occur in children younger than 5.
The report briefly mentions that mass migrations are expected as regions become uninhabitable. "Children fare very poorly in these major population shifts," says Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and president of the Children's Health Fund. "They're more fragile medically and nutritionally," says Redlener, who wasn't involved with the report. "They're less resilient, less likely to survive."
No matter what the risks, the pediatrics academy shouldn't be sending its members out to lobby, argues Janice Crouse, director of a think tank affiliated with Concerned Women for America, a conservative public policy group. "Let them issue a scientific report, and people can judge whether it has validity. For a scientific group to use children as a means of advancing a political agenda is beyond the pale," she says.
Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, briefed a Senate committee on the health risks of global warming last week. She mentioned increasing asthma, malaria and waterborne diseases but not children's vulnerability.
The Associated Press reported that Gerberding's speech was "eviscerated" by the White House, but CDC spokesman Tom Skinner denied it, adding that Gerberding said everything she wanted to say without constraint.
"This is not a political issue, it's a public health issue," Shea says. "If we know the health of children and future children is threatened, we have an obligation to act."
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Permafrost Scientists
Global warming means lots of things happening for the permafrost scientists. Here is an article from the Saturday, November 24, 2007, Ideas section, Toronto Star, page ID5:
COLD COMFORT: THIS SCIENCE IS A NOT-SO-HOT CAREER CHOICE
Permafrost scientists are a rare breed in Canada. The modest pay has something to do with that. So does the nature of the work. When not drilling holes in intense cold, permafrost scientists are drilling holes in stifling heat that excites blackflies and mosquitoes.
Permafrost scientists are such brutes for punishment that Peter Kershaw of the University of Alberta recently was named to Popular Science magazine's "Ten Worst Jobs in Science" list.
He finished just ahead of the orangutan pee collector in Borneo and two places behind the human semen washer in Los Angeles.
The honours aren't all dubious. Kershaw was also named Earthwatch's Principal Investigator of the Year in 2005 for his research on permafrost in the Mackenzie Mountains and on the Hudson Bay coast of northern Manitoba. He was up against 130 scientists from around the world.
Steve Blasco, a marine geophysicist with the Geological Survey, has also won accolades from his work. He was named chief scientist on a joint Canada, U.S. and Russian scientific/commercial expedition to film the Titanic.
Blasco says it helps to be a little crazy to do what he and his colleagues do.
In an effort to maintain their sanity in difficult work conditions some permafrost scientists have invented unusual field games. In Page Watch, for example, the goal is to kill as many mosquitoes and blackflies as possible by slamming shut a book. Although Blasco personally loves the heat, his work sends him to the western Arctic where he identifies and maps mud volcanoes and ice scour lines along possible shipping and pipeline routes. It's not easy trying to figure out what the ocean floor looks like when you're legally blind - as Blasco is.
"But then again," he quips, "no one knew what it looked like when I started in this business, so I was no worse off."
Ed Struzik
Atkinson Fellow
COLD COMFORT: THIS SCIENCE IS A NOT-SO-HOT CAREER CHOICE
Permafrost scientists are a rare breed in Canada. The modest pay has something to do with that. So does the nature of the work. When not drilling holes in intense cold, permafrost scientists are drilling holes in stifling heat that excites blackflies and mosquitoes.
Permafrost scientists are such brutes for punishment that Peter Kershaw of the University of Alberta recently was named to Popular Science magazine's "Ten Worst Jobs in Science" list.
He finished just ahead of the orangutan pee collector in Borneo and two places behind the human semen washer in Los Angeles.
The honours aren't all dubious. Kershaw was also named Earthwatch's Principal Investigator of the Year in 2005 for his research on permafrost in the Mackenzie Mountains and on the Hudson Bay coast of northern Manitoba. He was up against 130 scientists from around the world.
Steve Blasco, a marine geophysicist with the Geological Survey, has also won accolades from his work. He was named chief scientist on a joint Canada, U.S. and Russian scientific/commercial expedition to film the Titanic.
Blasco says it helps to be a little crazy to do what he and his colleagues do.
In an effort to maintain their sanity in difficult work conditions some permafrost scientists have invented unusual field games. In Page Watch, for example, the goal is to kill as many mosquitoes and blackflies as possible by slamming shut a book. Although Blasco personally loves the heat, his work sends him to the western Arctic where he identifies and maps mud volcanoes and ice scour lines along possible shipping and pipeline routes. It's not easy trying to figure out what the ocean floor looks like when you're legally blind - as Blasco is.
"But then again," he quips, "no one knew what it looked like when I started in this business, so I was no worse off."
Ed Struzik
Atkinson Fellow
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Fishing and Organic Standards
From the September/October 2007 issue of E: The Environmental Magazine, www.emagazine.com, an article about the difficulties in getting organic standards for the fishing industry:
FISHING FOR CERTIFICATION
The Struggle to Bring Organic Standards to the Fishing Industry
With the organic meat and produce sector fattening into a $17 billion cash cow and expanding into retail giants like Wal-Mart, it's no wonder the fishing industry feels left out. Aquatic animals were excluded from organics when U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) standards were set in 2002.
The National Organics Standard Board (NOSB) - the panel responsible for creating organic guidelines - decided this past March to defer recommendations on the use of fish meal, fish oil, and open net-cages, delaying aquatic certification until a future meeting. Fish producers eager to take advantage of the higher price tags the label typically fetches have been frustrated by the delay.
"This is a lost opportunity," says Anthony Sims, president of Kona Blue Water Farms - a Hawaii-based company that raises Kona Kampachi fish using self-described sustainable techniques. "This decision means that fish farmers will not yet have the prospect of an organic premium as an incentive to improve their farming methods."
The problem facing organic hopefuls and the NOSB has been how to control and standardize what fish come in contact with in the water and in their food supply. It's especially troubling for wild-caught fish, since fishing companies can't demonstrate the purity of their catch.
Even the diets of farmed fish are difficult to control. While herbivores such as catfish and tilapia respond well to closed ponds and plant-based organic feed, carnivores like salmon aren't so easy to manage.
Conventional salmon farms rely on fish meal and oil made from wild-caught seafood for feed ingredients - an inefficient process that some estimate requires three pounds of wild-caught fish to make one pound of farmed. On average, 70 percent of the salmon's diet comes from seafood sourced from overfished waters. Some in the industry are lobbying to allow future organic fish farmers to use the scraps from sustainably caught wild fish meant for human consumption as a feedstock. Caps would also limit the percentage of scrap-derived meal and oil used in salmon feed at 12 percent for each.
Critics at California's Monterey Bay Aquarium have protested using fish meal or oil from non-certified fish, arguing that to feed non-organic food to certified livestock would cheapen existing organic principles. "It's unclear if the use of open-net pens and the use of fish meal and fish oil are compatible with those principles," says Corey Peet, research analyst for the aquarium. "It's critical that the aquaculture industry adapt to the organic principles and not the other way around."
Open net-cages are also at issue. Opponents argue that the nets, which trap thousands of fish and hold them stationary along coastlines, would also compromise organic principles, since they cannot control effluents in ocean waters. And net-cages have other environmental consequences.
Dom Repta, spokesperson for the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, cites British Columbia studies that show net-cage technology allows untreated waste release, transferring of sea lice to wild salmon and the escape of farmed fish - a potential threat to the genetics and territorial claims of native salmon species. Marine predators such as seals and sea lions also become trapped and die in the nets. "Open net-cages just don't fit under the organic umbrella," says Repta.
Most anti-net lobby groups have pushed for closed-containment units on farms - large tanks that keep fish separate from natural waterways.
"They have to develop a model that is both commercially and environmentally viable," says Richard Martin, chair of the National Fisheries Institute's Organic Seafood Committee.
Some experts wonder if organic certification should be the industry's goal at all. Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) favors performance goals for aquaculture over the prescribed practices of organics.
"What we want producers to do is to actually achieve a result on the ground," says Clay. "And we don't necessarily care how they do it."
CONTACTS: Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, (604) 699-0065, www.farmedanddangerous.org; Kona Blue, (808)331-1188, www.kona-kampachi.com; National Fisheries Institute's Organic Seafood Committee. www.aboutseafood.com.
--Jon Farinelli
FISHING FOR CERTIFICATION
The Struggle to Bring Organic Standards to the Fishing Industry
With the organic meat and produce sector fattening into a $17 billion cash cow and expanding into retail giants like Wal-Mart, it's no wonder the fishing industry feels left out. Aquatic animals were excluded from organics when U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) standards were set in 2002.
The National Organics Standard Board (NOSB) - the panel responsible for creating organic guidelines - decided this past March to defer recommendations on the use of fish meal, fish oil, and open net-cages, delaying aquatic certification until a future meeting. Fish producers eager to take advantage of the higher price tags the label typically fetches have been frustrated by the delay.
"This is a lost opportunity," says Anthony Sims, president of Kona Blue Water Farms - a Hawaii-based company that raises Kona Kampachi fish using self-described sustainable techniques. "This decision means that fish farmers will not yet have the prospect of an organic premium as an incentive to improve their farming methods."
The problem facing organic hopefuls and the NOSB has been how to control and standardize what fish come in contact with in the water and in their food supply. It's especially troubling for wild-caught fish, since fishing companies can't demonstrate the purity of their catch.
Even the diets of farmed fish are difficult to control. While herbivores such as catfish and tilapia respond well to closed ponds and plant-based organic feed, carnivores like salmon aren't so easy to manage.
Conventional salmon farms rely on fish meal and oil made from wild-caught seafood for feed ingredients - an inefficient process that some estimate requires three pounds of wild-caught fish to make one pound of farmed. On average, 70 percent of the salmon's diet comes from seafood sourced from overfished waters. Some in the industry are lobbying to allow future organic fish farmers to use the scraps from sustainably caught wild fish meant for human consumption as a feedstock. Caps would also limit the percentage of scrap-derived meal and oil used in salmon feed at 12 percent for each.
