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UBC Prof Says No More Subsidies to Fisheries

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

This is going to be a controversial post. Feel free to send me hate mail. It’s just my opinion. I have been accused by the Left of being a Conservative. I have been accused by the Right of being a Commie. I am neither. I’m apolitical in many respects. As someone who works in policy [...]

BC Gas Tax to Start Tomorrow - So What?

Monday, June 30th, 2008

My wife got me panicked this morning because she said there was a “24 cent” per litre gas tax starting tomorrow. I said “WHAT?” and promptly got online to confirm. It’s actually 2.4 cents per litre. When I usually fill up, I put $50 in. A 2.4 cent per litre gas tax means I’m paying [...]

Dispatch from Prince George - The Oil Economy

Monday, June 9th, 2008

I’m sitting in hotel room in Prince George, BC and I’m bone tired from having driven 8 hours to get here. I was planning on writing about an interesting article I saw in the New York times on the wide-ranging impacts of oil price increases on consumer goods. However, my fatique levels will only allow [...]

Canadian Gov’t Considers Own Version of US’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

In the next two weeks, it is likely that the Canadian Minister for Industry, Jim Prentice will introduce a Canadian version of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This piece of legislation has been struck down in the past in Canada and has been very controversial in the US.
There are a number of problems with [...]

The Complicated Biofuels Proposition

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Back in February, I wrote about a New York Times story that basically heralded the death of biofuels as an alternative to gasoline. I want to follow up that post with new information that comes from another newspaper - but one from the West Coast this time. On May 3, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran this [...]

Can Technological Innovation in Clean Technology Save Canada’s Sovreignty?

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Many a pundit of late has declared that the era of fighting over oil is over and that the new hotness is going to be water. Less than 1% of the water in the world is potable and available (ie. not frozen solid in a glacier or deep underground) but Canada has almost 10% of [...]

Could A Ban On Cell Phones On Transit Increase GHG Emissions?

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Unless you’re new to this blog, you already know I’m a consultant. You might also have guessed that I work with folks in the high tech industry. That being the case, you might understand why I am opposed to legislation like that recently introduced in Austria which makes it illegal to talk on a cell [...]

What Statistics Can Tell You and What They Can’t

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

I mentioned in a posting last week that I recently wrote a test for a job with the RCMP as a Criminal Intelligence Analyst. Part of the test was an essay question that asked something along the lines of “statistics are all well and good but why is it a good idea to go out [...]

CFLs + Clean Power + Cold Weather + Gas Furnace = GHG Emissions Spikes

Monday, March 17th, 2008

A very, very, interesting article in today’s Toronto Star raised the ugly issue of the “green-ness” of Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs (CFLs). The article, citing a report done by Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. (AECL) and the University of Toronto, suggests that the waste heat generated by incandescent bulbs in a region where electricity is relatively clean [...]

Global Warming - My Growing Sense of Unease

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

In my life, I have many people who sit on either side of the Global Warming fence. On the one side are my friends and colleagues who say that “global warming is a political animal, not a scientific fact”. On the other side, I have a core group of friends who are confident that Global [...]

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