Columnists

Where did the lake go?

That great Canadian summer pastime — hanging out by the shore — needs to be defended. Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria — a toxic algae that is harmful to people and wildlife — is growing out of control in many watersheds. Cottagers, beach-goers and the hook-and-reel crowd may find really gross evidence that their favourite waterway is under pressure from industry, agriculture and residential sources.

The offending blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, is bad news because:
– It looks disgusting
- It smells horrible
- It can cause skin infections among those crazy enough to swim in it
- It can cause stomach cramps and even liver damage in those who consume it (see WHO fact sheet)
- It takes over habitats
- It can kill fish, birds and other wildlife through toxins and reduced oxygen levels in the water
- It can introduce toxins into drinking water sources.

Why is this happening? The simple answer is too much nutrient. There’s simply too much food for these bacteria, and they’re growing and blooming out of control.

Where is the nutrient coming from? Three main areas:

- Agricultural runoff. Fertilizer and animal manure are two key sources. Farms that don’t work to contain nutrient, particularly those with drainage to a waterway, are contributing to the problem.

- Industrial runoffs of high-nutrient materials

- Water treatment runoff, from our own wastes and from the soaps and other products that go down our drains

- Septic systems from rural and cottage residences along the water

This nutrient runoff is compounded by climate change, since most areas are experiencing a general warming trend with of higher daily low temperatures. Warmer water temperatures also cause changes to the water column.

So, if you like cottaging, hanging out by the water, fishing, safe drinking water, biological diversity… what can you do?

- Ask your MP to push for adoption of the Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations, which would harmonize standards across the country, linked here.

- Change household habits. Switch to phosphate, scent and dye-free personal care and cleaning products. The lake doesn’t need a “spring fresh” scent.

For an in-depth look at how a lake can be affected by blue-green algae, watch Save My Lake, a CBC documentary.

Do you think we need better pollution controls and water monitoring in Canada’s lakes and rivers?

In his YouTube channel show, Fully Charged, Robert Llewellyn test drives electric cars (EVs), answers viewers’ questions and often tries to dispel myths. In more than one episode he debunks the idea that, because electric cars may be powered with “dirty” electricity, that is, with coal power, they’re no better in terms of CO2 production that gassers.

In the episode posted below, speaking of the Tesla Roadster, Llewellyn says “It would only release 40 grams of C02 per kilometre” if the electricity were produced entirely by coal. It would produce zero grams of C02 per kilometre if you charged from a renewable energy source, such as hydroelectric, wind, solar or if you charged with nuclear power. “If you take into account the amount of carbon that’s produced by the oil industry before the petrol even gets into the tanks here…. it’s a very different story. These normal cars we drive every day, they are producing around 450 to 500 grams of C02 per kilometre.” I believe this analysis came from the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering.

Watch Llewellyn’s full argument here:

If you don’t care that much about climate change, perhaps one of these seven electric car benefits might grab you:
1. Lower operating cost. Have you seen the gas prices out there? Recharging your Nissan Leaf with electricity would cost about $300 a year, apparently. Electric cars also have fewer moving parts in general.
2. Better air quality. Have you ever been stuck in a traffic jam on a hot day, where everyone’s car is running and no one is moving? Imagine how much clearer the air would be with fewer tailpipes
3. Fewer international conflicts. A reduced need for oil could really save lives, money on military budgets…
4. Support for electricity infrastructure and renewable energy, stimulating made-in-Canada green jobs
5. Drive a car without that big tank of flammable fluid in it. Those explosions always look scary on TV!
6. Look cool. Have you seen that Tesla Roadster? That is one sexy car. The Leaf, iMiev, Smart and others also have that nifty factor.
7. Enjoy the silence. Electric cars are much quieter than gassers, protecting your hearing and allowing you to have a decent conversation with others, even passengers in the back seat!

So, if you drive less than 40 kilometres to work, perhaps replace your aging gasser with an electric car, install a few solar panels or a little wind turbine, sell your home-made power back to the grid for a premium, save big on gasoline costs, and you could be in better shape financially while making the world a better place.

Could you see an electric car in your future?