Critics at California's Monterey Bay Aquarium have protested using fish meal or oil from non-certified fish, arguing that to feed non-organic food to certified livestock would cheapen existing organic principles. "It's unclear if the use of open-net pens and the use of fish meal and fish oil are compatible with those principles," says Corey Peet, research analyst for the aquarium. "It's critical that the aquaculture industry adapt to the organic principles and not the other way around."
Open net-cages are also at issue. Opponents argue that the nets, which trap thousands of fish and hold them stationary along coastlines, would also compromise organic principles, since they cannot control effluents in ocean waters. And net-cages have other environmental consequences.
Dom Repta, spokesperson for the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, cites British Columbia studies that show net-cage technology allows untreated waste release, transferring of sea lice to wild salmon and the escape of farmed fish - a potential threat to the genetics and territorial claims of native salmon species. Marine predators such as seals and sea lions also become trapped and die in the nets. "Open net-cages just don't fit under the organic umbrella," says Repta.
Most anti-net lobby groups have pushed for closed-containment units on farms - large tanks that keep fish separate from natural waterways.
"They have to develop a model that is both commercially and environmentally viable," says Richard Martin, chair of the National Fisheries Institute's Organic Seafood Committee.
Some experts wonder if organic certification should be the industry's goal at all. Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) favors performance goals for aquaculture over the prescribed practices of organics.
"What we want producers to do is to actually achieve a result on the ground," says Clay. "And we don't necessarily care how they do it."
CONTACTS: Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, (604) 699-0065, www.farmedanddangerous.org; Kona Blue, (808)331-1188, www.kona-kampachi.com; National Fisheries Institute's Organic Seafood Committee. www.aboutseafood.com.
--Jon Farinelli
Thursday, November 29, 2007
What to Bring to An Environmentalist's Party
The Living section of the Toronto Star, Wednesday, November 28, 2007, pages L1, L5, has a holiday party piece about different kinds of parties different kinds of hosts would have, a party survival guide by David Graham, Living Reporter: What to expect when cubicle mates throw a holiday house party, Watch your flirting, drinking and gossiping when stepping on a co-worker's home turf. This excerpt is about the kind of party an environmentalist would have.
TAKE ORGANIC WINE TO HIPPIE HOSTS
The Hippie Dippie/Environmental/Health/Yoga Nut
Who are they?: A member of the earnest alt crowd.
What kind of host are they?: Conscientious.
What will the party be like?: Quiet. Mostly non-alcoholic. Children will be present. World music if they're younger/James Taylor and Carole King if they're older.
Acceptable behaviour: Take your shoes off at the door and don't leave a footprint. Be open-mindedd about the food - lots of wasabi peas and seaweed snacks. Bring a soy candle or an organic wine. Leave early - mornings are imiportant to these people. They meditate at sunrise.
Dress code: Anything made from bamboo - and not made by children in a developing country.
TAKE ORGANIC WINE TO HIPPIE HOSTS
The Hippie Dippie/Environmental/Health/Yoga Nut
Who are they?: A member of the earnest alt crowd.
What kind of host are they?: Conscientious.
What will the party be like?: Quiet. Mostly non-alcoholic. Children will be present. World music if they're younger/James Taylor and Carole King if they're older.
Acceptable behaviour: Take your shoes off at the door and don't leave a footprint. Be open-mindedd about the food - lots of wasabi peas and seaweed snacks. Bring a soy candle or an organic wine. Leave early - mornings are imiportant to these people. They meditate at sunrise.
Dress code: Anything made from bamboo - and not made by children in a developing country.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Habitat Encroachment: See What Happens
From the Wednesday, November 14, 2007, Toronto Star, World section, page AA2, an article about New Delhi, New India, and what has happened because of animal habitat encroachment:
MONKEYS SHOCK NEW DELHI
Marauding simians pushed from forests into cities are on a collision course with humans
Alistair Scrutton
Reuters New Agency
New Delhi - First it was the death of the Indian capital's deputy mayor, who took a fatal fall after fighting with monkeys on the balcony of his home late last month.
Then, 25 residents were bitten, scratched and mauled by a lone monkey that went on the rampage in the capital last weekend.
The monkey reportedly tried to snatch several infants before being beaten back by residents armed with sticks and metal bars.
"Primal Invasion" read the headline in the Hindustan Times.
Authorities are struggling to contain primates that are stubbornly resisting efforts to portray New Delhi as a modern, clean and globalized capital.
The city of 14 million people is growing qickly and experts say monkeys are increasingly being forced out of forests and into urban settings, putting them on a collision course with humans.
It is a pattern seen across India as the economy booms. Elephants, leopards and tigers are also coming out face to face with man as cities sprawl into their former habitats.
Monkeys are a regular sight in New Delhi. They can be seen in groups climbing outside government ministries. Troupes lounge on pavements, oblivious to the chaotic traffic around them.
But culling monkeys has never been an option as mnay Hindus worshop the monkey god Hanuman, seen as a symbol of strength, perserverance and devotion. And when New Delhi tried to shift them out of the city, neighbouring states complained.
Faced with what many saw as a monkey plague on homes, offices and ministries, this year city authorities started to capture and send them to a sanctuary on New Delhi's outskirts.
New Delhi government officials say they have caught and relocated around 1,900 monkeys. While there is no census of monkey numbers, officials say thousands still live on the city's streets.
But a spate of high-profile monkey attacks has made headlines and increased public pressure for the government to act quicker.
"The latest attack was unprecedented," said J.K. Dadoo, environment and forest secretary in the New Delhi government. "Monkeys normally operate in groups."
Experts say there is a growing pattern of lone attacks that may highlight the random way authorities are trying to reduce the monkey population in the city.
"Incidents of lone monkey attacks were almost unknown until recently," said Sonya Ghose, founder of Citizens for the Welfare and Protection of Animals and a member of an enforcement panel overseeing the monkey relocation campaign.
"I fear that monkeys are being trapped in a haphazard manner. Monkey catchers are breaking up troupes of monkey families, leaving some monkeys alone without their families.
"Then they have nothing to lose and turn aggressive."
Last year, the New Delhi Metro train service hired a larger langur monkey to frighten off smaller creatures after a monkey boarded a train and scared passsengers by scowling at them for three stops.
Another langur is on the government payroll to scare off monkeys from New Delhi's top federal government offices.
This year, a monkey sneaked into New Delhi's international airport, forcing the partial closure of the lounge for more than an hour.
Dadoo said the problem was that some people fed monkeys on Tuesday and Saturdays, seen as auspicious days for the animals.
"That is when we have most cases of money attacks, when people try to feed them," he said.
Ghose said she suspected monkey catchers - often villagers from outside New Delhi who are paid 450 rupees ($11) a monkey - sometimes snatched monkeys in nearby forests and claimed they were caught in the city.
The New Delhi residents terrorised last weekend said the monkey attack was a terrifying experience.
"I thought it was a man at first," Manohar, one of the residents, told The Times of India. "It got hold of my son's leg and was carrying him away but I managed to snatch him back."
MONKEYS SHOCK NEW DELHI
Marauding simians pushed from forests into cities are on a collision course with humans
Alistair Scrutton
Reuters New Agency
New Delhi - First it was the death of the Indian capital's deputy mayor, who took a fatal fall after fighting with monkeys on the balcony of his home late last month.
Then, 25 residents were bitten, scratched and mauled by a lone monkey that went on the rampage in the capital last weekend.
The monkey reportedly tried to snatch several infants before being beaten back by residents armed with sticks and metal bars.
"Primal Invasion" read the headline in the Hindustan Times.
Authorities are struggling to contain primates that are stubbornly resisting efforts to portray New Delhi as a modern, clean and globalized capital.
The city of 14 million people is growing qickly and experts say monkeys are increasingly being forced out of forests and into urban settings, putting them on a collision course with humans.
It is a pattern seen across India as the economy booms. Elephants, leopards and tigers are also coming out face to face with man as cities sprawl into their former habitats.
Monkeys are a regular sight in New Delhi. They can be seen in groups climbing outside government ministries. Troupes lounge on pavements, oblivious to the chaotic traffic around them.
But culling monkeys has never been an option as mnay Hindus worshop the monkey god Hanuman, seen as a symbol of strength, perserverance and devotion. And when New Delhi tried to shift them out of the city, neighbouring states complained.
Faced with what many saw as a monkey plague on homes, offices and ministries, this year city authorities started to capture and send them to a sanctuary on New Delhi's outskirts.
New Delhi government officials say they have caught and relocated around 1,900 monkeys. While there is no census of monkey numbers, officials say thousands still live on the city's streets.
But a spate of high-profile monkey attacks has made headlines and increased public pressure for the government to act quicker.
"The latest attack was unprecedented," said J.K. Dadoo, environment and forest secretary in the New Delhi government. "Monkeys normally operate in groups."
Experts say there is a growing pattern of lone attacks that may highlight the random way authorities are trying to reduce the monkey population in the city.
"Incidents of lone monkey attacks were almost unknown until recently," said Sonya Ghose, founder of Citizens for the Welfare and Protection of Animals and a member of an enforcement panel overseeing the monkey relocation campaign.
"I fear that monkeys are being trapped in a haphazard manner. Monkey catchers are breaking up troupes of monkey families, leaving some monkeys alone without their families.
"Then they have nothing to lose and turn aggressive."
Last year, the New Delhi Metro train service hired a larger langur monkey to frighten off smaller creatures after a monkey boarded a train and scared passsengers by scowling at them for three stops.
Another langur is on the government payroll to scare off monkeys from New Delhi's top federal government offices.
This year, a monkey sneaked into New Delhi's international airport, forcing the partial closure of the lounge for more than an hour.
Dadoo said the problem was that some people fed monkeys on Tuesday and Saturdays, seen as auspicious days for the animals.
"That is when we have most cases of money attacks, when people try to feed them," he said.
Ghose said she suspected monkey catchers - often villagers from outside New Delhi who are paid 450 rupees ($11) a monkey - sometimes snatched monkeys in nearby forests and claimed they were caught in the city.
The New Delhi residents terrorised last weekend said the monkey attack was a terrifying experience.
"I thought it was a man at first," Manohar, one of the residents, told The Times of India. "It got hold of my son's leg and was carrying him away but I managed to snatch him back."
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Greener Gas and Cars
From the Spring & Summer 2007, Green Living, pages 45-48, an article on greener gas and cars, here is an excerpt about fuel choices:
FUEL FOR THOUGHT
A Guide to Greener Gas and Greener Cars
By Stuart Foxman
"The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit...weeds...almost anything. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter than can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for 100 years."
The speaker? Not an environmental advocate but Henry Ford in 1925, assessing the potential of cellulose and crop-based ethyl alcohol fuel. However, as you stand at the pump, watching the gas prices roll by faster than the reels on a slot machine, it's easy to wonder if drivers will ever see the "fuel of the future." But a convergence of forces - rising cruide-oil costs, the call for energy security and concern over climate change - may be bringing that day closer."
"Our urgent national and international imperatives will require a shift in fuel choices," says Kory Teneycke, executive director of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (DRFA), "Ethanol and biodiesel are at the point where you can make the case for commercialization and make them parts of our energy mix."
However, Jose Etcheverry, research and policy analyst, Climate Change Program at the David Suzuki Foundation, cautions that we shouldn't get seduced by the word "'alternative'. Among alternative fuels, there are better and worse options," he says. "If it takes more energy to produce the fuel than the energy you get out of it, it's not a logical idea."
That kind of criticism is often levelled at Alberta's oil sands, where the process of separating bitumen from the sands and turning it into fuel uses considerably more energy than conventional oil production. Similarly, says Etcheverry, with ethanol and biodiesel (see sidebars) you have to consider how energy-intensive the entire process is. If your main raw material is corn, for example, when you factor in the energy expended to grow and refine it, Etcheverry says the "return on your energy investment can be quite negative." he believes that ethanol made form cellulose (e.g. forest residue, straw) is far better, from an environmental standpoint, than ethanol made from corn. As for biodiesel, will supplies come from plant oil? Canola? How will crops be grown?
While biodiesel and ethanol are promising alternative fuels, there are more choices. An unusual possibility - and a particularly clean one, says Etcheverry - is "brown energy," That's where animal manure is turned into usuable biomethane through an anaerobic digester, with the gas then used as a transportation fuel or for electricity and residential heating. One Wisconsin dairy farm with a digester is powering 600 homes with 900 cows. In Sweden, meanwhile, over 8,000 vehicles are powered by a combination of natural gas and biomethane.
While Etcheverry calls the interest in alternative fuels "a step in the right direction," he says we should be asking other fundamental questions, such as how we can approach urban and suburban design to be less car-dependent. And how we can encourage wider use of public transit and other modes of transportation. "Even if you could run cars on water, you 'd still need highways and parking lots, and it takes a lot of resouces to make a car," says Etcheverry. "Are you going to live closer to where you work and play? Will you ride a bike? Take the train? That's what's truly revolutionary."
FUEL FOR THOUGHT
A Guide to Greener Gas and Greener Cars
By Stuart Foxman
"The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit...weeds...almost anything. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter than can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for 100 years."
The speaker? Not an environmental advocate but Henry Ford in 1925, assessing the potential of cellulose and crop-based ethyl alcohol fuel. However, as you stand at the pump, watching the gas prices roll by faster than the reels on a slot machine, it's easy to wonder if drivers will ever see the "fuel of the future." But a convergence of forces - rising cruide-oil costs, the call for energy security and concern over climate change - may be bringing that day closer."
"Our urgent national and international imperatives will require a shift in fuel choices," says Kory Teneycke, executive director of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (DRFA), "Ethanol and biodiesel are at the point where you can make the case for commercialization and make them parts of our energy mix."
However, Jose Etcheverry, research and policy analyst, Climate Change Program at the David Suzuki Foundation, cautions that we shouldn't get seduced by the word "'alternative'. Among alternative fuels, there are better and worse options," he says. "If it takes more energy to produce the fuel than the energy you get out of it, it's not a logical idea."
That kind of criticism is often levelled at Alberta's oil sands, where the process of separating bitumen from the sands and turning it into fuel uses considerably more energy than conventional oil production. Similarly, says Etcheverry, with ethanol and biodiesel (see sidebars) you have to consider how energy-intensive the entire process is. If your main raw material is corn, for example, when you factor in the energy expended to grow and refine it, Etcheverry says the "return on your energy investment can be quite negative." he believes that ethanol made form cellulose (e.g. forest residue, straw) is far better, from an environmental standpoint, than ethanol made from corn. As for biodiesel, will supplies come from plant oil? Canola? How will crops be grown?
While biodiesel and ethanol are promising alternative fuels, there are more choices. An unusual possibility - and a particularly clean one, says Etcheverry - is "brown energy," That's where animal manure is turned into usuable biomethane through an anaerobic digester, with the gas then used as a transportation fuel or for electricity and residential heating. One Wisconsin dairy farm with a digester is powering 600 homes with 900 cows. In Sweden, meanwhile, over 8,000 vehicles are powered by a combination of natural gas and biomethane.
While Etcheverry calls the interest in alternative fuels "a step in the right direction," he says we should be asking other fundamental questions, such as how we can approach urban and suburban design to be less car-dependent. And how we can encourage wider use of public transit and other modes of transportation. "Even if you could run cars on water, you 'd still need highways and parking lots, and it takes a lot of resouces to make a car," says Etcheverry. "Are you going to live closer to where you work and play? Will you ride a bike? Take the train? That's what's truly revolutionary."
Monday, November 19, 2007
Summary of Climate Change Report
From the StopGlobalWarming.org website, http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_read.asp?id=6385211172007, here is a brief summary of the “Synthesis Report” from the International Panel on Climate Change's Climate Change 2007 report.
The three other sections of the report are available online to read at the IPCC website, http://www.ipcc.ch/, or if you are a scientist or independently wealthy from Amazon.com, etc.; (1) The Physical Science Basis; (2) Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability; (3) Mitigation of Climate Change. I imagine copies will also find their way into libraries around the world, as they are available in many languages.
KEY FINDINGS OF UNITED NATIONS' SCIENTIFIC REPORT
by: Associated Press 17 November 2007
The following are some key findings in a report issued Saturday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
The three other sections of the report are available online to read at the IPCC website, http://www.ipcc.ch/, or if you are a scientist or independently wealthy from Amazon.com, etc.; (1) The Physical Science Basis; (2) Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability; (3) Mitigation of Climate Change. I imagine copies will also find their way into libraries around the world, as they are available in many languages.
KEY FINDINGS OF UNITED NATIONS' SCIENTIFIC REPORT
by: Associated Press 17 November 2007
The following are some key findings in a report issued Saturday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
- Global warming is “unequivocal.” Temperatures have risen 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. Eleven of the last 12 years are among the warmest since 1850. Sea levels have gone up by an average seven-hundredths of an inch per year since 1961.
- About 20 percent to 30 percent of all plant and animal species face the risk of extinction if temperatures increase by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. If the thermometer rises by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit, between 40 to 70 percent of species could disappear.
- Human activity is largely responsible for warming. Global emissions of greenhouse gases grew 70 percent from 1970 to 2004. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is far higher than the natural range over the last 650,000 years.
- Climate change will affect poor countries most, but will be felt everywhere. By 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's large cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water.
- Extreme weather conditions will be more common. Tropical storms will be more frequent and intense. Heat waves and heavy rains will affect some areas, raising the risk of wildfires and the spread of diseases. Elsewhere, drought will degrade cropland and spoil the quality of water sources. Rising sea levels will increase flooding and salination of fresh water and threaten coastal cities.
- Even if greenhouse gases are stabilized, the Earth will keep warming and sea levels rising. More pollution could bring “abrupt and irreversible” changes, such as the loss of ice sheets in the poles, and a corresponding rise in sea levels by several yards.
- A wide array of tools exist, or will soon be available, to adapt to climate change and reduce its potential effects. One is to put a price on carbon emissions.
- By 2050, stabilizing emissions would slow the average annual global economic growth by less than 0.12 percent. The longer action is delayed, the more it will cost.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Canada, US, Australia - Fiddling While the Planet Burns
Today, the 17th of November, 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change met in Valencia, Spain, to adopt and approve the fourth and final report that makes up Climate Change 2007.
The draft report (without final copy editing) is found at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf. The IPCC site is http://www.ipcc.ch/.
Are the governments of the United States, Canada and Australia unaware of the human and environmental and financial consequences of dealing with increasing climate change losses? No.
Each country has scientists and researchers who have been involved for many years in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report, which includes scientific research, andvinformation on adapation and mitigation. The report is easily available online to anyone, even politicians, in full or in a shorter policy version, to anyone who can type IPCC in Google.
So why are the leaders allowing themselves to be led by the nose - by multinationals, their lawyers and lobbyists, trade agreements favouring corporations, corporate contributions to election campaigns, insteading of leading the campaign to slow global warming?
The U.S., Canada, and Australia are three of the largest historic polluters and have a moral obligation, being wealthy, developed nations, to clean up the mess they have caused in the past, without any strings being attached to poorer and less developed nations, who did not create the historic mess.
Forget the next election, gentlemen, your own self-interest or those of your political parties or corporate pals or their lobbyists, needless spending on needless wars instead of the environment, or whatever useless and lame excuse is stopping action. The costs of not doing anything will far outweigh the worth of anything we are spending money on now and they will continue to increase.
The writer of the Global Issues section of the Toronto Star, called the three heads of state the Three Climate Stooges.
Leaders, you have all the information you need to act now. Get out of Iraq (US) and Afghanistan (Canada), don't start a needless war on Iran (US), and the billions saved can be used to solve not only climate change issues, but poverty and other humanitarian issues at home and in the world.
Anything less is not a joke, but a crime against humanity.
