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Lessons in Simplicity on Warming
The most useful lessons to be learned in the fight against global warming can probably be gleaned from grade-school problem-solving exercises - for example, that letting air out of the tires of a truck that doesn't quite fit under a bridge is easier than raising the bridge. In other words, difficult problems don't always call for complicated solutions.
Three sectors produce most of Canada's atmosphere-clogging (a.k.a. greenhouse gas or GHG) emissions: oil and gas (including the tar sands), transportation and electricity generation (mainly from coal).
Problem Number 1, reducing GHG emissions from the tar sands, is a very complex issue according to industry and political leaders. This is why tar sands emissions are projected to rise from 25 million to 100 million tonnes annually by 2015.
The leading solutions include intensity targets with difficult-to-comprehend formulae and hard-to-see results; cap-and-trade systems requiring an army of middlemen and negotiators; and carbon sequestration involving GHG injection into deep aquifers or mines - a system so complex it can be perfected only after governments reach deeply into your pockets to spare polluters from paying the cost.
And yet there are easy solutions. Governments could simply refuse to issue leases or permits for new projects. When the federal government recently approved the Kearl tar-sands project, the decision would allow 3.7 million tonnes of GHGs to be released each year, for 50 years. Prime Minister Stephen Harper could also discourage oil and gas executives by cutting them off the federal dole. Until 2011, tar-sands projects will get at least $1 million per day in federal subsidies - money better spent on energy conservation programs.
Problem Number 2 is the transportation sector. The big thinkers in big business and big bureaucracies have proposed myriad complex solutions including the development of hydrogen, electric and hybrid - electric vehicles, all of which still need an energy source.
Then again you could just call over the fence to your neighbour Bob to get him to ride downtown to work with you every day - resulting in an immediate 50 per cent reduction in gasoline use and GHG emissions per trip.
Gasoline consumption can also be reduced based on simple arithmetic: drive 20 per cent less and reduce fuel consumption by 20 per cent; drive 30 per cent less and reduce fuel consumption by 30 per cent; and so on. These reductions are certainly feasible since the average motorist makes 2,000 trips each year that are under three kilometres - easy walking and cycling distances.
Reducing freight transport emissions is easy too, if you reduce distances. Buying apples from New Zealand and bottled water from Fiji makes sense if you live in, say, New Zealand or Fiji. The rest of us can buy more local goods.
Problem Number 3 is the electricity-generating sector. Reducing power plant emissions is most quickly achieved by reducing power use. Step one is to expect warm temperatures in the summer. This would help cut Ontario's peak summer energy demand, 40 per cent of which is for air conditioners. Adjusting the thermostat can reduce demand while shutting off the A/C and sitting under a tree with a locally brewed beer is a cool way to ponder other energy-saving opportunities.
But how do we get Canadians to notice the simple solutions?
Fortunately, nothing aside from natural disasters, political corruption or the partially exposed breasts of cabinet ministers' ex-girlfriends grabs the attention of our media more than price increases. Price increases make hitherto impossible acts - like giving up your SUV - seem easy.
Think of our atmosphere as a dump without a gatekeeper. If you go to the local landfill with debris you have to pay a fee, based on weight. Now apply the same thinking to the GHGs we dump into the atmosphere: the more you dump, the more you pay. These dumping fees are called carbon taxes.
When we put a price on GHGs people and business will notice (and adopt) easy ways to change their behaviour, for the good of the planet.
Simple ain't it?
Albert Koehl is a lawyer with Ecojustice, a Canadian environmental law organization.
© Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2008
18 Comments so far
Show AllAmen Brother!
What can we little people do?
First, distribute this article. Help people realize this is easy.
Me...
I bought a scooter for commuting. It gets 100 miles a gallon at 30 miles per hour.
I unplug uneeded electronic items.
I've switched to CF bulbs as the old ones burn out.
I make short trips on a bicycle.
My friends and I all call each other to see if anyone needs anything before we make a trip.
I buy as much as a I can local.
I do all the wash in cold water.
We've switched to all non-toxic cleaning products.
Every action helps, but do the giant ones first: car pool, sell your SUV, install solar electric, drive less.
Good stuff AddYourVoice. I have found that setting a goal then planning how to achieve it helps. List specific actions to achieve the goal. Measuring the results and continuing to work for additional reductions using the same process leads to a meaningful build down of energy use. Deadlines are important in goal setting.
Problem 1, problem 2, problem 3? Give me an Effing break.