Are you voting for the environment on May 2? Talk of climate change, conservation, green energy and other key environmental planks has been all but missing from election debates, but if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably among the many who know that the health of our earth and the changes we’ll experience from climate change depend on who takes control in Parliament.

The problem is, it takes time to sort through all those pesky platforms. So I’ve done it for you. Here is an edited, brief version of each party’s environmental platform for the upcoming election with links to the original text. What you believe is up to you!

From the NDP platform (read the entire document here on their website):
- Adopt the Climate Change Accountability Act, legislation that aims to bring Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions to 80 per cent below 1990 levels by the year 2050, with interim targets for the period 2015-2045. (This act was passed by the House of Commons but, in a surprise move, rejected by the Senate, a shameful Canadian first. Read more here.)
- Create a cap-and-trade system to put a price on carbon and to create funds to invest in green technology and related jobs, energy and conservation.
- Help Canadians and those abroad mitigate their impact and adapt to climate change effects.
- Create a long-term energy security plan.
- Create Green Bonds to fund research and development of e.g., green energy research and development and its commercialization and community-scale renewable projects.
- Create a National Public Transit Strategy to maintain and expand public transit across Canada.
This thought appealed to me: “Recognizing that oil and gas will continue to play a prominent role in our energy mix in the medium term, we will discourage bulk exports of our unprocessed resources and encourage value-added, responsible upgrading, refining and petrochemical manufacturing here in Canada to maximize the economic benefits and jobs for Canadians.”

From the Liberal platform (read the original text here on their website):
- Become a global leader in clean resources by reducing the impact of resource-based products and supplying knowledge, technology and expertise to other markets for responsible management, development and consumption of natural resources.
- Create a Clean Energy Partnership with the provinces and other stakeholders to develop a plan for a low-carbon future with related jobs, climate change targets, efficiency programs.
- Install a $400 million Green Renovation Tax Credit program for homeowners (tax credits up to $13,500 per home), which sounds like a variation of the EcoEnergy Retrofit program, which was a reprise of an earlier program with a different name…
- Quadruple energy production from renewable sources (solar, wind, tidal, biomass) from 2009 levels by 2017 through the Renewable Power Production Incentive.
- “Cleaner” oil sands development to bring its carbon footprint in line with development of other oil sources, improve regulation and related monitoring. Related: Immediately cancel tax breaks to the oil sands industry.
- Establish a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions by large industrial facilities.
- Commit to long-term greenhouse gas reduction target of 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050; mid-term targets to be set.
- Protect more intact wilderness areas and create “eco-corridors” to allow species to move from one protected area to another.
- Create a Canadian Freshwater Strategy to improve water consumption efficiency; protect groundwater from contamination; deal with drought and flooding, protect water from bulk export; address some invasive species issues; work to restore degraded and threatened areas in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence; clean up excess nutrient levels in Lake Winnipeg.
- Expand marine protected areas.
- Create an oil spill contingency plan.
- Halt new leasing and oil exploration in Arctic waters.
- Formalize the BC Crude Oil Tanker Moratorium.

From the Conservative Party (read the original document here):
- Facilitate the creation of new protected areas, including national parks and marine conservation areas.
- Make land between protected areas more permeable to wildlife.
- Use digital technologies to help connect Canadians to nature.
- Take action toward the establishment of a new National Park in the Rouge Valley (east of Toronto).
- Support research and development in “clean energy” and energy efficiency.
- Support “clean energy projects” with national or regional significance, financial merit that will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- Stated climate change goal is a 17 per cent reduction in domestic greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2020.

Unfortunately, the platform does mention resource exploration in the gulf of St. Lawrence, mining tax credits and other initiatives that sound bad for the environment. But I’m trying to stick to the other side of the ledger, so I won’t go into that here.

