The first good news has arrived in the form of a Taiwanese tanker that [it is hoped] can scoop up 21 million gallons of water a day, separate out most of the oil and siphon it to a nearby ship, then put the cleaner water back in the Gulf. However, even it needs to wait approval from the Environmental Protection Agency, as current regulations won't allow it to put dirty water back in the Gulf - even if it's cleaner.
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Cleanup efforts
Immediately after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up and it was known that oil was gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, people around the world started offering assistance to clean up the oil. There are many countries that have skimmers that can remove oil from water far more efficiently than any US technology can do it. A great unexplained scandal is why they have not yet been allowed to help, but it seems to have to do with overly cautious US bureaucracy. Now that hurricane season has arrived (and it's predicted to be a bad one), there will not be as many opportunities for skimming oil.
The first good news has arrived in the form of a Taiwanese tanker that [it is hoped] can scoop up 21 million gallons of water a day, separate out most of the oil and siphon it to a nearby ship, then put the cleaner water back in the Gulf. However, even it needs to wait approval from the Environmental Protection Agency, as current regulations won't allow it to put dirty water back in the Gulf - even if it's cleaner.
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The first good news has arrived in the form of a Taiwanese tanker that [it is hoped] can scoop up 21 million gallons of water a day, separate out most of the oil and siphon it to a nearby ship, then put the cleaner water back in the Gulf. However, even it needs to wait approval from the Environmental Protection Agency, as current regulations won't allow it to put dirty water back in the Gulf - even if it's cleaner.
How much oil has spilled?
Since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew up on April 20 until today (July 1), various estimates put the amount of oil that has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico at between 100 million and 200 million US gallons. Some of the oil has been siphoned, burned or skimmed from the water. The current official estimate of the remaining oil in the Gulf as of Thursday was 140 million gallons. It is estimated that 1.4 to 2.7 million gallons is being added to that each day.
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What Will Happen to All that Oil From the Gulf Oil Spill?
Some of the oil that has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico is being reclaimed by BP. The rule of thumb seems to be that if it has turned red, the oil is too "weathered" to be commercially viable, but if it's still black it may be salvagable with processing.In a gigantic rescue effort, a small amount of the oil has been brought ashore manually - by boats and by people bending over and picking it up off beaches. The oil in liquid form will be put in injection wells, while contaminated solid waste will go to special landfills.
As part of the cleanup effort, some of the oil on the surface of the water has been set on fire.
The Automated Data Inquiry for Oil Spills predicts that about 35 percent of the remaining oil will evaporate, about 20 percent will find its way to the ocean, and roughly half will remain in the Gulf of Mexico - some on the surface and the rest dispersed throughout the water.
The oil that goes to the ocean will round the tip of Florida and then probably get caught up in the northward-flowing Gulf Stream. Simulations predict that that oil will flow close to the coast of North America.The Gulf Stream eventually finds its way to the Norwegian Sea, where the cooled water becomes heavy and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. The trip from Florida to the sink will take about 18 months (based on this analysis of how long ashes dumped in Fort Lauderdale will take to get to England). After sinking in the Norwegian Sea, the Gulf Stream waters flow back south and reappear in the Pacific about 1,600 years later.
Some or all of the oil in the Gulf Stream will drop off en route. Tar balls may wash ashore. The oil may foul beaches and fisheries all up the east coast, although the simulations predict it will veer offshore long before Canada. Some of the oil will disperse in the Atlantic or sink to the bottom - which is reputedly already littered with tar balls from other oil spills and from chronic oil leakage from practices like dock degreasing.
A hurricane, tropical storm, or even plain old high winds could cause several problems.
High winds could dislodge or destroy the booms that are containing some of the oil, causing the slick to spread further. They would also likely cause large waves that will drive more oil ashore.Storm surge could drive contaminated water up canals and rivers. (It was storm surge that caused the flooding of New Orleans in the hours and days after Katrina.) A major concern in New Orleans is that the contaminated water will reach Lake Pontchartrain.
The oil itself is a deadly carcinogen, and the tons of dispersants that have been dropped on the slick make it even more toxic. It might seem insane to add more poisons to the mix, until we get to the next hurricane problem - which requires that we get oil off the surface as quickly as possible, and which is the reason for the dispersants.
The biggest concern about hurricanes is that the toxic mess will be picked up by the wind and carried inland. It could be carried hundreds or even thousands of miles before it's dropped on crops and pastures (from which it will spread throughout the food chain) and it will contaminate lakes, rivers, reservoirs and the rest of the water supply.Of the oil that remains in the Gulf, some will stay in the water forever. Some of it will seep onshore, especially into the salt water marshes that stretch inland for a hundred miles in places. Hurricanes, storm surges and other forces of nature will continue to carry it further inland, possibly for decades to come.
Many people seem to think that BP can pay the costs of the oil spill's damage, but this is way too big for a single company to cover.
(The comic is from xkcd.)
Oil Spills
Let's all keep in mind that the BP oil spill is a big story because it's close to home and because it's a follow-up to the even bigger (in terms of newstand revenue) story of the Katrina disaster. Oil contamination of the oceans goes on all the time, and is greatly under-reported.
Nigeria has been devastated by oil for decades. The New York Times reports that an oil spill the size of the Exxon Valdez has happened every year for 50 years in the oil fields of Nigeria, with the oil gushing into sensitive wet lands. A recent article in The Guardian is even more devastating, saying that life expectancy has plummeted in rural Nigeria as the oil spills contaminate drinking water. Protest has been brutally repressed, epitomized by the horrific execution of poet Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995. (Due to outrage at that atrocity, Shell finally paid $15M for its involvement, which was just one in a long history of human rights violations perpetrated by and for the oil companies.)
Like the Gulf spill, Nigerian oil spills don't just affect the local ecology. The oil flows out the Niger delta and into the Atlantic ocean. Also, over half of Nigerian oil wells are off-shore, and they're no safer than the ones on land.
Mexico had an oil spill in 1979-80 that held the previous record (140 million US gallons) and was only surpassed by BP today, at least according to current official estimates.
Tankers have spills at sea all the time that cause barely a ripple of notice.
Chronic oil pollution activities such as degreasing docks has also been chronicled as causing major environmental damage everywhere that oil is shipped.
Years ago I read an interview with a deep sea explorer who said that tar balls litter the floors of our oceans.
(There are also natural oil leaks, like Bush Hill in the Gulf of Mexico, but they generally become part of an ecosystem: the oil and gas is eaten by bacteria, which are in turn eaten by things like worms and mussels. Still, they sometimes result in tar balls washing on to beaches.)
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Nigeria has been devastated by oil for decades. The New York Times reports that an oil spill the size of the Exxon Valdez has happened every year for 50 years in the oil fields of Nigeria, with the oil gushing into sensitive wet lands. A recent article in The Guardian is even more devastating, saying that life expectancy has plummeted in rural Nigeria as the oil spills contaminate drinking water. Protest has been brutally repressed, epitomized by the horrific execution of poet Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995. (Due to outrage at that atrocity, Shell finally paid $15M for its involvement, which was just one in a long history of human rights violations perpetrated by and for the oil companies.)
Like the Gulf spill, Nigerian oil spills don't just affect the local ecology. The oil flows out the Niger delta and into the Atlantic ocean. Also, over half of Nigerian oil wells are off-shore, and they're no safer than the ones on land.
Mexico had an oil spill in 1979-80 that held the previous record (140 million US gallons) and was only surpassed by BP today, at least according to current official estimates.
Tankers have spills at sea all the time that cause barely a ripple of notice.
Chronic oil pollution activities such as degreasing docks has also been chronicled as causing major environmental damage everywhere that oil is shipped.
Years ago I read an interview with a deep sea explorer who said that tar balls litter the floors of our oceans.
(There are also natural oil leaks, like Bush Hill in the Gulf of Mexico, but they generally become part of an ecosystem: the oil and gas is eaten by bacteria, which are in turn eaten by things like worms and mussels. Still, they sometimes result in tar balls washing on to beaches.)
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Photos of the Gulf Oil Spill
The floor of the Gulf of Mexico, pre-spill:
The surface near the gusher:
Oil approaching a beach in June:
A graph showing where oil has hit land, June 19:
Thousands of individuals are attempting to clean the beaches by hand:
Oil seeping into a salt water marsh:
The surface near the gusher:
Oil approaching a beach in June:
A graph showing where oil has hit land, June 19:
Thousands of individuals are attempting to clean the beaches by hand:
Oil seeping into a salt water marsh:
Friday, April 23, 2010
Bringing Pragmatism to Environmental Issues
Waterloo Region health officials are agitating against a provincial initiative to allow convenience stores to sell wine and beer. Their argument is that it will lead to more drunkenness.
There is no evidence that convenient liquor sales leads to more drinking, and ample evidence to the contrary (in Quebec and the many US states that allow it). However, common sense is all that's needed to see the benefits: less driving. Beer and wine stores are so widely spread in our area that you practically have to own a car to get to them. In all of Waterloo - a town of over 100,000 people in a massive suburban sprawl - there are only three LCBOs and two beer stores.
Having wine and beer in convenience stores will also make corner stores more profitable, which should reverse the trend of declining numbers of corner stores. That will provide even more environmental benefits as residents won't have to rely on a car to pick up milk, the newspaper, and a host of other items.
In our older neighbourhoods you can still see where convenience stores used to be. They are usually on corners, and are often either boarded up or have been converted to a residence. They are reminders of a time when families either shared a car or did without, and were able to buy many necessities on foot.
We're always talking about creating a walkable city. This is how you do it: small, pragmatic steps that consider how people really live.
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There is no evidence that convenient liquor sales leads to more drinking, and ample evidence to the contrary (in Quebec and the many US states that allow it). However, common sense is all that's needed to see the benefits: less driving. Beer and wine stores are so widely spread in our area that you practically have to own a car to get to them. In all of Waterloo - a town of over 100,000 people in a massive suburban sprawl - there are only three LCBOs and two beer stores.
