Raising A Green Fledgling - Part 6 - Staying Green While Not Turning Blue...

Hello Readers!

This part of the series focuses on a very timely question - how do you stay warm when the weather starts getting colder?

Fall has descended upon Ottawa in the last couple of weeks, prompting my wife and I to dig out sweaters from the depths of our closet and to evict the patio furniture from the backyard. These and other aspects of 'hunkering down' for the winter made me think about how we and our green fledgling will stay warm during the next 6-8 months.

So how do I heat my home? Well, we have an oil furnace. Yup, oil. We live in a city where natural gas is widely available to homeowners but our home happened to be newly re-equipped for oil heat when we purchased it. Our furnace is less than 12 months old and has a high efficiency rating. We've also sought out and sealed drafts around our 50+ year old house and installed a programmable thermostat to reduce our overall energy consumption/costs for heating & cooling.

This series is all about how well my environmental values withstand the many demands - and conveniences - of modern-day parenthood. While home-heating is not a parenting issue, per se, how it is done absolutely influences one's environmental footprint. In fact, space heating in the home can contribute to 60% of residential energy consumption according to Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). After a series of posts on the things I think my wife and I are doing "well" to reduce our family's environmental footprint and connect our daughter to nature, I thought it timely to talk about something we can and should do better over time.

The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is a poignant reminder of the risks associated with oil & gas extraction, hopefully catching the attention of anyone who heats with oil or gas, drives a vehicle, or purchases petrochemical products. Concurrent events like the Red Sea oil spill (June), China's Yellow Sea oil spill (July), the Enbridge pipeline rupture in Michigan state (July), Chevron's bid to explore offshore oil & gas in the arctic Beaufort Sea (Aug) and news of Tar Sands extraction impacts on the Athabasca River (Sept) remind us again and again of these risks.

The fuel and electricity that provides heat and hot water in my home (and possibly yours) come from somewhere, and I want to better understand their origins. That way I can make more responsible choices about how to reduce my family's environmental footprint by choosing greener, cleaner energy. Everyone should consider try this, particularly since we're using even more energy (derived from fuel combustion and other sources) in our homes over time... NRCan lists the following changes in energy consumption between 1990 and 2007 across the residential sector*:

Residential

• Water heating = 6.2% increase
• Space heating = 14.3% increase
• Lighting = 17.8% increase
• Other appliances (e.g., TVs, DVD players, personal computers) = 123.8% increase
• Space cooling = 166.5% increase

These increases can be attributed to numerous factors and don't directly reflect changes in fuel and electricity consumption. However, consumption is trending in an opposite direction than one would hope given the risks associated with how and where we get the raw energy sources from in the first place...

So here's the take-home message for this RAGF installment: How will you keep your family warm this winter? Do you know the origin of the fuel and/or electricity used to heat your home? Do you know the full environmental impacts associated with your home heating method? And if so, have you thought about how to reduce the negative impacts? Is your family interested in green energy alternatives?

For the record, there are a lot of 'greener' home heating alternatives available, including things like heat pumps, concentrated solar thermal power, geothermal energy, and energy sourcing alternatives like Bullfrog power. I won't expand on this topic for now since this discussion could be a post unto itself.

Stay tuned for the next post in the RAGF series. Check back every 2-3 weeks for new installments. And thanks for reading!


*Keep in mind that this is just a SAMPLE of all the sector-specific energy consumption stats available from NRCan - I encourage you to also check out the changes in energy consumption patterns that have occurred across the board.

Photo: A. MacDonald

Oil Now Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

An oil slick on the Gulf of Mexico, June 12, 2010
Photo by Deepwater Horizon Response/flickr

After the Deepwater Horizon oil well began spewing millions of litres of oil into the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year, governments, scientists, and coastal communities braced for what was expected to be a long and arduous clean-up effort. As attempts to stop the flow of oil failed repeatedly, the spill eventually grew to become the worst ecological disaster to hit American shores. The oil recovery effort was expected to continue for a very long time.

Then, in early August, the U.S. Government published a report claiming that much of the oil was contained or cleaned up because, for the most part, the ocean's surface was "clean." Unfortunately, that prognosis proved too optimistic.

In the past month several reports and studies appear to show that oil from the BP blowout is still present. A report released in mid-August by the Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia stated that "up to 79 percent of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon well has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem."

Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) discovered an oil plume that spanned roughly 35 kilometres in length, reached heights of 200 metres and was 2 kilometres wide. This oil plume lingers more than 900 metres below the ocean's surface and is believed will remain for months; however the environmental repercussions will be felt for years.

