Earth Hour

Clearly the goal of Earth Hour events is not to actually achieve any significant reduction in energy use or carbon emissions. The decline in electricity use during the hour is fairly small, and is offset in several ways. A single hour in an entire year is also an insignificant amount of time. The main purpose of the Earth Hour campaign is to raise awareness about climate change, to organize people, and to prompt action towards real structural change that can truly lead to a significant reduction in carbon emissions, and eventually to reductions in the carbon concentration in the atmosphere. The real question is whether or not it is accomplishing these goals.

There has been a lot of debate over statistics related to Earth Hour events which I think is rather specious, as it obviously misses the main point. Earth Hour is not a practical solution to the problem of climate change, nor is it intended to be. It is a form of protest and mass communication, similar to the 350 campaign in the lead up to Copenhagen. In terms of getting out the message, it appears to have been very successful in the past, and likely will be again this year. The event is widely publicized around the world. We see posters, newspaper articles, and extensive television coverage. Many cities and other local communities get involved in the events, and millions of individuals participate.

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Boycott My Country!

Even before Copenhagen, Canada already had a bad reputation around the world because of our attempts to sabotage climate meetings, our flouting of Kyoto, and our very poor emissions targets. Since the travesty of Copenhagen, we have actually reduced our emissions targets from previously announced levels. We are now committing to a small reduction that will leave emissions above 1990 levels. We have the worst emissions targets in the Western world.

Aside from the above, Canada is continuing to expand the exploitation of one of the dirtiest energy sources in the world, the tar sands, while increasing the devastation of the environment in Alberta, and poisoning native communities. As Naomi Klein pointed out in a recent speech on climate debt, Canada is the country that will be least impacted by climate change in the world, and in fact, it may actually benefit us, at least in the short term. We are profiting from the destruction of the planet, while others are suffering from that destruction.

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No More Roads

Many environmentalists believe that one of the best ways to prevent environmental damage and reduce carbon emissions is to switch to transportation systems that are much more efficient, and which require a much smaller and less energy-intensive infrastructure. This means less cars and trucks, and more trains. Others argue that electric cars, which may include plug-in hybrids, powered by renewable energy, can also reduce emissions and help the environment.

While I have argued in favour of rail, and against the large scale use of electric cars, I believe both positions have much in common. We all want transportation to be safer, and to reduce the distances people and goods need to travel. We want to reduce the use of fossil fuels, and the destruction of the little natural habitat that remains. We want better efficiency and less waste. Whether or not we decide to keep a transportation infrastructure centred around the car, I don't see any environmentalists arguing for a massive expansion of this infrastructure, even if they support electric cars.

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Ocean Acidification

The world's oceans are currently threatened by a wide variety of environmental impacts. A few months ago, I described some of these threats, which include growing dead zones, pollution, and overfishing. Even noise pollution is causing problems. One of the most critical threats is ocean acidification, which is closely linked to carbon emissions, and it has the potential to destroy many unique and diverse ecosystems.

The oceans are a natural carbon sink, meaning they have always absorbed a large amount of carbon from the atmosphere. Since the industrial revolution, however, we have been pumping more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through our accelerating use of fossil fuels. As the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the oceans begin to absorb more of it. This makes the acidity of the water increase, just like a carbonated drink is more acidic than regular water.

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Wood Pellets as Alternative to Coal

On a recent episode of Quirks & Quarks, a segment was devoted to looking at the feasibility of using wood pellets as an alternative to coal in Ontario's coal-fired power plants. While this alternative energy source does have the ability to produce power with much lower carbon emissions than coal, the cost is several times higher, and even if exploited on a massive scale, could only provide a tiny percentage of Ontario's electrical needs.

Dr. Heather MacLean from the University of Toronto did a full lifecycle analysis of the proposal, which took into account the carbon emissions generated from extraction, processing, transportation and combustion. In the case where coal was completely replaced by wood pellets, a substantial reduction in emissions was possible, as much as 91 percent less than burning coal. One problem, however, is that the cost of electricity would be about four times higher, though this is primarily because the cost of greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental damage is not included in the price of coal.

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SDB News

I have recently added a new secondary blog to the site focused on news stories. It is available at the following address:

http://news.selfdestructivebastards.com/

The goal of this new blog is to essentially serve as a newswire, providing links to important news about the environment and climate change, along with a summary of the important points, and links to more information. I intend to keep this feed free from any fluff pieces, greenwashing, and thinly veiled corporate press releases. I would also encourage readers to submit any news items or articles they feel are important and relevant.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks very much.

Too Much TV

Televisions are popping up in more and more places these days, and it seems almost impossible to avoid them. We are buying more and more of them, buying larger ones, and buying them much more frequently. At the same time as we continue to watch more television, the messages being transmitted are less and less accurate, relevant, intelligent or meaningful. This isn't to say that a television isn't a useful device, and there are not valuable, informative and entertaining shows to watch. However, we need to reduce the number of televisions, the frequency with which we dispose of them, the amount of time we watch them, and the number of commercials we see.

People used to keep their television sets for decades. Even when colour TV was introduced, many people still kept their black and white models, often moving them to another room, the basement, or the cottage. It was not uncommon for a colour set to be in use for 30 years. When HDTV became available, many of the initial products were unreliable and would fail after only a few years, meaning people would have to frequently replace them. Now there that HDTV is becoming common, there is already talk of new 3D models. It seems as though we are no longer capable of just being satisfied with what we have, even for a little while.

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