Having wine and beer in convenience stores will also make corner stores more profitable, which should reverse the trend of declining numbers of corner stores. That will provide even more environmental benefits as residents won't have to rely on a car to pick up milk, the newspaper, and a host of other items.
In our older neighbourhoods you can still see where convenience stores used to be. They are usually on corners, and are often either boarded up or have been converted to a residence. They are reminders of a time when families either shared a car or did without, and were able to buy many necessities on foot.
We're always talking about creating a walkable city. This is how you do it: small, pragmatic steps that consider how people really live.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Department of Eeee-yew
The Globe reports,
Researchers in the United States say they have turned male frogs into females by exposing the amphibians to tiny amounts of atrazine, a weed killer widely used on corn fields in Canada and often found in water supplies in agricultural areas.
The chemically induced sex change occurred by dosing frogs at concentrations of the herbicide 50 per cent below Health Canada's guideline for drinking water.
...
The discovery that in an experimental setting atrazine induces sex changes in frogs is likely to further increase the controversy over the chemical, which has been banned in Europe because it contaminates ground water but is one of the most commonly used herbicides in North America.
...
All the atrazine sold in Canada is made by Syngenta AG, a Swiss-based seed and pesticide producer that has previously disputed findings that the herbicide hazardous. ...Atrazine has been dogged by controversy since the late 1980s, when it was found to cause mammary tumours in one strain of laboratory rats...
A part per billion is an extremely small amount, the equivalent of one second or elapsed time over a 32-year period. The experimental dose used was below Canada's drinking water guideline of 5 ppb, but above the safe wildlife exposure standard of 1.8 ppb. Figures contained in Health Canada's 2007 atrazine evaluation found concentrations in groundwater of up to 1.2 ppb.
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Researchers in the United States say they have turned male frogs into females by exposing the amphibians to tiny amounts of atrazine, a weed killer widely used on corn fields in Canada and often found in water supplies in agricultural areas.
The chemically induced sex change occurred by dosing frogs at concentrations of the herbicide 50 per cent below Health Canada's guideline for drinking water.
...
The discovery that in an experimental setting atrazine induces sex changes in frogs is likely to further increase the controversy over the chemical, which has been banned in Europe because it contaminates ground water but is one of the most commonly used herbicides in North America.
...
All the atrazine sold in Canada is made by Syngenta AG, a Swiss-based seed and pesticide producer that has previously disputed findings that the herbicide hazardous. ...Atrazine has been dogged by controversy since the late 1980s, when it was found to cause mammary tumours in one strain of laboratory rats...
A part per billion is an extremely small amount, the equivalent of one second or elapsed time over a 32-year period. The experimental dose used was below Canada's drinking water guideline of 5 ppb, but above the safe wildlife exposure standard of 1.8 ppb. Figures contained in Health Canada's 2007 atrazine evaluation found concentrations in groundwater of up to 1.2 ppb.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Parking
It seems to be a prevalent view among City of Waterloo staff that the way to meet environmental goals is to reduce parking in uptown. They want less parking overall, including less convenient parking and less free parking. They think parking reductions will encourage people to "walk, bike, and rollerblade" as well as to take transit. Increasingly, they seem to think that a well-planned urban core is one that has few cars. This has permeated all the recent planning documents - even the draft urban design guidelines, which makes repeated mention of reducing uptown parking.
I have spent a fair bit of time trying to justify their point of view, but I just can't do it, because:
1. There's plenty of free parking at the new Wal-Mart, at the malls, and at the big box store complexes. Reducing parking only in uptown just encourages more people to drive to the outskirts to shop.
2. Economic viability is what makes uptown work. There are some of us (myself included) who live close enough to Waterloo Square to carry groceries home. Most people will not shop at a grocery store unless they can park close by. When we lose street parking on King between William and Erb (the core of our uptown) due to the LRT, it's not clear what will happen to businesses there. Will anyone go to lunch at the restaurants in that area if they have to walk several blocks from parking? Will they continue to shop at great Waterloo institutions like Words Worth Books and Ontario Seed?
Street festivals are an important part of uptown Waterloo's success. In a recent survey I did of uptown shoppers, employees and employers, the latter group cited festivals as a major way of attracting business. They said that even if people didn't shop at their store on the day of the festival, they saw stores and came back later. We are not going to attract families from the suburbs to our festivals if there is nowhere for them to park. They are not going to have a positive feeling about uptown if they end up driving around looking for a spot.
3. At the moment, residential projects are booming in uptown. For a healthy uptown, we need a balance of residential, commercial (shopping/restaurant), and employee growth. The expansion of uptown office space is being curtailed by the lack of parking - and that's before further parking reductions are implemented (due to LRT, the new hotel on Willis, the Balsillie School, etc). Uptown's big employers - such as SunLife, KPMG, Allen Square, and the Bauer Lofts - are all having problems because of the parking crunch. There's plenty of employee parking in the industrial parks - which, by the way, encourages companies to locate in places not well served by public transit.
4. When you walk around the uptown core, it's apparent that there is heavy use by seniors and by people with small children in strollers. Many of these people can't get out without cars, and can't walk from far-flung parking lots. Uptown is ringed by eight senior facilities/residences. Residents at Water Park, a primarily senior comlex of two large buildings, tend to be drivers. They are close enough to uptown to walk in good weather, but that's only a small part of the year. We have an aging demographic and seniors must be accommodated.
5. City and region staff who work in uptown have great parking: some underground and some in a convenient, dedicated lot behind their building. If they want to benefit the environment by reducing car use, they should start by shutting their own lots, charging employees hefty fees to park there, or forcing employees to walk several blocks from parking. Once they have done that they can start to talk about imposing parking restrictions on other employees and shoppers.
Staff likes to quote a parking study done a few years ago that found that there was excess parking in uptown. However, (1) much of that parking was inconvenient, such as at the station lot on Regina, and (2) the situation has changed completely since the new public square was built, reducing parking, while parking demand has increased. Both sides of the Waterloo Square parking lot are now regularly jammed, as is street parking. We need at least two multi-story parking structures immediately: one in the Waterloo Square lot near Erb, and one on King Street north of Erb. It would greatly reduce the pressure on uptown if SunLife could be prevailed upon to build a parking structure on their land at Union and King.
Waterloo Park is also being targeted as a car-free zone: the draft Waterloo Park Master Plan proposes closing all the parking lots in the park. Just walk around the park on any given day, and you'll see that many of the regulars have babies in strollers, are elderly people, or are picnicking. In many cases, those people will not be able to use the park when the lots are closed.
Conclusion: Start with Carrots
Parking strategy is truly the dog the wags the tail of uptown development. It threatens to drag us down, and that's a pity because it's so wrong-headed. You shouldn't use the stick before you use the carrot. We still have a long way to go in improvements such as:
* Providing bike lanes and bike parking.
* Creating safe pedestrian crossings (especially Caroline from Willis to Alexandra; Albert between Erb and Dupont; and the difficult Erb-Caroline intersection).
* Removing snow/ice from transit stops and sidewalks so that they meet accessibility standards. (A person with a walker cannot walk from Water Park to uptown in the winter.) Winter walking is treacherous on many sidewalks, such as on Caroline alongside the city lots from Alexandra to Father David Bauer Drive.
* Joining up our trail system (it falls into a black hole in uptown, picking up at Erb-Caroline to the north and Park-Allen to the south).
* Creating a proper walking/biking path along the railway tracks and connecting it to paths into Kitchener.
* Working on innovative approaches such as a cheap shuttle bus that runs through the uptown core.
###
I have spent a fair bit of time trying to justify their point of view, but I just can't do it, because:
1. There's plenty of free parking at the new Wal-Mart, at the malls, and at the big box store complexes. Reducing parking only in uptown just encourages more people to drive to the outskirts to shop.
2. Economic viability is what makes uptown work. There are some of us (myself included) who live close enough to Waterloo Square to carry groceries home. Most people will not shop at a grocery store unless they can park close by. When we lose street parking on King between William and Erb (the core of our uptown) due to the LRT, it's not clear what will happen to businesses there. Will anyone go to lunch at the restaurants in that area if they have to walk several blocks from parking? Will they continue to shop at great Waterloo institutions like Words Worth Books and Ontario Seed?
Street festivals are an important part of uptown Waterloo's success. In a recent survey I did of uptown shoppers, employees and employers, the latter group cited festivals as a major way of attracting business. They said that even if people didn't shop at their store on the day of the festival, they saw stores and came back later. We are not going to attract families from the suburbs to our festivals if there is nowhere for them to park. They are not going to have a positive feeling about uptown if they end up driving around looking for a spot.
3. At the moment, residential projects are booming in uptown. For a healthy uptown, we need a balance of residential, commercial (shopping/restaurant), and employee growth. The expansion of uptown office space is being curtailed by the lack of parking - and that's before further parking reductions are implemented (due to LRT, the new hotel on Willis, the Balsillie School, etc). Uptown's big employers - such as SunLife, KPMG, Allen Square, and the Bauer Lofts - are all having problems because of the parking crunch. There's plenty of employee parking in the industrial parks - which, by the way, encourages companies to locate in places not well served by public transit.
4. When you walk around the uptown core, it's apparent that there is heavy use by seniors and by people with small children in strollers. Many of these people can't get out without cars, and can't walk from far-flung parking lots. Uptown is ringed by eight senior facilities/residences. Residents at Water Park, a primarily senior comlex of two large buildings, tend to be drivers. They are close enough to uptown to walk in good weather, but that's only a small part of the year. We have an aging demographic and seniors must be accommodated.
