Blessed by the Potato

I’ve always liked Neville Chamberlain references, myself, as they tend to skirt the issues of Nazis and the holocaust just enough to make a point without completely destroying the discussion — that is, without falling prey to Godwin’s Law. That doesn’t seem to be the case lately, as a reference by Elizabeth May has sparked some crazy, out-of-proportion controversy over the whole thing. Admittedly, I’m a little biased: I like Elizabeth May, and there are very few subjects that I consider too sacred to be the used as figures of speech or hyperbole. In fact, I find the insane over-reaction by other groups far worse (“deplorable comment” — come on, it may have been slightly out of context or exaggerated, but deplorable or horrific?).

So, I really liked the twin articles that appeared in Maclean’s about how people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I’m not too surprised that some people blew it out of proportion and got all enraged over the comparison — in particular the Cons, since they were the target of the remarks, and also because they’re just generally angry people who get enraged at pretty much anything that isn’t a broken promise or pollution (they seem surprisingly comfortable with broken promises and pollution). I am surprised at how quickly other people jumped on the bandwagon to condemn her. This is something that really troubles me in politics. I mean, Jack Layton and Stephan Dion probably aren’t actually outraged and horrified by the comparison, and if you had asked them right after she made her speech, they probably wouldn’t have noticed. But because someone else is outraged, they suddenly became outraged too — again, not likely because now it was pointed out to them and they became horrified after perceiving it, but simply because they didn’t want to risk offending someone by not being outraged. It troubles me because they’re up there pretending to care about this — and I’m pretty sure most of us know this is all an act and they’re not really all that outraged by her choice of words (though if they are so sensitive to word choice, that’s a whole other area of concern). But they’ll scream and yell for her to take it back all the same — and I’m pretty sure the people that do care and were upset probably still see through their act and aren’t moved by the sympathy.

So when they pretend to care about everything, can we really trust them to care about anything?

The Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform has finished its deliberations and decided that Ontario needs an updated, fairer, more proportional electoral system. To keep the options simple, they’ve also deliberated on the alternatives and settled on Mixed Member Proportional. This fall, on October 10th, as part of the general provincial election, we will have a referendum on whether or not to change to this new system. The bar has been set high: rather than a simple majority, the Premier has stipulated that to change the electoral system, the vote must be at least 60% in favour provincewide, and at least 50% of the ridings must be in favour (that is, over half the people in over half the ridings). I’m hoping this will go through; while MMP wasn’t my preferred voting system, it’s still a big step up from first-past-the-post. Although party lists give me the heebie jeebies sometimes, at least the “proportional” part is kept to 30% of the seats. Of course, BC had a similar referrendum not too long ago, and despite being supported by a majority of the people, the motion died just short of the 60% threshold.

While there has been some media coverage of this long, slow process, it certainly isn’t at the forefront. I don’t even know if it will gain much (or at least, enough) ground in the collective consciousness for people to really know what the referendum is about when it falls upon them. So, I hope you all will learn about it, and start working it into your conversations at work and elsewhere… get people around you thinking about this sort of issue, and, hopefully, preparing to vote yes in the upcoming referendum!

Other news today out of the federal government is that they’re also planning on banning incandescent lightbulbs…

Finally, I’d just like to say that over at XKCD the algorithm constantly finds Jesus. The algorithm fears velociraptors, yet constantly finds them.

I wrote a short rant not too long about about the ban of indandescents in Nunavut. I think that reducing the use of incandescents would be a step in the right direction, and taxing incandescents (or subsidizing CFLs) so that it becomes easier for consumers to choose the “right” one without having to do a long-term cost-benefit analysis is a good thing. Banning them, though, is not such a bright idea, since there are a small number of situations where fluorescents are not ideal (see previous rant or below for details).

After writing that rant up, I rewrote it as a letter to my MPP, kicking myself after I sent it since there was no way Ontario would actually follow Nunavut’s lead and ban incandescent lighting…

Whoops.

I was happy at least to see this paragraph in the CBC report (the other news sources I skimmed didn’t have it — the Toronto Star even said that Ontario was “the first… jurisdiction in North America to commit to such a ban” — perhaps technically true, since the legislation hasn’t passed in Nunavut yet, but a somewhat disingenuous statement):

The ban, part of a wider energy conservation program, would allow for exceptions, such as the use of incandescent bulbs in fields like medicine.

This is the letter I sent my MPP last month. I never got a response (at least the last time I went crazy-go-nuts on my MPP, she sent me an acknowledgement!).

Dr. Matthews, I recently saw the news that Nunavut was planning on banning the sale of incandescent light bulbs in the territory to save power and reduce emissions. (story: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/03/22/nu-lightbulb.html)

I am writing you to encourage the province of Ontario to not follow Nunavut’s lead in this matter — a ban on incandescents is not the way to go.