The Green Party of Canada’s platform (linked here) is extremely detailed. It’s certainly worth a read if you would like to dream a little about what a more environmentally focused Canada would look like. There are hundreds of ideas in the platform; here are just a few:

- Reduce Canadian greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 1990 levels by 2020, and to 85% reduction below 1990 by 2040.
- Create a green transportation strategy, including public transportation, a national railroad strategy that includes increased service to more nodes and some high-speed rail, and efficiencies in frieght and trucking.
- Bring in new monitoring for pesticides, herbicides, hormones and other chemicals used in food production.
- Bring local food to school meal programs.
- Help farmers make the move to efficient production (e.g., water use) and organic farming; improving the Canada Organic standard.
- Promote local food production and culinary tourism.
- Allow farmers to save their own seeds. Encouraging heritage seed banks and seed exchange programs.
- Promote urban agriculture such as roof-top and community gardens.
- Protect watersheds from farm nutrient runoff.
- Protect at least half of Canada’s Boreal Forest and improve wildlife corridors between areas.
- Develop a Genuine Forest Health Indicator to assess state of forests.
- Give tax breaks to FSC-certified companies.
- Promote non-tree sources of cellulose for paper production (agricultural waste, hemp).
- Reduce air pollution through the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, including smog-causing heat and pollution.
- Protect Canadians’ fundamental right to clean freshwater, including future generations.
- Pass legislation to prevent bulk water exports.
- Develop a plan for restoring the health and cleanliness of water bodies.
- Increase monitoring and protection in National Parks and other protected areas.
- Make it a criminal offence to kill an animal listed under the Species at Risk Act.
- Regulate all substances shown to pose a significant risk to human health under a revised Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
- End the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes.

Do you think there’s a party you can vote for, from an environmental point of view?

In his new book, How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything (Greystone Books, $19.95, 2011), Mike Berners-Lee helps define what a carbon footprint is (the best estimate of the complete climate change impact, shown as tons of C02), and, yes, shows how bad bananas are (as well as nearly 100 other foods, products, services and natural events) in terms of their impact on our climate.

Acknowledging that climate change is a major issue, Berners-Lee says in his introduction, “Nearly all of us, including me, have plenty of junk in our lives that contributes nothing at all to the quality of our existence. It’s deep in our culture. Cutting that out makes everyone’s life better, especially our own.” His goal with the book is to help us make strategic decisions in how we live our lives so we can use less carbon in a way that works for each of us.

I love Berners-Lee’s description of what a ton of C02 looks like: “If you filled a couple of standard-sized 60-gallon garden water tanks to the brim with gasoline and set fire to them, about a ton of carbon would be released directly into the atmosphere.” I think that visual will stay with me!

Here are just a few of the nearly 100 items that Berners-Lee compares:

- A cup of tap water: 0.06 g of C02e  (carbon dioxide equivalent)

- A bottle of water, on average: 160 g C02e

- Drying your hands: Zero C02e for drip drying; 3 g C02e for a Dyson Airblade; 10 g C02e for one paper towel; 20 g C02e for a standard air dryer

- Mug of tea or coffee, boiling just enough water for the cup: 23 g C02e

- Large latte 343 g C02e

- A veggie burger: 1 kg C02e. A 4-ounce cheeseburger: 2.5 kg C02e

- A double-writeoff car crash on the highway: 50 tons C02e

- A 405-mile (650-km) round-trip voyage from New York City to Niagara Falls: 120 kg C02e by train; 330 kg C02e by small, efficient car; 500 kg C02e by plane, 1,100 kg C02e by large four-wheel-drive vehicle.

- A wind turbine: 30 tons C02e installed; 500 tons C02e savings over 20 years in use.

- And the banana? 80 g C02e  when imported from the other side of the world. Berners-Lee says this is pretty good, considering the nutritional value a banana offers.

Note that this book is written from a UK perspective, so the actual carbon footprint of things may be a little different here in Canada. If our relative energy use is any indicator, Canadian numbers are likely higher.

Do you find it confusing trying to compare the environmental impact of things?

Dad's cookies, now with renewable energy!

Can big manufacturing facilities really go green? While I’m a fan of small-scale production, I think that when a large-scale company decides to get its energy from renewable sources, it can make an enormous difference in the fight against climate change. Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit the Kraft bakeries in Scarborough, Ont., and, after donning a lab coat, hair net, earplugs and other safety gear, I got to see the Dad’s Cookies operation in full swing, powered by renewable energy.

