WTF Mandel?!
Thursday, Global Edmonton reported that after speaking to the Rotary Club in Edmonton, Mayor Stephen Mandel clarified his position on a high-speed rail link between the province's two largest cities. The mayor stated that he is opposed to the idea of a high speed rail link between Edmonton and Calgary, because he believes that Edmontonians would prefer LRT to the airport, instead. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a link to the Global story on their website, but I did find this.
I like Mandel, but this type of thinking is really near-sighted. To use an incredibly lame cliché, high speed rail is the wave of the future. Over 22 000 cars use Highway 2 each day. Working to reduce the environmental impact from this saturated route would be an obvious place for the province to start reducing our contribution to climate change. (Especially, given their absolute refusal to regulate oilpatch emissions in any meaningful way.) However, encouraging people to rely more heavily on (the more GHG intensive) air travel, like Mandel suggests, will only make the GHG impact of travel between Edmonton and Calgary even worse. High speed rail makes sense and I am very disappointed in our mayor's decision to adopt this position.
The Mayor's position is symptomatic of a trend in this province. I mean you would think because we have a ticking environmental time-bomb (soon-to-be) the size of Florida chilling in our backyard, we might want to compensate by looking for innovative ways to stem GHG emissions in other sectors. You would think, that wouldn't you? Oh, no. Not only is uncontrolled oilsands growth expected to push Alberta's emissions levels to more than 64 per cent above our Kyoto targets by 2020 , but Alberta also has the dubious distinction of having the country's dirtiest electricity sector. Yes, that's right, 88 per cent of Alberta's electricity comes from coal. To put this in perspective, just one average size coal plant produces as many emissions each year as 300 000 thousand cars. Alberta needs to start doing what it can to make meaningful reductions in GHGs and high speed rail between Edmonton and Calgary, is a clear strategy to this end. Thus, I say: wtf Mandel?
Turn off your computer, you're emitting GHG.
Posted by:Trevor | February 17, 2008 at 05:56 PM
Thanks for your feedback, Trevor! Your comment is exactly the type of intelligent, constructive and well-reasoned dialogue we were hoping to stimulate by starting this blog.
Posted by:ch | February 18, 2008 at 01:34 AM
You're still wasting electricity.
Posted by:Trevor | February 18, 2008 at 09:05 AM
Your comments are still a waste of time.
Posted by:ch | February 18, 2008 at 09:44 AM
Then quit replying to them and go save up some carbon credits for when you have something useful to say.
Posted by:Trevor | February 18, 2008 at 10:17 AM
Well Trevor, I didn't want to have to engage with you on this (very low) level - but, if you must know, your comments are actually irrelevant because my laptop just happens to be powered by the wind.
http://www.pembina.org/wind/computer
Posted by:ch | February 18, 2008 at 12:55 PM
Yeah, but is the server this drivel hosted on powered by wind?
Posted by:Trevor | February 18, 2008 at 01:19 PM
Trevor: if that's what you're going to contribute, don't bother commenting. You're wasting our time and yours.
Posted by:jk | February 18, 2008 at 02:03 PM
I think you guys keep responding because this is the most action this blog has ever seen.
Posted by:Trevor | February 18, 2008 at 02:35 PM