Good Magazine produced this politically charged, entertaining, and interesting youtube video about the state of the world, our demands for oil, and the dramatic increases to the cost of living in a world thirsty for energy.

If we’re addicted to oil, our twelve-step program should begin with admitting that we have a problem. As the price of oil creeps higher, finding new energy sources is more important than ever. But the search for alternatives, combined with environmental disruptions, is putting new pressures on other essentials like food. There are some things that are going well in the world. Right now, the economy is not one of them.

Hit play or watch Oil Addiction on YouTube.

Greenpeace has launched a tongue-in-cheek website touting the tourism potential of the Alberta oil sands. The Greenpeace-produced site, travellingalberta.com, has an address similar to Alberta’s official tourism page, travelalberta.com, and is the conservation group’s response to the province’s $25-million campaign to improve the environmental image of Alberta’s energy industry.

Minister of Tourism, Parks and Recreation Cindy Ady was not impressed with the website.

“I’m a bit disappointed mostly on behalf of those who work so hard in this industry, but I also would say it’s not an accurate representation of this province.”

I received an email this morning outlining the Canadian Governments efforts to overturn the protection of free flowing rivers in Canada. As it stands now, the law in Canada protects the public right of navigation in Canadian waters and has done so since 1882—the right to navigate waterways in Canada is a tradition that pre-dates the beginning of our country.

In particular, Merv Tweeds of Brandon-Souris has headed up the cause for selling out on Canada’s natural resources. From his website:

Tweed leads the way to change waterway act

BRANDON – March 13, 2008- Merv Tweed, Member of Parliament for Brandon-Souris, is leading the review to make critical and long-overdue changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

“This act controls every waterway in Canada, no matter how small, and has caused significant delay in the approval of new infrastructure,” said Tweed.

The Transport, Infrastructure, and Communities Committee, which Tweed chairs, will review the act and will be tabling a report on the findings and recommendations for change in June.

“I believe that refocusing the act will provide a more timely and predictable process for the review and approval of critical infrastructure projects,” said Tweed.

The Navigable Waters Protection Act was written in 1882 to protect the public right of navigation in Canadian waters. Unfortunately, this act does not allow for the ability to exclude anything “constructed or placed on, under, over, through or across” a navigable water, as everything may interfere with navigation to some degree.

Industry and provincial, territorial and municipal governments have, for years, been requesting changes to the NWPA to reflect current needs and respond to the increased volume and variety of uses of Canada’s waterways.

The existing backlog of approvals is impeding economic growth and the timely development and refurbishment of critical transportation infrastructure that, in turn, has the potential of creating a backlog for the implementation of projects under “Building Canada Plan”.

My favourite paragraph deserves some dissection: “Unfortunately, this act does not allow for the ability to exclude anything “constructed or placed on, under, over, through or across” a navigable water, as everything may interfere with navigation to some degree.” Ie. It’s unfortunate that the law protects the public right of navigation because we want to construct something on the river that would imped that right, and well, the law just won’t let us do that—how unfortunate.

More after the jump:
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“After the Warming”, stars James Burke, whom you may remember from the days when TLC actually showed educational television and not just a bunch of reality-tv remixes in various flavors of “how to buy a house”, “how to fix up a house” or “how to be an animal while making motorcycles” in the truly worthwhile show, “Connections”.

“After the Warming” is like a special edition of Connections in which we learn how changes in civilization, the weather, and industrialization brought on the current climate crisis we now face.

Hit play or watch full screen at Google Video.

["After the Warming" is] an early documentary about global warming. It theorizes and tells facts about the effects global weather has had on our history. It then theorizes a lot more about its effects on our future and especially the way in which we will overcome it’s bad effects. If you don’t mind some, not proofed, theorizing from a reasonably intelligent guy, and are interested in our climate, this is probably a must see.

I found the news clip style predictions of an increase in hurricanes, rising oceans levels, and the devastation of New Orleans particularly chilling. Some of the prediction dates were a bit off, but interesting to think about anyway.

(via)

Here are some tips from the Canadian government on saving energy, reducing green house gases, and all the while saving you money too.