The draft report (without final copy editing) is found at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf. The IPCC site is http://www.ipcc.ch/.
Are the governments of the United States, Canada and Australia unaware of the human and environmental and financial consequences of dealing with increasing climate change losses? No.
Each country has scientists and researchers who have been involved for many years in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report, which includes scientific research, andvinformation on adapation and mitigation. The report is easily available online to anyone, even politicians, in full or in a shorter policy version, to anyone who can type IPCC in Google.
So why are the leaders allowing themselves to be led by the nose - by multinationals, their lawyers and lobbyists, trade agreements favouring corporations, corporate contributions to election campaigns, insteading of leading the campaign to slow global warming?
The U.S., Canada, and Australia are three of the largest historic polluters and have a moral obligation, being wealthy, developed nations, to clean up the mess they have caused in the past, without any strings being attached to poorer and less developed nations, who did not create the historic mess.
Forget the next election, gentlemen, your own self-interest or those of your political parties or corporate pals or their lobbyists, needless spending on needless wars instead of the environment, or whatever useless and lame excuse is stopping action. The costs of not doing anything will far outweigh the worth of anything we are spending money on now and they will continue to increase.
The writer of the Global Issues section of the Toronto Star, called the three heads of state the Three Climate Stooges.
Leaders, you have all the information you need to act now. Get out of Iraq (US) and Afghanistan (Canada), don't start a needless war on Iran (US), and the billions saved can be used to solve not only climate change issues, but poverty and other humanitarian issues at home and in the world.
Anything less is not a joke, but a crime against humanity.
Potential of Environmentally-Friendly Construction
An article about the potential of environmentally-friendly construction from the Monday, October 1, 2007, Toronto Star, Business section, page B4:
The Bottom Line
WAKING UP TO POTENTIAL OF GREEN CONSTRUCTION
Sonja Persram
Special to the Star
A daily scan shows that media - and readers - don't quite understand how much buildings can help lower our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Many are still looking first to transportation, then to coal-fired plants and then industry as targets to reduce our emissions. Clean technology is seen as a primary approach. And then, believing that there aren't enough GHG reduction measures yet available, people look to carbon offsets.
It's not just the reductions in GHG emissions that green buildings provide - many other benefits are overlooked.
According to Thomas Mueller, president of the Canada Green Building Council, buildings account for as much as 48 per cent of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions - 30 per cent from operations and 18 per cent from activities that embody energy such as extracting, processing, manufacturing and transporting building materials, construction and demolition. Reports on GHG emissions do not often discuss these embodied energy factors.
Greening our buildings to levels certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) Canada green building rating system can reduce our energy consumption and GHG emissions by at leats 50 per cent compared to Canada's Model National Energy Code for Buildings, says Mueller. And, using less energy means we'll use less water, because energy conservation measures address the costs of pumping a building's water supply.
But green buildings not only represent higher building performance. Specific building features are associated with higher occupant performances as well. And, corporate tenants of green buildings have found these factors made it easier to attract and retain talent.
Studies of occupants' work performance in green buildings compared to non-green workspace showed people did better on tasks when their workplaces had features like: comfortable temperatures (better clerical performance and logical thinking), higher ventilation rates (productivity increases and reduced absenteeism and illness) and more daylight (better productivity, retail sales and school test scores).
Since people costs amount to 88 per cent of total costs over a commercial building's lifespan, even a 1 per cent increase in productivity can have significant positive effects on corporate performance. Factor in the lower operating costs and reduced risks associated with greener buildings and corporate bottom lines look even better.
Reduced health care costs when fewer people suffer from asthma and sick building syndrome, and lowered infrastructure requirements are also a benefit to our public purse.
Then there are the pressures on corporations to remain competitive. Harvey Bernstein of McGraw Hill stated in a recent presentation to the World Green Building Council's International Congress thatt 47 per cent of leaders in Corporate America believe government will mandate green buildings eventually, and 40 per cent think ignoring green building with result in public relations problems.
So why don't people push more for green buildings? (New green construction as well as building retrofits). There is a mistaken perception that green costs more. On average, however, green buildings costs about 2 2 per cent more than conventional ones.
We can't overlook the potential of green buildings any more. It's too costly.
In a country, a province, a city where we're striving to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and our consumption of energy; where we're seeking greater economic productivity and lower health care and infrastructure costs; where corporations must remain competitive, isn't it time to wake up and smell the green building coffee?
Sonja Persram is CEO of Sustainable Alternatives Consulting Inc.
The Bottom Line
WAKING UP TO POTENTIAL OF GREEN CONSTRUCTION
Sonja Persram
Special to the Star
A daily scan shows that media - and readers - don't quite understand how much buildings can help lower our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Many are still looking first to transportation, then to coal-fired plants and then industry as targets to reduce our emissions. Clean technology is seen as a primary approach. And then, believing that there aren't enough GHG reduction measures yet available, people look to carbon offsets.
It's not just the reductions in GHG emissions that green buildings provide - many other benefits are overlooked.
According to Thomas Mueller, president of the Canada Green Building Council, buildings account for as much as 48 per cent of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions - 30 per cent from operations and 18 per cent from activities that embody energy such as extracting, processing, manufacturing and transporting building materials, construction and demolition. Reports on GHG emissions do not often discuss these embodied energy factors.
Greening our buildings to levels certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) Canada green building rating system can reduce our energy consumption and GHG emissions by at leats 50 per cent compared to Canada's Model National Energy Code for Buildings, says Mueller. And, using less energy means we'll use less water, because energy conservation measures address the costs of pumping a building's water supply.
But green buildings not only represent higher building performance. Specific building features are associated with higher occupant performances as well. And, corporate tenants of green buildings have found these factors made it easier to attract and retain talent.
Studies of occupants' work performance in green buildings compared to non-green workspace showed people did better on tasks when their workplaces had features like: comfortable temperatures (better clerical performance and logical thinking), higher ventilation rates (productivity increases and reduced absenteeism and illness) and more daylight (better productivity, retail sales and school test scores).
Since people costs amount to 88 per cent of total costs over a commercial building's lifespan, even a 1 per cent increase in productivity can have significant positive effects on corporate performance. Factor in the lower operating costs and reduced risks associated with greener buildings and corporate bottom lines look even better.
Reduced health care costs when fewer people suffer from asthma and sick building syndrome, and lowered infrastructure requirements are also a benefit to our public purse.
Then there are the pressures on corporations to remain competitive. Harvey Bernstein of McGraw Hill stated in a recent presentation to the World Green Building Council's International Congress thatt 47 per cent of leaders in Corporate America believe government will mandate green buildings eventually, and 40 per cent think ignoring green building with result in public relations problems.
So why don't people push more for green buildings? (New green construction as well as building retrofits). There is a mistaken perception that green costs more. On average, however, green buildings costs about 2 2 per cent more than conventional ones.
We can't overlook the potential of green buildings any more. It's too costly.
In a country, a province, a city where we're striving to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and our consumption of energy; where we're seeking greater economic productivity and lower health care and infrastructure costs; where corporations must remain competitive, isn't it time to wake up and smell the green building coffee?
Sonja Persram is CEO of Sustainable Alternatives Consulting Inc.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Federal Government's "Lip Service" to Going Green
We all know that Prime Minister Harper and his government are less than enthusiastic about making significant changes in order to meet targets set in the Kyoto agreement. So it is hardly surprising that although there are some (I would disagree with the following article calling them "tough") weak measures in place for industry to clean up the environment, apparently they are being called out in an audit for not having greened itself.
From the News section of the Wednesday, October 31, 2007, Toronto Star, page A5:
GOVERNMENT PAYING ONLY LIP SERVICE TO GOING GREEN
Environmental tool 'simply is not working,' commissioner says
Allan Woods
Ottawa Bureau
Ottawa - The federal government has put tough rules in place to make industry and individuals clean up the environment, but it has shirked its own commitment to go green, a new audit has found.
The federal environment commissioner says Ottawa has been promising to put in place a sustainable development strategy to clean up the actions of its departments since 1992 but has little to show for it 15 years later.
"It's one of the many tools that the government introduced ... to manage environmentally sustainable development well," commissioner Ron Thompson said, "It's a matter of great concern to us that that tool simply is not working."
Auditor General Sheila Fraser adds that the government's continued neglect of this plan to factor the environment into departments' decision-making process is a "major disappointment."
The goals that have been laid out by the government provide little in the way of expectations for departments to help clean up the air and water, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make more intelligent use of natural resources.
"Nor does it provide baselines or targets against which departments could monitor or report on their progress," says the report, which puts the blame on the shoulders of Environment Canada, the department responsible for the sustainable development strategy.
"We expected Environment Canada to have managed this issue more consistently and proactively."
Government departments have been producing sustainable development strategies every three years since 1997 and the environment commissioner has written 10 reports so far on the substandard progress that has been made.
But despite consistent promises to take "appropriate action," little improvement has occurred.
Part of the problem, the audit suggests, is the poor attitude of officials who view government plans to go green as a "compliance requirement" rather than a new way of doing business. "It is apparent to us that departments are working to satisfy the statutory requirements set out in the Auditor General Act. We are concerned that they are working to meet the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it."
Environment Canada responded to the audit with a promise to "improve the government's approach" by October 2008.
"There will never be a better time to carry out this review." Thompson said.
From the News section of the Wednesday, October 31, 2007, Toronto Star, page A5:
GOVERNMENT PAYING ONLY LIP SERVICE TO GOING GREEN
Environmental tool 'simply is not working,' commissioner says
Allan Woods
Ottawa Bureau
Ottawa - The federal government has put tough rules in place to make industry and individuals clean up the environment, but it has shirked its own commitment to go green, a new audit has found.
The federal environment commissioner says Ottawa has been promising to put in place a sustainable development strategy to clean up the actions of its departments since 1992 but has little to show for it 15 years later.
"It's one of the many tools that the government introduced ... to manage environmentally sustainable development well," commissioner Ron Thompson said, "It's a matter of great concern to us that that tool simply is not working."
