Rob's Ramblings

Feeling guilty about taking a airplane flight to Calgary last week, I decided to calculate my total green house gas emissions for the past year. There is a good calculator at: http://www.climcalc.net/ . I came up with total emissions of 3.3 tonnes per year. Well below the Canadian personal average of around 6 tonnes but I probably could do better.

I have been thinking more about TransLink 's decision last week to approve the RAV line . Environmental concerns are often cited as one of the main reasons to support the new rapid transit project. And certainly any project that reduces low occupancy vehicular traffic does have some environmental benefits. But if one is to judge the true environmental impacts of a mega-project we must look at more than just the changes people will make in their transportation choices. What about the recourses that will be consumed constructing the tunnels and the elevated track? A surface LRT line would have consumed fewer resources during construction, and better utilized existing infrastructure. This type of narrow thinking sometimes occurs when we look at solutions to environmental problems. Often technological options are seen as the best or only solution. We often neglect choices which would mean reducing consumption. Usually it seems that the best solution is combination of tech

Last week TransLink approved the plan to build the RAV rapid transit line with SNC-Lavalin as a primary contractor. At the public hearing two people spoke of SNC-Lavalin’s complicity in war crimes but the Translink board ignored those comments (as well as other environmental, financial and technical concerns) and approved the project. Activists are vowing to continue their campaign against SNC-Lavalin .