Tom Heintzman, President, Bullfrog Power (left) and Chris Bell, Kraft Canada Vice President of Snacks

Dad’s Cookies are a Canadian favourite, with 4 per cent of the Canadian cookie market and over 16 million packages of cookies sold in Canada each year. From now on, those cookies, made in Kraft’s Scarborough and Lakeshore bakeries, will be made with renewable energy. Kraft has partnered with Bullfrog Power to not only buy its electricity from by renewable sources (hydro, wind and solar), they will be the first customer to use Bullfrog’ Power’s new offering: green natural gas.

This effort is just the latest initiative in Kraft’s sustainability plan; in the past three years they’ve created zero waste facilities, reduced their energy use by 25 per cent and cut their water use by 15 per cent as well.

So what is green natural gas?
While conventional natural gas is a fossil fuel from non-renewable sources, Bullfrog Power is collecting, processing and distributing gases from the decaying matter in landfill, starting with an operation in Quebec.

When your food waste and other landfill garbage decomposes, it releases gases, particularly methane. Those go into the atmosphere from most Canadian landfills, a harmful source of greenhouse gas emissions. A few landfills capture their energy-rich gases now, converting them into useable energy, but much of it is wasted in the process. But if those gases are instead captured, processed and delivered to your home or business, you can burn them in your typically 94 per cent efficient furnace to heat your home, your hot water and power some of your appliances, wasting very little of the energy. True, you’ll still emit carbon dioxide, but it’s 20 times less as potent a greenhouse gas as methane, according to the US Climate Change Science Program.

How does Bullfrog Power deliver the green natural gas?
Just as Bullfrog Power does now with electricity, they’ll replace the amount of natural gas its customers use from the main gas line with green natural gas. As their customer base grows, Bullfrog will expand its operations to ensure they have sufficient capacity. Green natural gas will be available in a few of months to customers beyond initial pilot projects such as Kraft’s.

As Tom Heintzman, President of Bullfrog Power told me yesterday, “You have an environmental choice in everything you use. Energy arguably has the biggest environmental impact of everything you use.” And since have lots of opportunities to create energy from our waste, it’s great to know that we have ways of reducing climate change impacts while doing great things such as making cookies in the process.

Are you more keen to buy a product if you know it’s made with renewable energy?

Has the “go green” movement been wrecked by marketing? When you see a green claim in the news, in an ad, on a package, do you think “Oh great!” or does “Yeah, right” more often come to mind? According to this article, eco-conscious consumers (about 15% of Canadians) will pay more for sustainable products, but we are more skeptical and more likely to research green claims as well. And for those of us who do regularly evaluate those green claims, it’s not hard to find that many companies fall well short of doing the right thing.

After stacks of things prove to offer minimal if any savings in finite materials or energy, or show any other glimmer of sustainability, how could we not become skeptics?

Maybe 2011 is the year to embrace this skepticism, but it doesn’t have to mean giving up on living lighter on the earth. It seems too convenient to those greenwashers — and those who don’t even appear to be reducing their impact — for us to give up on better choices and go back to traditional clothes, cars, foods, cleaning products, office supplies… stuff.

2010 was the worst year on record in terms of disruptive climate events. We’re rapidly losing biodiversity – the literal stuff of life – to climate change, habitat loss, fishing practices, pollution and other causes. (Read more about its importance here.) The reasons for the green movement aren’t going away. But the message has to evolve from simply “go green.” While we have to ask our politicians to make change, they also respond to our values and actions. Perhaps we a more skeptical, proof-demanding public is just what we need.

A few questions you, as a eco-minded skeptic, might ask when evaluating a product:
- Is the product made of materials that can be sustainably grown and harvested?
- Is the product free of toxic or otherwise harmful materials, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or formaldehyde in building materials, heavy metals, or antibacterial chemicals or phosphates in soaps?
- Is the product made from recycled materials?
- Is the packaging recyclable, compostable or simply nonexistent?
- Was it produced locally, i.e., within about 150 kilometres of your home?
- Does it feature a certification logo from a major environmental program, such as the Environmental Choice or Energy Star logo, or that of the Forest Stewardship Council or the Marine Stewardship Council?
- Is it Energy Star certified or is it otherwise significantly more efficient than other products with the same purpose?
- Is the product durable, maximizing its useful life and allowing reuse through donation or resale?
- Are its components reusable, recyclable or compostable at the end of the product’s life?
- Does it do the work of several products?
- Are replacement parts available so you can maintain the product?
- Was it made using a renewable energy source (such as solar, wind, biogas or sustainable hydro)?

