Category: place

Moving up in the gene Poole

Another eccentricity of my privileged Tofino house-sit is that i must vacate it periodically, when the owners to return or, sometimes, their house-swap partners. As of today i am on one such hiatus. Sometimes i luck into a temporarily empty apartment, sometimes i leave town to visit friends. This time, though, i decided to scratch a longtime curiosity: I’m living for three weeks on Poole’s Land. Continue reading “Moving up in the gene Poole”

No tankers wanted here, suh!

At the behest of the very effective Dogwood Institute, here’s my letter to the new Liberal party environment critic,Gerard Kennedy. Oil tankers in the Great Bear Rainforest region, and the attendant Enbridge pipeline, are such monumentally bad ideas that they take my breath away. If we put all that money and effort into sustainable energy strategies and technologies … we’d be there in 20 years. We’d never have another serious energy crisis, or climate crisis, or oil war. Europe is well on its way. I want us to be too.

Dear Mr. Kennedy (Kennedy.G@parl.gc.ca),

As you know, there’s a controversy going on in B.C. over the connected issues of oil tankers and the proposed Enbridge pipeline from the tar sands.

I am a resident of Tofino, in Clayoquot Sound. But i also consider myself a citizen of an ever-shrinking world, and i am doing what i can to make the world a better place for both our children and the larger ecosystems we all depend implicitly upon for our very lives. I am deeply concerned over how corporate needs — for raw materials, for weakened legislation, for unlimited profit — are trumping human needs in every sphere. Our present government understands nothing, it seems, but economic growth, and is content to lay waste to the earth in its bid for a “healthy” economy, no matter how unlivable that world is for people.

Your Liberal party is Canada’s best hope for widening this ruinously narrow vision of our future, and as Liberal Party of Canada Environment Critic you are well placed to have a positive influence over what transpires in coming years. We both know that allowing oil tankers to traverse Hecate Strait, Dixon Entrance, and Queen Charlotte Sound will over time guarantee that oil spills will happen.

Of even greater concern to me is that continuing to build oil infrastructure, especially around dirty tar sands oil, only makes our climate crisis worse, and at the same time distracts us from building a sustainable energy infrastructure. This path is pouring money down a rathole, and makes the consequences for our climate future even more dire than they will apparently be already. It is a grossly irresponsible choice for a government to make.

I urge you and the Liberal party to do what is right: please commit, loudly and publicly, to a legislated ban on oil tankers through Canada’s Pacific north coast. And time is of the essence — please do it before the end of the year.

Thank you for a principled, meaningful stand on environmental issues!

~greg blanchette, Tofino

Burnin’ Toff

I am continually amazed by the aplomb with which some Tofinoites burn fuel to satisfy their lifestyle urges. Aside from the evangelical bikers and the broke, bicycle use (and walking) are rare in town. The car — one person per, usually — is the mainstay of everything from food shopping to socializing. Almost anything seems to justify a trip cross-island — shopping, meetings, whims. As for the requisite winter trip … Cuba, Mexico, even Australia are not too far away.

I include myself in this coterie of earth-rapers, by the way. A quick blast down to Ukee to check the mail … an indulgent, flown-in piece of fruit at Green Soul … effortless to justify, even as i declaim my environmental enlightenment.

I’m all for Reduce when it comes to fossil fuel. But i have to acknowledge that, in this crazy existing world, going entirely without would be an act of madness. So to make it a little easier for folks to at least offset their fuel emissions, some resources.

  1. Each litre of gas you burn produces 2.34 kg of CO2. If your car does 25 mpg (9 km per litre), and you drove 15,000 km this year, you used 1,667 litres of gas and produced 3900 kg of CO2 — almost 4 tonnes. So take a look at your odometer, estimate your car’s fuel efficiency, and do the math. (From Guy Dauncey’s EcoNews, Mar. 2007)
    .
  2. Flying is highly fuel intensive. Here’s an on-line calculator to find out how much CO2 goes into the atmosphere from any flight. (Example: a round-trip flight from Vancouver to Acapulco emits about 270 kg of fuel, producing over 800 kg of CO2 — per passenger! Worse, because that CO2 is emitted high up in the atmosphere, it’s three times more effective as a warming gas. Yikes!)
    .
  3. I urge you to Reduce, but for that portion you can’t eliminate … offset! Various organizations will, for a fee, pull carbon out of the air (i.e. by planting trees) or see that it doesn’t get emitted in the first place (i.e. by replacing gas generators with solar in remote villages) in your name. But which ones can you trust? Luckily, we have a recent report from the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute, rating 19 different carbon offset organizations as to their effectiveness. Download Carbon offset vendors (PDF, 196 k).

Note that an ideal emissions target to avoid catastrophic climate change is something like 4 tonnes of CO2 a year per person — pretty much what average car use produces, never mind the rest of our energy use. So you can see what kind of cutbacks are required.

Another tip: Cut down on the meat, since the livestock industry produces 18% of global carbon emissions. (Econews, Sept. 2007; also a UN figure)

Thanks to Tofino District CFO Edward Henley for bring this report to a Green Breakfast. If you really want to bone up on carbon offsets, there’s a lot of info on the  Suzuki Foundation site right here.

Road’s End–Tales of Tofino

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while: my review of my friend Shirley’s new book. This is the dry, newspaper review; the Tofino Time one is more fun, but it ain’t on-line yet.

Road’s End, Tales of Tofino
— a review

by greg blanchette, Tofino

It has been her labour of both love and obsession for years, and now it’s finally out. Locals will recognize Tofino man-about-town Turtle smiling from the cover, as well as appearing in a couple of the stories within.

Many other locals, past and present, may see themselves in the pages of Road’s End—Tales of Tofino, a new book by Tofino’s own Shirley Langer.

It’s a fun read. Shirley’s got a knack for digging up good stories and telling them. It’s like a lazy walk around town, bumping into people on the sidewalk or eavesdropping on them in a coffee shop.

There are twenty tales in all, on a wide variety of subjects. Some are profiles, some are little adventures. There’s one about a dog and one about a chicken; also beachcombing, latkes, driveways and tsunamis. One is almost an investigative report on the problem of plastic trash in the ocean. Others smack of a sociology text on the town, in which the writer makes note of details that everyone knows but nobody notices. Continue reading “Road’s End–Tales of Tofino”