Following this latest discovery, it was revealed that more oil was present at the bottom of the seafloor up to depths of over 1,200 metres. Scientists discovered that a substantial layer of oil sediments rests on the bottom of the seafloor stretching several kilometres in all directions.

Samantha Joye, a professor at the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, set sail on August 21 to better understand where the 750 million plus litres of oil went and she now has a pretty good idea. "It's showing up in samples of the seafloor, between the well site and the coast. I've collected literally hundreds of sediment cores from the Gulf of Mexico." The oil sediments covering the seafloor are about two inches thick and in some samples they found tar balls, dead shrimp, worms and other invertebrates.

Florida's Department of Environmental Protection reports on its website that "beaches in Northwest Florida will continue to receive isolated impacts, mainly scattered tar balls, in the coming months."

As reported in our June newsletter, nearly five million Canadian migratory birds are making their way south, many of which will be passing through the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

So far, it's unclear just how many birds have died or been injured in the spill, and some environmental groups have voiced scepticism about official tallies. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife report, issued in response to a freedom of information request, listed only 4,676 affected birds as of September 14th. It was quickly determined, however, that the figures were up to 60 percent incomplete.

It's widely accepted that it will take months if not years before scientists are able to produce a true picture of the effects of the BP spill. In the meantime, we need to ensure that this type of tragedy is not repeated in Canada. Take action now and send a letter to the Canadian government to place a temporary moratorium on new off-shore drilling projects as was done in the U.S. immediately following the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Study Reveals Massive Oil Plume in Gulf of Mexico

A new study carried out by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, US, published in the journal Science, has revealed that there is a plume of crude-oil based chemicals that extends 35km from the spill site, is 200m high and 2km wide. Apparently, the plume represents a relatively small amount (0.1%) of the total oil spilled when the BP Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April 2010.

According to Dr. Chris Reddy, one of the scientists involved in the research carried out by WHOI, the impacts of the plume on marine life are not yet clear. WHOI did, however, find the plume to be degrading slowly, meaning it would remain in the Gulf for some time - and consequently be transported long distances by currents before being degraded.

These findings go against speculations about oil in the subsurface being easily biodegraded and are indicative of the unknown impacts that may arise in the future. They also give reason to caution against offshore drilling in Canadian waters, particularly fragile ecosystems such as the Arctic.

Gulf Spill Lessons Not Heeded by Canadian Government

Yesterday BP and the US government announced that the oil spill in the Gulf has been tamed, more than three months after oil began gushing into the sea. Capped a few days earlier, their latest reports are that about 75% of the almost five million barrels of oil that spewed into the Gulf had been eliminated – roughly 25% was “dispersed”, 25% had evaporated and 25% was scooped up by all of those barges. That leaves only about 1.25 million barrels, about five times more than the Exxon Valdez spilled into Prince William Sound in Alaska 20 years ago.

The so-called dispersed oil is turning up in water and sand samples at toxic levels, but officials are not talking about this. It appears as if the “out of sight, out of mind” approach is taking hold. In fact, a seemingly contradictory federal report released Wednesday indicated that roughly half of the more than 200 million gallons (750 million litres) of oil that gushed from the well before it was capped could still be in the gulf environment in some form as tiny dispersed droplets, tar balls, surface slicks or oil buried in sand and ocean sediment.

Yet even as the clean-up efforts continue, it seems that Canada’s government is ignoring some of the lessons of the Gulf disaster.

Today, the Globe and Mail reports that Chevron has been awarded rights to explore a 205,000 hectare deep water parcel in the Beaufort Sea for oil by Canada’s department of Indian and Northern Affairs. This award was granted despite the National Energy Board’s hearings that have yet to start on Arctic offshore drilling, called in response to the Gulf oil disaster.

Chevron and its buddies, including Exxon and BP, were pressuring our government to further relax our already lax regulations for drilling onshore in Canada’s Arctic by removing the requirement for companies to demonstrate capacity to drill same-season relief wells. They argue that they have a new technology that makes the relief well unnecessary.

Heard this before? Can you imagine a Gulf-like leak in the Beaufort with its very small ice-free window – Mackenzie delta nearby, birds, sea mammals, fisheries, and indigenous communities that live off the sea and the land?

This is exactly the wrong approach Canada should take to development in the North.

