The Math of Green Jobs

With the economic recovery putting along, I’m hearing a lot about the creation of ‘green jobs’ lately. Most recently I read an article in The Coast by Chris Benjamin. It had some exciting numbers. For every $1 million invested in green industries, 18 jobs are created. For every $1 million invested in oil and gas, 3.7 jobs are created.

Huh.

That’s fantastic news. If enough people realize this, governments are going to be forced to put money into green industries. Job creation is a big deal, and if the government runs with this, it’s win win! Well, oil and gas doesn’t win, but we don’t want them to anyway.

The same article uses Germany as an example. Their apartment retrofit program has created 140 000 jobs and saved the government €4 billion in unemployment payments. Those are more impressive numbers.

I feel the strong forces of oil and gas are what is holding these industries back in Canada. We need the government to do what is best for Canadians, and that means investing green industry. The numbers don’t lie!

Vancouver 2010

A real live spirit bear...who's protecting it's habitat? Not Canada

I know, I know. There’s already been a tonne of blog posts and tweets about the environmentalism of the Olympics. However, I believe that when an issue is important, every voice counts. The more voices, the more the people in charge are forced to take notice. So take notice Ottawa!

The Olympic organizers have made a pretty solid effort to make the games “greener”. They built energy efficient buildings, they’re re-using heat waste to heat other buildings, they’re promoting carbon offsets. Super.

But I want to focus on the big picture. There’s the frequently played “Beautiful British Columbia” commercial showing Ryan Reynolds enjoying a campfire in the forest, there’s the high impact images of salmon and old growth forests at the opening ceremonies, there’s the overload of images of mountains, oceans, trees and wildlife around every corner. We’re showing the world just how much we love our nature, how much we cherish what we’ve been gifted by geography.

Liars! We present this image to the world but we don’t live up to it at all. This article in the Vancouver Sun sums things up pretty well.

What a majestic representation of the salmon running at the opening ceremonies. According to the Vancouver Sun, 38 salmon runs in BC are endangered. Yet fishing of salmon runs still gets approved due to their commercial value, even those on the brink of becoming endangered or extinct. These runs are also in danger of genetic contamination by escaped farmed salmon (which are Atlantic salmon) or infection by lice picked up when swimming near salmon farms. Drastic changes are needed in the salmon fishery to ensure this symbolic animal does not go extinct.

Great display of the glory of the old growth forests. Logging of old growth stands is happening right now. The pockets that exist are getting fewer and far between. These stands represent a structure that can’t be re-grown in a decade or two. We’re talking hundreds of years.

And then there’s Canada’s environmental track record in general. Not so good. Just because we have a lot of nature and not so many people doesn’t give us a free ride. We consume pretty much the same as America per capita, produce the same amount of GHGs per capita.

Canadians love being associated with nature. So let’s make sure we keep nature around. Let’s live up to what we project to the world. Let’s tell parliament we want to be a green country!

Queensland and all the delights it has to offer

There seems to be a lot of beards in Queensland. Love it.

Fertile Atherton Tablelands

Other great things about Queensland include Cassowaries, rainforests, strangler figs and Ulysses Butterflies.

Bad things about Queensland include poor coffee making skills and stingers. When it’s 35 degrees out and you can’t go in the ocean because jellyfish will eat you alive, it’s a bummer.

The elusive Casswary

If you find yourself in Cairns, take a couple days to drive up to Cape Tribulation. Just driving on the twisty road is adventure enough! But then you also get lush, green forests, crocodiles, and cassowaries. For some reason there were very few tourists around when we were there. It wasn’t like we thought it would be…it’s not developed at all. Just a few caravan parks. It really makes you feel like you’re in the wilderness.

On your way back to Cairns, stop for a dip at the Mossman Gorge. The water is chilly, but the view is worth is.

Brrr.....Mossman Gorge

A drive through the Atherton Tablelands is also a must. Magnificent landscapes. I also recommend Paronella Park, which I thought was going to be a huge tourist trap for Japanese Anime Fans. It turned out to be a beautiful fairy-tale forest complex with a lot of local history.

Cairns itself was nice, but nothing too note worthy. The lagoon is a nice alternative to the ocean, which leads to certain death (stingers).

The Pope says “No”, Carolyn says “Yes”

I saw Avatar on the weekend. First, it was awesome. Second, it made me think about the tar sands. That’s right, I’m not switching to the more friendly ‘oil sands’. I’m not helping them spiff up their image.

Now, Mr. Military Man is very obviously the bad guy. And he’s pretty bad. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who saw the movie and didn’t describe him as evil.

However, there are many, many of these people in real life. You might even know one. Any oil company exec, and I’d wager a lot of mining company execs, logging company execs and probably a fair chunk of politicians, would fall into the role of Mr. Evil Military Man. They see something in the Earth that they want, and they take it. They leave nothingness in their wake. Barren land.

I’m not saying that these people would knowing kill people and destroy ancient sites like in the movie. But they have seen the reports about the damage occurring to our ecosystems and what that could mean for our planet. They know what we’re facing and they ignore the urgency.

Currently if we just stopped the tar sands, mining and logging, we’d be in a bit of a pinch. However, just because it’s in the ground, doesn’t mean we have to take it out! Oil companies have a lot of lobbying power and can influence government decisions on funding to projects like alternative energy (have you seen Who Killed the Electric Car?). These people need to let progress happen. They need to make an effort to put their own resources into alternatives to the tar sands.

Just think what that could do to their image! They might make a few less billions of dollars for a while, but there’s a lot of economic potential in alternative energy. A progressive thinking oil exec…it could be a revolution.