5. City and region staff who work in uptown have great parking: some underground and some in a convenient, dedicated lot behind their building. If they want to benefit the environment by reducing car use, they should start by shutting their own lots, charging employees hefty fees to park there, or forcing employees to walk several blocks from parking. Once they have done that they can start to talk about imposing parking restrictions on other employees and shoppers.
Staff likes to quote a parking study done a few years ago that found that there was excess parking in uptown. However, (1) much of that parking was inconvenient, such as at the station lot on Regina, and (2) the situation has changed completely since the new public square was built, reducing parking, while parking demand has increased. Both sides of the Waterloo Square parking lot are now regularly jammed, as is street parking. We need at least two multi-story parking structures immediately: one in the Waterloo Square lot near Erb, and one on King Street north of Erb. It would greatly reduce the pressure on uptown if SunLife could be prevailed upon to build a parking structure on their land at Union and King.
Waterloo Park is also being targeted as a car-free zone: the draft Waterloo Park Master Plan proposes closing all the parking lots in the park. Just walk around the park on any given day, and you'll see that many of the regulars have babies in strollers, are elderly people, or are picnicking. In many cases, those people will not be able to use the park when the lots are closed.
Conclusion: Start with Carrots
Parking strategy is truly the dog the wags the tail of uptown development. It threatens to drag us down, and that's a pity because it's so wrong-headed. You shouldn't use the stick before you use the carrot. We still have a long way to go in improvements such as:
* Providing bike lanes and bike parking.
* Creating safe pedestrian crossings (especially Caroline from Willis to Alexandra; Albert between Erb and Dupont; and the difficult Erb-Caroline intersection).
* Removing snow/ice from transit stops and sidewalks so that they meet accessibility standards. (A person with a walker cannot walk from Water Park to uptown in the winter.) Winter walking is treacherous on many sidewalks, such as on Caroline alongside the city lots from Alexandra to Father David Bauer Drive.
* Joining up our trail system (it falls into a black hole in uptown, picking up at Erb-Caroline to the north and Park-Allen to the south).
* Creating a proper walking/biking path along the railway tracks and connecting it to paths into Kitchener.
* Working on innovative approaches such as a cheap shuttle bus that runs through the uptown core.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Rapid Transit Is Poised to Destroy Uptown Waterloo
Few residents seem to realize that a policy foisted on the City of Waterloo by the Region will radically change uptown Waterloo as we know it. If you don't know the details, rapid transit sounds like a great idea: a fast futuristic system that will help the environment by taking cars off the road. However, the rapid transit plan being prepared by Waterloo Region will likely have the opposite effect: it will be a giant white elephant that will suck money away from more highly-used regular bus routes. And it will change uptown Waterloo from a pedestrian-friendly small downtown core to a place with congested sidewalks, traffic jams, no street parking, pedestrian barriers, no street festivals... read on for details.
The Region's rapid transit plans were designed for Kitchener. Kitchener has problems. A fancy new transit line with only a few, widely spaced stops could direct development around those stops, potentially leading to revitalization of an ailing core.
Waterloo doesn't need to be revitalized. All the locations being considered for stops in Waterloo are places that already have plenty of density (present and planned). Worse, the Region plans to run the new transit line right down King Street in Waterloo, turning left at Erb and running against traffic down to the Clay & Glass Gallery at Caroline, where it turns and cuts a wide swath right across Waterloo Park.
It hasn't been decided yet whether rapid transit will be buses or trains. If trains, there will be dedicated and immovable rail lines down the center of main streets. Buses will not be much more flexible, because the region plans to build dedicated bus lanes with curbs down the middle of the street.
The route is also still up for grabs, but for uptown Waterloo it has been narrowed down to two options:
1. A loop that enters Waterloo from Kitchener on King, has one north-bound lane up King, turns left at Erb, runs on the north side of Erb to Caroline, crosses Caroline, and then runs beside the existing rail line through Waterloo Park.
Coming back south the transit would come through Waterloo Park, cross Erb-Caroline and run south on Caroline to Allen, where it jogs left and then right onto King to proceed back to Kitchener. The stops would probably be at King & Willis Way and at Willis Way & Caroline.
2. A two-way line down King Street from Kitchener, turning left either at the existing rail line near Waterloo Square or at Erb, and then proceeding across Erb-Caroline to run beside the existing rail line through Waterloo Park, returning the same way. There would be one stop, probably at King & Willis Way.
The stops are going to be larger than a regular bus stop (60 meters long and 3 meters wide), and may have some sort of barricade around them. There may also be an easement for transfer buses.
There are significant problems with each route.
Any route on King would change the entire ambience of Uptown. A raised rail line or curbed dedicated lane, each possibly with barricades, would have the following effects:
* It would hinder pedestrians from crossing the street. (The Region's response to this is that people shouldn't be jay walking.)
* It will make bike riding in uptown a nightmare.
* It will probably remove all street parking on King Street from William to Erb, meaning stores on King will have no immediate parking - and probably no places to drop off people from cars or taxis, either.
* The city will no longer be able to block King Street for the busker festival and other festivals. Even parades are in jeopardy.
* The many elderly people in Uptown who push their walkers or ride their scooters will have significantly more trouble crossing the street (even at lights).
* Long blockaded platforms will interfere with sidewalks and further hinder crossing the street.
Car traffic will also be significantly affected:
* King Street currently has four lanes of traffic; that will be reduced to two.
* Rapid transit will have priority turning left off of King, so may require gates to be put up where it turns. Gates will go down when a rapid transit vehicle approaches the intersection, just like a train crossing. This means gates on all four sides of the King-Erb intersection, or gates on King at the current railway tracks. Either would cause a traffic nightmare.
* If rapid transit runs along the north side of Erb, it will block one lane of that busy three-lane street. It will block cars that currently turn onto Albert Street.
* The Erb-Caroline intersection, already a mess, will get worse, and may also have to have railway gates.
The proposed routes will have other negative effects:
* The loop that includes a transit line on Caroline will be a nightmare in the narrow part of Caroline between William and Allen, and on the short Allen portion. The only way it will be able to turn at the Caroline-Allen corner and Allen-King corner is to use the parking lot at the Adult Recreation Center (ARC). In fact, it seems impossible that the corner of Allen-King can be negotiated without tearing down the ARC. (Regional employees have said that they can't run rapid transit down the middle of King Street, but must run it along the east curb, because otherwise the turn would be too sharp at Erb. If that is the case, rapid transit can't turn at the King-Allen intersection while the ARC stands.)
* The route down King that doesn't entail turning at Erb means that rapid transit will turn at the existing rail tracks that cross King near Erb. (Rapid transit will not run on the existing tracks, but will be a double-lane road or two rail lines beside them.) This will mean that we have to tear up part of the public square we are in the middle of spending millions to create. It will also put a wide, barricaded divide in the middle of the Waterloo Square parking lot.
* In every route plan proposed so far, rapid transit runs alongside the rail line that crosses through Waterloo Park. This is equivalent to putting a two-lane road alongside the rail line, and it will probably be barricaded. This will be an eyesore and essentially cut the park in two, as trains or buses whip through the park at high speeds.
* The loop proposal will mean that people will have to walk a significant distance to transfer to buses, which will further reduce ridership.
In every route currently on the table, rapid transit enters Waterloo from Kitchener along King. It exits Uptown Waterloo through Waterloo Park, stops at UW, stops at the UW R&T Park (north campus), stops at Conestogo Mall, and has a spur to the Waterloo Farmer's Market. These are the only stops. People who don't live near those stops could take the bus to them, but will likely drive and park. This route is very convenient for students (who get virtually free transit passes and who have strong legs) but are not at all convenient for most other Waterloo residents - many of whom have children or are elderly. But LRT is enormously expensive to run, and will almost certainly drain transit money away from traditional bus routes that go close to people's houses.
If Waterloo must be involved in the Region's rapid transit plans, there are alternatives, but they are not being considered. For example:
* Create bus rapid transit, and abandon the dedicated lanes when you enter Waterloo from Kitchener. Run the buses on existing streets without modification from Union north (to some street to be decided). Use regular bus stops. Within uptown Waterloo, run rapid transit like a regular bus. Have more frequent stops in Waterloo.
* Do not run rapid transit through Waterloo Park. Run it right up King Street to Conestogo Mall. Create a density node at King and Columbia.
* Do not run rapid transit to the Farmer's Market as that is a guaranteed money-losing route. The market is only open two days a week. Plus, transit is not the ideal way to carry home a bushel of eggplants. There is abundant good transit to the Kitchener Farmer's Market. In addition, the Waterloo Farmer's Market is not even within the Region of Waterloo.
* Alternatively, run rapid transit down Weber Street or Westmount Road, and bypass uptown Waterloo altogether.
There has been a highly questionnable public consultation process around rapid transit. Over the last year we had many public forums, but in each one we were told that rapid transit was a done deal and the only parameters to be discussed were route location. Also we were told that "details" like location of stops would be dealt with "later". (For Waterloo, they showed the stop location as a big circle on a map that spanned all of uptown.) Videos were shown of rapid transit systems in other cities - never mentioning that Waterloo Region is a fraction of the size of those cities, and transportation professionals consider that we have much too low density of workers (even in the foreseeable future) to sustain a rapid transit system. None of the side-effects, such as draining resources from the traditional bus system, were mentioned.
Rapid transit is not a project for the far future. The Region is fast-tracking it, and while we still don't know the details of the route through uptown Waterloo or the location of stops in uptown, we are told that the shovels will hit the ground soon. Apparently there is someone very powerful in the Region who sees this as his legacy project (Ken Seiling?) and refuses to accept any opposition. As soon as 2010, the successful small uptown core of Waterloo may be destroyed forever.
Do we need to find ways to make Waterloo less of a car city? Absolutely! Planning in Waterloo has been atrocious: we have far-flung subdivisions and industrial parks, box stores like our latest atrocity, Wal-Mart, at the north end of town, a general urban sprawl that makes a car almost mandatory. But the rapid transit proposal does not do one thing to address that problem. It will probably make car dependence worse as it siphons resources from existing bus routes.
