A Green Canada Includes The West!

Canada may be out of the Kyoto protocol, but even our own non scientific target of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 won`t be reached at this rate. Due to Harper`s indifference on climate change Canada is falling behind most nations not only when it comes to environmental action, but also maintaining past successes. Harper made Canada the only country not to stay on the UN convention combating droughts.

In Canada emissions are going up. Canada is way above it`s Kyoto agreements. Right now Canada emits 690 Mega tonnes of CO2. Nearly 20 tonnes of CO2 per capita, which makes us one of the biggest polluters  in the developed world. Who is to blame? Alberta. I think it is an over simplification to blame everything on Alberta. And yes while it is true that Alberta over represents itself in CO2 emissions in Canada compared to it's portion of the population. 

Alberta isn't a bad province, because it has oil, and yes oil isn't a bad thing. Oil is a vital resource in today's modern economy. The problem though is that Alberta's Tar Sands are polluting to much, and will hinder Canada ability to reach any target. The Problem is that Alberta is built on this vital resource. Alberta's low unemployment rate and usually* decent public finances are all due to the cash cow that is the OIL!

Quebec and other eastern provinces who don't have as many resources like Alberta, haven't found it too hard to reduce CO2 emissions. Ontario is 6.5% below 1990 levels (That means Ontario reached it's Kyoto target) Quebec is 2% below 1990 levels. Both these provinces have pledged to reduce CO2 emissions by  15% in Ontario and 20% in Quebec from 1990 levels by 2020. For Quebec and Ontario it is much easier to be green and so far these provinces are leading by example. 

The western provinces don't fair so well. BC emission are up 28% above 1990 levels, Manitoba 10%, Alberta 37% and Saskatchewan 69%!!!!!! Harper has taken no action on these frighting numbers. For me even though I live in Quebec I see that Canada can't reach any target no matter how low emissions are in Central Canada.

My Vision for a green Canada include's the west. In order to create a green Canada we need to get the west off fossil fuels, and yes that means getting rid of the old economy and creating a new economy. For this we can't just say to Alberta your on your own. The federal government must help the west invest in green energy to create a new western economy off fossil fuels. A green Canada doesn't mean high unemployment in Alberta. It means new and sustainable employment in the west. 

The Carbon Tax Re-Explained (Libertarian Edition) Part 2

                      Now to continue to refute another point that my friend has brought out which is that he believes that there is no way to monitor how much CO2 was used to make a product in a foreign country when it comes in, But it isn't hard to monitor something that is already monitored. First China is going to have a carbon tax in 2012, and many countries already have a carbon tax including some U.S states. Next when a carbon tax will be introduced it will have to clearly state that shops that distribute a product that was made overseas will have to now report how much Co2 they emitted over seas and tax it when in comes in the border. Another false statement is the ideology that oil will last for another 120 years. Under current consumption which is rising dramatically every year as the world becomes more urbanized and developing countries start to need more resources Oil will be needed. The most oil can last for will be another 47 years. Even with more oil reserves found oil can't last much longer these oil reserves are predicted to be in remote places were no country has right over and even if they do the extraction cost would be very high. This just proves oil is unsubstantial. My Libertarians solution to it is allow the free markets to handle it. His theory is that Oil will gradually rise in prices and eventually it will be to expensive to use it so we will move to another source of energy. Thing is if our economy is dependent on fossil fuels now and will be unless something is done if we let the free markets work oil will rise so high that economy would crash, and we wouldn't have the time to shift to cleaner resources, because we waited to long. Canada has to institute a carbon tax now!
                      
                    One last point My Libertarian friend mentioned that Canada only emits 0.00000244666% this is a lie. Canada actually emits 2.3% of the worlds emissions although that is relatively small, but Canada is the 8th largest emitter and every other country of the world must reduce their CO2 emissions accordingly we can't just keep pointing at the biggest polluters which includes technically Canada for being responsible to reduce Co2 Emissions.

