We've seen that post somewhere... "Headed to Toronto this weekend, I have a few extra seats". Sometimes people are doing this because they don't like o make ling drives alone, or because they are looking for someone to split gas money with. Either way, this is ridesharing and it is an important part of the sharing economy. Ridesharing isn't a new concept. The idea is fairly simple, a car is headed somewhere and there some empty seats... Ridesharing is the basically an option to fill those seats up. Think of it like carpooling but to another city. So if you have a car, you can offer a ride to people headed to the same place as you (and charge a small fee for the ride). Or if you want to go somewhere but don't have a ride, you can ask someone who is headed to the same place to drive you (and compensate them for their troubles). The internet is awash in "ride boards", places where you can see where people are headed or where they need a ride t...

In case you missed it, this past Sunday (August 10th) was International Biodiesel day, in honour of this momentous occasion I thought I would dive into the pros and cons of this alternative fuel source. Fossil fuels (such as natural gas, coal and petroleum) are pouches of organic matter which have been pressurized and decomposed over long periods of time. In contrast, biofuels are made from live organic matter (ranging from canola, maize, sunflowers, animal fats and soy). Thus they provide a more sustainable alternative to the material depletion associated with traditional fossil fuels while performing in many of the same ways. As the cost for fossil fuels continue to rise, part of the appeal of alternative fuels sources is their potentially low production cost. We should also consider the environmental impact of growing crops for fuels, CO2 (of of the greenhouse gases released through the combustion of fuel) is taken up by the crops. In other words, biofuels can provide a carbo...

So the federal government just announced that they are half way to reaching their Copenhagen emissions goal this week. (You can read the CBC article here ). Not bad.... not bad at all. But unfortunately not good enough. The energy and environment engineers here at uOttawa also just finished crunching some numbers this week. The result, our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the lowest we have ever recorded - basically since 1974. DATA So let's deconstruct some of the numbers. In 1974, our direct GHG emissions were 27,223 tonnes. (*direct emissions mean everything that we burn here on campus like natural gas, oil, fuel in our cars, etc.) In 2011, our direct GHG emissinos were 15,556 tonnes, a 43% reduction. KYOTO Under Canada's Kyoto obligations, uOttawa would have had to reduced its total emissions by 6% of 1990 levels by 2012. (*total emissions include everything you burn and all the emissions associated with the electricity you use). In the 1990's our t...

When I was an undergraduate student at uOttawa I was really excited when the government of Canada launched the doomed 1 Tonne Challenge program . The program had only good intentions but it completely and utterly failed to be inclusive. As a student there were a bunch of things that were being suggested by the program that I just couldn't do. Buy an efficient furnace or car, insulate my house, purchase offsets?!?!? I didn't own a home, couldn't afford a car, and what the hell was an offset? Since then I have always had a hate on for things marketed to students that students have no control over. If I told you to turn down the heat in your classroom, would you even be able to do it? So here is a list of 5 actual things that you can do on campus to reduce the campuses environmental footprint. Don't use the elevator when you don't have to  I never understood why people didn't get this but elevators suck their fair share of energy. On a floor by floor basis...

There are many examples of unsustainable things going on in the world and here are a few I’ve read about or seen going on in Canada. Unsustainable, the amount of pressure we put on the soil for commercial clear cutting of forests; soil can no longer retain water thus the landscape is destroyed. Unsustainable, one of the world’s dirtiest industries, “the oil sands production generates three times the greenhouse gas emission as a barrel of conventional oil”*. Up to 4 barrels of water are used to produce 1 barrel of tar sand oil “resulting in gigantic tailings [pools] of toxic waste that can be seen from outer space by the naked eye”**. This water is drained from the Athabasca (which in Cree means where there are plants one after another - will we have to change the name soon?) River in Alberta. Unsustainable, our Canadian mining industry is among the biggest in the world and also involved in 33% of mining conflicts (whether “taking over land abroad and polluting water sources, destro...

I am going to do a couple of things in this post that I promised to never do so if my words seem a little out of place, don't worry... it's not you, it's me. First, I am going to admit that my first reaction to our University's slogan, "Canada's University" was not one of ecstatic enthusiasm. The slogan was launched 10 years ago as a means to differentiate uOttawa. It was clever because the university teaches in both official languages and is located in the National Capital. But I had the reaction that most people had... "that slogan sounds a little pretentious". Well it is 10 years later and I am not a student anymore, I am a staff member. And until a little while ago, I still wasn't really sold on the University's slogan. I mean seriously, come on... what makes us so good that we get the coveted title of Canada's University? And maybe I would have kept thinking that way until... So I have been following this group called...

Photo credit: Jonathan Rausseo To recap my last blog on greenhouse gases (GHG’s) and waste: Items sent to landfill NEVER decompose, except organics; When organics decompose in a landfill, they produce methane (20X the impact of CO2); If you choose to compost 1 ton of organics, you will sequester 0.2 tons of CO2; If you choose to send that ton to a landfill, you would create 0.8 tons of CO2 Now let’s talk about uOttawa’s waste production and recycling rate; what do they mean in terms of GHG’s? Do we recycle and compost enough to cover the GHG’s emitted due to waste disposal and landfilling? Before I go on, I must say that whatever the result, nothing needs to be sent to landfill if you choose the right products – nothing will ever make entombing perfectly usable ressources in a landfill reasonable (even sequestering GHG’s!). Last year, the University sent 1082 tons of waste to the Trail rd. landfill, and 1105 tons of recyclable material (of which 98 tons were organics) to...

Photo Credit: http://ufsustainability.blogspot.com Today was arguably one of the coldest days that most of us have ever experienced. The downside (putting aside the fact that I couldn't feel my fingers, legs, toes, and all other parts of my body while biking to work today) is that the University has been curtailed! What does that mean? Well don't feel bad if you don't know... I mean seriously, there is no reason why you should know. What it means is that the University has to burn oil instead of natural gas. Yes, dirty, ugly, oil. Unfortunately this is a fact of life because of the weather. Once temperatures get this cold the University has to stop burning natural gas so that there is enough natural gas for residential houses. Oh well. This got me thinking though. I wanted to know how much CO2 was being generated by this oil that we had to burn. I never actually found out. But it did find out something else. It turns out that the University of Ottawa has achieved its Kyoto ...