An Apology to David Suzuki

I saw David Suzuki interviewed recently and realized that I owed him an apology. It is more of defamation by inference than an actual character attack.

If you look back in my posts you will see that I have taken aim at "Suzukites". That is still my opinion. But, I have great admiration for David. His vision is a mirror of mine in certain areas.

I would love to see a radical and dramatic revision of the building code. I would love to see government grants for electrical and passive solar collection. I would love to see buildings designed to be self sufficient.

This is just a matter of putting a signature on a piece of paper. But the politicians are conditioned to rebel against this to the bitter end. The politician code is to do nothing and advance the status quo of the campaign donor.

But we all know about the politicians...let me write a bit about David.

I'm sure there are reasons, but I only hear about his vision of an urban nirvana in brief candid interviews. His namesake organization is all foaming at the mouth "tax'em 'till they die" evangelicals.

David, please reign in your horses. The politicians love regulation and restriction. Why is your organization not planted outside of every city hall and demanding a revision of the building code?

David Suzuki, you talk about a great vision of the future urban environment, but your suzukites are still in another century!

I apologize to you. But ask you to cast influence upon those who follow you.

Carbon Tax is Based on Flawed Ideology

Carbon Tax is based on the concept that only punishment will change behavior. If this is true then all the great marketing successes in business must have been flukes! And also, all the beatings and corporal punishments given out during childhood should be commended, encouraged, and perpetuated through life.

Do you think I'm exaggerating? Then think deeply about this for a minute and also listen carefully to the designers of the Carbon Tax proposals. Do not listen to the "sellers" of the tax. Ironically, they are using the very methods to sell us on the tax which they say don't work!

Carbon Tax is designed to make life more difficult for the average person. The hope is that if we suffer enough we will change our lifestyle habits in favor of choices which are designated as state approved. "State Approved"? Oh yes. The politicians and academics are just doing a bunch of bug herding. Poking us with economic sticks to drive us in various directions. They make us compliant by telling us that we are saving the planet....but are we? Can we?

I haven't heard a good answer to that. The best answer I have heard is a trick of logic. They tell us that it is better to at least try. I haven't heard anyone say that even the most ideal of targets will make a measurable sustainable difference. Have you seen any reliable figures? Everything is based on select observations and restricted historical data; and then manipulated by faulty logic to fit a popular agenda.

Is the earth's climate changing? Yes. Did human activity have some affect on this change. Yes, probably. Will changing human activity modify the climate change? Maybe, but I say this only as the logical result of the previous question. Can modifying human activity stop the current cycle of climate change? No, I don't think so, and I have not heard any serious scientist state that we can halt and shape the climate as we desire. Playing God has never been mankind's best role.

The fact is that the Earth is changing and has always been changing. We cannot stop change. But we can adapt. Adaptation is the great human skill. Our focus should be on adapting to the inevitable change. Not in playing out the drama of King Canute! Carbon Taxing will do nothing for the environment. Carbon taxing will just add one more hardship to an already struggling population.

We may not be able to stop the world, but we can create beautiful, refreshing, green laden, places to live and work. We can get out of the sterile apartment warehouses we live in. We can reduce noise and light and toxic fumes from our lives, so as to live healthy lives. We can change our micro climates. But again, ironically, the eco-idiots don't want that.

They want to warehouse us and cram us into a minimally habitable environment filled with noise and light and constant over stimulation. I think nature designed humans to live in contact and communion with the very countryside from which the academics propose to isolate us. They want us to huddle together to conserve energy, and then only experience the rest of nature, in minute prescribed doses ( public parks). Think I'm exaggerating? Listen carefully to the interviews. "Suburban" and "Urban Sprawl" are terms now automatically seen as pejorative terms. Eco Friendly should also be human friendly.

So what is my alternative? Get the politicians to stop listening to the academic and ivory tower social engineers and get them to listen to the minds behind McDonald's and Starbucks! These are the real experts on invoking change in people. Convenience, low cost, high quality, accessibility, camaraderie, and on and on and on. McDonald's, and Starbucks are the leaders in delivering these things, and people love them and shower them with money.

Believe it or not, I'm quite serious. McDonald's and Starbucks are examples of an ideology that works, because it is in line with human nature. And after all, aren't we supposed to be trying to be in harmony with nature?

Get these successful minds involved in building paradise. Get them to figure out a way to make our cities green and open, even if it means a few burger stands in the bushes. I know that academics consider commercialism anathema, but then academics are forcing people to pay them through taxation. McDonald's and Starbucks have people freely lining up to give them their money. Think about it.

China is Evil ...(not!)

What is with the China bashing?

True, China has a pollution problem, but they are working on it. They are demolishing old factories and putting up more energy efficient ones ( didn't hear that in your news did you?).

Yes China is a major source of pollution, but they have just edged out the US this year, with 10 times the population and the fact that most of the world has outsourced industry to China! So in fact, if you look at all the goods produced in China for American companies, and charged back the pollution, the US would still be ahead as a major pollution source.

China is unfair to workers? Workers salaries are steadily rising in China. Can you say the same for North American wages?

China is a human rights abuser. There is an apocryphal story about US president Jimmy Carter going to China and raising the issue of human rights to the current leader. The leader ( sorry I've forgotten his name) then said, "Mr President, you are right! Tomorrow I will allow anyone in China who wants to go to the US to freely leave." Not quite the answer Jim was looking for.