The Carbon Tax Re-Explained (Libertarian Edition) Part 1

                   In this post I will re-explain why a carbon tax is a good idea, but this time I will refute the arguments of my Libertarian friend. First my friend said that a carbon tax only worked in Sweden, because  Sweden is has a very capitalist economy. That isn't completely true. First Sweden has the second largest tax burden in the world, and over 80% of it's workers are unionized. The Government of Sweden doesn't allow the free market to go anywhere without intervention. My Blogger friend also said that Sweden had lower growth then other Scandinavian countries. This isn't true again. When a Carbon tax came in place in Sweden in 1991 the Swedish economy was valued at 258 billion and right before the recession the economy was worth 458 billion the growth of Sweden during these years was 78%! Other Scandinavian countries like Norway grew  during the same time period grew by 276%, but Norway was the first country in the 1990's to instate a carbon tax. That only leaves Finland which doesn't have a carbon tax and who's economy at the same time as Sweden and Norway grew  about 116%. So clearly even with a carbon tax an economy can still grow.
                  

Why I am against a Carbon Tax

//For the sake of argument, we will assume that CO2 and other GHGs are bad This will be a rebutal to what vanillaman posted earlier. Firstly, the small point: 1) at no point did I make any reference or allusion to unions. I support the unions' right to exist. I believe that unions are a way that workers can get what they want, them not always having highly desired skills the same way, say, a programmer might. While a highly skilled programmer threatening to go to a competitor might be a strong argument, a waiter doing the same might not have the same power. That said, I don't stand for forced participation, or laws saying that a union must be respected, or any other laws protecting unions from consequences of their actions (like not being able to give raises not negotiated for by unions, or not being able to hire outside the union). 2)Sweden is a poor example. Sweden has a hodgepodge of different regulations. I can use Sweden to prove my point too: Sweden has one of the most open capitalist policies anywhere, they have embraced globalization, and they have one of the lowest inflation rates. Thus proving that an open-capitalist economy, provided it stays that way, is able to support much more than a socialist economy (we do have marketing boards). On top of that, Sweden's growth is mediocre compared to the other countries in Scandinavia, and especially when compared to other countries. 3) citing someone from the federal reserve scares me. The Federal Reserve (hereafter referenced as the FED) is responsible for just about all the recessions and depressions since it was founded. Here is a good video explaining how, in rap battle format. Essentially, the FED sets bond interest rates low, which encourages lending (because more money can be made by lending it out than keeping it in bonds). The problem is that much of this lending should never have happened because the client's business model never made sense (whether it simply didn't, or didn't fit the role or time it was in. See the junk bonds; they have a use, but it was not all over the market.). Now that the small points have been dealt with, I will move on to the larger points, going from easiest to hardest. The last point made was about how regulations were what kept Canada's economy from going the way of that of the US. Firstly, the United States mandated that banks not turn down loans for virtually anybody. This was born out of the thought that everyone had the right to own a home. Because there was this regulation (see, I told you there was regulation) banks had to lend out to people who could never afford to pay back the mortgage. Now more than a few banks saw this as a highly profitable sector, provided it didn't implode. Perhaps it was some greedy people who did much of the spearheading, but it was also the FED (another instance of government fiddling with the economy) that allowed the housing boom in the first place. When it crashed, it was not an all too unforeseeable event. Also, if regulations are the way to go, and should be indiscriminately adopted (as is hinted in the article), then Greece should be the leading player after the economy, along with the other STUPID and PIIGS (and the other acronyms) countries. But wait; those countries are either still on those lists, or are swirling around the toilet bowl, waiting until they get sucked down it. On to the next point. vanillaman suggests that it is better to do it now than when our society is addicted to oil. While the thought is nice, and the logic seems all pristine, it is wrong. The basic logic of his claim is that we should leave a margin. First, society is addicted to oil. I recently saw a bumper sticker on a truck that read, "If you have it, a truck brought it". How true. To prove it, look at whatever you buy. Then see if all the materials came from within your neighborhood, or at least within biking distance. My point exactly. I will now argue that a margin is not necessary, because one is already present. Firstly, oil isn't running out, environmentalists are getting in the way. My evidence: the Bituminous Sands, Shale Gas. All are nearing the point where their technologies reach the point where it is almost completely safe to extract. (And if we removed the, oh yes, regulations that protect companies from people suing them for property damage, companies would have accountability for their actions.) Shale gas will soon be safe within acceptable limits (like the rate at which planes, in good maintenance, crash due to factors other than the pilot. That is to say about never). This will, on top of the remaining oil-fields being pumped, get us through at least 40 years (especially with the world population reaching the top of the S-curve population growth, where growth slows down). Then we can start pumping through the currently untapped but proven oil reserves, for another 10 to 30 years. By that time, we will have confirmed at least some of the unproven oil fields, guesstimated at being 40 to 50 years of oil. This adds up to a 90 to 120 year margin, all on the assumption that we find no other fields not included in the unproven category. I personally feel that this is an acceptable margin to perfect the existing bacteria that synthesize oil out of CO2, as well as all the other horribly less efficient technologies, like solar power and other fuel cells, as well as a good form of alternate, renewable fuel. One of the problems with a carbon tax is that it will raise the price of goods and services. Because of this, companies will take their setups to other places, where there isn't a tax. The foreign countries will also have a competitive edge since they don't have a tax. So the proposed solution would be to add a tax on to the products as they come in. Problem: how would you find that out? Would you just go, "A cabbage head cost X cents in carbon, so we'll charge X cents per cabbage head"? Or would you go, "You imported this from a country that is less efficient than us in carbon output. Therefore we will assume that your cabbage head used more carbon, and tax it more"? How on Earth would you find that out? Also, If you were to take either course of action you would negate the stated benefit, namely that it would incentivise "Green" production. So there is no satisfactory solution to imports, and every developed country is far from self sufficient 100% of the time. Another problem with the proposed solution is associating the cost of the carbon inside the product with the tax credit that is given. Will the tax credits be given according to taxes paid? So if a person pays $100 in taxes, they might only get $1, but if someone pays $100,000 in taxes, they will get $1,000. Or will it be a flat distribution, so everyone gets X dollars? In the current form, the plan is little more than a dream, because it has no idea how it will do any of its components. As if that weren't enough, the system is ready to be exploited. After all, aren't some products worse than others? If someone buys a Hummer, and someone else buys a hybrid, why should they both still have to pay some of the tax? Why not tax the Hummer into oblivion, and then use that money for the good of society? Isn't that the whole reason for the carbon tax, a way of paying off the social price of the carbon emissions? The possibility for this to be exploited by special interests who would normally not be competitive enough to survive is huge. After all, who wouldn't want their product to be subsidized to a point where the competition has no way of competing? Or even have their product mandated to be bought, even when one buys from the competitor? Oh, wait. It's called ethanol. Who doubts that ethanol will get special treatment because it is a "Green" product. I hope that, by demonstrating that the stated premise for the carbon tax was flawed, and by explaining how the whole plan is unrefined and the key mechanics left up to the imagination, I have offered at least reasonable doubt that a carbon tax is not a good solution. As further proof, let me introduce the futility of it: Canada's GHG output was about 734 Mt; China's was 6,100,000,000 Mt. China is opening a new coal-fired power plant every week until 2018. Canada emits 0.00000244666% of the world's GHGs.

