Green VIA?

A friend just posted this link to me http://www.viarail.ca/en/car-free-day, where VIA claims that they are the “greener” way. “To celebrate Car Free Day on September 22, 2009, VIA Rail is giving you an extra incentive to leave your car at home and help contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by taking the train instead.”

Always on the cutting edge when it comes to energy and sustainability, I beg to differ. First, let’s establish that VIA runs on fossil fuels, I would be surprised if they have another source of energy for any of their processes. Every single time I have taken VIA in the summer, I can tell you it’s colder than a meatlocker. It is so cold, that I can’t sleep because it’s bone chilling cold. Colder than a bus or an airplane.  Given that VIA is apparently concerned about the environment, and hopefully my health, I once asked if they wouldn’t mind turning down the air conditioning. They told me they have no control over the internal temperature of the train. So, I challenge VIA to reduce their fossil fuels by reducing the air conditioning in the summer and actually being efficient, rather than claiming that they are.

Second, when visiting friends in Montréal, I once dared to be green: I rode my extremely tiny folding bicycle to the VIA station, folded it to a size smaller than a suitcase and was planning to bring it as my luggage and then ride it to my destination in Montréal, thereby bypassing taxis and public transit (bicycles are “greener” than either). When I got to the station, I was informed by VIA that I was not allowed to bring my folding bicycle on. Even though it folded to the size of a suitcase, fitting with other suitcases on the suitcase rack, and would not topple over like a regular bike, and they wouldn’t have even noticed it if I had packed it in a bag I was NOT. ALLOWED. TO. BRING. IT. ON. We discussed for a while that it makes sense to have policies like that for large things that fall like skis etc, but the VIA staff were petty bureaucrats to the core. They even could have put it in a plastic bag to protect the edges, but they absolutely refused.

I think of most long distance transit possibilities, the train is the best chance, but if VIA really wants to be green I really think they need to fix the large energy consuming equipment like air conditioning, and they also need to fix their policies and customer service so that people can travel in a truly “green” manner. Even the link I gave above is essentially only public relations, because if they had improved their fossil fuel consumption considerably, they would have printed a quantity of green house gas reductions.

After the bicycle incident I started carpooling to and from Montréal which I suspect might actually be “greener” than the train, due to likely comparable or better fuel economy per passenger.

Back From Hiatus

It has been brought to my attention that it’s been a while since I posted. Frankly, I think you can tell from my previous post that I really didn’t have many words of wisdom to share. And, there have been some new developments in life. But now I do have some new words of wisdom to share, so I will post.

1. Do not expect any degree of organization from student driven initiatives. This could be conferences, or funding proposals. In particular, do not expect funding from funds controlled by undergraduates if you are a graduate, even if you pay into that fund. In any dealing with student led initiatives, expect about 6 emails back and forth just to figure out when/where to meet to discuss how to clarify the “issues” you/they have. Then expect several awkward face to face meetings reestablishing basic criteria which should already have been established. Expect to get your way so that they can save face in front of professors/staff in the end, despite countless lost hours of useless exchange.
2. While you can attempt to write a review paper on a topic that hardly anyone has researched, expect *it* to take a long time, *you* to feel disorganized, and that *no one* will understand you. Feelings of isolation will keep you down.
3. Do not expect a linear relationship to work. Instead, think like systems thinking. A whole lotta nothing can get done, and then *WHOOOMPH*! Emergent properties lead you to have a brilliant paper on your hands.
4. Sometimes when you are having a down period, you can hit the “reset” button. As in, stop exercising, go to bed early, do what you need to do to feel good. This helps previous emergent properties emerge.
5. Do volunteer for small, radical events. You will make the cooler friends.
6. Avoid the killers. As in, people who repeatedly *insist* on bringing severe (as in death causing) allergens to parties after being told not to bring said allergen to a party. These same people have a tendency to try to overwater plants. Overwatering kills, people.
7. Do fall in love, but not with undergrads. Because a) they will be smart (hey, you’re both in grad school!) and b) no one notices if you are late for school in grad school. It’s your own damn schedule If they are an undergrad, and not mature (as in, not older), everyone will look down on you, but sort of quietly without you knowing.
8. Have friends/significant others with cars. I have essentially only taken public transit once a week for the past 6 weeks. HA! This way, you can feel morally superior about helping others reduce their emissions while being lazy. Muah ha ha.
9. It is important to have a back up bar, in case your first choice is closed or full. This is *very* important in KW.
10. Don’t expect the waitresses to know what “stout” is. Yes, I am embarrassed for them, and I am planning a social marketing program to educate the waitresses here.
11. Do go to the local churchical second hand shop in search of a love seat. Because you might find an amazing, vintage, irregularly shaped turquoise love seat for your office, and since they are churchical it only costs 25 bucks, plus 25 bucks delivery, plus tax. Yes people, 54 bucks for said loveseat.

