From Cork to Toronto

The answer to every question in the overcoddled state of Iowa seems to be someone else's money, and because of America's simply bizarre method of selecting its First Citizen, what Iowa wants it all too often gets. The last season of the West Wing described buttering up Iowans by promising subsidy as "taking the pledge". First they wanted subsidies to build ethanol plants, and despite increasing evidence that not only is corn a poor feedstock and ethanol a poor biofuel but making ethanol from corn is a greenhouse gas polluting process , they got the money. Now too many distilleries have been built, the price of ethanol is plummeting because of poor distribution and the corn farmers answer is, you've guessed it - " mo' money! "

In a speech to Bombardier employees in Thunder Bay, Dalton McGuinty floated the idea of powering the next generation of GO trains by hydrogen rather than electricity. This is surprising considering his recently launched MoveOntario2020 plan proposed to use... electric locomotives. Bombardier don't care which technology is used - the passenger cars they make will probably be identical either way. The accompanying analysis included one stunning mistake: "Most trains in the world use either greenhouse-gas-emitting diesel engines or electricity, which is cleaner but is still often generated using greenhouse-gas-producing coal plants . A train that uses a hydrogen fuel cell to combine hydrogen with oxygen to create the electricity needed to run its motor would essentially be a zero-emissions vehicle, producing only water vapour, proponents say. The trains might run on hydrogen produced by Ontario's nuclear plants . Point 1: Ontario's nuclear plants do not produce hydroge...

I first saw this on Slashdot - on the first of August, British Columbia is to follow Alberta and Saskatchewan in introducing a surcharge on computer equipment and contracting Encorp to do the recycling. The problem is that there are recyclers and reusers in this sector already whose customers will say "why should I pay you when I've already paid the recycle tax". While I don't quite share the same hysteria over smelting the discarded equipment as this site, I completely agree with the quoted reusers who think they should get first crack at what is returned. It also seems likely that even if a computer is transferred out of the jurisdiction or alternatively disposed of, Encorp gets to keep the tax anyway, if the province follows their current contract for bottle recycling . Ontario is considering such a tax but should remember that reuse is above recycle in the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle hierarchy. That said I fully expect a similar cashgrab and corporate welfare ar...

For Canadians, that's about $0.32 for every plastic bag, which has reduced bag distribution by 90% since 2002 .  The tax had been EUR 0.15 (C$0.22) but an upward bump in plastic bag sales led to this further hike.  No fear of that happening in Ontario or Toronto, as the plastic lobby's frequent wailings in the press seems to head it off any time it's proposed.

Yesterday there was a Day of Action by First Nations people which included the closing of Highway 401 and the main railway line at Deseronto by a group led by activist Shawn Brant . I'm not going to go into the specifics of the rights or wrongs of the protest in this post but rather discuss the fact that Canadian National Railway declared that $100 million dollars worth of goods were blockaded due to the protest . Presumably that's $100 million every day the line closes. 5,000 VIA Rail passengers had to make other plans. In recent years CN and CP have been allowed to abandon pieces of railway infrastructure. I don't have a problem with that per se, it doesn't matter to me who owns them, but they should not be allowed to simply be lifted or rust among weeds while the remaining lines become more and more critical. The Government of Ontario should be buying up these lines to either keep them open or to at least preserve the alignment in public ownership so that when ...

Ontarians will only meet 1990 levels of CO2 by 2014 , according to the McGuinty government. Meanwhile they are throwing $600 million at developing green cars . Maybe Ontario would have reached 1990 levels sooner if the Liberals hadn't previously thrown $500m at cars that were distinctly less green . The fact that Buzz Hargrove likes this plan probably means this is a handout for Detroit's plants to go green rather than a further assistance to companies like Toyota and Honda who have done the heavy lifting to go for even more efficient cars, but they are more averse to unions like Buzz's.

During his recent trip to Canada, the Governator met with Stephen Harper (the Kyotoevader), Dalton McGuinty, who broke his pledge to close coal-fired power in Ontario, and Gordon Campbell, whose province is planning new coal plants despite objections from his neighbours in the state of Washington. Yet while in Toronto he did not meet with our Mayor , David Miller, the greenest broom wielder in Canada. I for one would love to know why. Could it be that word has got around about Hizzoner's deserted presentation in New York , in contrast to Ken Livingstone 's packed house? While Schwarzenegger promotes his Hydrogen Highway, Miller is promoting the idea of plug-in cars , which is a curious idea from a Mayor who believes we don't need new power plants or power lines. Even restricting use to off peak will require specialised infrastructure to ensure people don't plug in their cars in day time because they really really really need to make that trip to Walmart. Like the h...

