12 posts tagged “environmentalism”

Everybody needs to read this article in the most recent issue of The Walrus. Whether the numbers are perfectly accurate or not isn't relevant: the reality is that the end of the hydrocarbon is coming, and probably within my lifetime.

Critical points:

[Dave Hughes'] Talk is all kinds of policy-wonky. Your eyes could glaze over. You could even miss the two slides Dave always says are the only ones you must remember. The first is a single-line graph depicting "World Per Capita Annual Primary Energy Consumption by Fuel 1850-2007," which climbs by 761 percent over its 157-year timeline and flips from 82 percent renewable biomass (mostly wood) at the 1850 end to 89 percent non-renewables (almost entirely fossil fuels) at the 2007 end. The second critical slide has three line graphs in horizontal sequence, all tracking curves that begin in 1850, around the time humanity started drilling for oil in a serious way, and then spiking impossibly high at the right-hand, 2007 termini of their X axes. Global population today: 5.3 times global population in 1850. Per capita energy consumption today: 8.6 times that of 1850. Total energy consumption today: 45 times 1850's.

I personally think this makes the point rather well:

Even if you're convinced climate change is UN-sponsored hysteria or every last puff of greenhouse gas will soon be buried forever a mile underground or ducks look their best choking on tar sands tailings, Dave Hughes is saying your way of life is over. Not because of the clouds of smoke, you understand, but because we're running out of what makes them.

Emissions are the back end of the problem. They won't matter when there's suddenly nothing to emit. Of course our economy will collapse since the entire thing is based on hydrocarbon inputs.

Nerts. The sad thing is this guy is part of the Republican leadership. People actually look up to this guy. I'm especially fond of his warming being part of the cooling process logic. That's just brilliant.

Michael Steele: 'We Are Not Warming'
March 20, 2009, 11:39 am, By Kate Galbraith

The Republican National Committee Chairman, Michael Steele, has weighed in on climate change.

In a March 6 radio appearance that is only now percolating through the blogosphere, Mr. Steele apparently fielded a skeptic's question about global warming. As transcribed by the liberal blog, the Huffington Post, Mr. Steele thanked the questioner and replied this way:

We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? No very long.

My first exposure to Majora Carter was after viewing her presentation at T.E.D. just after they went online. She's phenomenal.

I.D. magazine interviews her this month and the interview is available online.

It seems strange to hear about the Provincial Government considering a commuter rail service on Vancouver Island and not in the Lower Mainland, stretching out towards the Fraser Valley. Twinning the Port Mann is all well and good, but without an investment in transit it's just a stopgap.

In any case, one of the keys to success of mass transit if volume: you need to have enough riders to make it worthwhile. The population of the Lower Mainland is significantly higher than the Island. Of course we have the West Coast Express but it falls short of providing full service (and provides none at all south of the Fraser River.) An upgraded West Coast Express would be the equal of Ontario's GO Transit systems and could significantly reduce traffic all day long between the Valley and Vancouver.

B.C. considers southern Vancouver Island commuter rail service
Last Updated: Friday, November 28, 2008
CBC News

The B.C. government says it is considering upgrading the old E&N railway to create a new commuter rail service for southern Vancouver Island.

On Thursday, Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon announced he will commission a half-million-dollar study to look at the options for commuter rail and freight on the historic route.

Currently a VIA rail passenger train makes one daily run along the old north to south line between Victoria and Courtenay on the island's east coast.

This is an even better idea than banning plastic bags. Not that I like plastic bags.

"Coffee cup deposit-return urged": http://www.thestar.com/article/512299
Companies must move on deposit-return recycling of containers, waste expert says
Oct 06, 2008 04:30 AM, MOIRA WELSH, ENVIRONMENT REPORTER

Coffee cups could be recycled through a deposit-return system, keeping the disposable containers out of the landfill, says consultant Clarissa Morawski. 

Companies that sell takeout coffee must create their own deposit-return system that keeps disposable cups out of litter and landfill, or governments will do it for them, says a waste diversion consultant.

Given the history of Vancouver politics, I'm completely unsurprised by yet another delay. Paul Martin could make a decision faster than our civic government.