Now is not the time to relax offshore drilling regulations. Rather than do away with the requirement to have advance plans for drilling relief wells in case of a spill, oil companies should be required to actually have relief wells in place before working wells are built. Also, blow-out preventers of the type that failed in the Gulf should be tested regularly.

Unlike the United States, Norway and Britain, Canada lacks a regulatory process governing whether or where oil and gas development can happen in the Arctic. Licenses are granted, and contracts signed with oil and gas companies before any environmental assessment by the NEB takes place.

The result: exploratory licenses exist in environmentally sensitive areas in the Beaufort Sea, where a blowout would have immediate negative effects on the delicate ecosystems there.

Strict regulations, and the will to adhere to them, are absolutely essential for safe, sustainable oil and gas development off of Canada's shores, and in the Arctic.

Clean up Efforts in the Gulf are Harmful to Birds and their Habitats

Mike Parr and Bob Johns of the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) carried out a six day field survey from July 1 – July 6 2010 to assess the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico. The areas surveyed were Barataria Bay, Mississippi Delta’s South Pass and Breton Island. Upon completion of their survey they issued a report which concluded that many clean up efforts were harmful to birds and their habitats. The report also includes five key recommendations that ABC believes should be additional urgent priorities.

The five recommendations made by ABC are:

1) The use of more effective boom to protect bird colonies. Numerous instances were observed where boom was in complete disarray, including being washed up on shore.
2) The employment of better fencing and other measures to protect sensitive beach nesting areas and to reduce disturbance to birds. Clean-up crews were clearly unaware in several instances of the negative impacts they were causing to birds and their habitat.
3) The deployment of adequately sized and equipped oil skimmers close to the coast with improved real-time oil reports to eliminate oil before it reaches the beaches and marshlands. ABC observed an instance of a substantial heavy oil slick about half a mile offshore while cleanup vessels were operating in very mildly oiled waters about one mile away – apparently unaware.
4) The creation of a staging and recovery area for heavily oiled birds close to the coast. With the moving of the existing facility to a location about 70 miles away, some sort of near-shore facility is needed.
5) The restoration of eroded island habitat for nesting birds. Breton Island, for example, is a fraction of its original size, is an important bird habitat and is in desperate need of rebuilding.

For more explanations on the five recommendations and a list of birds the surveyors encountered during their field survey please read the full report. Although they felt the impacts on birds were not as significant as they could be, they raised concerns that if heavy oil made it to beaches, the impact on migrant shorebirds (set to arrive soon) and waterfowl (arriving in fall), would significantly increase. They identified the following birds, which are also found in Canada during their breeding or wintering seasons, as being at risk of heavily oiled beaches:

- Common Loon
- Northern Gannets
- Double-crested Cormorants
- Common Goldeneye
- Bufflehead
- Red-breasted Merganser
- Herring Gull
- Common Tern

In a bright spot of good news, they reported that no beaches were yet heavily oiled and bird cleaning efforts were going well.

ABC’s survey goes to show that the management of such oil spills is no easy task and requires a great deal of commitment, coordination and professional manpower. This is an important lesson to be added to Canada’s offshore drilling knowledge.

Photo: Bufflehead by Vladimir Morozov

Care to pay for an oil spill?

Does the BP Gulf spill have you wondering who would pay for the economic and environmental damages in case of an off-shore spill in Canada?

Will Amos from Ecojustice has figured it out: Canadian taxpayers.

Learn why and what could be done to change this.

Good news from the Gulf - Endangered turtle species gets helping hand!

Have you heard about the sea turtle rescue efforts being coordinated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, the U.S. National Park Service, NOAA, the Sea Turtle Conservancy and other conservationists, and even NASA, along the U.S. northern Gulf of Mexico coast?

An expected 700 sea turtle nests that were laid along the north Gulf coast (particularly in Florida & Alabama) are being excavated and moved into a climate-controlled NASA facility in Cape Canaveral until they hatch. FedEx carried the special cargo to the facility.

I'm very happy to pass along news that the program has had its first success! Baby Kemp's Ridley sea turtles have successfully hatched and been released into the Atlantic off of Florida’s east coast at Cape Canaveral. The Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, an endangered species in the United States, is one of three sea turtle species known to migrate into Canadian waters (on the east coast) during the summer and early fall months.

You can track the migrations of many sea turtles and other species at SeaTurtle.org.

Who’d have thought that the multi-billion dollar space program would ever benefit endangered species so directly?

Image credits: NASA, Kennedy Space Center (Photos were shot with a red filter to protect the newborn turtles)