Now that you have my words of wisdom, please go forth and prosper!

Contributions II

I can’t stop the alliteration. Here is a proposed title for my next paper, which I will mull over before handing it in on Monday:

In Search of “Sustainability” in Geography: Rejecting Dogma for Debate and Differentiation.

I think I am turning into Sydney from the comic book dykes to watch out for.

Feed your neighbours

This morning when I got back from my run, I heard a knock at my door. I opened it to find my two small friends in their pajamas (Spiderman designs!). They offered me a warm Montreal style bagel wrapped in a paper towel. “But”, they screamed,  “you have to get your own cream cheese!” I am so lucky to have such friends living downstairs!

That set the theme for the day. In my development studies class we had guest speakers from Haiti. Their organization, called Kore Pwodiksyon Lokal (KPL), is linked with the Mennonite Central Committee, and they work to promote a local food and product movement. Haiti is flooded with imports which are cheaper (and not as high quality) than the local fare. KPL wants Haitians to buy from their neighbours and support the local economy. They made a commercial to advertise their message, which aired last February. It is one of the most fun commercials I’ve ever seen, and according to them, it had a big impact. Check it out!

The man who jumps back at the end of the video was one of the speakers. I think he is a Haitian version of Rick Mercer. He told us that the next video to come out will be of him interviewing politicians to find out whether they prefer local fare or import. Apparently they all say local, but when he threatens to call their houses and find out what is cooking on the stove, they admit they buy “Miami rice”. Tsk. Tsk. He is quite a funny man, and very dedicated to the movement.

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And….speaking of neighbours, and things that go in mouths (well, a bit of a stretch here), but did anyone see this? Hilarious!

Kitchener All Candidates Debate on Environment and Economy

I went to the all candidates debate about environment and economy. It was actually focused on climate change, and there were no other environmental issues raised (at least, for the first hour and a quarter).

Within about half an hour, it was pretty clear where candidates stood. The Liberals are convinced that they were leaders on climate change for the 13 years they were in power from the 1990s onwards. Peter Braid of the Conservative Party insisted they backed out on the Kyoto Protocol (which the Communist Party candidate reminded us is legally binding), because the Liberals had not gotten Canadians and industry prepared for emissions trading. The Green Party candidates were the most articulate speakers on the topic (obviously since their platform addresses it the most), and Cathy McLellan pointed out that she spent years trying to get renewable energy projects off the ground (while both Liberals and Conservatives were in power) and lack of public policy support and planning hindered this.

I want to give credit to Cathy McLellan and John Bithell, the Green Party candidates, because they really knew their stuff. The thing about climate change is that everyone twists their numbers in all sorts of ways. And for that matter, the Communist Party candidate (Martin) was also really well informed, and kept the debate on track. So, for instance, when the Conservative candidate pointed out that their plan is for Canada to lower emissions by 20% by some date, the Communist Party candidate pointed out that this involves massive growth of emissions, and by the time they are lowered, the tarsands are not expected to be producing as much anyways. Some other factoids I learned from NDP and Green Parties (I’m pretty sure I have my numbers right, and I won’t double check them, but they seem accurate):

• NDP points: The average Canadian consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are not the way to look at it. Look at the distribution of consumption patterns. Wealthy Canadians consume 2.5 times as much energy as low-income Canadians.
• Green points: While some might argue that Canada only produces 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, it should be noted that the Canadian population is only 0.5% of the world’s population. *That* is a great dinner party tidbit.