Taxing them however is, in my opinion, an excellent idea: make some money for the government, and make the initial purchase price of an incandescent the same as a fluorescent — even those with a short-term focus can then make better decisions about which to get, rather than having to try to weigh the initial costs against the long-term energy savings. That should help dramatically shift the usage away from the incandescents. Compact fluorescents are a good thing, and I’ve been putting them in nearly every room in the house here. However, they do have a few short-comings, and for these reasons it’s important to have incandescents as an option:

* CFLs can not be used in completely enclosed light fixtures, such as some pot lights.
* Many CFLs can not be put on dimmer switches (though some specific models can be).
* Some types of CFLs (I do not know if this applies to all of them) do not handle extremes in temperature well, and may not be suited to use in stoves, range hoods, or outdoor lighting.
* Almost all CFLs have a delay between turning on the switch and lighting up. There is a further delay between the first spark and full brightness. While this is not a problem for most applications, it is slightly less than ideal for some uses such as motion-detector-triggered security lights (compounded by further delays in cold environments).
* A small minority of people find that the flicker from fluorescent lighting (though CFLs don’t seem quite as bad) gives them headaches.
* CFLs have less-than-perfect colour fidelity. While it’s good enough for almost all uses, some specialized cases (certain science experiments, artists) may find that they prefer to use incandescents for their broad-spectrum output.
* Some sensitive electronics can experience interference from some types of CFLs (I believe the kind with magnetic ballast) due to proximity or being on the same circuit.

For the majority of cases, CFLs are great ways to save tonnes of energy, but for these situations, we should aim to have incandescents as an option (even if it is an expensive one).

Now, it looks like while you won’t be able to buy an incandescent in Ontario under the current plan, you could go to the States or Quebec and bring one over without any trouble, if you had to (so they’ll be unavailable, but not illegal).

Canada should be a world leader when it comes to issues of the environment, if for no other reason than because we have so much of it. Our record on Kyoto and greenhouse gas emissions has been rather shameful, though we do have a succession of uncaring minority governments to partially blame for that, as well as a relatively uncaring public (until quite recently, that is). It is long time past to fix that, though, and I’m surprised that while the election-hungry neocons have identified the environment as a key issue, they haven’t yet actually done a whole lot about it (the funding announcements of the last few days notwithstanding). Mostly, they’re throwing around as much rhetoric and mud as they can, hoping to survive the issue in the next election (which they’re desperately trying to bring for the summer, by all accounts). So the Europeans really showed us when they recently announced plans to go above and beyond their Kyoto commitments.

Of course, our leaders are always faced with tough choices. Global warming looks to be a very real threat, and could be potentially very devastating. However, it’s also a long-term, global problem, so it’s very difficult to face with our local, short-term perspective. After all, there’s tax cuts to be had, health care to bolster, and all manner of other problems to ignore, everything from homelessness to defense, space exploration to public transportation, basic research to primary education.

Something not a lot of people are talking about is that a lot of these initiatives are needed for another problem all together: peak oil. Thanks to advances in new technology, we aren’t going to run out of oil for a long time to come. Which is a good thing, because alternatives (hydrogen, biofuels, electricity, etc) are still uncomfortably far off into the future. However, we’re already starting to see evidence of tightening supply. The thing with something that is in such high demand, such as oil, is that even modest declines in supply can lead to huge swings in price, since demand is so very inelastic (and I may be abusing my economic terminology, so forgive me here). We saw this quite clearly recently in Ontario: a fire at an Imperial Oil refinery caused fairly widespread shortages, station closures, and an increase of roughly 20-25% in price. And this was at a time when demand was relatively low due to the bad weather keeping many drivers off the road. The thing is, that refinery was nowhere near responsible for 20+% of our refining ability (one report says it was just 6% of Imperial’s capacity, just one of several major companies operating in Ontario). So a relatively minor drop in supply lead to a relatively large increase in price. Imagine that sort of situation even just 10 years from now if world oil extraction drops just a bit… But if we have developed technologies at this point in time to battle greenhouse emissions and use less oil, then we will simultaneously tackle that problem.

It’s a lot like hybrid cars in that regard: the combination of electric and gasoline power make hybrids more efficient in their use of oil, especially for stop-and-go city driving. Some people have slammed them as not solving the root problem of oil dependence, since they do still run on gas, however they are actually very good bridge technologies. Not only are they effective at saving gas right now, they also serve to develop the electric motors and batteries (and underlying manufacturing base) that will likely be needed for any future technology car.

