Canada – Page 54 – a sibilant intake of breath

Canada doesn’t deserve a UN Security Council seat

At the moment, Canada is competing for one of the ten non-permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council – the principal international body charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Canada thinks of itself as an internationalist country that has committed itself to peacekeeping and other forms of international assistance. Unfortunately, Canada is also doing virtually everything in its power to worsen the most pressing medium-term threat to international security, namely climate change.

At the moment, the United Nations process designed to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol is going nowhere. While that situation has many causes, one of the most important has been the unwillingness of developed states to make real commitments and take meaningful domestic action. For its part, Canada has adopted targets that would be better than nothing, but which are neither fair now adequate. In order for the world to avoid dangerous climate change, other countries would need to pick up the slack created by Canada’s lack of ambition. Even worse, Canada has no credible plan to meet those targets, and has taken no serious domestic action on climate change.

Right now, Canada is flirting with some of the most dangerous energy options out there. These include unconventional oil and gas, including the oil sands and shale gas, as well as fossil fuel reserves in formerly inaccessible places like the Arctic. Chasing those fossil fuels is foolishness. It commits us to perpetuating an energy system that profoundly threatens future generations, and redirects resources from the task of building a sustainable basis for our society.

As long as Canada continues to behave with such reckless disregard for those outside its borders, including those who are not yet born, it doesn’t deserve the prestige associated with a Security Council seat. To be sure, some of Canada’s international actions have been and are praiseworthy, but that doesn’t counterbalance the way in which Canada is helping to commit the world to a colossal blunder. Ultimately, it may require Canada becoming an international pariah before our government will stand up to the oil and gas sector. Hopefully, it won’t come to that. If Canada loses its bid for this seat on the basis of domestic and international disapproval of our environmental record, perhaps it will be a much-needed signal that our recent conduct has been unacceptable.

[Update: 12 October 2010] Canada’s bid was unsuccessful. Hopefully, the embarassment will encourage Canada to play a more constructive role in future climate change negotiations.

Debating the oil sands

On November 13th, Green Party leader Elizabeth May will be debating Ezra Levant, the author of Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands. The event is taking place at the Library and Archives Canada on November 13th.

2:30pm – showing of the film “Mine Your Own Business”

4:00pm – approximate debate start time

It should be interesting. I may show up myself to ask Ms. Levant about the oil sands, climate change, and the importance of cumulative emissions.

I found out about the event via Apt 613.

A geeky mystery from the new GG

Last week, I heard but did not see the CF18 jets that did a flyover of Ottawa to commemorate David Johnston becoming Canada’s new Governor General. While I believe that the monarchy is a dated institution that ought to be scrapped, I do appreciate one modern touch Mr. Johnston brought to his office, in the form of a geeky mystery built into his coat of arms. Along the bottom is a palindromic binary sequence: 110010111001001010100100111010011.

Converted to decinal representation, that is: 6830770643. In hexadecimal, it is: 1972549d3.

The decimal is pretty close to the current estimated world population. The number is also a Sophie Germain prime.

The CBC Inside Politics blog has been puzzling over the sequence, without success. So has Slashdot. Whatever the meaning of the string is, it seems to be better concealed than the MD5 hash in the emblem of the United States Cyber Command.

Any ideas?

What’s possible?

Right now, the majority of educated Canadians seem to believe that one or both of the following is impossible:

For the world as a whole to reach carbon neutrality – the state where net greenhouse gas emissions are zero – before 2100
For the global economy to be restructured to run on forms of energy that are zero-carbon and renewable

And yet, both of these intertwined changes seem to be necessary if we are to avoid dangerous or catastrophic climate change.

My question to readers is: what would make the majority of people in Canada and around the world accept those two situations as at least possible? That is a necessary prerequisite to them being seen as desirable and, ultimately, necessary.

Ottawa’s ‘Beaver Barracks’

The rather unfortunately named ‘Beaver Barracks‘ is an ecologically oriented housing development, being put up by the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC). Two buildings are under construction now, at 464 Metcalfe and 160 Argyle, and they are expected to accept their first residents in November and January, respectively. The building on Argyle will be four stories, while that on Metcalfe will be eight, with a roof terrace. Two additional buildings are expected later. In the middle, community gardens will be put in when construction is finished. The whole complex is located just south of the Nature Museum.

I first found out about the place by means of Zoom’s blog.