Nuclear power

There was a question on nuclear power. Besides the fact that someone asked me a few days ago (during a lecture on electricity) why it is that no one can pronouce “nuclear” (“nucular”?), and then the guy next to me in the audience mouthed clearly “NU-CLEAR” and I started giggling (well, I actually giggled a lot, since there was so much hot air), it was a fairly serious and informed discussion. Summary:

• Green points: There is a reallllly long list of federal agencies, departments, ministries and regulators involved in nuclear power production, producing tons of hidden costs. Not to mention it is not insured by the private market due to such high risk–only governments are willing to insure nuclear power (scary).
• Liberal points: Stephen Harper fired the head of the nuclear regulation organization when she refused to re-open the Chalk River facility to sell nuclear isotopes. This is true.
• Liberal and Conservative debits: Nuclear is here to stay. And it’s clean. Get it? “Clear”? “Clean”? And they will both push clean energy sources in the mix.
• So, I feel the need to deconstruct the above statement. Nuclear reactors are generally “on” or “off”. I am not a nuclear or electrical engineer, but I can tell you that “on” and “off” of massive amounts of electricity does not give a lot of room for flexibility. Renewable sources, which are intermittent and variable need to be paired with sources that are flexible.
• Green Party debits: Germany put in 30,000MW of clean energy, which is exactly the amount Ontario needs–we could do it too!
• I have to deconstruct this one too. a) It’s 30,000 MW *installed* capacity, which is made up of opportunistic resources, so at any given time, when you need energy (i.e. MWhours, not MW), there is a power curve (wind), or a peak resource curve (solar), or seasonal variation (small hydro, biogas and all sources, really), and suffice it to say, you will not get 30,000 MW at any given time. You will get a fraction of that. I’m going to guess 10,000 to 15,000 MW (depending on the mix of resources) if you are lucky. I’m completely pro-renewable energy, but it is not as simplistic as this. b) Germany uses *HALF* coal for their power generation. COAL. c) Germany’s regional density is entirely different than Ontario’s. They are likely producing power much closer to where it is used, where as Ontario transports it loooong distances along transmission lines. d) Germans are leaders in manufacturing renewable energy, and it is currently a suppliers market. This becomes an issue of capital flowing to other countries for products. We could definitely buy German parts. Or, we could be manufacturing parts here too. I would appreciate it if the Greens made this stand out more. e) Unfortunately, the Ontario transmission system was historically built to bring large amounts of electricity from centalized sources long distances. A lot of capital was dumped into this system. Greens are going to have to recognize this issue that the system historically favours centralized power, and it’s going to take big $$$ to get out. It could also be that the alternative is costly too, but let’s talk about it.
• Overall deconstruction: Funnily enough, NONE of the candidates mentioned that it is the PROVINCES which choose their electricity structure, subject to some federal support and regulation. They can offer funding and partnerships, but overall, it rests with the provinces, and the provincal regulators.

Bonus Round

I can’t remember who said it, but someone *actually* said:

“Want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem”.

That really got me laughing, and signaled that I could not stay much longer. If you are not sure why, I remind you of this post. After you’ve watched it, close your eyes and say to yourself: “I want to be part of the soluuuution and not part of the prahhhhhblum”.

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My last comment. Although I did not stay to the very end of questions, I was disappointed that transportation was not seriously addressed. One Communist Party candidate and one NDP candidate both pointed out they took public transit to the debate. And a few of the parties mentioned dumping money into public transit. But in terms of general comments, there was much more focus on electricity conservation etc. I was disappointed, because I can tell you that if you look at the numbers, transportation in Canada produces HELLA MORE greenhouse gas emissions than electricity, and they are climbing, while emissions from electricity are probably somewhat stabilizing due to cleaner power sources.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post, because it is *unlikely* I will go back to one of these. It was painful for me to watch. I’m a numbers person, and I have reviewed every angle they cut the numbers at, and it generally doesn’t add up to any kind of coherent argument, which I find painful.

And if I ever run for anything, this is my platform:

1. World peace
2. Innovation
3. Equity
4. No cows or cars
5. Boobs
6. Eternal happiness
7. Waffles

Thank you.

Books on environmental change

For my teaching assistant job, I have to read a book about environmental change (fiction or non-fiction) and give my students a sample power point presentation so that they can do the same later with their own book.

I asked my friends for help, and here is what they suggested:

“The Last Nut” by Gavin Coates
From Aldo Leopold’s book of essays, A Sand County Almanac, “Wilderness”
• Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”
• Eugene Smith’s “Minamata”
• Sebastiao Salgado’s “Workers”
• “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn (X 3)
“The Botany of Desire” by Micheal Pollan
“A Short History of Progress” by Ronald Wright
Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree”
• Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax”
• Thoreau’s “Walden” (honorable mention to incite them to stand up on their tables Dead Poet style)

Happy reading!

This is the kind of innovation I’m talking about

Check it: solar bras! I love the part in the article about how lingerie can do its part to save the planet. I always *knew* it would be lingerie.