Carbon Tax Explained!

My Libertarian friend is at it again. Saying that Government has no role to play in the economy. He says it's the unions and regulation that are holding the country back. His latest post attacked a carbon tax. Let me explain what my blogger friend may not understand. First a carbon tax isn't taxing the regular consumer. It taxes industries that pollute, and gives every cent in income tax reduction to regular Canadians. But a carbon tax isn't just taking money from you then gives it back to you no. Julia Gillard the Prime Minister of Australia best explains it here . As you can see a carbon tax will make products more expensive and the tax cuts from the carbon tax will make the net total 0. You lose no money! But companies that innovate and make there products using less Co2 will get taxed less and can reduce there prices to get an advantage when it comes to prices against there competitor. So you save consumers money and you sort of push companies to innovate so that they can remain competitive. In fact the OECD even recommended Canada to have a carbon tax and reduce income tax. In Sweden where they have a carbon tax of 150$ per ton saw there economy actually grow not diminish like my Libertarian friend thinks will happen. We shouldn't wait for oil prices to raise naturally so high that consumers will start to change there habits. We need to do it now so our economy isn't so addicted to oil when it runs out. Even Former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker suggested (February 6, 2007) that "it would be wiser to impose a tax on oil, for example, than to wait for the market to drive up oil prices." If we just allow the markets to solve our problems, and take off government regulations Canada's banks would have gone under like the U.S banks did. The Canadian government set regulations so that there wouldn't be a sub prime mortgage crisis.

My friends don't know anything about economics!

I have heard many crazy things, said seriously, by my friends. Most recently and scarily was the suggestion that, to curb inflation's primary driver (oil), we add a tax to it. Allow me to explain why that is wrong on so many levels. Tax, but pay back The idea was that a tax would be imposed on fuel, but it would go towards compensating people for the higher price. That is like mugging someone at a gas station for 20$, but giving them a 19$ gas card (some gets lost to taxation and bureaucracy). It doesn't matter that the mugger gives most of it back: they still stole from you. But even assuming that there is no inefficiency (and this tax is not taxed by the sales tax), it makes no sense. It would be like charging someone 20$ for service, but handing the bill back as an instant rebate. If a charge is paid back by the charger, does it even exist? But because of inefficiency, it will exist; the charged will be the loser. The rising price is enough Just by the very fact that the price is going up, and the market trend is that it will continue to rise, is incentive enough. It does not take a genius to figure out that one of the largest pillars of the world (it is responsible for just about all the food on the market, as well as the delivery of just about every product) is a large market, ready for a cheaper solution. The open market is more likely to get it right It is a simple probability thing: if one person (in the legal sense) roles a ten-sided die, one in ten times she will get a ten. But if one million people each role a die, 100,000 will get a ten. It is simply better to let the open market determine the actual correct price, purely statistically speaking. Then, once someone has the right price, all others will be forced to meet or exceed this number. Those who get it or better get business; those who don't get none (assuming that all other factors are controlled for. This means that oil will cost more on Ellesmere island than it would, say, right next to the oil refinery in Alberta). On top of that, the people in the market have two things that the governors of the market will never have: boots on the ground, and immediate consequences. These people's jobs are to judge the optimal price, and they suffer the consequences when they get it wrong (less right than the competition). Bureaucrats have no hope of ever acquiring that knowledge, and, because they are not dependant on getting it right for their jobs and income, no incentive to perform. It's not our job It really isn't the job of government to be encouraging and discouraging various practices that do not infringe on the rights of other. As explained above, a bureaucrat has no chance against the open market, and his efforts will only further mess up the economy (see the abnormally high price of dairy products, courtesy of the dairy marketing board. Also see the ethanol boondoggle in the US; even Al Gore admits he backed it to support his buddies in the farming business). Because of this, it just doesn't make sense to go around managing economies, and so it shouldn't be a role of government (the same way heavy-machinery operators don't work in chemistry labs: they could, and might even have the occasional success, but it would just be better to leave that job for chemists). I hope that I have provided a good case against increasing taxes on oil. The idea of a tax who's proceeds go to those who pay it to pay the tax is absurd an inefficient. The rising price is incentive enough to spur innovation, and, left on its own, the open market will get the right price better than a meddling bureaucrat. Because of this, it would be best to leave the free market to do its thing, and rectify the situation if it needs correcting, and determine that on its own. Remember, even if there is no demand, people will always fiddle and explore: gasoline was originally discarded because no-one could find anything to do with it, and then along came the internal combustion engine (an oversimplification, I know).

Solution to inflation!

The main driver of inflation this last month was oil prices! Which is rising , because of the tension in the oil rich middle east. Now if there is more unrest in a few more middle eastern nations oil is going to go up more and more. The truth is even if the middle east was very quite and in peace oil prices would still go up, because the demand is rising and the supply is getting smaller every single day. Since oil is driving up inflation it makes sense to try to curve the demand of oil so that the increase at least isn't that high. A way to reduce demand is a carbon tax which reduces demand of oil based industries. But reducing demand isn't the only solution we need to turn to cleaner energy like solar wind and hydro. We need to have other sources of transport for our food, because if we continue to bring our food by truck and other oil based transport they will be more effected by inflation and oil prices. The solution to this invest in inner city production of food, but also a viable high speed rail hat can transport goods and people and not pollute.Climate change will also effect prices, because with more extreme weather our supply of food won't be good and the demand will always increase.  ,If we continue with the Harper ideology that there is no climate change, and big tax cuts to the oil sands that pollute and no investments for our transport inflation will continue to rise!