Global Warming Potential (GWP)

“The GWP is an index that compares the relative potential of the 6 greenhouse gases to contribute to global warming ie. the additional heat/energy which is retained in the Earth’s ecosystem through the release of this gas into the atmosphere. The additional heat/energy impact of all other greenhouse gases are compared with the impacts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and referred to in terms of a CO2 equivalent (CO2eq) i.e. Carbon dioxide has been designated a GWP of 1, Methane has a GWP of 23.” “Nitrous Oxide has a GWP of 296.”

Tips for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

1. “A 15–watt compact fluorescent bulb produces the same amount of light as a 60–watt incandescent bulb. If every Canadian home replaced just one 60–watt light bulb with a 15–watt compact fluorescent bulb in a heavy use area, we would collectively save $63 million annually in energy costs and reduce our GHG emissions – equivalent to taking 66,000 cars off the road!”
2. • “Improper tire maintenance unnecessarily costs Canadians about $500 million for 643 million litres of wasted fuel [each year],” says Neil MacLeod, director general of the Office of Energy Efficiency of Natural Resources Canada. “The extra fuel burned also releases an additional 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the environment.” link
   • “You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure.” link
   • “Proper tire care is simple and easy. Measure tire pressure monthly, including the spare, with a good-quality pressure gauge.” link
3. • “Every litre of gasoline that your car burns produces 2.4 kilograms of CO2.” link
   • “Replacing a clogged air filter can improve your car’s gas mileage by as much as 10 percent.” link
   • “Restarting the engine uses less fuel than 10 seconds of idling and produces less air pollution.” link
4. “Fix leaky faucets—that little drip can add up to 95 litres of water per faucet per month, and cost you 7 kWh per month.” pdf link

(Thanks Linnsie)

The creators of Futurama have whipped together a little teaser promotional animation for Al Gore’s new documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Futurama, by the way, is coming back for an additional 13 episodes.

I found this link to Wired Magazine about the pros and cons of moving to a hydrogen energy based society. I’ll summarize for those not wanting to read the article. The author believes that in order for hydrogen to be a viable solution the government has five major obstacles to deal with simultaneously:

1. Solve the hydrogen fuel-tank problem.
2. Encourage mass production of fuel cell vehicles.
3. Convert the nation’s fueling infrastructure to hydrogen.
4. Ramp up hydrogen production.
5. Mount a public campaign to sell the hydrogen economy.

Hydrogen Engines have been around for a while. Their biggest problem is carrying enough hydrogen for 400 miles of driving—the range consumers generally expect. What is the answer to problem number one? $15 Billion in government investing. (I’m not sure how he comes up with this figure).

Mass production of fuel-celled vehicles is the next problem. Again money is the solution. The author feels that the Bush administration should allocate $10 billion in incentive to automakers. Why $10 billion? Well it is a nice round number.

Converting the nation’s fueling infrastructure to hydrogen is another big problem with the same “easy” answer. Throw more money at it. The White House should ask for $5 billion to help gas stations convert to hydrogen stations, and the administration should also set aside $10 billion for interest free loans to oil companies in order to help them make the transition to producing mass amounts of hydrogen.

The next step is to ramp up the hydrogen production by looking at new sources of the element. Nuclear power has made huge leaps in efficiency and environmental friendliness. Using this as a source of electricity and then using the process of hydrolysis to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The last obstacle that needs to be addressed is just a simple matter of advertising their objective to the nation. If the people support it right away, then it will make the transition faster and actually save money in the long run. $25 billion in tax rebates for those using the new technology, and another $1 billion for advertisements. As the author notes, $1 billion is what Nike spends on advertising in a year.

Ok, now for my personal take on the story. The author feels that with massive amounts of spending that a fuel-celled economy is possible within ten years. I think that would be great, if that were actually the case, but it seems to me that it most likely will not happen. I guess a good analogy is the US switching to the metric system. If they had done it when they had the chance, they might have pulled it off, but now they’ve waited too long and everyday it just gets harder and harder to switch. A country like China that has an enormous population but not a lot of gasoline based infrastructure (relative to its population) is in a much better position to implement the new technology. If the US doesn’t act, they may end up behind in technology to China—so maybe if they felt the pressure of losing the “hydrogen race” ten years would be possible.