And one more:
Do you really need it?

(Download a poster showing these green buying criteria that I created for Homemakers magazine here).

What’s your attitude toward being a green consumer these days?

Well, it’s Friday, and we all need some good news to counteract this week’s bad news for the environment. And there are lots of great stories out there. Here’s are a good news story that proves that green economy projects are underway.

The Philadephia Eagles football team are taking their stadium, the Lincoln Financial Field, off grid. And not just figuratively – they’ve teamed up with Solar Blue, a renewable energy company, to install wind and solar infrastructure as well as a biofuel and natural gas co-generation engine that will supply at least 8.6 megawatts of electricity, enough power to supply the stadium’s game-day draw of 7 megawatts. Extra power will be sold into the power grid. The equipment should be operational by next September.

In a media release you can find here, team owner and chief executive officer, Jeffrey Lurie says, “The Philadelphia Eagles are proud to take this vital step towards energy independence from fossil fuels by powering Lincoln Financial Field with wind, solar and dual-fuel energy sources. This commitment builds upon our comprehensive environmental sustainability program, which includes energy and water conservation, waste reduction, recycling, composting, toxic chemical avoidance and reforestation. It underscores our strong belief that environmentally sensitive policies are consistent with sound business practices.”

The move makes excellent business sense: the team saves $60 million in electricity costs over 20 years, creates 50 permanent jobs and hundreds of other time-limited and supplier-related jobs. Oh, and helps the stadium reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Now that’s good news! Have you heard about any green good news stories lately?

The true purpose of the Canadian Senate is debatable. It’s commonly described as offering a “sober second thought,” a final check on bills that have been passed by MPs in the House of Commons. Others consider it a final opportunity to review the clarity of a bill. The senate has sent bills back to the House of Commons for further work. But for 70 years, although it has always had the power, no bill has been defeated by the senate. Until yesterday.

Private Member’s Bill C-311, The Climate Change Accountability Act, passed its third reading in the House of Commons on May 5th. The video below shows who voted for it in the House of Commons (did your MP?) – and who did not. Yesterday, the senate killed Bill C-311 by a vote of 43-32.

The bill would have set emissions targets for greenhouse gas reductions (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and three others) to 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050. It would also have created a body to monitor progress on the targets, and would have required the presiding government to report on target progress as well.

The C-311 document reads: “This legislation is intended to ensure that Canada reduces greenhouse gas emissions to an extent similar to that required by all industrialized countries in order to prevent dangerous climate change, in accordance with the scientific evidence on the impacts of increased levels of global average surface temperature and the corresponding levels of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.”

It is horribly dismaying that not all senators were present to vote on bill C-311. Given the importance of the Climate Change Accountability Act to Canadians’ health and welfare, not to mention our economy, how could they have missed being there? But the vote wasn’t planned. As shown in this Globe and Mail story, it’s not clear how it came about. Regardless, today’s events underline the importance of simply showing up, especially when lobbyists are at work to influence the vote.

Beyond today’s dismal event, the real issue is that, on a national level, Canada has no climate change strategy. Rather than working to meet our Kyoto Accord targets (which called for 5.2 per cent reductions from 1990 levels by 2012), we’re trying to push for far less ambitious targets. (According to this government document, “Canada has submitted an economy-wide emissions target of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.”) It seems to me that we are borrowing from tomorrow in order to protect the status quo today.

What do you think, do we need major political reform here in Canada? Different rules governing the handling of legislation? Just some new politicians? Are things working just fine in your view?

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Powered by recycling. Literally!

We’ve figured out how to turn trash into treasure. Not the wooden chest of gold coins-type treasure, but treasure for our modern world: clean energy. The evidence: my city, the city of Toronto, has a new garbage truck with an engine (a Cummins Westport ISL G) that’s capable of running on compressed natural gas, including biogas. And where are they planning to get that source of biogas? From composting operations that handle the green bin waste (kitchen waste) removed from Toronto curbsides by… Toronto garbage trucks.

