From the Wednesday, December 26, 2007, Canada section of the Toronto Star, page A36, an article about climate change and the need for environment friendly lifestyles:
IS NEW SOCIAL CLIMATE NEEDED FOR GREEN LIVING?
Eco-crusade gaining momentum, but rules, infrastructure lacking
Gregory Bonnell
The Canadian Press
It was the year of living environmentally, or at least being implored to go clean and green as politicians of all stripes took up the global-warming cause in the wake of Al Gore's climate-change crusade.
Amid messages of new technologies and altering lifestyles, Canadians looking to make a change in 2008 should take heart that it doesn't all have to be sacrifice.
Experts say an environmentally friendly lifestyle can mean not only lower household bills but also improved mental and physical health when forgoing the automobile.
Still, just how many people are willing to move beyond lip service is a pressing question.
"You have polls where people say, 'Yes, we're willing to pay more to be green.' I think this is a premise that has yet to be fully tested," said Clifford Maynes, executive director of Green Communities Canada.
Buying organic food, installing high-efficiency furnaces or going hybrid for the next vehicle purchase are all options that mean spending more than one would if they stuck with the status quo.
Ali Squire, 63, said she tries to live as green as possible, which has meant buying more expensive organic foods - something that wasn't always an option when her children were still at home.
Squire, who lives on her own in Advocate Harbour, N.S., buys organic, grows her own vegetables, reuses and recycles.
"Between myself and sharing other people's gardens ... in the summer, very much so, you really notice the different in the grocery bill," said Squire.
When recycling came to her tiny community several years ago, Squire said her efforts were buoyed. But the lack of public transportation in the area means she needs a car to get to work, which she says she feels guilty about.
The goal, said Chris Winter of the Conservation Council of Ontario, "is not to become perfect, just to become better."
The Toronto resident is launching a website, www.weconserve.ca, that asks Canadians to assess how green they're living and set a green resolution for 2008.
Winter, a married father of two young children who doesn't own a car, said nothing about his lifestyle leaves him wanting.
In the political realm, climate change went from a non-existent issue in the 2006 federal election campaign to seemingly the most pressing matter on Parliament Hill.
The Conservative government's performance, including its call for a 20 per cent emissions reduction by 2020, has not impressed activists.
"We also need Canadians to be taking the steps in their own lives that they possibly can," said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. "It's not easy when all the signals are going in the wrong direction."
It's a point well taken by the environment movement - even if public will exists, fiscal and social infrastructure is sorely lacking.
"The whole ability to adopt a conserver lifestyle depends on having that support structure there," said Winter. "In Toronto, we have it in spades now and it's beginning to spread."
Showing posts with label greenhouse gases. Show all posts
Showing posts with label greenhouse gases. Show all posts
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Friday, December 21, 2007
Forest Industry Pledges to Clear the Air
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.
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 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."
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Living Green & Leading by Example
Toronto Star, Sat., October 6, 2007, Section U, "Green Living".
For the Children
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
Small changes can yield big results, especially when the goal is healing. You can learn from friends whose reusuable shopping bags and energy-efficient lightbulbs inspire green living. Pick up a few eco-friendly habits and feel good for passing yours along. Saving the environment can be easier than you think.
_____________________________________________________________________
The following is an article by Dr. David Suzuki, in the Toronto Star, Saturday, October 6, 2007, "Living Green," page U1. Dr. Suzuki is a scientist, author, professor, lecturer, and Canada's leading environmentalist:
What does it mean to live green? Unless we live under a rock, we are all part of a way of life that is unsustainable because it is undermining the life support systems of the planet -- air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity.
Globalization conceals much of the ecological cost of our way of life. From the moment I wake up in cotton sheets under wool blankets, I benefit from materials grown, shipped and manufactured all over the world.
Think of the source of the coffee, sugar, newsprint and ink, porcelain dishes and metal cutlery that help us start the day. By the time we get to all the components of our radios, or TVs, cars, phones and computers, you realize we are invisibly plugged in to the rest of the world and if 6.5 billion people aspire to our standard of living, the burden on the planet will be overwhelming.
But 30 million Canadians making small changes in our lives -- rejecting disposability, consuming less and more judiciously, driving less, etc. -- can nevertheless be very significant with no diminution in the quality of our lives.
Can we change to a society that covets clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and a diversity of other species as our highest priority, or will be choose to carry on with business as usual because we are unwilling to jeopardize the economy or sacrifice our hyper-consumption?
Whatever we choose, nature will ultimately impose the final limits and conditions on our survival and well-being.
We all live with contradictions. In 2000, I purchased the first Prius sold in Canada. I bicycle around Vancouver, and I take the bus or walk even more.
But I fly, and as George Monbiot's book Heat points out, air travel is the one major activity that cannot be changed to meet the large reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions necessary if we are to keep global temperature from rising more than 2C this century.
To bring human-generated GHGs into balance with the biosphere's capacity to absorb them, Monbiot asserts we must reduce our annual output of GHGs to an average of one tonne per person on the planet. At present, the average Canadian generates 20 tonnes and, according to Monbiot, a round-trip flight from Toronto to London produces one tonne per passenger.