Added to all its disadvantages, rapid transit doesn't provide a lot of advantages. It turns out that it's not that much faster than regular buses, because while it doesn't stop as often, it still has to maintain city speed limits. It provides potential for higher capacity of riders, but it strips away a lot of the flexibility of buses: if transit patterns change, we'll be stuck with the expensive route that is built initially. The only real solid advantage of rapid transit comes if it is rail transit, and that is that the trains will look really cool. That's simply not enough.
What can we as citizens do? Raise bloody hell. The city is going to decide how to respond soon, and while there is a lot of unease in City Hall about the plans, most residents don't seem to understand the changes that are about to come and so they aren't worried. It is not clear whether the city can stop the Region, but we must at least try.
###
The Region's rapid transit plans were designed for Kitchener. Kitchener has problems. A fancy new transit line with only a few, widely spaced stops could direct development around those stops, potentially leading to revitalization of an ailing core.
Waterloo doesn't need to be revitalized. All the locations being considered for stops in Waterloo are places that already have plenty of density (present and planned). Worse, the Region plans to run the new transit line right down King Street in Waterloo, turning left at Erb and running against traffic down to the Clay & Glass Gallery at Caroline, where it turns and cuts a wide swath right across Waterloo Park.
It hasn't been decided yet whether rapid transit will be buses or trains. If trains, there will be dedicated and immovable rail lines down the center of main streets. Buses will not be much more flexible, because the region plans to build dedicated bus lanes with curbs down the middle of the street.
The route is also still up for grabs, but for uptown Waterloo it has been narrowed down to two options:
1. A loop that enters Waterloo from Kitchener on King, has one north-bound lane up King, turns left at Erb, runs on the north side of Erb to Caroline, crosses Caroline, and then runs beside the existing rail line through Waterloo Park.
Coming back south the transit would come through Waterloo Park, cross Erb-Caroline and run south on Caroline to Allen, where it jogs left and then right onto King to proceed back to Kitchener. The stops would probably be at King & Willis Way and at Willis Way & Caroline.
2. A two-way line down King Street from Kitchener, turning left either at the existing rail line near Waterloo Square or at Erb, and then proceeding across Erb-Caroline to run beside the existing rail line through Waterloo Park, returning the same way. There would be one stop, probably at King & Willis Way.
The stops are going to be larger than a regular bus stop (60 meters long and 3 meters wide), and may have some sort of barricade around them. There may also be an easement for transfer buses.
There are significant problems with each route.
Any route on King would change the entire ambience of Uptown. A raised rail line or curbed dedicated lane, each possibly with barricades, would have the following effects:
* It would hinder pedestrians from crossing the street. (The Region's response to this is that people shouldn't be jay walking.)
* It will make bike riding in uptown a nightmare.
* It will probably remove all street parking on King Street from William to Erb, meaning stores on King will have no immediate parking - and probably no places to drop off people from cars or taxis, either.
* The city will no longer be able to block King Street for the busker festival and other festivals. Even parades are in jeopardy.
* The many elderly people in Uptown who push their walkers or ride their scooters will have significantly more trouble crossing the street (even at lights).
* Long blockaded platforms will interfere with sidewalks and further hinder crossing the street.
Car traffic will also be significantly affected:
* King Street currently has four lanes of traffic; that will be reduced to two.
* Rapid transit will have priority turning left off of King, so may require gates to be put up where it turns. Gates will go down when a rapid transit vehicle approaches the intersection, just like a train crossing. This means gates on all four sides of the King-Erb intersection, or gates on King at the current railway tracks. Either would cause a traffic nightmare.
* If rapid transit runs along the north side of Erb, it will block one lane of that busy three-lane street. It will block cars that currently turn onto Albert Street.
* The Erb-Caroline intersection, already a mess, will get worse, and may also have to have railway gates.
The proposed routes will have other negative effects:
* The loop that includes a transit line on Caroline will be a nightmare in the narrow part of Caroline between William and Allen, and on the short Allen portion. The only way it will be able to turn at the Caroline-Allen corner and Allen-King corner is to use the parking lot at the Adult Recreation Center (ARC). In fact, it seems impossible that the corner of Allen-King can be negotiated without tearing down the ARC. (Regional employees have said that they can't run rapid transit down the middle of King Street, but must run it along the east curb, because otherwise the turn would be too sharp at Erb. If that is the case, rapid transit can't turn at the King-Allen intersection while the ARC stands.)
* The route down King that doesn't entail turning at Erb means that rapid transit will turn at the existing rail tracks that cross King near Erb. (Rapid transit will not run on the existing tracks, but will be a double-lane road or two rail lines beside them.) This will mean that we have to tear up part of the public square we are in the middle of spending millions to create. It will also put a wide, barricaded divide in the middle of the Waterloo Square parking lot.
* In every route plan proposed so far, rapid transit runs alongside the rail line that crosses through Waterloo Park. This is equivalent to putting a two-lane road alongside the rail line, and it will probably be barricaded. This will be an eyesore and essentially cut the park in two, as trains or buses whip through the park at high speeds.
* The loop proposal will mean that people will have to walk a significant distance to transfer to buses, which will further reduce ridership.
In every route currently on the table, rapid transit enters Waterloo from Kitchener along King. It exits Uptown Waterloo through Waterloo Park, stops at UW, stops at the UW R&T Park (north campus), stops at Conestogo Mall, and has a spur to the Waterloo Farmer's Market. These are the only stops. People who don't live near those stops could take the bus to them, but will likely drive and park. This route is very convenient for students (who get virtually free transit passes and who have strong legs) but are not at all convenient for most other Waterloo residents - many of whom have children or are elderly. But LRT is enormously expensive to run, and will almost certainly drain transit money away from traditional bus routes that go close to people's houses.
If Waterloo must be involved in the Region's rapid transit plans, there are alternatives, but they are not being considered. For example:
* Create bus rapid transit, and abandon the dedicated lanes when you enter Waterloo from Kitchener. Run the buses on existing streets without modification from Union north (to some street to be decided). Use regular bus stops. Within uptown Waterloo, run rapid transit like a regular bus. Have more frequent stops in Waterloo.
* Do not run rapid transit through Waterloo Park. Run it right up King Street to Conestogo Mall. Create a density node at King and Columbia.
* Do not run rapid transit to the Farmer's Market as that is a guaranteed money-losing route. The market is only open two days a week. Plus, transit is not the ideal way to carry home a bushel of eggplants. There is abundant good transit to the Kitchener Farmer's Market. In addition, the Waterloo Farmer's Market is not even within the Region of Waterloo.
* Alternatively, run rapid transit down Weber Street or Westmount Road, and bypass uptown Waterloo altogether.
There has been a highly questionnable public consultation process around rapid transit. Over the last year we had many public forums, but in each one we were told that rapid transit was a done deal and the only parameters to be discussed were route location. Also we were told that "details" like location of stops would be dealt with "later". (For Waterloo, they showed the stop location as a big circle on a map that spanned all of uptown.) Videos were shown of rapid transit systems in other cities - never mentioning that Waterloo Region is a fraction of the size of those cities, and transportation professionals consider that we have much too low density of workers (even in the foreseeable future) to sustain a rapid transit system. None of the side-effects, such as draining resources from the traditional bus system, were mentioned.
Rapid transit is not a project for the far future. The Region is fast-tracking it, and while we still don't know the details of the route through uptown Waterloo or the location of stops in uptown, we are told that the shovels will hit the ground soon. Apparently there is someone very powerful in the Region who sees this as his legacy project (Ken Seiling?) and refuses to accept any opposition. As soon as 2010, the successful small uptown core of Waterloo may be destroyed forever.
Do we need to find ways to make Waterloo less of a car city? Absolutely! Planning in Waterloo has been atrocious: we have far-flung subdivisions and industrial parks, box stores like our latest atrocity, Wal-Mart, at the north end of town, a general urban sprawl that makes a car almost mandatory. But the rapid transit proposal does not do one thing to address that problem. It will probably make car dependence worse as it siphons resources from existing bus routes.
Added to all its disadvantages, rapid transit doesn't provide a lot of advantages. It turns out that it's not that much faster than regular buses, because while it doesn't stop as often, it still has to maintain city speed limits. It provides potential for higher capacity of riders, but it strips away a lot of the flexibility of buses: if transit patterns change, we'll be stuck with the expensive route that is built initially. The only real solid advantage of rapid transit comes if it is rail transit, and that is that the trains will look really cool. That's simply not enough.
What can we as citizens do? Raise bloody hell. The city is going to decide how to respond soon, and while there is a lot of unease in City Hall about the plans, most residents don't seem to understand the changes that are about to come and so they aren't worried. It is not clear whether the city can stop the Region, but we must at least try.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Polar Bears
It's sad but true that environmentalists and animal welfare groups are not a very credible lot. Many of them spread misinformation in alarming ways; media prints their claims without sufficient research; and the public is left not knowing what to believe. The real shame is that environmentalists have framed several issues in such unrealistic ways that there is little hope now that the public will ever grasp the reality of the situation. And increasingly, the target is animals in northern countries: seals, polar bears, whales.
For example, this article is a fascinating discussion of the framing of the anti-whaling debate. The author says, "Environmental and animal welfare activists often speak about the whale in the singular. We are told that the whale is the world's largest animal, that it has the world's largest brain, that its brain is large in comparison to body weight, that it is social and friendly, that it sings, that it has its own child care system, and that it is threatened, etc. It is true that the blue whale is the world's largest animal and that the sperm whale has the world's largest brain (although it is small in comparison to the animal's size), but most of the other assertions are difficult to prove. Those that do hold some truth are rarely true for more than one or two of the more than 75 different whale species which exist. When one speaks about the whale they are combining all the characteristics found among the various species, such that the whale has them all. But such a whale does not exist; it is a mythical creation, a "super whale"..."
