B.C. Ferries to Cut Our Carbon Count

Switching to gas in 2012.

According to an open letter to Bowen Island customers published in the local paper this week, in late 2012, B. C. Ferries will be converting the Queen of Capilano—our car ferry—to liquified natural gas fuel. This conversation, which will begin in October, will be the first such switch in the whole B.C. Ferries fleet.

This is good news on a number of levels. First—unlike bunker diesel fuel—in the event of a collision or fuel spill, natural gas will quickly evaporate. Second, burning bunker diesel fuel makes smog, while natural gas will produce a fraction of these particulates and compounds. But the best news in my opinion is that natural gas burns a fraction 27 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than diesel.

The Queen of Capilano is our second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the 2003 Bowen Island Community Energy Planning Options Report, the boat kicks about 7,500 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions up to the atmosphere every year. However, this figure is likely low; in 2007 the company installed a less-efficient—albeit more robust— propulsion system.

Given that we have done virtually nothing as a community to reduce our share of heat-trapping pollution in almost a decade, it is encouraging to see B.C. Ferries showing leadership. Obviously, the company is making the move because the business case makes sense; gas is cheaper. It’s is far from perfect, of course. The process of extracting (“fracking”) and processing gas produces a tremendous amount of pollution.

Update: A friend reminds me of the Cornell University study from last year that concluded that, because of the way it is extracted, shale gas is is a worse source of greenhouse gas emissions than coal.

I’d love to hear from the company about what the conversion will mean for greenhouse-gas emissions.

“Powerful: Energy for Everyone” Premiere

I’m looking forward to catching the Vancouver premier of Powerful: Energy for Everyone, a new documentary about our dysfunctional global energy system, and how we might fix it. Filmmaker David Chernushenko promises to “tackle the spin of the big energy lobby and dispel the myths of a ‘green utopia’ envisioned by many.” The film is billed as a candid examination of what a sustainable future may actually look like. It’s Friday afternoon at SFU Woodwards, part of the Projecting Change Film Festival. A clip from the film appears below.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Start of A New Adventure

I am delighted to let you all know that I have accepted a full-time position with  Tides Canada, a national foundation tackling a wide range of social and ecological challenges. To quote our boilerplate, “we pool the best ideas, strategies, people, and capital to achieve the greatest impacts on the key environmental and social issues of our time.”

In my case, the issue in question is climate, and the solution is energy. I’ll be working with the gifted Merran Smith—the former climate director of ForestEthics—on the recently established Tides Canada Energy Initiative. My role in part is to support, advance, and help host productive conversations around low-carbon energy, to diversify Canada’s energy system and advance climate solutions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Density Is Not The Boogieman

Individual Submission
Bowen Island Official Community Plan Update Committee

February 28, 2010

Dear Members of the Committee:

My name is James Glave and I’m a father of two. Ours is a young commuter family, and my wife and I actively participate in many aspects of island life. I love this place, and I am proud to call it home.

My personal passion is climate change solutions, and the transportation, energy, and land-use strategies that have been shown to reduce per-capita greenhouse-gas emissions here in our region and around the world. We can talk about any number of issues, but in my mind, carbon is the ultimate deal-breaker. We simply don’t have an option other than finding ways to slash the stuff from our lives and community. If we don’t “act locally” on this “global” issue, it will eventually come home to our doorstop and find us where we live anyway.

The science suggests that climate change will, in the near-term, overwhelm our first responders and social services, exhaust our municipal budget, and place hardship on our population via skyrocketing food prices. In the long term (which is what community planning is all about, right?)  it will ultimately result in waves of climate refugees flooding into Canada, and ultimately our community. This is not chicken-little stuff, it is exhaustively documented in reports by The Global Humanitarian Forum, the World Health Organization, Oxfam, and many other public agencies and non-government organizations.

Climate change is not an “environmental” issue, it is a civilization challenge. I believe we have a profound moral obligation to address it, wherever we live. I personally believe that we do not get an excuse or “opt out” pass to address climate just because we choose to live in a beautiful place that is “seen to be rural,” where fawns dance at the roadside and salmon thrash in the lagoon. We are not entitled to an exemption because we are surrounded by great natural beauty. This is not just “China’s problem.” We should see our emissions as an opportunity to lead, not barely squeak through our statutory obligations and hope nobody is noticing. That’s how we are not dealing with it now.

Read the rest of this entry »

Petro Cos Can’t Spare a Drop for Haitian Orphans

Petroleum companies have shown their true colors again. Operation Stork, a Citizenship and Immigration Canada operation to evacuate Haitian orphans, flew an all volunteer mercy flight last week out of Port au Prince, the Globe and Mail reports.

It was an all-volunteer operation: Air Canada donated a fully crewed Airbus, flight AC2150.

Air Canada’s caregiver list was activated, as was their medical team, including a doctor who specializes in the effects of cabin air pressure on diseases while in flight. There were concerns about collapsed lungs among the children. An Air Canada customer service agent in Montreal, Jacqueline Dupont, who is known for her baking, baked all day, providing dozens of small cakes and muffins for the orphans.

Everyone volunteered their time, Jane Taber reports. Well, mostly.

Several of the airline’s suppliers donated their services, including supplying food on board, waiving of airport landing charges and air navigation fees. Not the oil companies, however. Air Canada asked the fuel suppliers to donate and were refused.

We shouldn’t be suprised. After all, times are really tough for the petroleum companies these days.

Bastards.