To move toward balance with our surroundings, we have to spread information and knowledge, and that has been my rationale for continuing to fly. But it's not a satisfying one because I know people can rationalize just about anything.
For more than three years, I have been flying gold-standard "carbon neutral" -- that is, for the energy used on my behalf when I fly, I invest in putting 1 1/2 times as much green energy (solar and wind) onto the grid in developing countries like China and India.
The atmosphere is a single entity, and what happens there affects us all. By investing in such countries, we reduce their incentive to build polluting coal-burning plants.
But "carbon neutral" is not a licence to pollute. So this year I have cut my flying in half. I lumped commitments to fulfill several speaking engagements and television work on one trip.
Monbiot points out that short flights produce a disproportionate amount of GHGs because takeoff and landing are the times of greatest energy use. So I take trains between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and, although they take longer, I can work and relax and travel from downtown to downtown.
I have declined several invitations to speak abroad. And now I am offering to give speeches to various places but on condition that they be by teleconference. This month, I do my first two teleconference speeches to Australia and I hope that next year, most of my speeches will be from the comfort of a studio in Vancouver where I live.
It means I'll be better off psychically and physically, my family and friends will be pleased and, I hope, Mother Earth will have a slightly reduced burden.
David Suzuki is a broadcaster, scientist and founder of the David Suzuki Foundation: davidsuzuki.org
For the Children
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
Small changes can yield big results, especially when the goal is healing. You can learn from friends whose reusuable shopping bags and energy-efficient lightbulbs inspire green living. Pick up a few eco-friendly habits and feel good for passing yours along. Saving the environment can be easier than you think.
_____________________________________________________________________
The following is an article by Dr. David Suzuki, in the Toronto Star, Saturday, October 6, 2007, "Living Green," page U1. Dr. Suzuki is a scientist, author, professor, lecturer, and Canada's leading environmentalist:
What does it mean to live green? Unless we live under a rock, we are all part of a way of life that is unsustainable because it is undermining the life support systems of the planet -- air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity.
Globalization conceals much of the ecological cost of our way of life. From the moment I wake up in cotton sheets under wool blankets, I benefit from materials grown, shipped and manufactured all over the world.
Think of the source of the coffee, sugar, newsprint and ink, porcelain dishes and metal cutlery that help us start the day. By the time we get to all the components of our radios, or TVs, cars, phones and computers, you realize we are invisibly plugged in to the rest of the world and if 6.5 billion people aspire to our standard of living, the burden on the planet will be overwhelming.
'Carbon neutral is not a licence to pollute. So this year I have cut my flying in half.' David Suzuki
But 30 million Canadians making small changes in our lives -- rejecting disposability, consuming less and more judiciously, driving less, etc. -- can nevertheless be very significant with no diminution in the quality of our lives.
Can we change to a society that covets clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and a diversity of other species as our highest priority, or will be choose to carry on with business as usual because we are unwilling to jeopardize the economy or sacrifice our hyper-consumption?
Whatever we choose, nature will ultimately impose the final limits and conditions on our survival and well-being.
We all live with contradictions. In 2000, I purchased the first Prius sold in Canada. I bicycle around Vancouver, and I take the bus or walk even more.
But I fly, and as George Monbiot's book Heat points out, air travel is the one major activity that cannot be changed to meet the large reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions necessary if we are to keep global temperature from rising more than 2C this century.
To bring human-generated GHGs into balance with the biosphere's capacity to absorb them, Monbiot asserts we must reduce our annual output of GHGs to an average of one tonne per person on the planet. At present, the average Canadian generates 20 tonnes and, according to Monbiot, a round-trip flight from Toronto to London produces one tonne per passenger.
To move toward balance with our surroundings, we have to spread information and knowledge, and that has been my rationale for continuing to fly. But it's not a satisfying one because I know people can rationalize just about anything.
For more than three years, I have been flying gold-standard "carbon neutral" -- that is, for the energy used on my behalf when I fly, I invest in putting 1 1/2 times as much green energy (solar and wind) onto the grid in developing countries like China and India.
The atmosphere is a single entity, and what happens there affects us all. By investing in such countries, we reduce their incentive to build polluting coal-burning plants.
But "carbon neutral" is not a licence to pollute. So this year I have cut my flying in half. I lumped commitments to fulfill several speaking engagements and television work on one trip.
Monbiot points out that short flights produce a disproportionate amount of GHGs because takeoff and landing are the times of greatest energy use. So I take trains between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and, although they take longer, I can work and relax and travel from downtown to downtown.
I have declined several invitations to speak abroad. And now I am offering to give speeches to various places but on condition that they be by teleconference. This month, I do my first two teleconference speeches to Australia and I hope that next year, most of my speeches will be from the comfort of a studio in Vancouver where I live.
It means I'll be better off psychically and physically, my family and friends will be pleased and, I hope, Mother Earth will have a slightly reduced burden.
David Suzuki is a broadcaster, scientist and founder of the David Suzuki Foundation: davidsuzuki.org
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