I was glad to see the hybrid car rebate included in the federal budget, and the increased gas guzzler tax. One person recently was hailing the Cons for this move, saying that they’re clearly a pro-environmental party, and that this was a very pro-environment budget. To that I just have to say that this is, as many commentators are saying, a pre-election budget. It’s a pro-everything budget. The Cons have been very reticient to make any of these moves, and have only done so because currently these issues are at the forefront of Canadians’ minds. I have no doubt that if public focus shifts (as it does quite often), the Cons will stop all further progress. They haven’t lead us to these measures, they’ve been driven to them. A release today in the CBC has some good rhetoric, and it’s a lot further along than they were a year ago… but they’re still using this double-talk of a “balanced approach” and continuing to think that anything that’s good for the environment must be bad for our way of life.

Another environmental intiative making the rounds lately is the idea of banning outright the sale of incandescent bulbs. This is one move I can’t get behind. Taxing them is, in my opinion, an excellent idea: make some money for the government, and make the initial purchase price of an incandescent the same as a fluorescent — even short-term thinkers can then make better decisions about which to get, rather than having to try to weigh the costs against the long-term energy savings. That should help dramatically shift the usage away from the incandescents. Compact fluorescents are a good thing, and I’ve been putting them in a lot of rooms in the house here. However, they do have a few short-comings, and for these reasons it’s important to have incandescents as an option (though perhaps we should stop using them as our main source of home lighting):

• Compact fluorescent lights (CFL) are more costly overall if they do not manage to live out their whole life-cycle. They also contain trace amounts of mercury. Combined, these two issues mean that CFLs should not be used in areas where lights are more likely to be smashed than wear out from old age (places like batting cages, say, or where small children throw rocks at them).
• CFLs can not be used in enclosed light fixtures, such as some pot lights or other recessed/indirect lighting conditions.
• Many CFLs can not be put on dimmer switches (be sure to check the package before putting yours on one!).
• Some types of CFLs (I do not know if this applies to all of them) do not handle extremes in temperature well, and may not be suited to use in fridges, stoves, range hoods, or outdoor lighting.
• Almost all CFLs have a delay between turning on the switch and lighting up. There is a further delay between the first spark and full brightness. While this is not a problem for most applications, it is slightly less than ideal for some applications such as motion-detector-triggered security lights (compounded by further delays in cold environments), and lightswitch raves.
• A small minority of people find that the flicker from fluorescent lighting (including CFLs, though they don’t seem quite as bad) gives them headaches.
• CFLs have less-than-perfect colour fidelity. While it’s good enough for almost all uses, some specialized cases (certain science experiments, artists) may find that they prefer to use incandescents for their broad-spectrum output.
• Some sensitive electronics can experience interference from some types of CFLs (I believe the kind with magnetic ballast) due to proximity or being on the same circuit.

For the majority of cases, they are great ways to save tonnes of energy, but for these situations, we should aim to have incandescents as an option (even if it is an expensive one).

Finally, another recent story said that because conservation efforts have started working so well, Toronto Hydro is losing money, and wants to hike electricity rates. I don’t know what to say to that. On the one hand, more expensive electricity encourages people to conserve, and brings it closer to the true cost to produce. But I don’t want to see peoples’ bills go up because they were conserving (the net bill will go down, but you know many people won’t see it that way). I’m also not so sure Toronto Hydro is really too hard up if they’ve got the cash to spare to get into the telecom business…

I haven’t had time to digest the latest federal budget yet. It does look very much to be the pork-barrel pre-election vote-buying budget many people thought it would be. The only really surprising thing about it is that the BQ was actually bought off by the money thrown their way. Ah, well, I guess Harper’s government has been exceedingly good to the Nation of Quebec.

One thing I did like was the new, stiffer fuel consumption tax/rebate on cars and trucks. Ontario has had a similar system for quite some time now, and I thought it was a good idea, but just an order of magnitude too small — $100 is not really enough to shift someone’s buying behaviour on a car that costs $25000 or more. The federal one is now a larger, more meaningful tax (or rebate), offering up to $2000 back for fuel-efficient hybrids (or ethanol/biodiesel, etc), and charging up to $4000 for the worst of the gas-guzzlers (though because trucks and cars are taxed at different rates, this may play out like the Ontario version, where a Hummer pays $400, but a Mustang Shelby pays $1200).

There’s no guarantee that this plan will stick though, if the government does manage to call an election this spring. However, this means that in Ontario at least, there is no longer a premium for buying a hybrid car. You simply go out, buy one, and then just keep saving money by using less gas. None of this payback-period stuff. I, of course, will be driving my gas-only Accord until it gets decrepit enough that I’m too afraid of it breaking down in the middle of nowhere (Guelph) before getting a replacement, but if I buy new then (I might not), then it’ll probably be a hybrid (and even if I buy used, it might be a hybrid)…