Maybe cars are better than bikes afterall

I remember in my early teens when public education campaigns about AIDS transmission were everywhere, in order to combat prejudice against people living with AIDS or HIV positive, while attempting to reduce transmission rates. In my grade 6 sex ed class the public health nurse was bombarded with all sorts of behaviour scenarios, which bordered on *ridiculous*, made up by my classmates on how to avoid getting it. We established that no, you couldn’t get AIDS from wearing second hand clothes, from a hand shake, from touching the same doorknob, etc. And we also established that all the scenarios of someone’s blood reaching your own blood stream (what if someone had a paper cut and touched X object, and then I touched it, and then….) were pretty unlikely. I still shudder to think of some of those questions, and the seriousness with which the questioner asked them.

Now that climate change is all the rage, and changing behaviour is still all the rage, and even though climate change is not a disease, it’s produced by the state of the economy (hence, ripe for good ol’ finger pointin’), I see that we’re back at it with the hypothetical behaviour based scenarios. While many like to believe that eating local food, not driving a car and turning out the lights results in less greenhouse gas emissions, there is lots of evidence to the contrary. And rather than focusing on the fact that this is because of the lack of pricing goods for externalities and many other policy reasons, researchers and pundits are all sitting around describing different scenarios for human behaviour, some pretty ridiculous, to show that conventional environmental wisdom does not reign.

The latest is Chris Goodall’s assertion that walking to the grocery store could be worse than driving, once you take into account the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of food to fuel you. What’s really hilarious is that this created quite the stir amongst all sorts of economists/think tanks/scientists. This caused the Pacific Institute, general debunker of climate change myths (like the one about the Hummer being better for the environment than a hybrid) to write a 7 page article on this, including 3 pages of end notes. They reviewed the options of beef (sirloin versus ground), a glass of milk, and the full on vegetarian apple. And apparently Goodall has a point, walking does not turn out to be better unless you are a vegetarian/vegan.

Comments on the Globe and Mail include that these people did not compare how much the driver ate (did they? maybe I should check…..See? *ridiculous*). And then we could get into that since in North America we overeat, maybe the driver and the walker ate the same amount, but the walker actually *burned* the calories, whereas the driver’s calories turned to fat. I think we need a nutritionist/lifestyle expert to weigh in on this one. And then we could get into the debate that food is no longer food anymore anyways, and in fact, as my-best-friend-growing-up’s dad would say, full of petroleum products, and then we’d have to evaluate that too. I mean, the Pacific Institute compared an apple to sirloin, when in America, it probably would have been more appropriate to assume a Big Mac (TM) containing 100% Pure Beef (TM, or whatever it was–i.e. NOT real beef) versus an apple pie from a box (ahem, full of petroleum products)….and this could go on forever, no?

I think all of this behaviour scenario analysis for climate change, while it works in the health sector to explain public health issues, puts too much emphasis on the individual. And while some emphasis is warranted (like, eating less meat), some of it just makes us feel trapped in our lack of options. A recent Greenpeace report shows that the biggest culprit in greenhouse gas emissions from food is from “the massive overuse of fertilisers….one of the most potent greenhouse gases is nitrous oxide (N20), with a global warming potential of some 296 times higher than that of carbon dioxide.” Some recent studies have shown that food that has been grown with less greenhouse gas emissions but has been transported a long distance has a smaller carbon footprint than food that has been produced locally, using a large amount of fertiliser/high greenhouse gas production methods.

I say we go back to finger pointing, and start targeting agriculture methods, and then cars can go back to being the “real” culprit, and then we can point the finger at them too! And fast food joints? You can buy the fat from them to produce biodiesel to power your cars, so as long as the co-benefits are okay, fast food is okay too, right?

And until then, I’m going to think about whether I can continue to feel morally superior to car drivers as I ride my bicycle around town.

energy vs. food

I’ve been following lots of articles on the food crisis that is happening around the world. Prices of staples like rice, corn, and wheat are doubling and tripling, leading to food shortages and riots in importing countries. The New York Times has been doing some amazing analysis on this here and here.

It feels personal at times, since during my short 6 months in West Africa, I learned that in Sierra Leone they are dependent on rice and other grain imports. Even though they grow an beautiful local variety of rice, it is hard to find in the markets since it is exported, and another grade of rice is imported from world markets. People there buy rice by the giant bag for families, and in a place where one meal a day really is the norm, rice really is a main staple. There is also a lot of bread, which I ate for breakfast most days. When I was there, the price of rice was relatively stable, but the price of bread (wheat) rose, and at one point there was a shortage and there was no bread to be found: price rises affect the ability to import it into the country altogether, it’s not just about being able to find it on the street but have to pay the vendor more. So, the reality hits close to home for me, although I don’t *feel* it as much as my friends there do.

in Paul Krugman’s article, he says that these rising prices are a result of rising population demanding more grains or grain intensity (i.e. meat) , effects of climate change, and what he calls “bad policy” such as promoting ethanol as an alternative to fossil fuels for cars, putting food crops in competition with energy (which is seeing rising prices that will continue to rise).

In an Ecological Economics way, this is an interesting issue. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, whose work I like a lot, did a lot of work in the early 1970s looking at the entropy law (second law of thermodynamics) and the economic process. He pointed out that over extraction of natural capital, and over pollution, that is, going beyond the rate at which the earth can process pollution or regenerate natural capital, would set the earth and economy into co-evolutionary process resulting in scarcity and a more damaged environment for future generations. Herman Daly, took Georgescu-Roegen’s writings, and said that ecological economics policy should seek to achieve sustainable scale (throughput of material goods in the economy), just distribution, and efficient allocation (economic efficiency), in that order.

Sustainable scale plays into this in a couple of interesting ways. For one, population growth, and growth of wealth for certain parts of the population, is driving this increased demand on food. But another scale issue is that of fuel consumption for cars. While governments could be finding policies to get people out of their cars, or into much smaller cars (see the post below on SUVs) which use less fuel, I think that the production of these biofuels creates the hope that people can continue to drive without change, rather than reducing energy usage patterns. This hope that we can just go on without changing essential infrastructure for personal mobility is obviously adding to this issue of scale.

Georgescu-Roegen discussed the just distribution issue in the sense of future generations, but we are seeing right now that there isn’t just distribution right now, and these issues of scale are affecting current generations in a very immediate sense. His issue of future generations definitely holds though in that the issue of climate change took time to grow, and what happened in the past is affecting us now.

On the food part, it’s something that I don’t know as much about, but a good friend who works on the issue of food has pointed out to me that much of the analysis in the media does not question why so many countries rely on food imports, how the food system is set up, and why the food system reacts this way. My systems thinking friend would look at this and see the food system as an unstable system, and the perfect storm of climate change creating drought, population demands and biofuels will effect a transformational change on the food system which has to find a new equilibrium. The question is, what will the new equilibrium be, and how do we adapt so that we can minimize the damage?

ideas of the day

How should we solve global climate change? No small task, it is true, and hence calls for innovative thinking. In addition to my world parachute for geo-engineering idea, here are a few ideas I thought of today:

Idea #1: Have Girl Guides sell emissions trading products, such as allowances (or credits) from the mandatory sector (of greenhouse gas reductions) and offsets from the voluntary sector.

Rationale: Climate change makes us all feel bad, and to mitigate it we have to pay more money or change our lifestyles immensely. But, could you really say “no” if one of these cute girls came to your house to sell emissions reductions? In addition, this could help them recover from their trans-fats image, and give a new revenue stream to fundraise for the organization. It would be even more cute if they got to run an auction for allowances, rather than just selling offsets, or trading allowances for companies.

Idea #2: Change zoning by-laws to make all garages, and garage doors too small to fit SUVs.

This could be a very uncontroversial way to pass an unconventional law which would significantly reduce the number of SUVs on the road, since owners will find it increasingly difficult to park them. While these zoning by-laws will only affect new garages (of which there will be plenty), how would you affect the already existing ones? I suggest putting standards and codes to limit the size of garage doors, so that if you had to replace your garage door, it would be too small to cover the hole, therefore, garage owners would have to cover those spots with more walls, thereby reducing the ability to fit an SUV through it.

Rationale: The biggest contributor to growth of greenhouse gas emissions in the personal transportation sector is from the rapid market takeover of SUV’s. SUV’s consume considerably more gasoline than a regular car (such as a sedan type), and their market share has gone from a very small percentage in the early 1990s, to a third or 50% of all personal vehicles.

Idea #3: The environmental icon air travel challenge. Who travels more, Al Gore or David Suzuki? Wouldn’t you like to know? If we knew how much they travel by air to educate us on the realities of climate change, do you think they would travel less?

Rationale: Traveling by air plane produces significantly more greenhouse gas emissions than most other forms of travel. One long air flight for one person (12 hours +) produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all other greenhouse gas emitting activities for that person combined (on an annual basis). Check zerofootprint.net’s carbon calculator for the proof.