I'm expecting a Royal Commission followed by a judicial inquiry into it's findings. After that, no doubt, the First Nations will launch a protest.

Stanley Park's hollow tree gets reprieve
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 8, 2008 | 1:35 AM ET CBC News

The Vancouver Park Board has decided to study options to keep Stanley Park's famous hollow tree instead of axing it this week as planned.

Board commissioners voted in a regular meeting Monday night to give a 150-day reprieve to one of Vancouver's oldest treasures. Park board engineers will study options to possibly keep the dead cedar.

In May of 1998 the Atlantic Monthy print an article called A Special Moment in History

It beings with a caution to:

BEWARE of people preaching that we live in special times. People have preached that message before, and those who listened sold their furniture and climbed up on rooftops to await ascension

and then goes on:

And yet, for all that, we may live in a special time.

The rest of the article goes on to make several points with society, in general, has yet to fully aware of. The article's well worth reading, and should lead to some careful reflection on the values of our world.

"...William Catton, who was a sociologist at Washington State University before his retirement, once tried to calculate the amount of energy human beings use each day. In hunter-gatherer times is was about 2,500 calories, all of it food. That is the daily energy intake of a common dolphin. A modern human being uses 31,000 calories a day, most of it in the form of fossil fuel. That is the intake of a pilot whale. And the average American uses six times that--as much as a sperm whale."

The emphasis is mine.

The Toronto Star asks a very important question today.

How green is wine in a box?
Experts disagree on how much of a Tetra Pak can really be recycled
May 28, 2008 04:30 AM NANCY J. WHITE

While shoppers at Ontario's liquor stores may soon be toting their own reusable bags, they still have an eco-dilemma: is it greener to buy wine in a glass bottle or in a Tetra Pak carton?

Most disappointingly, I also learned this;

Returned Tetra Pak cartons are sent by container ship to mills in China and Korea.
(A Michigan mill recently closed, and the Tetra Pak company is looking for recycling options in Canada, says Koel.)

That Michigan mill used to handle Vancouver's recycling of Tetra-Paks, a fact that caused me to stop purchasing items when I had a choice. (Orange Juice and soup stocks are packed in little else these days.) That it's now closed means, no doubt, that Vancouver's Tetra-Paks now embark on the same worldwide journey.

It's my view that the government should pass legislation requiring local recycling for manufacturers who choose packaging to provide a local recycling option where one is not available.

Refillable glass bottles. That's a better way to go. Avalon Milk does it in Vancouver, and it's the only milk I buy.

Tetra Paks are horrible, and I'm offended by the fact that wines like French Rabbit wrap themselves in an environmental flag without a second thought to the real impact of their products.

This isn't a new story, but when I've mentioned it to people in the past they never seem to take me seriously. Bananas are going extinct, in large part because of a lack of varietal diversity.

Why bananas are a parable for our times
JOHANN HARI

Below the headlines about rocketing food prices and rocking governments, there lays a largely unnoticed fact: Bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.

There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon -- in five, 10 or 30 years -- the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world -- and where they are leading us.

is that you're just hiding from the reality of the situation. Everybody needs to pay their way on carbon emissions, not just the rich ones. A sliding scale for necessities makes sense (charge more for automotive fuel, less for home heating) but cap and trade doesn't address this either.

Layton raises carbon-tax alarm
BILL CURRY From Friday's Globe and Mail
May 23, 2008 at 4:56 AM EDT
_OTTAWA--_NDP Leader Jack Layton launched a vehement campaign against carbon taxes yesterday and was quickly accused of alarmist pandering by prominent Canadian environmentalists.

Speaking to a fundraiser for an Ottawa homeless shelter, Mr. Layton said carbon taxes would raise home heating costs and hurt Canadians living on the margins. He said big corporations should bear the lion's share of Canada's climate-change tab and a federal ombudsman should ensure those costs aren't passed on to consumers.

"With energy costs soaring in Canada, we've got to ensure that the solutions to climate change don't aggravate an already dire situation for those who struggle to make ends meet," Mr. Layton said.