Auditor General Sheila Fraser adds that the government's continued neglect of this plan to factor the environment into departments' decision-making process is a "major disappointment."
The goals that have been laid out by the government provide little in the way of expectations for departments to help clean up the air and water, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make more intelligent use of natural resources.
"Nor does it provide baselines or targets against which departments could monitor or report on their progress," says the report, which puts the blame on the shoulders of Environment Canada, the department responsible for the sustainable development strategy.
"We expected Environment Canada to have managed this issue more consistently and proactively."
Government departments have been producing sustainable development strategies every three years since 1997 and the environment commissioner has written 10 reports so far on the substandard progress that has been made.
But despite consistent promises to take "appropriate action," little improvement has occurred.
Part of the problem, the audit suggests, is the poor attitude of officials who view government plans to go green as a "compliance requirement" rather than a new way of doing business. "It is apparent to us that departments are working to satisfy the statutory requirements set out in the Auditor General Act. We are concerned that they are working to meet the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it."
Environment Canada responded to the audit with a promise to "improve the government's approach" by October 2008.
"There will never be a better time to carry out this review." Thompson said.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Innovation: Diapers into Diesel
I am often amazed when I read articles about green companies or entrepreneurs and their innovations to help the environment (and slow global warming). Here is one such article by Tyler Hamilton in the Monday, October 29, 2007, Toronto Star, front page of Business section and page B4. You can find his Clean Break articles online at http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/94629.
TURNING DIRTY DIAPERS INTO DIESEL - AND HELPING THE ENVIRONMENT
Tyler Hamilton
Clean Break
If a generation that prides itself on being green is to be defined by its aggressive pursuit of energy efficiency and alternative sources of electricity and fuel, then maybe it's time we ditched the label "waste" and "garbage."
Is a used diaper, for example, just a ball of stink destined for a landfill? Or is it a ball of complex molecules that can be busted apart, reorganized and turned into usable energy?
Is it waste or watts? Feces or fuel?
Luciano Piciacchia, vice-president of Quebec operations for global engineering giant AMEC PLC, is in the diaper-busting camp. He's overseeing the design of a plant in Quebec that, when finished, aims to turn thousands of tonnes of used diapers each year into a synthetic diesel fuel.
Used diapers are difficult to reuse or recycle, and while cloth diapers are an alternative, it's unlikely they'll ever put a dent in disposable diaper sales.
In Quebec alone, 600 million - or 120,000 tonnes - of used diapers are produced each year, and for the most part they end up in landfills where the plastic that lines them can take 100 years to break down, says Piciacchia.
"A baby, from the time it's born to the time it's toilet trained, will gone through a tonne of diapers," he says, adding that the load will increase as aging boomers turn to adult incontinence products.
The technology for turning diapers into diesel, called pyrolysis, is well understood and has been discussed before in this column. Unlike a dirty process such as incineration, by which a substance is just burned, pryolysis chemicallly breaks down organic materials, literally cracking their molecules, by heating them up in an oxygen-starved chamber.
It's a closed process that doesn't involve combustion, so emissions are strictly controlled, and three materials emerge at the end of it: a synthetic methane-like gas, a diesel-like oil and carbon-rich char.
"Environmentalists aren't convinced that it works, but you ahve to put it in place and see the science of it before you condemn it." says Piciacchia. "The science behind it is solid."
So why focus on diapers? It's a combination of logistics and consistency.
For example, the logistics of garbage collection is easy - municipalities already pay for and have established pickup networks. But turning municipal and waste into energy can be tricky because of the inconsistency of materials or "feedstock" that must be handled.
The feedstock can range from old clothes to banana peels to yogurt containers to refrigerator doors, and this batch of unpredictable ingredients makes it difficult to control the molecular breakdown of each so that the good molecules can be separated from the bad.
On the other hand, you know that with diapers you've got a consistent stream of plastics, resins, fibres, excrement and urine. This consistency of feedstock improves the efficiency of the pyrolysis process and results in a predictable output of gas, oil and char.
Another benefit of used diapers is that a large volume is generated daily in hospitals and seniors homes, and a market already exists for the collection and disposal of these diapers. AMEC's client, a Quebec company that Piciacchia won't name yet, plans to tap into that collection network by diverting the flow of diapers from landfills to its own processing plant.
The client will get a tipping fee from the diaper disposal company - one source of revenue - and will generate a second source of revenue by converting the diapers into diesel fuel and selling it to generate electricity or heat.
The synthetic gas portion will be used to directly power the process and the char could be sold for a variety of uses, including as an additive for fertilizer.
If the diaper plant works, AMEC will likely pursue other projects. For example, an Ontario company that salvages car parts wants to turn the plastics and foam from seats and dashboards - a material known as "car fluff" - into usable energy.
Tyler Hamilton's Clean Break appears Mondays. You may email him at thamilt@thestar.ca.
TURNING DIRTY DIAPERS INTO DIESEL - AND HELPING THE ENVIRONMENT
Tyler Hamilton
Clean Break
If a generation that prides itself on being green is to be defined by its aggressive pursuit of energy efficiency and alternative sources of electricity and fuel, then maybe it's time we ditched the label "waste" and "garbage."
Is a used diaper, for example, just a ball of stink destined for a landfill? Or is it a ball of complex molecules that can be busted apart, reorganized and turned into usable energy?
Is it waste or watts? Feces or fuel?
Luciano Piciacchia, vice-president of Quebec operations for global engineering giant AMEC PLC, is in the diaper-busting camp. He's overseeing the design of a plant in Quebec that, when finished, aims to turn thousands of tonnes of used diapers each year into a synthetic diesel fuel.
Used diapers are difficult to reuse or recycle, and while cloth diapers are an alternative, it's unlikely they'll ever put a dent in disposable diaper sales.
In Quebec alone, 600 million - or 120,000 tonnes - of used diapers are produced each year, and for the most part they end up in landfills where the plastic that lines them can take 100 years to break down, says Piciacchia.
"A baby, from the time it's born to the time it's toilet trained, will gone through a tonne of diapers," he says, adding that the load will increase as aging boomers turn to adult incontinence products.
The technology for turning diapers into diesel, called pyrolysis, is well understood and has been discussed before in this column. Unlike a dirty process such as incineration, by which a substance is just burned, pryolysis chemicallly breaks down organic materials, literally cracking their molecules, by heating them up in an oxygen-starved chamber.
It's a closed process that doesn't involve combustion, so emissions are strictly controlled, and three materials emerge at the end of it: a synthetic methane-like gas, a diesel-like oil and carbon-rich char.
"Environmentalists aren't convinced that it works, but you ahve to put it in place and see the science of it before you condemn it." says Piciacchia. "The science behind it is solid."
So why focus on diapers? It's a combination of logistics and consistency.
For example, the logistics of garbage collection is easy - municipalities already pay for and have established pickup networks. But turning municipal and waste into energy can be tricky because of the inconsistency of materials or "feedstock" that must be handled.
The feedstock can range from old clothes to banana peels to yogurt containers to refrigerator doors, and this batch of unpredictable ingredients makes it difficult to control the molecular breakdown of each so that the good molecules can be separated from the bad.
On the other hand, you know that with diapers you've got a consistent stream of plastics, resins, fibres, excrement and urine. This consistency of feedstock improves the efficiency of the pyrolysis process and results in a predictable output of gas, oil and char.
Another benefit of used diapers is that a large volume is generated daily in hospitals and seniors homes, and a market already exists for the collection and disposal of these diapers. AMEC's client, a Quebec company that Piciacchia won't name yet, plans to tap into that collection network by diverting the flow of diapers from landfills to its own processing plant.
The client will get a tipping fee from the diaper disposal company - one source of revenue - and will generate a second source of revenue by converting the diapers into diesel fuel and selling it to generate electricity or heat.
The synthetic gas portion will be used to directly power the process and the char could be sold for a variety of uses, including as an additive for fertilizer.
If the diaper plant works, AMEC will likely pursue other projects. For example, an Ontario company that salvages car parts wants to turn the plastics and foam from seats and dashboards - a material known as "car fluff" - into usable energy.
Tyler Hamilton's Clean Break appears Mondays. You may email him at thamilt@thestar.ca.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Climate Change Warning From the United Nations
From the Friday, October 26, 2007, Toronto Star, World & Comment section, pages AA1, AA4, an urgent call for action on climate change from the United Nations:
Global Environment
HUMANITY'S SURVIVAL AT STAKE: UN
Report sends decision-makers 'urgent call for action' as climate and pollution crises intensify
Peter Gorrie
Environment Reporter
Earth's environment has tumbled downhill to the point where "humanity's very survival" is at stake, a branch of the United Nations said yesterday.
The response by governments, industries and individuals has been "woefully inadequate," states the latest Global Environment Outlook from the UN Environment Program.
World leaders must push the environment "to the core of decision-making" to tackle the worsening crisis, the outlook states.
"The need couldn't be more urgent and the time couldn't be more opportune, with our enhanced understanding of the challenges we face, to act now to safeguard our own survival and that of future generations."
The 572-page report was issued yesterday, 20 years after a commission headed by former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland published Our Common Culture, which urged a shift to "sustainable development."
During those two decades, progress has been achieved on a few "straightforward" problems such as local air and water pollution, the new outlook says.
But, "there are no major issues raised (in the 1987 document) for which the foreseeable trends are favourable. Failures include climate change, extinction of species, water shortages and destruction of ocean fish stocks."
Brundtland's commission recommended that, since they are so closely linked, the environment, economic and social issues must be integrated into any decisions about development, so it occurs in a way that protects the environment.
That hasn't happened, states the outlook, compiled by 390 experts from observations, studies and data gathered since 1987.
The result is not only that "in too many countries, environmental policy remains secondary to economic growth," but also that environmental degradation is undermining economic development and "threatens all aspects of human well-being."
"There have been enough wake-up calls since Brundtland. I sincerely hope (this) is the final one," UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said in London.