Sustainability features

For me, the most notable feature of the buildings is how they will be the largest residential development in Canada heated and cooled using ground-source heat pumps. Sylvie Trottier, CCOC’s Green Animator, sent me some details on the system:

The system we are building is a central distribution loop designed to deliver a specific temperature (70 degree F) to heat exchangers located at each of the four buildings. As well, it will provide this same 70 degree temperature to the domestic hot water system via a double wall heat exchanger. The geothermal ground loop is designed to provide 70% of the peak load of the system via the heat pumps; this design actually provides 90% of the annual load. The boilers plumbed to the central loop are incorporated to assist the geothermal heat pumps in maintaining the design temperature of 70 degrees during the peak demand period. The Domestic Hot Water system (DHW) is connected to the central loop through a double wall heat exchanger. The central loop provides the DHW heat pump with a temperature of 70 degree. The DHW heat pump raises the temperature to 150 degree F. The boiler attached to the DHW system is used for the peak periods when the heat pump system requires assistance in maintaining the design temperature. During the cooling season the heat being removed from the building is captured by DHW heat pump system and used to supply the DHW. This feature enhances the overall efficiency of the central plant system. Also important to note is that the central distribution system will maintain itself through a balance of heating and cooling during the shoulder seasons, when the loop temperature is simply maintained through the space conditioning requirements of the tenants.

The central distribution loop will then feed heat pumps in each unit that will provide tenants with control over their own heating, cooling, and hot water.

Geothermal heating and cooling seem ideally suited to Ottawa, given how the city experiences extremes in both summer and winter temperatures. Other sustainability enhancing features include a green roof, low-flow fixtures, efficient lighting and appliances, and a high performance building envelope.

The architects are Barry J. Hobin & Associates Architects Inc.

Unit selection

I attended one of their information sessions yesterday, and ended up submitting an application to live in B^2 (as I prefer to think of it). My top two applications were for 683 square foot one-bedroom apartments in 160 Argyle, with this layout:

The balcony and windows look south, into what will eventually be the central garden area. For the immediate future, they will overlook a construction site.

Reading floorplans isn’t something I have much experience with, so if any readers have the mental ability to turn these pictures into an image of what the apartments will be like, I would appreciate your feedback.

The other unit I applied for, as a third choice, is a 602 square foot one-bedroom apartment, located on the 5th floor of 464 Metcalfe. It has this floorplan:

The bedroom window would look north, toward the Museum of Nature, with the balcony above the central garden area.

The rent for each unit is $956, plus various expenses. For the units I selected at 160 Argyle, heating and cooling are $62.83 per month. For that at 464 Metcalfe, it is $55.39. HST, electricity, laundry, and internet would be on top of that. Both places are significantly more expensive than my current place, but I think it would be worthwhile for a couple of reasons: primarily, for the benefit of living in a situation where I would be more likely to meet new people, and in order to encourage more sustainable construction.

Lots of other unit types are available: ranging from bachelors to three bedroom units. Heating and cooling costs are set per square foot.

[Update: 1 October 2010] I got word from CCOC. I will be moving into a place modeled on the first floorplan, on 1 January 2011. It will be on the fourth floor of 160 Argyle. It will be my second non-university-residence home.

Sprawl and municipal services

On his blog, David Reevely makes a convincing case against urban sprawl that I hadn’t heard previously:

The trouble is, sprawl has costs. It’s incredibly expensive for us all. Light-density housing is great to live in, but it’s brutal to supply with public services. Take fire stations: their response times are primarily a function of how far the firefighters have to drive to get to a call. That means that to maintain minimally acceptable standards, you need to have a fire station every so-many kilometres. If 10,000 people live within that radius, then 10,000 people share the cost of supporting that fire station, its firefighters and their equipment. If you pack 100,000 people into that radius, then the cost is divided among 100,000 people, and you have a lot left over from their property taxes for other things. But if you have too few, and their property taxes aren’t enough to pay for the fire station, then you need to bring in money from somewhere else.

It’s a bit ironic, really. We discussed before how people living in rural areas can get a false sense of their own self-sufficiency. It’s ironic that rather than being bold frontierspeople, living off the land, those who populate the less dense fringes of urban centres might impose disproportionate costs on the municipal authorities.

Northern lights webcam

The Canadian Space Agency has set up a website that allows the live viewing of the northern lights from Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories. You can watch live during the appropriate hours, as well as watch the previous night’s video in time lapse and selected videos from especially active nights.

The videos are pretty small and not super high resolution. The ‘AuroraMAX’ site would probably benefit from the addition of some large still photos. The sun’s 11-year cycle of activity is expected to peak in 2013, and the site has a mandate to carry on until then. The site doesn’t say what kind of equipment is being used, but it seems to be a fisheye lens on either a video camera or dSLR.