Maybe to Nuclear Energy!

When I heard about the nuclear meltdown in Japan I was ready to hate nuclear all together, but sometimes we have to see all the facts in front of us. nuclear is a non renewable resource, but so is coal and oil. Now if I had to chose between Oil which is a non renewable resource, has caused major climate change and deaths every year(ex: of oil spills like the gulf oil spill or the Alaska oil spill) I would choose nuclear. Slate news even found out that if you take all the deaths Oil has caused (not including disease caused by pollution) compared to the deaths nuclear has caused. You see that for every unit of energy oil kills 18 times more people than nuclear. There has also been more Coal mines crumbling down (like the one in Chile and west Virginia from last year) then there has been nuclear meltdowns. And more people have died from crumbling coal mines and sickness from working at a coal mine than have died in nuclear energy. Nuclear meltdowns like the one in Chernobyl only happen because it was poorly designed here in the U.S and Canada we have regulations that make are nuclear plants safer from nuclear meltdown. The Three Mile Island in the U.S nuclear reactor meltdown caused no deaths, no significant radiation leaks and no illness came from this meltdown. The reason for the Japanese reactors melting is because of poor regulation.

Dr Masashi Goto, a nuclear engineer, resigned from his job at the Toshiba Corporation over safety concerns.

Dr Goto criticised his country's record on nuclear safety.
"We have the government commission overseeing nuclear safety standards and in my opinion they are not doing their job," he told ABC correspondent Eric Campbell last Thursday in Tokyo in an exclusive interview for Four Corners.

Dr Goto alleges that in Japan's nuclear industry profits take precedence over safety standards.
"No-one says it officially or openly. When setting standards for future earthquakes, the thought is of money - how much is it going to cost?" he said.

Although Nuclear regulation in the U.S are weaker than Japan you have to take in consideration that the U.S doesn't and isn't expecting a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. Now I do think that nuclear regulations should be prepared for the worst case scenario. Which in Japan they were not. But the U.S worst case scenario isn't magnitude 9.0 earthquake. Now I am not supporting nuclear energy in fact I don't support nuclear energy at all.I think that we should start to eliminate our nuclear reactors in North America as the U.S has done for the past decades. Currently there is debate in Vermont whether to close a nuclear power plant I fully support ending that Nuclear power plants license, and starting to build cleaner energy to replace it. Now to be realistic I don't think that all nuclear power plants be destroyed tomorrow, but rather all nuclear power plants must first be inspected, and if any pose problems fix the plant. All Nuclear energy plants should be given a timetable in which they have to leave as the city starts to build cleaner energy to replace it. Nuclear should slowly start to leave the North America as should fossil fuels, but Because efficient nuclear power plants with strong regulations emits much less and is safer than coal or oil it would be smart to start eliminating more coal and oil plants first then move to eliminate Nuclear (when they're time is up). So Nuclear is good it is bad , but when compared to the other things we use it is much better, but no new Nuclear power plants should be built.
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Stop Biofuel! feed people!

In the U.S because of the spike in Oil prices, and of extreme weather Food prices are rising. This has caused many people to go hungry even in the U.S as food stamps stays the same and prices increase.

Madison says her food stamp benefits have not increased despite rising food prices.

