Greening the List

On Wednesday, January 14, at the University of Alberta, the Pembina Institute presented Greening the Grid, a report that details how Albertans can green their electrical grid by 2028 According to the authors, if we adopt the more aggressive of the two options detailed in the report – which we should – we can phase out coal generation entirely by 2028. Using existing technologies!

Ironically, the top 100 infrastructure projects list, released the same week, showed, in the number eight position, Alberta’s top project: a coal-fired generating plant (“Alberta boasts more projects atop infrastructure list than any other province,” The Edmonton Journal, Jan. 13). A setback, to say the least.

In any case, an energy-smart government would look seriously at the report put forward by the Institute and move quickly towards getting green energy projects on the infrastructure top 100 list for 2010. And at the same time, put a halt to any coal-fired generating plants from ever making the list again.

Anti-idling

If I understand correctly the scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the world’s largest general science society and publishers of Nature, one of the most respected scientific journals in the world); the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; the Geological Society of America, and the American Physical Society, global warming is a serious problem, the extent of which will dwarf the economic crisis that financial mismanagers working in a unregulated U.S. market have foisted upon us.

Fighting global warming will require aggressive actions of the sort only our federal and provincial governments can enact. But incremental measures like the anti-idling law Edmonton City Council is currently debating will help move us towards a better understanding of the global warming issue and ultimately an acceptance of the actions we really need to implement.