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...

Dear Canada, why do you let me down so? I can distinctly recall being in grade seven and clipping news articles about the Kyoto Protocol for a science journal. Granted, I was a HUGE geek already and adored the idea of Canada emerging as a world leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving our planet (I am pretty sure the idea involved hearts and rainbows doodled around images of trees in the margins of my notebook) but the simplified version of the protocol that a teacher explained in laymen’s terms seemed easy enough… I mean, we are a developed country with an above average standard of living and we theoretically should have been able to lower our emissions without severely compromising our growth or citizens’ lifestyles. Oh wait; there are those tar sands that we are exploiting out west- well, if it’s for the sake of progress, yes? Even with our failure at reducing our own national emissions, Canada had the opportunity to take advantage of Clean Development Mechanism...

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 ...