In fact millions of Americans are currently on food stamps. My suggestion curve corn based bio-fuel production. I have stated before that Bio-fuel can't be tomorrow's fuel as it is inefficient and also isn't at all environmentally friendly. So countries including Canada, U.S and many other countries should eliminate the bio fuel subsidy that are given to farmers who plant corn for bio fuel and gradually increase a subsidy for farmers to make corn for food. In fact corn is the base product of most of the products we buy. Including batteries, Coke Ca-cola and many others. By stopping useless corn based bio-fuel production and making more corn for eating and other products Corn prices could see a gradual decline and so many other important products we buy. Many might say that since we need oil to ship goods and with less bio-fuel production  there will be an increase in oil prices , and this increase would be enough to make any reduction in products prices, because of surplus corn look minimal. But if we also gradually use more renewable energy and eliminate the subsidy of fossil fuels and gradually increase the subsidy on renewable energy then oil prices would not spike as much and in future might go down.

Keystone food commodities like corn, soybeans and wheat have already increased 149% this past decade, according to the New America Foundation's Smart Strategy Initiative Director Patrick Doherty.

"With persistent high unemployment, oil fueling more than 95% of America's transportation system, and transportation costs running 24% of income in suburbia and in exurbia, 35%, America's middle class is extraordinarily exposed," writes Doherty.

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Canada Believes in Climate Change.

The vast majority of Canadians and a majority of Americans believe in global warming.The Climate change skepitics haven't won this war, and this should be no surprise.In Canada another vast majority of us believe that our federal, provincial and municipal goverments should all be a part of the solution. some kind of a Carbon tax is very popular in Canada. 73% of Canadians would be willing to pay 50 extra dollars a year in energy so that other resources would be used instead of oil. In the U.S this is also popular 55% said they would be willing to pay more in energy cost for more renewable energy.When asked about a carbon tax derictly the a poll found that 61% of people would support it. It seems that a carbon tax isn't as politically suicide as many have thought, and a surprising figure made 5 years ago is that the majority (54%) of the oil rich Stephen Harper country of Alberta actually support a carbon tax. Another surprising fact is that People who support the Liberals believe in Climate change more than people who support the Green Party. In the U.K green taxes have 63% support. A carbon tax isn't a bad word, I can't wait till other parties besides the Green party start putting a carbon tax on there platform like Stephan Dion.

See the polls here
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Tar Sands Need to be Checked.

A new report showed that the Tar sands haven't really been checked on what it is doing. The Tar sands in Alberta has been seen the most dirties oil in the world. This is true! The oil sands aren't being monitored, and they should be. We can't just give oil companies a free licence to do whatever they want like Stephen Harper does. I am not saying that the tar sands should be destroyed. Absolutely not, but I say that if we use the this resource we should put to good use. First mandatory monitoring on the Oil sands, and enforce changes on the oil sands that must be complied with. Next insure that any new development in the oil sands have to be done clean and environmentally friendly, but of course the oil sands will never be truly green. That doesn't mean we should destroy the whole industry. What we need to do is that considering many countries need and run on our oil, so we tell countries who want our great oil resource that they need to ensure us that they will have some sort of plan to reduce there oil demand. Considering our oil has so  much influence let's use it for a force of good to make everyone else reduce there oil consumption. Last enforce a carbon tax to reduce our oil consumption.

Biofue vs. Regualr gasoline.

Biofuel and regular gasoline are both two types of energy used for fueling cars. Energy is the ability to do work. In this case energy is the ability to move a car. Regular Gasoline is a non-renewable resource that many people tend to use for their car fuel. Biofuel is a renewable resource that comes from corn that farmers produced. Currently there have been many discussions about the two on which one is a better car fuel.

Biofuel has been seen as the solution for future car fuel, but in order to make biofuel you need energy. Meaning in order to make more Corn for biofuel you need to use energy to process the corn into a fuel, and currently most of the energy used to make this fuel is coal and natural gas which are non-renewable resources. The highest amount of corn based biofuel used in a car can only go up to 85% biofuel and 15% gasoline. Biofuel has a EROEI ratio of 1.34. (EROEI is the ratio of how much energy is invested to how much energy you get out) This means that for every unit of energy used to make the fuel you only get 1.34 unit of biofuel, so if you wanted to be really be green in using biofuel as the energy to make the biofuel rather than coal or natural gas you would be keeping ¾ of the biofuel you made this year into making more for the next year. Only ¼ of the biofuel you made would actually go to be made as a fuel. This shows that using biofuel as car fuel can’t work as it takes too much energy just to make it without using nonrenewable resources. Some would say that oil isn’t a renewable resource and we can’t keep using it. Yes that is true there will not be enough oil eventually to continue being a fuel or an energy source, but even if you convert every single field in the in the U.S into a corn field for biofuel you will not have enough biofuel to run the U.S. Oil may not be able to be an energy source in the future, but corn can’t even be the source of energy today.



