Two "Good News" Canadian Stories on Climate Change

• Agency pitches 'telework' to ease Calgary traffic, pollution
  

• Solar-powered house is Ottawa's newest power plant

Thank you CBC for pointing to practical solutions to help combat the coming climate crisis.

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First Commercial Ship Sails Canada's Northwest Passage: Good News -- or Is It?

1st commercial [Canadian] ship sails through Northwest Passage (CBC)

They didn't see even "one cube of ice". Sounds like good news for arctic communitieswho can get supplies delivered cheaper and faster. Of course the opening of the Northwest Passage is also one of the predicted effects of climate change, it's happening much sooner than expected, and any traditional activities that depend on year-round ice cover (directly or indirectly) may have to be abandoned. And the more arctic (and other) fossil carbon is burned, the more the climate would change -- further degrading traditional arctic ways of life.

The race to exploit arctic mineral and energy resources will also heat up. The CIA thinks that it would benefit Canada as a whole and "...it is unlikely to trigger major armed conflict." And we all know from events in the last eight years how prescient they are. Oh wait...

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"Food miles don't feed climate change - meat does"

BlogThis!

We've blogged about vegetarianism as a great way to reduce your climate impact. But would eating imported fruits and vegetables negate the carbon benefits of avoiding meat? According to a recent study, the answer is a resounding "No". In fact, it's quite the opposite! Being vegetarian more than offsets the carbon emissions from imported plant-based foods. Christopher Weber and Scott Matthews of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh have done the math. NewScientist.com reports:

"Weber's team combined statistics on greenhouse gas emissions for different foods with estimated greenhouse footprints for transport for each step in a food's production and final delivery.

"Food travelled an average of 1640 km in its final trip to the grocery store, out of total of 6760 km on the road for the raw ingredients. But some foods log more kilometres than others. Red meat averaged 20,400 km – just 1800 of those from final delivery.

"Accounting for greenhouse gas emissions made those contrasts even starker. Final delivery 'food-miles' make up just 1% of the greenhouse emissions of red meat, and 11% for fruits and vegetables.

"To drive his point home, Weber calculated that a completely local diet would reduce a household's greenhouse emissions by an amount equivalent to driving a car 1600 km fewer per year. He assumed the car travels 10.6 km per litre of petrol (25 mpg). Switching from red meat to veggies just one day per week would spare 1860 km of driving.

"'The differences between eating habits are very, very striking,' Weber says."

This is great news for people in northern countries like Canada. Dietitians of Canada state that fruits and vegetables are an important part of a balanced diet. Yet fresh local produce is often impossible to find during the winter, and imported fresh produce can be expensive. The Canadian Cancer Society states that frozen, canned or dried fruits and vegetables can be good choices, too. But having looked at food labels, I've realized that many of these items come from warmer climes, as well.

The latest research implies that you can stop worrying so much about the carbon footprint of your imported carrots, oranges, and frozen okra. Just eat local produce when you can -- and most importantly, emphasize plant proteins like beans and bean products, nuts and whole grains. It's really that simple!

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Toyota Says Use Public Transit, Agrees in Effect With Don Fitz, Green Critic of Hybrid Car Hype

Here's an interesting counter-point to my earlier blog entry about electric cars: Green writer Don Fitz has criticized the hype around hybrid cars and bio-fuels. I must admit that if you replace "hybrid" with "electric car", much of his argument retains its force: any type of car uses up land on roads and parking, supports urban sprawl, and continues to isolate us socially from each-other -- by displacing public transit.

Mr. Fitz is described as "editor of Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of Green Social Thought, which is sent to members of The Greens/Green Party USA". Unfortunately, this might qualify his writings as a fringe opinion in the Land of the SUV. If you asked me, "would a major car company, the world's largest hybrid-car maker, agree with some of his main points," I would have answered, "sure, when Hell freezes over".

Well, it's the warmest winter on record, but Hell has managed to freeze over. Toyota has told the U.S. Congress that they support mandatory increases in fuel-efficiency -- plus more public transit and better land-use planning! In testimony before a U.S. Congress Committee on March 14, 2007 [PDF], James E. Press, President of Toyota Motor North America, Inc. said,

Toyota supports the use of national performance-based regulatory programs, so long as the program is fair, technologically feasible, cost effective and does not discourage early compliance, technological innovation and safety improvement. In this context, we support increasing both the passenger car and light-duty truck fuel economy standards, and giving NHTSA the authority to reform the passenger car standard. [Emphasis in the original.]

Green Car Congress comments:

"The emphasis on 'national” in the remarks was likely a reference to Toyota’s opposition to the California LEV CO₂ limits."

Sigh. But at least he was not opposing mandatory efficiency increases in principle, like many of the other car industry speakers (summarized here).

Toyota is exceeding fuel efficiency targets now, and sounds confident that it can prosper under tougher standards, too. But here's where my jaw dropped:

"In addition to vehicle technology improvements... smarter land use planning, increased reliance on mass transit and greater use of so-called “intelligent transportation systems” can all reduce traffic congestion and energy consumption." [Page 4 of the official text (PDF). Emphasis added.]

You've read it right. Toyota, the world's second-largest car company, is saying, in effect, that we should drive less. To say that it's "an unusual tact for an automaker" (source) would be an understatement.

So in effect, Toyota, the largest-volume hybrid-car maker in the U.S., is agreeing that hybrid car technology alone is not the answer -- we also need to plan our cities better and use more public transit! Has someone replaced their Hybrid Synergy Drive with an Infinite Improbability Drive?

Humour aside, could electric cars (the logical outcome of the hybrid -> plug-in hybrid evolution) be made to help public transit after all? That's the thinking of

"...a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. With backing from General Motors Corp., they are building a prototype of a lightweight electric vehicle that can be cheaply mass-produced, rented by commuters under a shared-use business model, and folded and stacked like grocery carts at subway stations or other central sites."

The folding frame would save parking space. The ability to "rent" an electric car at any transit stop would remove an excuse for not using transit, by providing a door-to-door experience, just like a private car. See this article, and the interactive slide show.

It's a fascinating time, and getting more interesting by the day.

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