"The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the ... viability of economies is being challenged -- and where the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay."
The new report's authors state that their aim "is not to present a dark and gloomy scenario, but an urgent call for action."
But because the main environmental concerns are complex and there's little appetite for anything that upsets the status quo, solutions will be hard to come by, they say.
"The scale of the challenge is huge."
The report also calls for environmental justice -- "perhaps the greatest moral question emerging in relation to environmental change and sustainable development.
"Growing evidence indicates that the burden of environmental change is falling far from the greatest consumers of environmental resources, who experience the benefits of development."
Meanwhile, "people living in poverty in the developing world, suffer the negative effects of environmental degradation."
As well: "Costs of environmental degradation will be experienced by ... future generations."
Action is urgently required on all these issues, the report states. "Determined action now is cheaper than waiting for better solutions to emerge."
A major obstacle is resistance by governments and polluting industries, the outlook states.
"We appear to be living in an era in which the severity of environmental problems is increasing faster than our policy responses. To avoid the threat of catastrophic consequences in the future, we need new policy approaches."
It's crucial to move environmental concerns to the centre of decision-making. Instead of trying to clean up environmental damage, the focus should be on reducing the causes, including economic and population growth, ravenous resource consumption and social values, the report says.
That can be done through measures such as "green" taxes and economic measures that, unlike now, assign values to Earth's resources and the costs of pollution and other damage.
Environment Minister John Baird was not available for comment, but said in a statement that the report "confirms that Canada's government is on the right track as it identifies that climate change, energy usage and clean accessible water ware some of the key challenges facing North America."
With files from the Star's wire services
Global Environment
HUMANITY'S SURVIVAL AT STAKE: UN
Report sends decision-makers 'urgent call for action' as climate and pollution crises intensify
Peter Gorrie
Environment Reporter
Earth's environment has tumbled downhill to the point where "humanity's very survival" is at stake, a branch of the United Nations said yesterday.
The response by governments, industries and individuals has been "woefully inadequate," states the latest Global Environment Outlook from the UN Environment Program.
World leaders must push the environment "to the core of decision-making" to tackle the worsening crisis, the outlook states.
"The need couldn't be more urgent and the time couldn't be more opportune, with our enhanced understanding of the challenges we face, to act now to safeguard our own survival and that of future generations."
The 572-page report was issued yesterday, 20 years after a commission headed by former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland published Our Common Culture, which urged a shift to "sustainable development."
During those two decades, progress has been achieved on a few "straightforward" problems such as local air and water pollution, the new outlook says.
But, "there are no major issues raised (in the 1987 document) for which the foreseeable trends are favourable. Failures include climate change, extinction of species, water shortages and destruction of ocean fish stocks."
Brundtland's commission recommended that, since they are so closely linked, the environment, economic and social issues must be integrated into any decisions about development, so it occurs in a way that protects the environment.
That hasn't happened, states the outlook, compiled by 390 experts from observations, studies and data gathered since 1987.
The result is not only that "in too many countries, environmental policy remains secondary to economic growth," but also that environmental degradation is undermining economic development and "threatens all aspects of human well-being."
"There have been enough wake-up calls since Brundtland. I sincerely hope (this) is the final one," UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said in London.
"The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the ... viability of economies is being challenged -- and where the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay."
The new report's authors state that their aim "is not to present a dark and gloomy scenario, but an urgent call for action."
But because the main environmental concerns are complex and there's little appetite for anything that upsets the status quo, solutions will be hard to come by, they say.
"The scale of the challenge is huge."
The report also calls for environmental justice -- "perhaps the greatest moral question emerging in relation to environmental change and sustainable development.
"Growing evidence indicates that the burden of environmental change is falling far from the greatest consumers of environmental resources, who experience the benefits of development."
Meanwhile, "people living in poverty in the developing world, suffer the negative effects of environmental degradation."
As well: "Costs of environmental degradation will be experienced by ... future generations."
Action is urgently required on all these issues, the report states. "Determined action now is cheaper than waiting for better solutions to emerge."
A major obstacle is resistance by governments and polluting industries, the outlook states.
"We appear to be living in an era in which the severity of environmental problems is increasing faster than our policy responses. To avoid the threat of catastrophic consequences in the future, we need new policy approaches."
It's crucial to move environmental concerns to the centre of decision-making. Instead of trying to clean up environmental damage, the focus should be on reducing the causes, including economic and population growth, ravenous resource consumption and social values, the report says.
That can be done through measures such as "green" taxes and economic measures that, unlike now, assign values to Earth's resources and the costs of pollution and other damage.
Environment Minister John Baird was not available for comment, but said in a statement that the report "confirms that Canada's government is on the right track as it identifies that climate change, energy usage and clean accessible water ware some of the key challenges facing North America."
With files from the Star's wire services
Biofuels
From the Monday, August 13, 2007, Metro, the Growing Green section, page 14:
Earth tones
These are dizzying times for biofuels
Sophia Dore & Andrew Laursen
earthtones.metrogmail.com
We have been following the discussions of alternative fuels with rapt attention for the past several years.
With terms like "carbon neutral" in connection to fuels swirling around our heads, these are dizzying times.
It seems like everyone in buying into the idea of biofuels, freeing us from the grasp of fossil fuels. Many governments are investing heavily, even those that so recently invested in denying carbon emissions were a problem. The domestic air travel industry, a disproportionately high emitter of carbon, is considering (among other strategies) a move to biofuels. Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines has even announced plans to fly an aircraft on biofuel by 2008.
Ethanol is made from a wide variety of plants, particularly corn and soybeans (Ontario's two biggest crops), and new ethanol plants are popping up each year. In Europe, ethanol is even distilled from less drinkable wines. Biodiesel can be made from any vegetable or animal oils, with the most promising sources, in terms of yield, being algae. If biofuels can be produced so readily, why hasn't anyone ever thought of this before? Oh, wait ...
The expression everything old is new again applies well to biofuels. Remember "gasohol" in the '80s? It is back, this time with much less fanfare, which I find surprising considering public interest in renewable fuels. Perhaps the marketing arms of petroleum companies think consumers will also remember gasohol, which was not a big hit the last time around. At most gas stations today, you will get a blend of ethanol (often 10 per cent) and gasoline.
The diesel engine was originally designed to run on vegetable oil. It still does. There are websites with recipes for homemade diesel. Occasionally, I am on the road and smell french fries. Suddenly hungry and searching for the source, I am dismayed to find it's only a diesel running on spent oil from a restaurant's fryer.
Although some newer gasoline engines will run on E85 ethanol (85 per cent ethanol by volume), and diesels can run on vegetable oil, the bulk of most commercially available fuels is still petroleum. That's worth remembering, as even the more environmentally friendly fuels available at filling stations (if you are able to find them) are not currently carbon neutral.
Can we achieve carbon neutrality using biofuels? It would be difficult. While you might want to kick the gas habit, do you want to buy a vehicle before the infrastructure exists to get fuel? And what incentive is there for a filling station to invest in infrastructure before there is a customer base? Biodiesel offers the greatest promise since current engines are already compatible with the fuel.
Should we try to achieve carbon neutrality using biofuels? How much land can be given over to producing crops for biofuels? This calculus will impact not only land available for growing food, but also land currently in non-agricultural use (such as forest). It would also impact nutrient management strategies. Growing crops for biofuels (like growing food crops) is fertilizer intensive. It often flies under the radar, but fertilizers (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus) can be major pollutants when they run off agricultural soil into aquatic ecosystems.
The potential benefits of biofuels are exciting. However, we should not be thinking of them as a straight-up replacement for fossil fuels. They could help us reduce carbon emissions, but conservation of fuels must stay in focus as we balance the need to reduce carbon emissions with the need to protect natural resources.
Andrew Laursen is an assistant professor in the department of chemistry and biology at Ryerson University and is a member of the environmental applied science and management program in graduate studies. His research is in the area of ecosystem ecology. Sophia Dore is an environmental scientist with Conestoga-Rovers & Associates, an environmental consulting company. Contact Andrew Laursen at earthtones.metro@g.mail.com .
Earth tones
These are dizzying times for biofuels
Sophia Dore & Andrew Laursen
earthtones.metrogmail.com
We have been following the discussions of alternative fuels with rapt attention for the past several years.
With terms like "carbon neutral" in connection to fuels swirling around our heads, these are dizzying times.
It seems like everyone in buying into the idea of biofuels, freeing us from the grasp of fossil fuels. Many governments are investing heavily, even those that so recently invested in denying carbon emissions were a problem. The domestic air travel industry, a disproportionately high emitter of carbon, is considering (among other strategies) a move to biofuels. Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines has even announced plans to fly an aircraft on biofuel by 2008.
Ethanol is made from a wide variety of plants, particularly corn and soybeans (Ontario's two biggest crops), and new ethanol plants are popping up each year. In Europe, ethanol is even distilled from less drinkable wines. Biodiesel can be made from any vegetable or animal oils, with the most promising sources, in terms of yield, being algae. If biofuels can be produced so readily, why hasn't anyone ever thought of this before? Oh, wait ...
The expression everything old is new again applies well to biofuels. Remember "gasohol" in the '80s? It is back, this time with much less fanfare, which I find surprising considering public interest in renewable fuels. Perhaps the marketing arms of petroleum companies think consumers will also remember gasohol, which was not a big hit the last time around. At most gas stations today, you will get a blend of ethanol (often 10 per cent) and gasoline.
The diesel engine was originally designed to run on vegetable oil. It still does. There are websites with recipes for homemade diesel. Occasionally, I am on the road and smell french fries. Suddenly hungry and searching for the source, I am dismayed to find it's only a diesel running on spent oil from a restaurant's fryer.
Although some newer gasoline engines will run on E85 ethanol (85 per cent ethanol by volume), and diesels can run on vegetable oil, the bulk of most commercially available fuels is still petroleum. That's worth remembering, as even the more environmentally friendly fuels available at filling stations (if you are able to find them) are not currently carbon neutral.