How to meet Canada’s climate targets

The biggest problem with Canada’s climate change policy is that our plans are not sufficient to meet our targets. Furthermore, our plans aren’t even being implemented.

The government says it wants to cut Canadian emissions to 17% below 2006 levels by 2020, and to 60-70% below by 2050. If they really wanted to do that, they could achieve that outcome simply by doing the following:

Choose a series of annual emissions targets, starting this year and running out to 2050 and beyond.
In each of those years, auction a quantity of permits for the production and import of fossil fuels. Also require permits for activities that generate other greenhouse gases, such as methane. Anybody who wanted to produce fossil fuels, import them, or emit greenhouse gases in other ways would require a quantity of permits equal to their emissions. The price of the permits would be determined by auctioning.
Take the auction revenues and send an equal share to every Canadian each quarter by direct bank account deposit or cheque.

This approach would be simple and fair. It would not cost much to administer, since the permits would be auctioned at as high a level as possible. It would conform to the polluter pays principle, since they would do just that. It would send price signals to consumers, as the firms that bought permits passed along the cost. And the whole system would be revenue neutral, since all the revenues would be returned to Canadians. Critically, it would ensure that Canada hit its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, each and every year.

This kind of approach is known as cap and dividend.

So, why doesn’t the government just go ahead and do this? The major reason is that people who have emitted greenhouse gases in the past feel that gives them the right to do so in the future. If this plan was put in place, all the industries that have been using the atmosphere as a free dumping ground for CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases would suddenly need to pay for their waste disposal. This could seriously affect the growth prospects of some industries.

That said, since the cap would begin at current levels and gradually shrink down toward the target, no businesses would get obliterated immediately. They would simply need to adapt, in a fair way, to the kinds of business models required to meet the government’s stated climate change targets. The fact that the government is not pursuing an approach that would cause them to do so is the clearest indication that Canada’s government is not serious about dealing with the issue of climate change.

The state of Canada’s civil service

Alex Himelfarb, a former Clerk of the Privy Council (Canada’s top civil servant), recently published an article in The Mark talking about public policy and Canada’s civil service. He is candid about how he sees the role of the civil service developing, calling it an institution “increasingly described as in crisis, trying to serve in a climate of blame and mistrust masquerading as accountability.” He expresses concern about partisanship and the superficial character of politial debate, and warns about how policy can drift in damaging directions. Finally, he suggests that there is hope in the emergence of increased public debate:

What we need now is a public discourse that neither dismisses nor panders to our private concerns, but rather links them to public issues. It’s time we override our impulse to paper over our differences and demand that our leaders participate with us in the dialogue, however difficult, we so need. We cannot let Canada change without a fight – or at least a vigorous conversation.

To some extent, this mirrors the enthusiasm of the present Clerk for Web 2.0 – though government in general may not yet be willing to allow the level of freedom, individuality, and independence required for that shift to be meaningful.

Himelfarb also wrote another piece, in the same newspaper, about ‘Why We Vote Against Our Interests‘. As further discussed in an interview on The Commons, the former Clerk expresses concern about the diminished role of expertise in policy-making:

There is something unseemly and even dangerous about the assault on evidence and experts especially coming from our political leaders. But it has resonance with many because government seems distant from and irrelevant to our lives, a “foreign thing” where decisions are made about us but without us. The distance between citizen and state must be reduced.

We can only hope that the public policy debate in Canada evolves back towards reasoned discussion on the basis of sound logic and evidence. To make policy Stephen Colbert style – from the gut – doesn’t equip Canada to deal with the challenges ahead, or take advantage of upcoming opportunities.

‘Failure due to dishonesty’ at SFU

Last year, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver introduced a new grade for university courses: ‘FD’ or ‘failure due to dishonesty.’ Department chairs are empowered to give the grade on the basis of “behavior [that] warrants a severe penalty”. Usually, it is applied to repeat offenders. The grade continues to appear on a student’s transcript until two years after graduation.

To me, this seems like a sensible thing to do. Particularly when it comes to take-home essays, cheating in university is easy. When students do it, they harm the quality of education that everybody gets, while also gaining unfair advantages when it comes to things like scholarships. Having a mechanism for conveying the fact that someone has behaved in a seriously improper way (rather than failing a course for some more acceptable reason) would be beneficial both in terms of deterring bad conduct and by giving an obvious sign to anyone making decisions on the basis of a transcript, whether the issue at hand is a scholarship, grad school admission, or a job.