Part of the lack of credibility is due to the pressures for funding. Environmental organizations (like poverty organizations) need something catchy to put in their TV ads and flyers because that's how they attract donors. And funding requires the appearance of effectiveness, so they can never back down, never admit they were wrong, rarely even lay off on a topic. When it becomes clear that most whale species are not endangered, they just switch tacks and oppose whaling on moral grounds. When the Canadian government made it illegal to hunt those doe-eyed white seal pups, they just keep on fighting to save them - even make them the centerpiece of their anti-sealing campaigns for decades after they were protected.
At last week's polar bear summit, a new fight started to take shape: scientists and environmentalists argued that polar bears are endangered and need protection from hunting; and Inuit representatives claimed that polar bear populations are rising. Environmentalists relied on models that project the effect of global warming decades into the future; Inuit spoke with first-hand knowledge of bears, both current and based on oral history. Both points of view had merit, and it's unfortunate that the groups are polarized - but in terms of credibility, I'm with the Inuit.
It's not just the Inuit who oppose protection of polar bears. A pattern has emerged: people who live in the north tend to oppose protection, while those who support moves like the recent US endangered species designation for polar bears are largely from the south. For example, see this NYT op-ed by Sarah Palin.
Why the difference? Here are some possible reasons:
* Many populations of polar bears are increasing. Some in northern Ontario have increased by 50% in recent years. Only a couple of populations have decreased yet.
* Polar bears are one of the most dangerous predators in the world. In communities that have polar bear incursions, there is virtually no way to keep them from attacking houses, short of building the house up on stilts and putting spikes on the steps. In such areas, every person - even co-op students - must have gun training and be armed at all times.
* Global warming is wreaking havoc on the north in all sorts of ways. The cause is all "from away" but the lifestyle of northerners is being affected negatively, and it must seem to them like adding insult to injury for southerners to first cause the pollution that's messing things up in the north, and now to try to curtail the activities of northerners because things are messed up.
* The Inuit have a long oral history and the north has seem plenty of change. Animals adapt, and the Inuit believe that polar bears will adapt to global warming.
Two-thirds of the world's polar bears live in Canada. It looks like polar bears may become the target of environmental organizations just as whales and seals have, and we may be in for a lot more disinformation.
###
For example, this article is a fascinating discussion of the framing of the anti-whaling debate. The author says, "Environmental and animal welfare activists often speak about the whale in the singular. We are told that the whale is the world's largest animal, that it has the world's largest brain, that its brain is large in comparison to body weight, that it is social and friendly, that it sings, that it has its own child care system, and that it is threatened, etc. It is true that the blue whale is the world's largest animal and that the sperm whale has the world's largest brain (although it is small in comparison to the animal's size), but most of the other assertions are difficult to prove. Those that do hold some truth are rarely true for more than one or two of the more than 75 different whale species which exist. When one speaks about the whale they are combining all the characteristics found among the various species, such that the whale has them all. But such a whale does not exist; it is a mythical creation, a "super whale"..."
Part of the lack of credibility is due to the pressures for funding. Environmental organizations (like poverty organizations) need something catchy to put in their TV ads and flyers because that's how they attract donors. And funding requires the appearance of effectiveness, so they can never back down, never admit they were wrong, rarely even lay off on a topic. When it becomes clear that most whale species are not endangered, they just switch tacks and oppose whaling on moral grounds. When the Canadian government made it illegal to hunt those doe-eyed white seal pups, they just keep on fighting to save them - even make them the centerpiece of their anti-sealing campaigns for decades after they were protected.
At last week's polar bear summit, a new fight started to take shape: scientists and environmentalists argued that polar bears are endangered and need protection from hunting; and Inuit representatives claimed that polar bear populations are rising. Environmentalists relied on models that project the effect of global warming decades into the future; Inuit spoke with first-hand knowledge of bears, both current and based on oral history. Both points of view had merit, and it's unfortunate that the groups are polarized - but in terms of credibility, I'm with the Inuit.
It's not just the Inuit who oppose protection of polar bears. A pattern has emerged: people who live in the north tend to oppose protection, while those who support moves like the recent US endangered species designation for polar bears are largely from the south. For example, see this NYT op-ed by Sarah Palin.
Why the difference? Here are some possible reasons:
* Many populations of polar bears are increasing. Some in northern Ontario have increased by 50% in recent years. Only a couple of populations have decreased yet.
* Polar bears are one of the most dangerous predators in the world. In communities that have polar bear incursions, there is virtually no way to keep them from attacking houses, short of building the house up on stilts and putting spikes on the steps. In such areas, every person - even co-op students - must have gun training and be armed at all times.
* Global warming is wreaking havoc on the north in all sorts of ways. The cause is all "from away" but the lifestyle of northerners is being affected negatively, and it must seem to them like adding insult to injury for southerners to first cause the pollution that's messing things up in the north, and now to try to curtail the activities of northerners because things are messed up.
* The Inuit have a long oral history and the north has seem plenty of change. Animals adapt, and the Inuit believe that polar bears will adapt to global warming.
Two-thirds of the world's polar bears live in Canada. It looks like polar bears may become the target of environmental organizations just as whales and seals have, and we may be in for a lot more disinformation.
Friday, December 26, 2008
More Bad News Predictions for 2009 and Beyond
Canada is still weathering the storm pretty well, but that's probably because the US downturn hasn't fully hit us yet. It will. There have been small US economic downturns that didn't hit Canada, but there is no way that a major recession in the US is going to leave Canada unscathed. Our economy is just too dependent on the US: not just exports (US exports comprise 25% of our GDP), but also US corporations operating in Canada that lay off Canadians when their US operations suffer; consumer confidence affected by the US (consumer spending is 55% of GDP); and tightening credit conditions. If the US dollar falls relative to the Canadian dollar, we will be in even more trouble.
A typical recession in Canada starts a bit after a US recession and is much longer. The US bottoms out and bounces back pretty quickly, while we continue to have high unemployment for a couple of years. The Report on Business and its ilk downplay the importance of this post-recession hardship because they're more concerned with the stock market, but working Canadians feel the pinch for a long time.
At this point, a recession with two or three years of layoffs is the "Good News" scenario. The US government is throwing trillions at the economy because they are in very great danger of a much worse situation than a recession. We are all teetering on the brink of a cliff and there may be no precedent for what happens next. Whole industries may shut down. We could be facing massive failures of banks, investment companies, manufacturers, retailers - even states and provinces. Every investment not protected by deposit insurance could be in jeopardy. We could enter a period of high inflation that would not only erode wealth, but undermine the efficieny of every aspect of the economy.
The economic downturn in China is particularly troubling. Just one small effect: if Chinese demand for oil declines, the Alberta oil industry could conceivably collapse. Similar shocks to other sectors that are affected by Chinese demand could be felt all over the world. The Chinese economy is vulnerable because it is still a very poor country with huge exports: it doesn't have domestic demand to cushion its vulnerability to global conditions. If it falters, it could fall hard.
The impending collapse of countries on the periphery of Europe will send shock waves around the world as they default on loans, and it's not clear (despite overwhelming evidence) that global economic leaders are preparing for it. World governments and economic organizations seem to be too much in reaction mode, and aren't being proactive enough.
If this great depression occurs - and at this point it's still just a possibility, not a certainty - then who knows what horrible political movements may grow. Hitler had his roots in the great depression of the 1930s. What might be the equivalent in a 2009 depression? Who might be the next great fascist state? Russia... China... the USA?
If we go into a depression and if it results in another world war, how will that affect the environment? Wars cause enormous environmental damage, with all the burning and sinking of ships and aramament manufacture and so on, while the environment is increasingly shaky. We could hasten the melting of the global ice caps, resulting in flooding of coastal areas and the displacement of hundreds of millions of people, just when international organizations that deal with disasters are too broke to operate in the way they were designed.
It would be comforting to know that there were people thinking about what may come and planning for it as best they could. In the short term we need to figure out what to do when the IMF runs out of money. But we also need to rethink everything we do in light of possible global economic collapse. It might not be a likely scenario, but there is a growing possibility that we're in for dark times ahead.
###
A typical recession in Canada starts a bit after a US recession and is much longer. The US bottoms out and bounces back pretty quickly, while we continue to have high unemployment for a couple of years. The Report on Business and its ilk downplay the importance of this post-recession hardship because they're more concerned with the stock market, but working Canadians feel the pinch for a long time.
At this point, a recession with two or three years of layoffs is the "Good News" scenario. The US government is throwing trillions at the economy because they are in very great danger of a much worse situation than a recession. We are all teetering on the brink of a cliff and there may be no precedent for what happens next. Whole industries may shut down. We could be facing massive failures of banks, investment companies, manufacturers, retailers - even states and provinces. Every investment not protected by deposit insurance could be in jeopardy. We could enter a period of high inflation that would not only erode wealth, but undermine the efficieny of every aspect of the economy.
The economic downturn in China is particularly troubling. Just one small effect: if Chinese demand for oil declines, the Alberta oil industry could conceivably collapse. Similar shocks to other sectors that are affected by Chinese demand could be felt all over the world. The Chinese economy is vulnerable because it is still a very poor country with huge exports: it doesn't have domestic demand to cushion its vulnerability to global conditions. If it falters, it could fall hard.
The impending collapse of countries on the periphery of Europe will send shock waves around the world as they default on loans, and it's not clear (despite overwhelming evidence) that global economic leaders are preparing for it. World governments and economic organizations seem to be too much in reaction mode, and aren't being proactive enough.