The New York Times (free rego) has an interesting article on a local change in farming practices in Niger which valued tree saplings and nurtured them rather than removing them as an obstacle to crop-farming. The result that while the rest of the region suffered from famine during a drought, the trees helped to hold down topsoil and provided additional income from tree products such as branches and seeds. It doesn't cost the earth and it doesn't fix all the local problems but it gives hope that we don't have to have all the answers to solve some of the questions.

As Environment Minister Baird muses aloud about how those pesky Liberals like Stephane Dion subsidised the tarsands and he can't figure out why, the U.S. House of Representatives votes 264-163, including 36 Republicans voting with the majority Democrats, to repeal US$14bn of oil subsidies and other financial benefits . (NYT, rego required) Garth Turner fires back at Baird, pointing out some interesting issues: Dion was not involved in the programme Baird mentioned the programme began when oil was at $21/bbl, not $50 as it has been recently tarsands get more financial benefits than conventional oil and gas - in fact the same incentives as renewables Turner goes on : what we don’t need is an environment minister who has started his mandate lying about who did what, when, instead of what he’s going to do, now. Indeed. However, it would have been good to see the Martin government think aloud about these subsidies when they had the chance. From when Martin took power in December 2003...

This isn't a follow up to Thursday's post but rather to Far and Wide's entry about Stephane Dion's speech on energy in Alberta during the week. I was posting in response to another comment by someone called "Sceptical Environmental": Answer me this: if Dion were sincere in wanting us to use less gas, why did he vote against California-style mandatory emissions standards last year? Dion also said his solution to climate change in the oil sands is to have nukes power the whole thing. Who says this guy's an environmentalist?? Dion said the absolute opposite - that while energy generation is a provincial matter, he does not believe nuclear is a viable option . I disagree. Given the size of the comment my disagreement seemed to be generating, I opted to move it here. Please note at this point - I believe in aggressive conservation, supply management and innovations like Deep Lake Cooling but this is a province where peak demand has grown 20% or 1646MW in...

It is a basic tenet of Canadian politics that political and federal versions of a given political party are often more first cousins than siblings, such as in Quebec where a former Tory MP is leader of the Liberals and Premier. In B.C. the contrast between federal and provincial parties is coming into sharp focus on the issue of the environment. Stephane Dion came to power promising strong action on climate change, Gordon Campbell can't get stuck into offshore oil drilling and coal powered electricity fast enough. Does the Premier of B.C. think his fossil fuel production will have grandfathered immunity under a Dion regime or will he be ensconced in retirement in a comfortable corner office and beyond caring? All this in a province with the strongest Green party support, where local opposition managed to prevent a gas generation station across the US border with higher emission standards than the two coal plants Campbell's government just approved and where Chinese coal...

One of the problems with podcasts is that one rarely gets to listen, they build up and you feel obligated to at least try and catch up. I was listening to an audio podcast from the December 13th the Agenda on TVO (about which I have written previously) which concerned the question of the amount of room for true debate in modern media. At one point the question of the use of the word "denier", usually linked to those who dispute or downplay the Holocaust , being used to describe those who do not subscribe to the theory of Global Warming while discussing a recent column by Rex Murphy . One of the participants said (and I have done my best to transcribe accurately and all emphasis below is mine): Until today I never heard the term "global warming denier" okay, until I read Rex Murphy's column. I don't think... I haven't heard that term. I hear "sceptic", is the term I hear. If someone's using the term "denier" that's the ...

Over the next year the United States Fish and Wildlife Service will be considering a proposal to designated polar bears as endangered . At first glance this seems a no-brainer, given that polar bears have been suffering a multi-whammy: a decline in their sea ice breeding areas, a decline in their foodstocks, the release of manmade toxins normally stored in fat due to their lower food intake and their objectification by Coca-Cola every Christmas. The Nunavut territorial government doesn't think this is a good idea , according to the CBC. My first thought that this is a Inuit traditional rights issue, like the hunters in B.C. allowed to use hunting rifles at night because night hunting is a tradition of First Nations. But the USFWS doesn't have jurisdiction over Canada anyway. No, this is about US fatcats coming north for "sport" hunting - $20,000 for a guarantee to shoot a polar bear - for extra you can shoot an elk and have the meat shipped to your home. Acco...

An interesting article in the Toronto Star details the systems some local restaurant chains are installing to recover cooking heat to pre-heat cold water en route to hot water and heating systems. A sophisticated variant had a payback period of 21 months. The system is supplied by a company that used to install bar and restaurant smoking room ventilation prior to smoking rooms being outlawed in Ontario. In summer when no heating is required the hot water supply water can be preheated to 120F/49C prior to entering the boiler. I've sometimes wondered whether the hot air in a Toronto summer, where nightly lows can exceed 20C could be used in a similar way to integrate into hot water systems downtown, especially given the apparent success of Toronto's Deep Lake Cooling System .

In the "more harm than good department" the Register notes that not all "carbon offset schemes" are alike . New research presented at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union suggests that the carbon reducing benefits of the trees is outweighed by their tendency to trap heat close to the ground - especially when they are planted in the normally snowy, higher latitudes. So while they cool the planet by taking carbon out of the atmosphere, they also warm it, like a winter blanket. Ecologist Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory told the BBC: "What we have found is in the so-called mid-latitude region where the United States is located and majority of European countries are located, the climate benefits of planting will be nearly zero." For the trees to have an impact they need to be planted in the tropics, he said. Maybe some of those corporations claiming to be going carbon neutral should be asked where their offsets are going.

I saw this post which largely reproduced this article and wondered about the Toronto subway where in summer the heat and humidity alone can be oppressive at peak, especially since some cars don't have air conditioning. Now I wonder whether the conditions observed in Sweden are true here. If so, I think they increase the case for installing full length screens at all subway platforms. Not only would they increase the efficiency of air conditioning on platforms by reducing leakage into the tunnels but they would be an impediment to suicides and accidental track incursions while permitting the operation of shorter subway cars in offpeak times in a safe manner. (Note: there are operational impediments to 3/4 car operation but that's another matter.)

During the Liberal leadership campaign, the argument against Ignatieff was that he shot from the hip and was too liable to gaffes. Harper, Time Canada's Man of the Year , was the opposite, too in control of his agenda and those of his subordinates. Well, it turns out Harper's "Qana was a warcrime" may turn out to be "so-called greenhouse gases". As usual, Youtube provides ...

This is one of those posts I read that would be funny if it wasn't deadly serious - that not only would Simcoe County build a rubbish dump on top of an unusually high purity groundwater supply but that they would deliberately divert some of that water into the dump with a view of keeping leachate from leaking into said water supply. Enough clean water to supply 250,000 homes is being dumped into a creek to allow the dump to be built. The Province of Ontario has approved this apparent lunacy. The federal Liberal Party may have found "environmental religion" but Dalton McGuinty sure hasn't, if the complete mishandling of power generation policy hadn't already given that away. More information can be found at the Stop Dump Site 41 website. It has a stupid Java scrollbar which slows the pageload but I suppose it's in a good cause. It also has a song (bottom of page) which does weaken my support a little more.

I have to say I had the same reaction as Raiméis when I saw the release of 18 - enough re-releasing of past glories and throwing in the odd new track - we've already got them , sometimes twice over . But they have to have something to shovel money into their Dutch tax haven (and avoid the taxes they want governments to send to poor countries ).

The Telegraph reports that UK Chancellor Gordon Brown plans "green taxes" among which an tax hike on the existing 5 pound sterling tax on shorthaul flights and 40 pounds on longhaul. If Brown had real concern for the environment he would commit to putting all aviation tax above the cost of maintaining aviation infrastructure and security into improving high speed rail links within the UK and to Belgium and France via the Channel Tunnel. Instead the tax will surely pour into the gaping maw of the Treasury. This doesn't make it green - just greedy. Taxes on long haul flights tax on the other hand lacks any alternative route to steer people to short of putting people on rowing boats - paying for facilities to tow and start up aircraft near runways rather than having engines idling on the tarmac should be where such taxes find a home, as well as punishing older aircraft harder than newer more economical ones. There is a case to increase some taxes on flying here in Canada...