lets not forget this website....kudos to the developers/maintainers (is it ALL Dave??) Think of how many trips to the waterfront he has saved us from making, with the use of these webcams and wind/weather readings and forecasts! THats got to be more than a tonne of CO2 by now

Me personally, I dont own a car. I use a motorcycle year round to commute, my van gets used only for sailing/kiting, which for me is only in the six warmer months. I recycle everything, paper, plastic, metal, batteries of all kinds. I like to find used stuff instead of buying new all the time for the "prestige". My job is EF. Am I ranting yet?

My girlfriend took a tour of the greater Victoria watershed the other week. Aparently we have one of the best watersheds around in terms of energy use. Gravity is able to feed the entire region without pumps. That all changed when developments went up Triangle and Bear mountains. I hope their property taxes reflect that.

I'm now a pro! When do my cheques start coming in?

Remember to clean up after yourselves @ the beach this year...My family spent Friday night watching this horror film: http://www.thecorporation.com/ Available @ the Victoria public library.

Here's a useful link for recycling www.pacificmobiledepots.com
I take all of my plastic bags etc there about once a month. I just dropped off 4 garbage bags full of plastic bags, bread bags, plastic wrap etc and it cost me $4.00. It's amazing how much of our garbage is plastic. They also take styrofoam. It is more work but it feels better than filling the landfills.

great source

I had to make a dump run the other day with stuff from the job site. I hadn't loaded the truck, but it was stuffed full right to the top of the canopy, anyway, I started unloading this stuff and realize that a ton of it was recyclable. So I end up leaving the garbage area of the dump, with the truck still well over half full. Made me sick to think all that shit was going to be dumped when over 50% were recyclables. Makes you wonder how much of the garbage we dump in the land fills is actually garbage....
The worst part is that the guy, who was told to load the truck, is very environmentally conscious and only actually puts out 1 or 2 bags of garbage a month at the most. But being a laborer he has little choice in the matter, its kind of awkward to argue with the boss that this stuff shouldn't be taken to the dump and should be properly sorted, taking more time and ultimately effecting the bottom line... which is of course what the world is concerned with. So I guess my point was that it discourages him from wanting to take the effort to be so efficient in his own life when at work he is forced to completely undo all of the effort he has put into conserving and recycling... anyway that’s my rant for the day

have a read

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about_us/Dr_ ... 020601.asp

Talking with my coworker the other day at lunch. We are in the power business.....transmission, distribution, generation etc. He feels that we have plenty of capacity within our country to support our power needs. It's not about finding more sources of power, it's about reducing our consumption. Basically, we dont need to increase our capacity, we need to reduce our load. I totally agree. Some places in Europe turn their street lights off at night. Say from 2 AM to 6 AM the lights are out. People have head lights, and if you think crime is going to increase we could spend the savings on more police and security. I think its a great idea.

Just heard an effective statement on "The Hour". Miners take a canery down the shaft to have an indictation of when they should get out.......well there are hundreds of species which go extinct every day in ecosystems around the world.......hmmmmmm

readers of this thread might be interested in this talk tonight at the McPherson:

http://www.gaininggroundsummit.com/kunstler.html

nice going Mike, I checked and tix are still available, will try to attend

reduced consumption IS the key. For those who think that Alberta tar sands are the solution to all our energy problems!

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory ... /story.htm

Natural gas is a key power source for oil sands projects. It is used as fuel to heat the steam used to liquefy the tar-like bitumen for thermal, well-based projects. It's also a source of heat and hydrogen in mining and upgrading projects, which turn bitumen into synthetic crude.

According to the NEB's 2006 oil sands Energy Market Assessment, the amount of gas used in oil sands production will rise to 2.1 billion cubic feet a day in 2015 from about 700 million cubic feet last year.

If the board's forecast, which hinges on nearly C$100 billion (US$90.2 billion) worth of new projects being constructed by 2015, the area will use 13.2 percent of Canada's current daily gas output of about 17 billion cubic feet a day at the end of 2004.

For every barrel of synthetic oil produced in Alberta, more than 80 kg of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere and between 2 and 4 barrels of waste water are dumped into tailing ponds that have flooded about 50 km² of forest and bogs.

The tar sands ARE the reason the Conservatives have withdrawn support for the Kyoto accord. We cannot exploit the tar sands AND meet Kyoto.

great article on energy in the new popular science mag

the term used for ideas like turning off the streetlights is "negawatts"

Have a look at this:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/whok ... ectriccar/

If you are interested in learning more about the Bush administration read this book:

"Crimes Against Nature" by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"How George Bush and his corporate pals are plundering the country and hijacking our democracy"

It is a national bestseller.

I can't believe it - I just happened to be flipping through channels and came across some show called "G" for Glenn? I believe, some loud mouth talk show host. The show seemed to be on the CNN network, or something along those lines. Anyway, I was disgusted to hear what he was saying. He was, in his mocking kind of way, saying that climate change is basically a bunch of crap made up by a few people who really dont know what they're talking about. It gets better... but it just amazes me that this type of stuff is on TV, I just can't believe that this type of crap is aloud to be broadcast, I mean no wonder half the people out there question whether global warming is even happening. So then he says well no i believe in global warming, but here's what you need to know, its nothing we've done to the earth its completely natural. And so he has an expert in to back this up - Bjorn Lomborg with a PHD stamped beside his name. So he says "ya no its nothing we've done its all bullshit" in a nut shell. So out of curiosity I look up this guy to find out what his PHD is in... something told me it wasn't science... guess what? ... It was polysci, and he teaches business presently... It just really bothers me that we have this type of literally propaganda on TV, its complete garbage, and yet more people will watch that show than will ever actually read any actual scientifically based reports on the real issues at hand. They then went into bashing the kyoto accord in cartoon form which was amusing... they stated that the last accord that was signed actually increased emission like 10 fold or something ridiculous... how on earth that is possible I'm not sure, I didn't look into that claim, but i'm sure there’s a lot of truth to that as well. So they were saying why spend money to fix something if its only going to make it worse?? ... which is about the equivalent of saying why spend money on our health care system if it only gets worse every year anyway??
So anyway it turns out this Lomborg guy was actually taken to court over the book he wrote which his argument on the show was based on.
"After the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg was accused of scientific misconduct."
"The ruling was a mixed message, deciding the book to be scientifically dishonest, but Lomborg himself not guilty because of lack of expertise in the fields in question[2]:"
So he got off the hook because they determined that he didn't actually have any knowledge of the subject at hand and now guess what? he's back at it pretending to be some sort of expert again....
Anyway I'm done raving, I'm too frustrated to keep writing.

here's the link to my source on him... much more interesting info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg