Monday, June 7, 2010

Solutions to greenhouse gases

This last week the provincial government released its semi-annual Community energy and Emissions inventory (CEEI). The mid-island area has some challenges ahead!

While Nanaimo and area are doing better than the province as a whole, this isn't difficult considering that the population density of most of the province is very low. When we instead compare ourselves to similarly-sized cities such as Victoria proper (population 81,000), Saanich (pop 112,000), Kamloops (pop 93,000, and Chilliwack (pop 81,000) to that of Nanaimo's (pop 81,000) our per-capita output was the worst.

Fully 70% of these emissions come from motor vehicles. While we often excuse ourselves because of the stretched-out city and poor public transportation, the reality is that fully half of us commute fewer than 5 kilometres (3 miles) by car or light truck! While some of us need our vehicles at work, the vast majority have made such things as time, convenience, and laziness our priorities.

What is of particular interest to me is that the cost of operating these vehicles (over $10,000 per year) results in people screaming about their taxes, failing to invest in energy savings in their homes, buying local food, and other activities that make our planet and pocketbooks more sustainable.

What will it take to make the necessary changes? Some ideas being tried include: charging vehicle insurance per KM, road taxes based on usage, much higher fuel taxes, closure of downtowns to motor vehicles, far more committed bicycle lanes (separated from vehicles and pedestrians), the Car Share Coop (two vehicles in Nanaimo), and vastly improved public transportation.

Without acting now we will continue to see our current problems multiply. Shifting away from single occupancy vehicle use will create rewards of all kinds -better physical and emotional health, improved finances, better air quality, improved work and school performance, and a planet worth inheriting.

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