Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Shower With A Friend


That is Alberta Preimer "Fast" Eddie Stelmach's suggestion to Albertans. Big Oil is not responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, no siree, its you and me he says.

Stelmach promised that his government will set mandatory emissions intensity targets this spring, but he suggested individual Albertans can help by conserving electricity and hot water.


And of course following that logic we all use much more water than the TarSands do, NOT, so we should all shower with a friend to help save Alberta's water. Can you spell goof; EDDIE.

The premier said it's wrong to place all the blame for greenhouse gases on the energy sector.

"The energy sector is number 1 (in emissions), but of course every time you put on your lights in the house or turn on your TV, you're using electrical energy," said Stelmach.

"So it's going to require all Albertans working toward one common goal."

In dry Alberta, conflict over water has been going on for years, fuelled by an industry that, it's estimated, requires between two and 4.5 barrels of H2O to produce a single barrel of crude. Moreover, while Canada boasts 20% of the world's freshwater, Alberta gets by with only 2.2%.

As I said here before when Conservatives accept the need to do something about Global Warming they will say it is an individual problem, not a problem of capitalism.

The reason for the outburst is Fast Eddie is all upset over comments made by the Liberals but was deafeningly silent over threats from his pals in the New Conservative Government of Canada to introduce a new NEP.

And Eddie claims voluntary caps are working!! Funny that's not what Harper and Baird say.

But Mr. Baird did say something of great note, something that those in the business community, especially oil and gas, have been lobbying successfully against for 15 years. Said Mr. Baird: "Voluntary compliance is not enough. We actually have to regulate. Those regulations have to be enforceable." And, he said, these regulations will be tougher than anything the Liberals ever proposed.


Someone should get the Federal and Provincial Tories on the same messaging page.

Oh wait they are, the Feds want to cap "emmision intensities", which will NOT result in a decrease in Greenhouse gases as Alberta has already shown.

And Fast Eddie needs his newly appointed Tory Media hacks to properly brief him, they are no longer working for the Sun.....

Stelmach also threw out some figures Monday suggesting Alberta has taken a leading role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"Alberta is the only province on record that has actually reduced CO2 emissions by 16 per cent," he said.

But the premier later conceded he was talking about so-called emissions intensity, which is a measurement against the growth in industrial production rather than a total measurement of what's coming out of the smoke stack. If a company increases emissions at a slower rate than it increases production, then emissions intensity is reduced even though absolute emissions have increased.

An Alberta Environment official later confirmed that total emissions have increased by 40 per cent since 1990, but emissions intensity is down by 16 per cent over the same period.

Ouch!!!


See

Stelmach

NEP

TarSands


Alberta

Environment



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