Environment
An Interesting argument about Global Warming
June 15, 2007 | 
Author If you have any doubts about whether humans should pony up and pay what it takes to stop climate change, you need to watch Bill's video. His argument is clear and concise and cuts through the acres of social and political crap that often seems to cloud this issue. Essentially, Bill (aka mav7469) presents a truth table and illustrates 4 scenarios:
| Yes, we act | No, we do not Act | |
| False | Wasted cost,possible global depression | Lucky us, Global Warming never happened. it's all good! |
| True | Lucky us! Global Warming is averted :-) | Environmental, economic, political and social catastrophe on a global scale |
After presenting these 4 options, he concludes that our only logical choice is to act to stop global warming. This is because it appears that all things being equal, the cost of acting and being wrong is far less than the cost of being wrong by not acting on climate change. He's right. "Wasting" money to reduce emissions if we don't have to is a much better outcome than global environmental, economic, political and social catastrophe. Bill's argument seems to be air-tight.
While he convincingly presents the 4 possibilities and his arguments are sound, they do not consider the complications that arise from illogical and selfish human thinking. For example:
- Since we know the poor will be more adversely affected by climate change than the wealthy, rich governments and individuals may gamble they will come out ahead by doing nothing.
- Even though spending the necessary money to halt climate change is logical, it will be hard to know for certain that our money will not be stolen or squandered.
In other words, Bill has defined a convenient and useful truth table, but the truth about climate change is much bigger — and much more "inconvenient" — than 4 boxes. But don't listen to me — (trust me, no one does!) — just watch the video and let him know what you think:
[video]http://youtube.com/watch?v=7oi8651Acu4[/video]
Paving your backyard
I'm not sure if it was due to a fear of plants or an asphalt fetish, but my neighbour recently paved his backyard. About 2 months ago, they also took out most of the trees on the property, including two 50-foot fir trees and the remaining fruit trees that had been planted by Vincenzo, the previous owner (may he never return to see what has become of his former home!). So, as of this moment, about 3/4 of the property is paved or covered with interlocking stone and most of the lot's carbon sequestering capabilities have been removed. I'm not a hydrologist, so I have no idea what effect this pavement will have on run-off water quality or the water table, but it can't be good. They won't be fertilizing this over-sized driveway, but they will periodically re-tar it and will probably also use pesticides to keep peripheral weeds from taking over.
The above photo was pieced together using Autostitch from a dozen or so shots — hence the fish-eye effect. You can see there is plenty of room for hopscotch and chalk art, but little room for plant life.
I think I've moved beyond anger about the whole thing, but I can not understand the mind or the aesthetic that desired and was willing to pay for such ugliness. Why pavement? Why now, when gas prices are on the rise? Why now, when we are bombarded with messages about global warming, peak oil and the need to curtail carbon emissions.
What I did on National Clean Air Day
Woke up on National Clean Air Day, took a deep breath and gagged on the humid grey sludge that passes for air in these parts. I briefly considered keying every Hummer I could find, but wussed out and hopped on the VIVA to get to work as per usual. I guess I shoulda cycled. When the weather is warm, I try to get on the bike and huff the 17Km to work, but on days like June 6th, every breath felt like sucking a lung through a meat grinder. Besides, the bike was already at work, left there from the previous day's commute. So VIVA it was — a prompt and uneventful trip.
In any case, I did get on the bike around noon and cycled over to "Getting Vaughan Moving", an event/photo-op showcasing VIVA buses, carpooling, car sharing, electric scooters, Segways and every other mode of land transport that does not involve single occupant 4-wheeled vehicles. I was hoping to get some interesting pictures of people on Segways, balancing on scooters, etc, but there were so many cameras clicking, I spent more time drooling over fancy DSLRs instead of taking many of my own.
It's good that the region is finally getting serious about smart commuting, but the fact that the event was held in a parking lot, and the fact that very little of the official speechifying could actually be heard (due to the din of an adjacent freeway), makes me question the motives of the whole thing. After all, the reason we have a transportation problem is because the will of the federal government, the province with the complicity of many local politicians has lead to a cancerous rate of growth and development in York Region. While the politicians preach "intensification", the GTA continues to sprawl and scrape its way toward Lake Simcoe and beyond.
In reality, we do not have a transportation problem or an energy crisis. What we now have is a population that is out of step with the full spectrum of resources needed to keep it healthy and productive. As we race to replace our best farmland with Walmarts and subdivisions, we depend more and more on Chile, China and other countries for the food we eat. We depend on a supply chain that grows longer, more complex, more expensive and more precarious with each passing year. Could we do things differently?
I like to think so. We work to control growth and conserve valuable resources (including water and farmland), we can effectively engineer abundance. We could learn to live well within our means — but only if we take the trouble to fully understand what we mean by "our means".
In the meantime, we're told to accept run-away growth and intensification (1.6 million people in York Region by 2031). The politicians smile and say never you mind the numbers. Just get in the Smartcar, take a spin on the Segway. Mill about on the steaming blacktop and chow down on the free greasy burgers.
Shall we all just smile and get with the program?
Donna Cansfield, Ontario Minister of Transportation boasts about how much money Ontario contributes to the region:
Vaughan Smartcar Photo-Op-Mobile:
Suit on a Segway
Getting Vaughan Moving (can I move somewhere else?)
B.C. Trustee, Heather Stilwell can’t “take on” Al Gore
It looks like Surrey school trustee, Heather Stilwell is once again revving up her right wing engines. She isn't banning books this time, but she is trying to keep Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth out of schools in Surrey, British Columbia — unless alternate views on climate change can also be taught. In a Canadian Press wire story she explains: "I've read enough that there is more than one thought in the issue of climate change, global warming and that Al Gore is not the be all and end all of opinion about that".
No 'mam, he is not. That's cuz Gore was not stating opinions about climate change. He was simply explaining the facts. The facts 'mam, nothing but the facts. As facts go, students should be taught the basics of how greenhouse gasses function. They should learn something about the now infamous Keeling curve and Milankovitch cycles . Some select readings from Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers might be enough to supplement the material covered by Gore. Perhaps students should also monitor climate change reports issued by the IPCC and note the political squabbling of the U.S. and China as they try to shirk their responsibilities. The sum of these things would help balance Gore's movie with additional evidence
Speaking of being fair and balanced, why was Stilwell quoted as if she had some real expertise in the area of climate change? As if! Why was it not pointed out that this is the same woman who cost Surrey taxpayers 1.2 million in legal fees when she tried to ban children's books that dealt with same-sex parents? Or how about her brief stint as leader of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada? Shouldn't it also have been noted that Stilwell recently sought the nomination in Surrey for the federal Conservative Party of Canada.
Given Harper's dubious record on climate change, it's instructive to see the kind of mind that is attracted to the Conservative side of the House. With luck, federal politics will never be anything more than a distant dream for the likes of Heather Stilwell.
T.O. in 2050
The Toronto Star’s Catherine Porter has written a lovely catalogue of the global warming horrors that await Toronto and the GTA in the coming decades: drought, flash floods, algal blooms, power shortages, water shortages, mosquito-borne disease… you get the idea. My only quibble is that nowhere does Porter acknowledge that all of these problems will be exacerbated by population growth and development. Prosperity in Ontario is fueled by population growth and that population is rapidly pushing east, west and north around the Golden Horseshoe. The Ontario government has decreed that four million additional souls will feed off this land over the next 25 years. God knows how many of us will be sustained in 2050.
This growth will come largely because of federal immigration policy which is slated to admit some 300,000 immigrants per year. As a Queen’s University study notes “Immigration has become the central dynamic in both population and labour force growth in Canada.” The authors of this study explain that in the late 1980′s Canadian immigration policy moved away from setting immigration levels to match short-run economic conditions. Instead, our government now takes an optimistically long view of things and ignores current unemployment and economic performance when setting immigration targets. I would add that the feds also ignore environmental factors and the carrying capacity of the land when setting these levels.
Instead, the problem of where to house those extra four million bodies has been downloaded to Ontario. And Ontario, with dubious wisdom, has cranked out the “Places to Grow” plan. This “plan” is really more like a menu that details how the southern half of this province will be carved up and served to developers. I ranted over the folly of this plan a while back, and groups such as the Neptis Foundation have found their own faults with it. They point out that Ontario’s Places to Grow plan:
- Does not contain measures that would result in the better, more productive development of currently unbuilt areas within urban boundaries, nor in significantly increased re-urbanization of the built-up areas of the region.
- Does not provide strong protection for environmentally sensitive lands not associated with the Greenbelt. Much stronger policies are needed in a growth management plan.
- Does not protect agricultural land across the whole region. The proposed policies retain the standards currently in force, which have failed to protect farmland.
- May not decrease automobile use and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the plan’s support for transit, complementary measures to reduce automobile dependence are not included.
- Contains few specifics on how success will be tracked and measured.
Even the Neptis critique, while it makes valid points, never questions the fundamental assumption that Ontario’s population needs to grow significantly beyond current levels. Of course, the issue of immigration — since the majority of Canadians are immigrants or the children of immigrants — is a touchy one. But it is an issue that must be addressed if we are to make real progress in reducing our environmental footprint in order to ensure long-term survival and a decent life for our children.
Posted in Development, Environment, Toronto | 
Tags: Neptis, Ontario Places to Grow | 
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