“Our two green bin processing facilities have the potential to produce enough natural gas to take our entire fleet of 300 waste trucks off diesel,” says Geoff Rathbone, the City of Toronto’s General Manager of Solid Waste Management Services. “Creating natural gas from kitchen waste will be the first operation of its kind in North America.”

Replacing diesel trucks with lower-emission biogas trucks is all a pilot project at this point, but the city is motivated: its Green Fleet Plan calls for new medium and heavy-duty trucks in order to reduce fuel consumption, fuel costs, smog and greenhouse-gas pollutants. For more information on the plan, click here.

Next, let’s hope that Toronto and other municipalities tackle incineration to deal with all that garbage waste that cannot be composted or recycled. Burning this material generates energy as well, and the processes can be controlled in a way that doesn’t contaminate the environment (read about it here). That would save us a heck of a lot of money (and, of course, climate-impacting CO2) compared to trucking garbage to landfills. C’mon Canada, Japan is doing it, Denmark is doing it… we can do it!

I’ve been writing about green living here at Eco Logic for about a year and a half now. Because of my interest in eco issues, and 285 posts later, it’s not uncommon for people to ask me how they could do better in terms of their environmental impact. Keep in mind that many of these people live lighter than I do – we all have our strengths and weaknesses! But here are some of the top things my investigations continue to show as most helpful, with links to previous Eco Logic posts explaining why.

1. Switch to a renewable energy supplier. If you only do one thing, get your energy from a provider such a Bullfrog Power, which feeds the power grid with the amount energy you consume using renewable sources, such as wind, solar or hydro, rather than coal, natural gas or nuclear. Having green power reduces your carbon footprint for every piece of bread you toast, every laptop charge, every load of laundry.

2. Eat meat less often. Yes, there are terrific sources of sustainably raised meat. But for most Canadians, it’s hard to access those local farmers all the time. Besides, eating vegetarian more often opens up some tasty new culinary options.

3. Watch what goes down your drain. From cleaning supplies, such as toilet bowl cleaner and tile cleaner to personal care products such as shampoo and shaving gel, everything you wash down the drain has to be dealt with, and we’re all downstream from someone else. Choose products with simpler ingredients lists, that sport the Eco Logo symbol, or try making your own cleaning products.

4. Make your car lonely. Where you can, leave the car in park, and walk, bike, carpool or take public transportation instead. (Unless, of course, you have an electric car powered by renewable energy!)

5. Upgrade fixtures and appliances at home and at work. Yes, changing your light bulbs to CFLs, or my favourites, LED bulbs, can save you a few bucks. Upgrading older appliances, particularly fridges, washing machines and dishwashers, to the most efficient new models will save you a bundle in electricity costs, water and carbon use.

6. Seal up and insulate your home. Yes, a caulking gun really can save you some money when you use it to seal up window and door frames, attic hatches and other air leak points. Invest in wall, attic and basement insulation up to current R-value standards to see dramatic savings from heating and cooling.

7. Buy less, share more. By swapping, giving away, borrowing and reselling everything from clothes to cars, we can keep useable goods in service longer, reducing the pressure to make as much new stuff from scratch. Don’t get me wrong, I like new stuff. But sometimes “new to you” (at a significantly lower cost) is just as good!

8. Buy locally. Knowing where your food, clothing and other goods come from means knowing how far they’ve travelled, and perhaps who benefits from your purchases and the environmental and workplace standards in which they were made. The bonus: supporting members of your community often means developing new friendships, trying new things and great service after the sale!

9. Take time to appreciate the natural world. Sometimes I think that the majority of us who live in cities easily get disconnected from all the creatures with whom we share our world. Getting out onto the natural landscape for a hike or an ecotourism trip can be a great reminder of why biodiversity is essential to good quality of life, and why trying to do the right things for the earth matters.

What else do you think is important in reducing your impact on our world? What yardstick do you use as most important? A climate change perspective? A habitat preservation perspective? A personal quality of life point of view?