Can we achieve carbon neutrality using biofuels? It would be difficult. While you might want to kick the gas habit, do you want to buy a vehicle before the infrastructure exists to get fuel? And what incentive is there for a filling station to invest in infrastructure before there is a customer base? Biodiesel offers the greatest promise since current engines are already compatible with the fuel.
Should we try to achieve carbon neutrality using biofuels? How much land can be given over to producing crops for biofuels? This calculus will impact not only land available for growing food, but also land currently in non-agricultural use (such as forest). It would also impact nutrient management strategies. Growing crops for biofuels (like growing food crops) is fertilizer intensive. It often flies under the radar, but fertilizers (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus) can be major pollutants when they run off agricultural soil into aquatic ecosystems.
The potential benefits of biofuels are exciting. However, we should not be thinking of them as a straight-up replacement for fossil fuels. They could help us reduce carbon emissions, but conservation of fuels must stay in focus as we balance the need to reduce carbon emissions with the need to protect natural resources.
Andrew Laursen is an assistant professor in the department of chemistry and biology at Ryerson University and is a member of the environmental applied science and management program in graduate studies. His research is in the area of ecosystem ecology. Sophia Dore is an environmental scientist with Conestoga-Rovers & Associates, an environmental consulting company. Contact Andrew Laursen at earthtones.metro@g.mail.com .
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Don't Wash Car in Your Driveway: Use Car Wash or Rain
Now I thought leaving the rain to wash your car was the most eco-friendly thing to do, but if you must have a shiny car, the following article encourages you to go to a car wash, as it is an environmentally more friendly thing to do. This is from the Saturday, September 15, 2007, Living Section of the Toronto Star, page L13:
Enlightened Shopper
GO GREEN -- PAY FOR YOUR CAR WASH
Driveway hosing contaminates waterways, experts say
David Rider
Toronto Star
In the coming season, aptly named because half of nature suddenly falls down upon us, a car parked outside can quickly take on the appearance of a giant rolling chia pet.
The options are either clear leaves off the windows and pretend you're driving one of those vegetation-sprouting "art cars" or get the thing washed.
With nature literally staring you in the face, you're doing it a favour by running a hose on the driveway instead of putting your vehicle through one of those big commercial car washes, right?
Not so, say the Canadian Car Wash Association, environmental groups and the City of Toronto. While driveway washing may be cheap and, for many, a relaxing weekend ritual, it can unleash a nasty brew of gasoline, oil, exhaust residue and traces of heavy metals into storm sewers that discharge directly into Lake Ontario and other waterways.
Also, car wash equipment is carefully designed to use as little water as possible, typically about a quarter of the amount used in a driveway wash, experts say.
"There's no comparison -- washing a car at home is terrible for the environment, especially if you're doing it on a hard surface like a driveway where significant discharge runs right into storm sewers," says Kevin Mercer, a volunteer with Riversides Stewardship Alliance (riversides, org, 4116-868-1983), a Toronto-based group that fights water pollution.
Detritus from cars, including engine fluids and bits of brake pad, pollute water bodies and pose a risk to aquatic life, as do soapy detergents, Mercer says.
If commercial car washes got rid of their waste water the same way, they'be charged under city and provincial regulations. They must separate out solids, as well as grease and oil, for proper landfill disposal. The water left over goes down sanitation sewers that flow, like the ones in your home, to a city facility for treatment.
Mercer says community groups should find ways to raise funds other than holding charity car washes, unless they enlist the help of a commercial car wash or get use of a Latimat system (http://www.latimat.com/) that puts a pad under the vehicle to contain and collect the runoff.
Michael D'Andrea, the city's director of infrastructure management, says a multi-year plan to clean up waterways and the waterfront includes educating people not to put dirt and chemicals down storm drains -- so don't wash your car on a driveway.
If for some reason you have to wash it at home, he says, do it on a porous surface, such as your lawn, so runoff doesn't go into a storm sewer. When you're done, put the soapy water down your basement or laundry drain so it gets treated.
While homeowners who let soap and other runoff go down storm sewers could technically be fined under a city bylaw, officials opt for education, D'Andrea says.
He advises consumers to ask at their car wash if they recycle their water, reducing the amount they use while also decreasing the level of contaminants.
One self-serve car wash in Etobicoke, Wash N' Go (4000 Dundas St. W.), uses solar power to heat its water, though it is augmented by a boiler in winter.
"The biggest trend in our industry is really a green trend," says owner Vito Cosentino, who is also president of the industry's national association.
"Solar is great for us -- we reduce utility costs and use it as a tool to market the business."
Asked about other industry trends, Cosentino mentions one that's about cleaning up another type of environment.
"We have a fragrance machine to get smells out of cars and we get an incredible amount of traffic from teenagers at 1 a.m. trying to mask the smell of cigarette or pot smoke from dad's car."
David Rider is an editor at the Star. Reach him at drider@thestar.ca .
Enlightened Shopper
GO GREEN -- PAY FOR YOUR CAR WASH
Driveway hosing contaminates waterways, experts say
David Rider
Toronto Star
In the coming season, aptly named because half of nature suddenly falls down upon us, a car parked outside can quickly take on the appearance of a giant rolling chia pet.
The options are either clear leaves off the windows and pretend you're driving one of those vegetation-sprouting "art cars" or get the thing washed.
With nature literally staring you in the face, you're doing it a favour by running a hose on the driveway instead of putting your vehicle through one of those big commercial car washes, right?
Not so, say the Canadian Car Wash Association, environmental groups and the City of Toronto. While driveway washing may be cheap and, for many, a relaxing weekend ritual, it can unleash a nasty brew of gasoline, oil, exhaust residue and traces of heavy metals into storm sewers that discharge directly into Lake Ontario and other waterways.
Also, car wash equipment is carefully designed to use as little water as possible, typically about a quarter of the amount used in a driveway wash, experts say.
"There's no comparison -- washing a car at home is terrible for the environment, especially if you're doing it on a hard surface like a driveway where significant discharge runs right into storm sewers," says Kevin Mercer, a volunteer with Riversides Stewardship Alliance (riversides, org, 4116-868-1983), a Toronto-based group that fights water pollution.
Detritus from cars, including engine fluids and bits of brake pad, pollute water bodies and pose a risk to aquatic life, as do soapy detergents, Mercer says.
If commercial car washes got rid of their waste water the same way, they'be charged under city and provincial regulations. They must separate out solids, as well as grease and oil, for proper landfill disposal. The water left over goes down sanitation sewers that flow, like the ones in your home, to a city facility for treatment.
Mercer says community groups should find ways to raise funds other than holding charity car washes, unless they enlist the help of a commercial car wash or get use of a Latimat system (http://www.latimat.com/) that puts a pad under the vehicle to contain and collect the runoff.
Michael D'Andrea, the city's director of infrastructure management, says a multi-year plan to clean up waterways and the waterfront includes educating people not to put dirt and chemicals down storm drains -- so don't wash your car on a driveway.
If for some reason you have to wash it at home, he says, do it on a porous surface, such as your lawn, so runoff doesn't go into a storm sewer. When you're done, put the soapy water down your basement or laundry drain so it gets treated.
While homeowners who let soap and other runoff go down storm sewers could technically be fined under a city bylaw, officials opt for education, D'Andrea says.
He advises consumers to ask at their car wash if they recycle their water, reducing the amount they use while also decreasing the level of contaminants.
One self-serve car wash in Etobicoke, Wash N' Go (4000 Dundas St. W.), uses solar power to heat its water, though it is augmented by a boiler in winter.
"The biggest trend in our industry is really a green trend," says owner Vito Cosentino, who is also president of the industry's national association.
"Solar is great for us -- we reduce utility costs and use it as a tool to market the business."
Asked about other industry trends, Cosentino mentions one that's about cleaning up another type of environment.
"We have a fragrance machine to get smells out of cars and we get an incredible amount of traffic from teenagers at 1 a.m. trying to mask the smell of cigarette or pot smoke from dad's car."
David Rider is an editor at the Star. Reach him at drider@thestar.ca .
Looking for a green event to participate in? Then check the calendar on ZeroFootPrint: http://www.zerofootprint.net/events . Events for November 10th, 2007, are listed below as an example of the worldwide listings.
2007-11-10
Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art
Greencastle, Indiana, United States
Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art explores how this design philosophy resonates with an emerging generation of international artists who combine a fresh aesthetic sensibility with a constructively critical approach to the production, dissemination, and display of art.
Organizer: Richard E. Peeler Art Center at DePauw University
Venue: Richard E. Peeler Art Center at DePauw University
2007-11-10
Wind Power Systems
Machynlleth, Powys, United Kingdom
This course is suitable for those interested in buying and installing an aerogenerator as well as for those with a general interest in the subject.
Organizer: Centre for Alternative Technology
Venue: Centre for Alternative Technology
2007-11-10
Les Respirations
Enghien-les-Bains, France
Speakers will debate around the theme of air quality, both indoor and outdoor at this event.
2007-11-10
Landscape Functions and People: Applying Strategic Planning Approaches for Good Natural Resource Governance
Bangkok, Thailand
The course offers participants an opportunity to familiarise themselves with current practices for landscape-level planning approaches.
Organizer: Wageningen International and Recoft
2007-11-10
PV Design Online
United States
This course is for the person who is interested in learning how to produce their own electricity from the sun.
Organizer: Solar Energy International
Venue: Online
2007-11-10
Forty-third Session of the International Tropical Timber Council and Associated Sessions of the Committees
Yokohama, Japan
Come and join the Forty-third Session of the International Tropical Timber Council and Associated Sessions of the Committees.
Organizer: International Tropical Timber Organization
2007-11-10
Advanced PV Online
United States
This course is designed to follow the PV Design & Installation workshop or the PV Design Online course with the next level of design criteria and maintenance issues.