If this great depression occurs - and at this point it's still just a possibility, not a certainty - then who knows what horrible political movements may grow. Hitler had his roots in the great depression of the 1930s. What might be the equivalent in a 2009 depression? Who might be the next great fascist state? Russia... China... the USA?
If we go into a depression and if it results in another world war, how will that affect the environment? Wars cause enormous environmental damage, with all the burning and sinking of ships and aramament manufacture and so on, while the environment is increasingly shaky. We could hasten the melting of the global ice caps, resulting in flooding of coastal areas and the displacement of hundreds of millions of people, just when international organizations that deal with disasters are too broke to operate in the way they were designed.
It would be comforting to know that there were people thinking about what may come and planning for it as best they could. In the short term we need to figure out what to do when the IMF runs out of money. But we also need to rethink everything we do in light of possible global economic collapse. It might not be a likely scenario, but there is a growing possibility that we're in for dark times ahead.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Environmental Policy
Stephane Dion provided a poor vision for a number of reasons. One was that he posited that environmental policy should be a third pillar of the Liberal ethos, along with social justice and economic prosperity. In fact, it should not. It is important to elevate environmental policy only so long as we have a government that is not acting on it. After that, environmental policy is just another important policy among many. It does not have the stature of social justice or economic prosperity.
Secondly, the Green Shift was bad policy. Its justification, "Pay what you burn not what you earn" is wrong. Taxation cannot be shaped by one policy arm. Taxation must remain progressive, which means that it is based on income. The Green Shift (and the more radical all-consumption tax platform of the Green Party) can only approximate progressivity by building in a whole bunch of subsidies and exemptions that overly distort our society. For example, they propose that people who live in the country should get rebates or tax deductions for gasoline usage (to support good old country livin') but not provide any help for people living in subdivisions (who are by definition bad). As someone who has lived in the country, I can tell you that the majority of country dwellers live in subdivisions in small towns - so then, presumably, we encourage far-flung subdivisions but not close-in ones.
The Green Shift was also ass-backwards in taxing heating fuel but not gasoline. We need to increase the tax of gas at the pump, as Europe has done. That leads to smaller cars, less lengthy commutes, denser housing, more and better public transit, and - most importantly - more consciousness of the environment. It also gives us some protection from massive increases in oil costs, as we can alter the tax but not the price of a barrel of oil.
By putting forward an overly ambitious and fundamentally flawed environmental policy, Stephane Dion set back the cause of environmentalism: he let the PM win an election on an anti-environmental platform, thus giving him a sort of mandate to ignore environmental concerns. He also made it less likely that future campaigns will risk fighting for the environment.
Environmental policy should use the standard three areas of government muscle: taxation, regulation, and public education. Environmental taxation should take the form of "sin taxes," which are consumption taxes on things we want to discourage, such as cigarettes and booze. It shouldn't be a blunt sword but a scalpel, hitting specific activities, and the revenue should be used for providing alternatives to those activities, such as public transit. (Dion's approach of creating a revenue-neutral environmental tax was a sop to the old, flawed vision of "small government good, big government bad" that will be replaced very soon by the new vision of an active state).
The "Green Shift" is regressive taxation because the poor use a higher percentage of their income on consumption, and thus (under a consumption tax scheme) pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. We should be moving in exactly the opposite direction: we should be increasing the progressivity of taxation by adding tax brackets at the upper end. Currently, the highest tax bracket starts at about $122,000, which is woefully out of date.
The fact that consumption taxes have become a mainstay of green parties around the world is further evidence that the environmental movement is being overly influenced by the right. The environmental movement has historically been in opposition to movements that promote social justice because there is a split between using public funds for the environment or to combat poverty. Both should be treated as valid and important interest groups, but neither should gain iconic status as a pillar of Liberalism.
###
Secondly, the Green Shift was bad policy. Its justification, "Pay what you burn not what you earn" is wrong. Taxation cannot be shaped by one policy arm. Taxation must remain progressive, which means that it is based on income. The Green Shift (and the more radical all-consumption tax platform of the Green Party) can only approximate progressivity by building in a whole bunch of subsidies and exemptions that overly distort our society. For example, they propose that people who live in the country should get rebates or tax deductions for gasoline usage (to support good old country livin') but not provide any help for people living in subdivisions (who are by definition bad). As someone who has lived in the country, I can tell you that the majority of country dwellers live in subdivisions in small towns - so then, presumably, we encourage far-flung subdivisions but not close-in ones.
The Green Shift was also ass-backwards in taxing heating fuel but not gasoline. We need to increase the tax of gas at the pump, as Europe has done. That leads to smaller cars, less lengthy commutes, denser housing, more and better public transit, and - most importantly - more consciousness of the environment. It also gives us some protection from massive increases in oil costs, as we can alter the tax but not the price of a barrel of oil.
By putting forward an overly ambitious and fundamentally flawed environmental policy, Stephane Dion set back the cause of environmentalism: he let the PM win an election on an anti-environmental platform, thus giving him a sort of mandate to ignore environmental concerns. He also made it less likely that future campaigns will risk fighting for the environment.
Environmental policy should use the standard three areas of government muscle: taxation, regulation, and public education. Environmental taxation should take the form of "sin taxes," which are consumption taxes on things we want to discourage, such as cigarettes and booze. It shouldn't be a blunt sword but a scalpel, hitting specific activities, and the revenue should be used for providing alternatives to those activities, such as public transit. (Dion's approach of creating a revenue-neutral environmental tax was a sop to the old, flawed vision of "small government good, big government bad" that will be replaced very soon by the new vision of an active state).
The "Green Shift" is regressive taxation because the poor use a higher percentage of their income on consumption, and thus (under a consumption tax scheme) pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. We should be moving in exactly the opposite direction: we should be increasing the progressivity of taxation by adding tax brackets at the upper end. Currently, the highest tax bracket starts at about $122,000, which is woefully out of date.
The fact that consumption taxes have become a mainstay of green parties around the world is further evidence that the environmental movement is being overly influenced by the right. The environmental movement has historically been in opposition to movements that promote social justice because there is a split between using public funds for the environment or to combat poverty. Both should be treated as valid and important interest groups, but neither should gain iconic status as a pillar of Liberalism.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Air Quality in Beijing
In an exceedingly odd and self-contradictory article in the Globe today, we learn that the BBC has measured the pollution in Beijing today at 191 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic metre, which is almost four times higher than the World Health Organization's recommended limit of 50 micrograms. Then we learn that Beijing's pollution is 40% worse than Toronto on a bad day.
The rest of the article is full of assurances that Beijing's pea soup is mostly due to humidity, not pollution, that the Chinese have really made great improvements in the quality of their air, and that the athletes aren't worried.
When I lived in Toronto I biked to work, and one beautiful sunny morning I was enjoying my morning ride when I suddenly doubled up puking. I walked my bike home, turned on the radio and heard that there was a smog alert and people were advised not to jog or bike. It wasn't hazy or smelly and didn't seem to be polluted at all. I learned my lesson that day not to go out on my bike without checking the air quality.
The idea that athletes are going to push their bodies and their lungs to the limit in air that is 40% worse than air that made me vomit is just, well, mind boggling.
I agree with this UK columnist that this could result in short-term discomfort and long-term physical damage to competitors, and a whole mess of law suits will ensue.
Update, Sunday August 10: The BBC says that its measurement of Beijing pollution today is 278 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter.
###
The rest of the article is full of assurances that Beijing's pea soup is mostly due to humidity, not pollution, that the Chinese have really made great improvements in the quality of their air, and that the athletes aren't worried.
When I lived in Toronto I biked to work, and one beautiful sunny morning I was enjoying my morning ride when I suddenly doubled up puking. I walked my bike home, turned on the radio and heard that there was a smog alert and people were advised not to jog or bike. It wasn't hazy or smelly and didn't seem to be polluted at all. I learned my lesson that day not to go out on my bike without checking the air quality.
The idea that athletes are going to push their bodies and their lungs to the limit in air that is 40% worse than air that made me vomit is just, well, mind boggling.
I agree with this UK columnist that this could result in short-term discomfort and long-term physical damage to competitors, and a whole mess of law suits will ensue.
Update, Sunday August 10: The BBC says that its measurement of Beijing pollution today is 278 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Taxes and the Environment
Environmentally-minded politicians like Stephane Dion and Elizabeth May seem to assume that environmental taxes should be revenue neutral. In particular, the plan always seems to be to reduce income tax by the same amount as the consumption tax. This is wrongheaded, because:
1. Income taxes are progressive. Consumption taxes are not. We need some consumption taxes, but we should not shift away from income tax.
2. Environmentally-based consumption taxes, such as gas tax, should be used to move our society to a less oil-dependent state. The revenue should be used to subsidize public transit, to promote alternative energy sources, and to help people transition to less polluting lifestyles.
The parking lot at any mall is full of SUVs, vans and pickup trucks. Big buses chug along with a handful of passengers, if that. Ontario homeowners flagrantly waste energy, meaning that we're blanketed by pollution from the Nanticoke coal-burning generators - which our current provincial government wants desperately to shut down, but can't at current consumption levels.
Nothing is going to change without sustained higher prices for oil. When the price increase is caused by taxes, we have revenue to help people deal with the transition.
If the environment turns into a full-blown crisis, then we need to address it with a holistic vision of our society, not blinkered policies that see only the environment. We need to move into a new way of operating that preserves certain principles, such as modest income redistribution. This isn't like a war, when there are privations for a short period. This is about finding a permanent way to operate our society in a more environmental way.
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1. Income taxes are progressive. Consumption taxes are not. We need some consumption taxes, but we should not shift away from income tax.
2. Environmentally-based consumption taxes, such as gas tax, should be used to move our society to a less oil-dependent state. The revenue should be used to subsidize public transit, to promote alternative energy sources, and to help people transition to less polluting lifestyles.
The parking lot at any mall is full of SUVs, vans and pickup trucks. Big buses chug along with a handful of passengers, if that. Ontario homeowners flagrantly waste energy, meaning that we're blanketed by pollution from the Nanticoke coal-burning generators - which our current provincial government wants desperately to shut down, but can't at current consumption levels.
Nothing is going to change without sustained higher prices for oil. When the price increase is caused by taxes, we have revenue to help people deal with the transition.
If the environment turns into a full-blown crisis, then we need to address it with a holistic vision of our society, not blinkered policies that see only the environment. We need to move into a new way of operating that preserves certain principles, such as modest income redistribution. This isn't like a war, when there are privations for a short period. This is about finding a permanent way to operate our society in a more environmental way.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Dutch White Clover
Dutch white clover is a low-growing, attractive ground cover that can be planted with grass, with wildflowers, with other ground covers, or on its own. It can be walked on or mowed, and it grows in full sun to part-shade. It doesn't require fertilizer or herbicides, and it replenishes nutrients in the soil. It tolerates dog urine. It stays green in summer even when grass goes brown and dormant (as in my town, where we have severe restrictions on outdoor watering).
Dutch white clover was once in common use, but fell out of favor when herbicides became popular and the "putting green" style of lawn became the fad. Now that we're finally moving away from that model, it's a good solution to suppress weeds in a grass lawn or to plant in difficult-to-grow areas or, well, for anywhere. It can even be used to suppress chinch bugs.
Dutch white clover is distinct from wild clovers, which tend to grow higher. At Ontario Seed Co. (a Waterloo-based seed company and hardware store) you can purchase dutch white clover in small packets for $1.95 up to 2 kilo bags for $16.95. (It doesn't take a lot: two kilos should cover a couple of acres.)
For more information, see:
* Cornell University page on Dutch White Clover
* Nova Scotia site on establishing Dutch White Clover
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Dutch white clover was once in common use, but fell out of favor when herbicides became popular and the "putting green" style of lawn became the fad. Now that we're finally moving away from that model, it's a good solution to suppress weeds in a grass lawn or to plant in difficult-to-grow areas or, well, for anywhere. It can even be used to suppress chinch bugs.
Dutch white clover is distinct from wild clovers, which tend to grow higher. At Ontario Seed Co. (a Waterloo-based seed company and hardware store) you can purchase dutch white clover in small packets for $1.95 up to 2 kilo bags for $16.95. (It doesn't take a lot: two kilos should cover a couple of acres.)
For more information, see:
* Cornell University page on Dutch White Clover
* Nova Scotia site on establishing Dutch White Clover
Monday, May 26, 2008
Carbon Tax: Good, Necessary, Politically Dangerous
The enduring problem with democracy is that the voter has an inherent conflict of interest between the good of the whole and their personal well-being. So even though voters are crying for environmentalism from their government, they are also stridently opposed to any increase in gas prices - even though an increase in gas prices is the only way to improve the environment. Governments of Canada have not tried to raise the gas tax significantly since Joe Clark was tossed out of power in 1980 for making such an attempt. Consequently, the fuel efficiency of Canadian vehicles has plummeted and our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions has skyrocketed. Canadians cry that they want something done - but they won't stomach higher gas taxes. And as long as gas prices stay low, Canadians pollute like there's no tomorrow.
Finally the market stepped in and prices have started to rise. It's a pity that the excess revenue is going to the oil companies instead of the government. The government could be offsetting the pain of higher gas prices by improving urban transit, inter-city passenger and freight rail, home insulation programs, and on and on. That's the whole point of gas taxes.
Now Stephane Dion has suggested a carbon tax and he risks losing the next election over it - even though it is an idea that is not only good but necessary to effect a transition that will prevent disaster for Canadians. I disagree with one major part of Dion's proposal: the carbon tax should not be revenue neutral. Revenue from the carbon tax should be earmarked for programs that will help offset the pain of higher carbon prices, as outlined in the previous paragraph.
I have an 11-year old Corolla that I drive sparingly - a couple thousand kilometers per year. I have put off replacing it, in part, because I'm waiting for more fuel-efficient car options to come on the market. The SmartCar is a little too small; it's more suitable for a two-car household. Hybrids offer lower gas prices but a higher purchase price and higher maintenance costs; plus, their battery presents environmental problems for disposal. The diesel VW Beetle is an excellent car with better mileage than even a hybrid, but it's way too pricey. The Toyota Echo (3-door model) was just about perfect but it disappeared almost as soon as it was introduced. Surely, now that gas prices have risen car manufacturers will start to offer more fuel-efficient options.
Better fuel efficiency in vehicles is only part of the solution. Disposable diaper prices are rising 8% this summer, according to the Globe's Report on Business. The RoB laments that low-income consumers are being disproportionately hurt by higher prices, and "their influence on demand is so weak that even a concerted effort to cut consumption might be ineffective in cooling the hot market and pushing prices back down." The RoB misses the point. The goal is not to push prices back down, but to change consumption patterns. And in that regard lower income consumers could lead the way. For example, there is a convenient alternative to disposable diapers: the disposable diaper insert. You buy a washable diaper that has a pad that can be flushed. This product is thousands of times better for the environment; it is even more convenient; and it is far cheaper. Once widely known, I have no doubt it will be adopted. We continue to rely on disposable diapers because there's big profit in them for certain companies who advertise like crazy.
Toiletries, cosmetics, home cleaning products and the like tend to face non-price competition: consumers react less to price and more to advertising, packaging, and brand loyalty. That's why people buy toilet paper and paper towels that cost more than twice the lowest price brand. That's why they fall for heavily-advertised but ridiculous products like disposable brooms. It will take a massive force to get the market to stop succeeding with ever-more ridiculous disposable products. Sharply higher prices and resulting exposure to cheaper alternatives might just wake us up.
###
Finally the market stepped in and prices have started to rise. It's a pity that the excess revenue is going to the oil companies instead of the government. The government could be offsetting the pain of higher gas prices by improving urban transit, inter-city passenger and freight rail, home insulation programs, and on and on. That's the whole point of gas taxes.
Now Stephane Dion has suggested a carbon tax and he risks losing the next election over it - even though it is an idea that is not only good but necessary to effect a transition that will prevent disaster for Canadians. I disagree with one major part of Dion's proposal: the carbon tax should not be revenue neutral. Revenue from the carbon tax should be earmarked for programs that will help offset the pain of higher carbon prices, as outlined in the previous paragraph.
I have an 11-year old Corolla that I drive sparingly - a couple thousand kilometers per year. I have put off replacing it, in part, because I'm waiting for more fuel-efficient car options to come on the market. The SmartCar is a little too small; it's more suitable for a two-car household. Hybrids offer lower gas prices but a higher purchase price and higher maintenance costs; plus, their battery presents environmental problems for disposal. The diesel VW Beetle is an excellent car with better mileage than even a hybrid, but it's way too pricey. The Toyota Echo (3-door model) was just about perfect but it disappeared almost as soon as it was introduced. Surely, now that gas prices have risen car manufacturers will start to offer more fuel-efficient options.
Better fuel efficiency in vehicles is only part of the solution. Disposable diaper prices are rising 8% this summer, according to the Globe's Report on Business. The RoB laments that low-income consumers are being disproportionately hurt by higher prices, and "their influence on demand is so weak that even a concerted effort to cut consumption might be ineffective in cooling the hot market and pushing prices back down." The RoB misses the point. The goal is not to push prices back down, but to change consumption patterns. And in that regard lower income consumers could lead the way. For example, there is a convenient alternative to disposable diapers: the disposable diaper insert. You buy a washable diaper that has a pad that can be flushed. This product is thousands of times better for the environment; it is even more convenient; and it is far cheaper. Once widely known, I have no doubt it will be adopted. We continue to rely on disposable diapers because there's big profit in them for certain companies who advertise like crazy.
Toiletries, cosmetics, home cleaning products and the like tend to face non-price competition: consumers react less to price and more to advertising, packaging, and brand loyalty. That's why people buy toilet paper and paper towels that cost more than twice the lowest price brand. That's why they fall for heavily-advertised but ridiculous products like disposable brooms. It will take a massive force to get the market to stop succeeding with ever-more ridiculous disposable products. Sharply higher prices and resulting exposure to cheaper alternatives might just wake us up.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The Case for Biofuel
Biofuel has been taking quite a beating recently. The arguments for biofuel are:
- We need a replacement for oil, if not now, then not far in the future.
- Biofuel is less polluting than fossil fuel because carbon is absorbed while the plants grow, which offsets the carbon that is produced when the biofuel is burned.
- Biofuel can be produced and used locally, unlike oil which typically must be shipped long distances and refined in central locations.
- The process of producing and refining biofuel is less polluting than oil.
The objections to biofuel are:
- Chemical fertilizers and pesticides, as well as mechanized farm equipment required to produce biofuel and trucks to transport it, all use a lot of oil - meaning that biofuel is not "carbon neutral."
- Fields are being diverted for biofuel crops, which is contributing to the current international food crisis. If biofuel took the place of oil (as proponents hope), the land required would be so great as to cause enormous disruption to the food supply.
- Biofuel crops are leading to deforestation. In the Amazon rain forest, farmers are clearing forest to plant corn that is needed because US corn farmers have converted to biofuel production. In Malaysia, forests are being cleared to grow palm oil that is used in biodiesel.
- Huge government subsidies are required for biofuel; these could be used for more effective environmental programs.
- Biofuel production requires a lot of water (although some claim that the water is cleaned and released as steam which falls locally as rain).
- The main proponents for biofuel are US corn producers and their lobbies, who are interested in their own wealth, not the environment. Politicians who support biofuel are just pandering to an influential lobby.