Problem number 1 is that most Canadians get their news and information from the corporate sector. They are told that some scientists think there is global waming, and that some think there is not. They defend the idea that Canada needn't do anything at all, as we account for less than 2% of GHG emissions, and we should wait for every other country in the world to show concrete reductions before we'll even entertain the idea. Canadians are told, over and over every day, that every leader of a Federal party, with the exception of the Christian Reform Alliance Party, are a bunch of big-talking pansies who just hate Canada and want to see it destroyed through taxation. We are told that every sector of our economy is meaningless to the country, except the Tar Sands and the Automotive manufacturing industry.
So what I'm saying is that most Canadians don't know shit, and the people (myself included) who buy into this hairy-fairy la-la-land of global warming, particularily with respect to carbon taxes, are largely ridiculed for believing in something that is about as real as UFOs, Sasquatches, or the hole in the ozone layer.
I don't see any way out of this. As long as people are happy to get their news and information from sources that are in bed with the Big Oil shills, the Earth will melt and almost no-one will have the faintest idea why. Oh, they've heard of it, but they don't think it's true.
Re-number your Effing problems.
Good ideas.
Carbon tax must replace income taxes.
http://www.gizmag.com/compressed-air-car-set-for-us-launch-in-2010/8896/
Saveyourvoice, I like all the ideas except selling the SUV. Unfortunately, the only way to keep it from its horrendous amounts of pollution is to scrap it. Probably no one will go this far, so those who own them must keep them and use them sparingly. It's not our footprint in that case, it's the footprint of the vehicle itself. In fact, too bad the wealthier environmentalists don't buy as many SUVs as possible (maybe a really rich one could buy Hummer) as well as McMansions. When environmentalists are house shopping, we should buy the biggest house we can afford, and close off part of it. I think, though, that the McMansions have "open floor plan" and probably some of the house can't be closed off. But the media room, the den next to office beside the library, some of those rooms have doors and are redundant.
Why don't liberals with money also buy some mass media? We often gripe that we can't get a certain billboard up, or a certain ad aired.
AddYourVoice-It's good to know that other folks are also doing the "little things". They do matter. Hand wringing can only get people so far. Action invigorates.
I didn't see meat-eating in that list. Is the 'production' of animal product not a leading contributor to greenhouse gases?
At least north of the border (U.S.-Canadian) your government TALKS about it. We barely even mention it down here, and the cretins in the White House act like it's all some sort of communist/democrat/socialist plot intended to destroy America's peace of mind. OF COURSE we should be allowed to go on using a quarter of the planet's available oil every year (since we are, after all, about 4 percent of the world's population). Why should we have to worry about global warming? Who cares if the Seychelles go underwater when sea levels rise? Who cares if the polar bears go extinct?
Believe me, there may be debate, acrimonious debate on occasion, but you guys are awake, aware, and concerned. There are many Americans who are as well, but we are still in the minority, and our government, while professing a bit of concern from time to time, basically has other fish to fry, like whether or not to bomb Iran, and how to start squeezing oil out of Iraq, and the everlasting job of getting re-elected. The Congress of the United States is a group of several hundred useless people, headed by a White House of demonstrable idiocy. We need leadership on global warming, and many of us look to you for it. We have some hopes if Obama is elected, but with the electorate in this country you never know. Look what happened in 2004. Demonstrable idiocy re-elected.
Simple solutions to mythical problems. yawn.
thundermoon said:
"Why don't liberals with money also buy some mass media?"
Maybe its because when liberals make a lot of money, they usually become conservatives.
Canada's population is growing by one unit every minute and 36 seconds.
The World looks like its growing 3 a second.
http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop
I think that we should all just stop breathing...
it may be a great idea geo522, if you're willing to lead by example
AddYourVoice made some good points. Here's another good one (I know it's not possible for many, if not most, people). Before I found a place to reside, I found a job. Only then did I look for a place to reside. I now have a commute of 5 minutes (by foot! - AWESOME!).
The best lessons on simplicity I ever received came from my Grandfather. I can still remember him and Grandmaw in the garden well into their eighties. They raised eight kids and lost the farm during the depression. That's when Granddad went from being a Republican to a Democrat.
I rent, but I have a large garden right outside my door and I have noticed the dent it has put in my food bill, and the mental health benefits I have attained from streching and weeding in the garden.
Next month I start home brewing my own beer in cooperation with my landlord. "Simplify, simplify, cooperate . . . .