Organizer: Solar Energy International
Venue: Online
2007-11-10
Celebrating Women & the Spirit of the Cranes
Delta, British Columbia, Canada
Nominate a women who represents the qualities associated with women and cranes-industriousness, loyalty, longevity, good fortune and gifted in handiwork. Nominations open in the Arts, Business, Community Spirit, Education, Science & Technology, and Fledgling Chick (women 30 or younger).
Organizer: Burns Bog Conservation Society
2007-11-10
Third International Conference on Rural Development
Kaunas City, Lithuania
Third international scientific conference on RURAL DEVELOPMENT 2007 This Conference is dedicated to the presentation of results in research of economical, managerial, social,technological, ecological, environmental aspects.
Organizer: Lithuanian University of Agriculture
2007-11-10
Ecomondo 2007
Rimini, Italy
Ecomondo has strengthened the original project - Ricicla - by in-depth coverage of the numerous issues linked with the concept of ‘environmental sustainability'.
Organizer: RiminiFiera
Venue: Expo Centre
2007-11-10
Euromoney and Ernst & Young Global Renewable Energy Awards
London, England
Now in its fourth year, the awards were established to recognise the projects, companies and individuals who contributed the most to take the industry forward and demonstrated best practice in renewable energy finance and development.
Organizer: Euromoney Energy Events
Venue: Riverbank Plaza
2007-11-10
San Francisco Green Festival
San Francisco, California, United States
What will you find at the Green Festival? Tasty food, great music, and 300 green businesses as well as films, workshops, yoga and other types of movement classes.
Organizer: Global Exchange and Co-op America
Venue: San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center
2007-11-10
Sustainable Innovation Summit
Glendale, Arizona, United States
The Thunderbird Sustainable Innovation Summit is pleased to host global thought leaders from academia, Fortune 500 companies, and sustainable development organizations to shape the future of sustainable innovation.
Organizer: Thunderbird School of Global Management
2007-11-10
Califia Sketchbook Design Competition
United States
The purpose of developing the Califia Sketchbook Design Competition is to express to a wide variety of people what life will be like in Califia, a proposed next generation eco-city.
Organizer: Green Century Institute
2007-11-10
Off-Grid Systems for Professionals
Hopland, California, United States
This two-day advanced class in off-grid PV covers the complex world of hybrid power systems, which integrate multiple energy sources (PV, wind power, small hydro, and generators) to satisfy the electrical demand of off-grid sites.
Organizer: Solar Living Institute
Venue: Solar Living Center
2007-11-10
Black Creek Pioneer Village is Open
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Activities and events take place all year long at the historic village.
Organizer: Black Creek Pioneer Village
Venue: Black Creek Pioneer Village
2007-11-10
University District Farmers Market
Seattle, Washington, United States
The University District Farmers Market is Seattle's oldest and largest "farmers-only" neighborhood market. Founded in 1993, this Saturday market offers a place for more than 50 Washington State farmers to sell their fresh produce and quality products each week.
Organizer: Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance
Venue: University District Farmers Market
2007-11-10
HomeStreet Bank Tree Challenge
Puget Sound, WA, US
The HomeStreet Bank Tree Challenge is a program to plant trees in the Puget Sound region.
Organizer: HomeStreet Bank, Cascade Land Conservancy, Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, Capitol Land Trust and Friends of the Hylebos
2007-11-10
Launch of Kerr Village Organic Farmer's Market
Oakville, ON, CA
Launch of new Oakville market! An open-air market featuring fresh in-season produce from sustainable farms, all within 150 km, prepared artisanal meats, & cheeses,holitics, arts & crafts, speakers and info tables on sustainable living, food preparation, preservation & nutrition, social issues and plety of children's activities.
Organizer: Canadian Organic Growers, Slow Food Canada
Venue: Kerr Village Organic Farmer's Market
2007-11-10
Laughter Gone Wild!
Banff, Alberta, Canada
Laughter Gone Wild! is Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative's signature comedy night.
Organizer: Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative
Venue: Eric Harvie Theatre and Banff Centre
2007-11-10
Whole Village Ecovillage Workbee
Caledon, Ontario, Canada
Work Bees are held monthly. All members, friends, guests and anyone interested in spending a day doing a variety of hands on work with genial forks in a gorgeous country setting are welcome to attend.
Organizer: Whole Village
Venue: Whole Village
2007-11-10
Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art
Greencastle, Indiana, United States
Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art explores how this design philosophy resonates with an emerging generation of international artists who combine a fresh aesthetic sensibility with a constructively critical approach to the production, dissemination, and display of art.
Organizer: Richard E. Peeler Art Center at DePauw University
Venue: Richard E. Peeler Art Center at DePauw University
2007-11-10
Wind Power Systems
Machynlleth, Powys, United Kingdom
This course is suitable for those interested in buying and installing an aerogenerator as well as for those with a general interest in the subject.
Organizer: Centre for Alternative Technology
Venue: Centre for Alternative Technology
2007-11-10
Les Respirations
Enghien-les-Bains, France
Speakers will debate around the theme of air quality, both indoor and outdoor at this event.
2007-11-10
Landscape Functions and People: Applying Strategic Planning Approaches for Good Natural Resource Governance
Bangkok, Thailand
The course offers participants an opportunity to familiarise themselves with current practices for landscape-level planning approaches.
Organizer: Wageningen International and Recoft
2007-11-10
PV Design Online
United States
This course is for the person who is interested in learning how to produce their own electricity from the sun.
Organizer: Solar Energy International
Venue: Online
2007-11-10
Forty-third Session of the International Tropical Timber Council and Associated Sessions of the Committees
Yokohama, Japan
Come and join the Forty-third Session of the International Tropical Timber Council and Associated Sessions of the Committees.
Organizer: International Tropical Timber Organization
2007-11-10
Advanced PV Online
United States
This course is designed to follow the PV Design & Installation workshop or the PV Design Online course with the next level of design criteria and maintenance issues.
Organizer: Solar Energy International
Venue: Online
2007-11-10
Celebrating Women & the Spirit of the Cranes
Delta, British Columbia, Canada
Nominate a women who represents the qualities associated with women and cranes-industriousness, loyalty, longevity, good fortune and gifted in handiwork. Nominations open in the Arts, Business, Community Spirit, Education, Science & Technology, and Fledgling Chick (women 30 or younger).
Organizer: Burns Bog Conservation Society
2007-11-10
Third International Conference on Rural Development
Kaunas City, Lithuania
Third international scientific conference on RURAL DEVELOPMENT 2007 This Conference is dedicated to the presentation of results in research of economical, managerial, social,technological, ecological, environmental aspects.
Organizer: Lithuanian University of Agriculture
2007-11-10
Ecomondo 2007
Rimini, Italy
Ecomondo has strengthened the original project - Ricicla - by in-depth coverage of the numerous issues linked with the concept of ‘environmental sustainability'.
Organizer: RiminiFiera
Venue: Expo Centre
2007-11-10
Euromoney and Ernst & Young Global Renewable Energy Awards
London, England
Now in its fourth year, the awards were established to recognise the projects, companies and individuals who contributed the most to take the industry forward and demonstrated best practice in renewable energy finance and development.
Organizer: Euromoney Energy Events
Venue: Riverbank Plaza
2007-11-10
San Francisco Green Festival
San Francisco, California, United States
What will you find at the Green Festival? Tasty food, great music, and 300 green businesses as well as films, workshops, yoga and other types of movement classes.
Organizer: Global Exchange and Co-op America
Venue: San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center
2007-11-10
Sustainable Innovation Summit
Glendale, Arizona, United States
The Thunderbird Sustainable Innovation Summit is pleased to host global thought leaders from academia, Fortune 500 companies, and sustainable development organizations to shape the future of sustainable innovation.
Organizer: Thunderbird School of Global Management
2007-11-10
Califia Sketchbook Design Competition
United States
The purpose of developing the Califia Sketchbook Design Competition is to express to a wide variety of people what life will be like in Califia, a proposed next generation eco-city.
Organizer: Green Century Institute
2007-11-10
Off-Grid Systems for Professionals
Hopland, California, United States
This two-day advanced class in off-grid PV covers the complex world of hybrid power systems, which integrate multiple energy sources (PV, wind power, small hydro, and generators) to satisfy the electrical demand of off-grid sites.
Organizer: Solar Living Institute
Venue: Solar Living Center
2007-11-10
Black Creek Pioneer Village is Open
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Activities and events take place all year long at the historic village.
Organizer: Black Creek Pioneer Village
Venue: Black Creek Pioneer Village
2007-11-10
University District Farmers Market
Seattle, Washington, United States
The University District Farmers Market is Seattle's oldest and largest "farmers-only" neighborhood market. Founded in 1993, this Saturday market offers a place for more than 50 Washington State farmers to sell their fresh produce and quality products each week.
Organizer: Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance
Venue: University District Farmers Market
2007-11-10
HomeStreet Bank Tree Challenge
Puget Sound, WA, US
The HomeStreet Bank Tree Challenge is a program to plant trees in the Puget Sound region.
Organizer: HomeStreet Bank, Cascade Land Conservancy, Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, Capitol Land Trust and Friends of the Hylebos
2007-11-10
Launch of Kerr Village Organic Farmer's Market
Oakville, ON, CA
Launch of new Oakville market! An open-air market featuring fresh in-season produce from sustainable farms, all within 150 km, prepared artisanal meats, & cheeses,holitics, arts & crafts, speakers and info tables on sustainable living, food preparation, preservation & nutrition, social issues and plety of children's activities.
Organizer: Canadian Organic Growers, Slow Food Canada
Venue: Kerr Village Organic Farmer's Market
2007-11-10
Laughter Gone Wild!
Banff, Alberta, Canada
Laughter Gone Wild! is Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative's signature comedy night.
Organizer: Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative
Venue: Eric Harvie Theatre and Banff Centre
2007-11-10
Whole Village Ecovillage Workbee
Caledon, Ontario, Canada
Work Bees are held monthly. All members, friends, guests and anyone interested in spending a day doing a variety of hands on work with genial forks in a gorgeous country setting are welcome to attend.
Organizer: Whole Village
Venue: Whole Village
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