Biofuel made from corn has been seen to be the solution to global warming. The theory is that if you use biofuel you will have a zero CO2 output in total even if a car running on biofuel emits CO2, but any CO2 realest when used is taken away because the CO2 was sucked up when the biofuel was a plant. This argument doesn’t hold water. When you actually put it to the test in the real world you see in order to have Biofuel you need to plant more crops, but where? If you take Grassland in the U.S, and change it into a field of Corn for biofuel CO2 even before you start planting will be released. Grass and trees stores Carbon in them in fact the amount of Carbon in Plants across the world stores 3 times the amount of Carbon in the atmosphere , so when plants are cut there Carbon goes out and is transformed into CO2 that goes out into the atmosphere. Meaning when you change grassland to a field of corn 134 Metric tons of CO2 will be released per hector. In order to actually pay off this 134 metric tons of CO2 it will take 93 years of using that land for Biofuel and nothing else. Changing jungles or rain forest into corn fields will take centuries to pay off the carbon debt. By this time there won’t be any oil left to mix the oil with biofuel. This proves that biofuel isn’t as green as it claims to be. Some would say that Oil is no greener. True, but if we instead plant more trees rather than making more corn fields we could have more forest sucking up more CO2 than the amount Cars create running on Oil.

In the future we should look at different sources of biofuel like cellulose a biofuel that comes from waste products, but having looked at the impacts that corn made biofuel can do environmentally, and seeing how inefficiently it is corn based biofuel is defiantly not the answer to Global warming or a proper alternative to regular gasoline.

Water is the New Oil.

In history we learn that many countries have wars, because of resources. In new France the resource was fur. In the last couple decades the resource was oil. Now in the future water will be the new oil. As the population in the world continue to increase which will make water the most demanded resource on earth even above water. Canada a country that has the largest supply of water will be in center stage of this shift in power. Canada may have to struggle with even higher immigration than we have today, and many countries across the world are going to be looking at Canada for the resource. The planet will shift and Canada will become the new Saudi Arabia for resource.

Water bottles vs. Tap Water

In north America many people don't want  to use city tap water, because it is "unsafe". So many people go for the alternative bottled water. In Cleavland they did a test between city tap vs. Fiji water bottle. What they found out is that tap water better quality and wins in a taste test. This is true across the country in the U.S where tap water is proven to be safer in most cases as it is more regulated and tastier than bottled water. People in the U.S buy more than 500,000,000 water bottles. Why? Because water companies are tricking people into think that tap water isn't safe, but the truth is that it is much better, and one third of all bottled water bottles is just filtered water from the tap. plastic that makes the bottle comes from oil and with 500,000,000 bottles of plastic that is enough oil and energy to fuel a million cars. The reason oil prices are going up is because we waste oil on plastic bottles we use once. Water bottles are the biggest waste of two dollars and our environment. Unless you live in an area where the water isn't really safe, because of polluting industries like the water bottled industry you should always try the tap.In North America we need to push against water bottles and try to ban them from our lives.

How long are they going to wait?

Another oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico. This proves that we need to do something about oil companies. There has to be inspectors going to oil rigs for every company to make sure they are safe, clean and not at any risk of exploding.  I t doesn't matter how the goverment pays for this either make oil campanies pay for them and reward the safest oil comapanies with oil contracts, or the goverment paying for it and increase fines for unsafe oil campanies. It doesn't matter, because if an oil rig is going to blow out every 6 months clearly something must be done. There should be heafty fines for oil campanies that don't follow the rules.