The case against biofuel has become pretty fierce recently. However, I think we should take a step back. Thirty years ago it was not uncommon to hear similar arguments against solar and wind power: they would never produce as much energy as it took to produce them; they were not reliable enough to put on the energy grid. But technology increased their efficiency and solutions were found for their problems. The same is happening with biofuel: now that money is being poured into the technology, not just in the US and Europe but also in places like China, Brazil and Venezuela, biofuel technology is in a state of rapid change. One day we may get most of our biofuels from waste and sea algae.
The compelling argument for biofuel is that we need a replacement for oil. The cherry on top is that biofuel can be much less polluting than oil. It seems sensible to build this technology, even if it has drawbacks at the moment.
###
- We need a replacement for oil, if not now, then not far in the future.
- Biofuel is less polluting than fossil fuel because carbon is absorbed while the plants grow, which offsets the carbon that is produced when the biofuel is burned.
- Biofuel can be produced and used locally, unlike oil which typically must be shipped long distances and refined in central locations.
- The process of producing and refining biofuel is less polluting than oil.
The objections to biofuel are:
- Chemical fertilizers and pesticides, as well as mechanized farm equipment required to produce biofuel and trucks to transport it, all use a lot of oil - meaning that biofuel is not "carbon neutral."
- Fields are being diverted for biofuel crops, which is contributing to the current international food crisis. If biofuel took the place of oil (as proponents hope), the land required would be so great as to cause enormous disruption to the food supply.
- Biofuel crops are leading to deforestation. In the Amazon rain forest, farmers are clearing forest to plant corn that is needed because US corn farmers have converted to biofuel production. In Malaysia, forests are being cleared to grow palm oil that is used in biodiesel.
- Huge government subsidies are required for biofuel; these could be used for more effective environmental programs.
- Biofuel production requires a lot of water (although some claim that the water is cleaned and released as steam which falls locally as rain).
- The main proponents for biofuel are US corn producers and their lobbies, who are interested in their own wealth, not the environment. Politicians who support biofuel are just pandering to an influential lobby.
The case against biofuel has become pretty fierce recently. However, I think we should take a step back. Thirty years ago it was not uncommon to hear similar arguments against solar and wind power: they would never produce as much energy as it took to produce them; they were not reliable enough to put on the energy grid. But technology increased their efficiency and solutions were found for their problems. The same is happening with biofuel: now that money is being poured into the technology, not just in the US and Europe but also in places like China, Brazil and Venezuela, biofuel technology is in a state of rapid change. One day we may get most of our biofuels from waste and sea algae.
The compelling argument for biofuel is that we need a replacement for oil. The cherry on top is that biofuel can be much less polluting than oil. It seems sensible to build this technology, even if it has drawbacks at the moment.
Eight Reasons to be an Environmentalist
There's an excellent environmental primer over at AlterNet. I especially like the links for further reading. See Eight Reasons Our Changing World Will Turn You Into an Environmentalist, Like It or Not.
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Saturday, April 19, 2008
Turning Back the Tide on Disposable Appliances
The Globe & Mail recently published an article encouraging people to repair and reuse their belongings rather than throw them away; unfortunately, the article focused on things like silver tea services ("hammer out dents!"), leather luggage ("restitch and replace zippers") and designer shoes. What could have been a useful article was just another distraction from the real issues.
A far better take on the same theme was published recently by Intervention magazine: in Junkland, William Marvel takes on appliances, computers, and printers. Appliance manufacturers only produce spare parts for a particular model for ten years, and the computer industry is all about forcing people to upgrade every few years.
It’s easy to make the argument that consumers should pay more for better, longer lasting appliances, but it’s not that simple anymore. I have a high-end Bosch dishwasher that is 7 years old; I have had it repaired twice in the last 8 months and as it is starting to act up again, I am probably going to have to replace it. The appliance expert on CBC's Radio Noon phone-in said a few weeks ago that it’s difficult these days to find any appliance that is reliable and long-lasting. Reviews of cars and appliances rarely - if ever - estimate longevity.
Hardware longevity is only part of why appliances don’t last as long as they should. Consumers discard appliances not only because they are broken, but also because new models come out that offer different functionality, or because they just want something new. Poor government programs are also a factor: it would be interesting to know how many perfectly good appliances have been discarded because of government incentive programs to promote energy efficiency.
Here’s an estimate of the lifespan of things we buy for our home; with government regulation and public education, we could increase these numbers. In our global world, a small market like Canada may have limited options. We need better national regulations, but we also need global standards. Here are some suggestions for what we can do:
1. Manufacturers - Set standards for how long appliances should last. Require manufacturers to keep parts for longer periods. Engage manufacturers in discussions of how to improve longevity (for example, the same plastic part keeps breaking on my mother’s newish Maytag dishwasher; the repairmen tell her that until recently this was a durable metal part, and now they replace them all the time). Give rankings to appliances that last longer and are easier to repair - just as we rank appliances on energy efficiency.
2. Disposal – Electronic waste is the major toxic waste problem in North America, according to this report. We should improve ways that discarded appliances can be reused. Also, we need to be smarter about handling toxic waste. My local dump charges $10 per item for electronic equipment, which just encourages people to hide their old VCR or CD player in a garbage bag. We need curbside pickup for batteries and fluorescent lightbulbs, along with better public education.
3. Consumers - Globe columnist Margaret Wente wrote a really insightful column about smoking a while back; she said that the thing that finally convinced her to quit smoking was that it became declassé. She had tried for years to quit and took the health warnings very seriously, but it was when she was at a party and had to huddle outside on a cold porch with some other addicts that she finally had the incentive to give it up. Likewise, we should use public education to try to make a dent in our rabid consumerism. We may never destroy the sense of satisfaction and status that comes with owning something new and expensive, but we must try to counter it.
4. Smarter technology - I see promotions like this one (a product that claims to reduce electricity costs by 30%) and wish there were better public education about serious ways to improve our consumption. Does this thing really work? When you google it, there are no hits except for the manufacturer. We seem to be constantly bombarded by suggestions that trivialize environmentalism and distract us from real improvements (as this Greenwashing site tries to counter). We are not going to make any headway by diverting funds to green rooves or by hammering out dents in our silver tea services. Time magazine writes: "According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 75% of all the electricity consumed in the home is standby power used to keep electronics running when those TVs, DVRs, computers, monitors and stereos are "off."" The situation is similar in offices, where computers are regularly left on overnight. Surely there is a technological solution?
###
A far better take on the same theme was published recently by Intervention magazine: in Junkland, William Marvel takes on appliances, computers, and printers. Appliance manufacturers only produce spare parts for a particular model for ten years, and the computer industry is all about forcing people to upgrade every few years.
It’s easy to make the argument that consumers should pay more for better, longer lasting appliances, but it’s not that simple anymore. I have a high-end Bosch dishwasher that is 7 years old; I have had it repaired twice in the last 8 months and as it is starting to act up again, I am probably going to have to replace it. The appliance expert on CBC's Radio Noon phone-in said a few weeks ago that it’s difficult these days to find any appliance that is reliable and long-lasting. Reviews of cars and appliances rarely - if ever - estimate longevity.
Hardware longevity is only part of why appliances don’t last as long as they should. Consumers discard appliances not only because they are broken, but also because new models come out that offer different functionality, or because they just want something new. Poor government programs are also a factor: it would be interesting to know how many perfectly good appliances have been discarded because of government incentive programs to promote energy efficiency.
Here’s an estimate of the lifespan of things we buy for our home; with government regulation and public education, we could increase these numbers. In our global world, a small market like Canada may have limited options. We need better national regulations, but we also need global standards. Here are some suggestions for what we can do:
1. Manufacturers - Set standards for how long appliances should last. Require manufacturers to keep parts for longer periods. Engage manufacturers in discussions of how to improve longevity (for example, the same plastic part keeps breaking on my mother’s newish Maytag dishwasher; the repairmen tell her that until recently this was a durable metal part, and now they replace them all the time). Give rankings to appliances that last longer and are easier to repair - just as we rank appliances on energy efficiency.
2. Disposal – Electronic waste is the major toxic waste problem in North America, according to this report. We should improve ways that discarded appliances can be reused. Also, we need to be smarter about handling toxic waste. My local dump charges $10 per item for electronic equipment, which just encourages people to hide their old VCR or CD player in a garbage bag. We need curbside pickup for batteries and fluorescent lightbulbs, along with better public education.
3. Consumers - Globe columnist Margaret Wente wrote a really insightful column about smoking a while back; she said that the thing that finally convinced her to quit smoking was that it became declassé. She had tried for years to quit and took the health warnings very seriously, but it was when she was at a party and had to huddle outside on a cold porch with some other addicts that she finally had the incentive to give it up. Likewise, we should use public education to try to make a dent in our rabid consumerism. We may never destroy the sense of satisfaction and status that comes with owning something new and expensive, but we must try to counter it.
4. Smarter technology - I see promotions like this one (a product that claims to reduce electricity costs by 30%) and wish there were better public education about serious ways to improve our consumption. Does this thing really work? When you google it, there are no hits except for the manufacturer. We seem to be constantly bombarded by suggestions that trivialize environmentalism and distract us from real improvements (as this Greenwashing site tries to counter). We are not going to make any headway by diverting funds to green rooves or by hammering out dents in our silver tea services. Time magazine writes: "According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 75% of all the electricity consumed in the home is standby power used to keep electronics running when those TVs, DVRs, computers, monitors and stereos are "off."" The situation is similar in offices, where computers are regularly left on overnight. Surely there is a technological solution?
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Al Gore's New Talk on Global Warming
Here's the first performance of Al Gore's new lecture (he calls them slide shows) on climate change, "New thinking on the climate crisis". What can I say: it's a must-see.
I captured this picture from his presentation. It shows the petrol usage of about 20 countries on the left, and the petrol usage of the US on the right (in red).
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I captured this picture from his presentation. It shows the petrol usage of about 20 countries on the left, and the petrol usage of the US on the right (in red).
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