Another Rig Explodes

Another rig has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Luckily, the company was able to shut off the oil flow to avert a huge leak like the BP spill. This is another example of why we should reduce our dependence on oil. Along with the unconventional methods now used to extract oil out of the ground comes great destruction to the environment. Investing more in renewable energy, and a carbon tax is the way to reduce our dependency on oil.

ATLANTA — The opening scene was all too familiar. Black smoke rising from a burning oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico and workers plucked from the sea. But Thursday's fire on an oil production facility 100 miles off the Louisiana coast appears to have ended without disaster.

None of the 13 workers on board the platform were injured. The Coast Guard found no evidence of an oil leak, and by Thursday afternoon the fire was out.

Read more at the Times Colonist.

They continue to do it wrong.

The "Rethink Alberta" campaign made by environmentalists in California is telling people to avoid going to Alberta because of the tar sands. Now, they are putting ads in the U.K. I think they are doing it wrong. By boycotting the province you are going to punish innocent businesses that have nothing to do with the tar sands. I say you can hate the government or oil companies to death, but don't punish the citizens of Alberta of different political stripes. Just because people live in the province that has the tar sands does not mean that support the tar sands. So I would rather environmentalist groups campaign directly against the tar sands, or against the use of oil made from the tar sands. I think that this is a way better idea than punishing the people of Alberta.

The group that created the controversial "Rethink Alberta" tourism boycott campaign in the United States is taking its anti-oilsands message to England.

 "The level of awareness about the tar sands is still well below the radar screen of most Americans," he said.

Eleven large digital billboards with graphic images of the environmental costs of the industry are scheduled to go up in London over the next couple days. As well, ads will run on some of the country's most popular websites.

Read more at CBC.

Oil spill stoped ,but side effects could last decades.

On day 107 of the oil spill or should I say now capped oil spill the problewm is not intierly over. Even though a big part of the oil was taken out of the ocean the oil is still there. First the Exon Valdez spill (which by the way was the worst oil spill in american history now is second to the BP oil disater). which spilled 11 million barrels, and the BP spill which spilled more than the Exon Valdez spill. The spill from Alaska 20 years ago that spilled 11 million barrels has seen to have still damage to the area, so even though the oil is no longer spilling the current spill could still do damage to the gulf of mexico. The problem is no way far from over. The oil spill will stay with the gulf for decades to come. This enviromental disater could really be avoided if we have inspectors go to the oil rigs to inspect the safety of the oil rig. then make the oil companies pay for it. The company with the best safety will have more oil contracts while the oil comapnies that are deem unsafe will face fines and could lose some drilling sites to other oil capanies.

Au revoir Hayward!

Hayward has just been fired. They finally fired him. He was clearly not good enough. When he was asked to come to congress, and was asked questions about the rig all we got was "I was not informed" or "I was not a part of that". First if he was a part of allowing the rig to explode he should be fired automatically. If he didn't know what was going on and was telling the truth then what in the world was he doing. If he does not know what is happening in all the rigs BP owns in the country then there is not just a big problem in BP , and he should be fired for not knowing was is going on in his own business. The new leader of BP is Robert Dudley. Now I hope for everyone that he does better than Mr. Hayward.

Like Hayward, Dudley is a long-time BP employee with more than 30 years in the oil business. A chemical engineer by training, Dudley was put in charge of the day-to-day leadership of the Gulf Coast clean-up operation in June.

The company also plans to nominate him as a non-executive director of Russian oil and gas venture TNK-BP. Executives at TNK-BP said they did not know whether Hayward would replace an existing director, nor did they provide any details about what Hayward's day-to-day involvement in the business would be.

Hate the oil sands not the People.

As many people start to attack the province of Alberta because the oil sands , and telling them now to avoid the province all together. I think that is a bit to far. They should avoid using oil from the oil sands, but they shouldn't avoid the province itself. I say they should criticize the government for doing this, but to punish the local economy that needs tourist the people who have nothing to do with the oil sands shouldn't get punished. I think avoiding the province would hurt the people who might actualy not like the oil sands. I think these environmental groups should encourage there city or there state to do what some has already have to just avoid the oil from the oil sands. This would effect more on punishing the oil sands then the people of Alberta. This would be a better initiative on the environment .

Read more here