We ( Canada) have turned away ship after ship of "illegal" immigrants ( Punjabi and Chinese). Yet our mythology castigates the Empire Nations for doing the same. Remember the Zionist Jews? Remember the Vietnamese? How about the Cuban boat people? Or the Haitians?

We demonstrate in the streets about religious persecution of Fallon Gong and others but insist on denying rights to Jehovah's Witnesses, grabbing their children and jamming needles into them. Oh I hear you saying that I haven't told the whole story.....but have you heard the whole story from China? Or only a biased press account......really really think about this.

China is destroying culture in Tibet. OH? So they have good urban planning and sanitation and options in work and shopping. I remember Walmart coming to Canada...the great US evil giant, ready to swallow up our nation. Walmart is here and we survived. Some even like to go there to save money. I go the the local retailers to save time. We are all saving. But we have options. Isn't that what is going on in Tibet? The average person has options. In North America we are begging people to come out and vote. Is voting a big issue for most people? Or is choice in product, and good prices and a steady income?

Here we are in Canada ( and listen up you US Viewers!...perhaps you too) We have a paltry 30 million here and we are shoving people away from our borders and denying people expression of their faith. We are raping the earth to deliver oil to the US and the world. And we are castigating China for using some of that oil.

China has a population of BILLIONS. Evil? Or just doing the best they can?

Think about it.

Commuter Car Pollution

It is said that commuter car pollution output is greater than industry pollution. Now I have a hunch that some of the data is left out of that statement, such as whether this data was restricted to urban areas, which means there would be a low industrial presence. However, anyone looking over any city's horizon would agree that vehicle pollution is a nasty reality.

But then the eco-simpletons take a huge leap of logic into absurdity! If commuter pollution is the problem, then just tax the commuters until they stop commuting. That should solve the problem.

Now I have a hunch that the people who came up with this idea are either " too special" to use public transit, or have nice convenient nests, close to where they work.

Let's take a close look at your typical commuter:

• They have been forced far away from their work in order to find suitable affordable housing for their families. ( Don't even think about getting me going about Eco Density!)
• They get up an an ungodly hour. Grab a hunk of food and a huge thermos of coffee. Plug all their computers etc in the car's outlets. And head off for a multi hour hell ride that elevates their cortisol into " guaranteed heart attack" levels.
• They pay as much for parking as some renters do for a single room apartment.
• They work all day and head home, scrambling to squirm through traffic. Every five minutes counts, since they have family obligations, or would just like to see their kids awake for once. Every short cut is used..along with a certain middle finger.
  
• The short evening is spent either doing all the essential family chores, or feeling guilty about not doing them because of exhaustion. Forget sex...candlelight and lingerie are for the commercials.
  
• Then it is up to bed, and set the alarm for before the birds. Ready to start it all over again.

Do the Eco Idiots think these people want this?

Do the policy planners actually think people sit down and say, "I'll buy a big gas guzzler and pay a gazillion dollars in fees, and spend half my life in a fume filled road!" Really! They have been reading too much of their propaganda.

Most commuters use their vehicles because public transit will either add even more commuting hours to their long days, or is non existent.

In a matter of fair disclosure, I should state that I am at home and my spouse does use a commuter train. But also in fair disclosure, I should tell you that she is in an envied elite! I have to drive her to the train station. There is no shuttle bus. And for those areas with shuttle buses, they frequently arrive late to the train station, or randomly fail to appear. ( Describe that to your boss for the hundredth time and see how long it takes to start up the car for the commute). We are also near the end of the line, which means that she actually gets a seat. Most public transit is jammed in bodies, armpit to putrid armpit. And then transit boards complain about low ridership and refuse to add rail cars or buses.

I have friends who get up at 3:30am to beat the rush hour. I have talked with others who have mobile offices installed, and start work in their vehicles, hours before they take a step into their physical office. Do you wonder why people buy spacious vehicles? The reason is simple. It is because they live in them!

The commuter is exhausted. They don't want the life they are forced to lead. But instead of answers, the Eco-ideologists and politicians fine them with extra taxes, squeeze life out of them with restrictive policies and dump guilt all over them.

Quite the solution.

OK so tomorrow, tell everyone not to use their vehicle to commute anymore. Tell them that the Gov't will protect their jobs with legislation and that they are guaranteed to spend the same or more time with their families. And tell them that everyone is guaranteed a seat for commuting times of over 20 minutes.

I don't think you will so many people on the road.

Taxes and guilt are easy. Solutions are hard. But the average person being squeezed, knows who is for them and who is against them.

Every penny and every second counts in commuter hell.

Airtight Housing Insulation is Unhealthy

TV renovation shows and government ads are preaching about making our houses airtight. But they are only telling part of the story and could be harming our health! If you just follow their guilt inducing preachy instructions you could soon be living in a toxic swamp. Think about the following points:

• If you seal up your house and still have furnishings which give off toxic fumes, aren't you being forced to spend hundreds of hours in a home made gas chamber?
• When you turn your bathroom or stove exhaust fans on to purge moist and oily air, how can they effectively work if no fresh air is allowed into the building? And what kind of air are they drawing in? How about the carbon monoxide laden air from your furnace and fireplace vents!!!!
• You and your family are expelling body waste with every breath. Your lungs are a one of the filtering organs in your body. Each one of you is spewing unhealthy gasses at least 20 times a minute. More if you exercise at home.

This is the environment the green police want you to live in so that they don't have to update the energy grid or give you cash incentives to retrofit your home with proper ventilation equipment.

A proper housing ventilation system would include a heat exchanger which continuously takes the warm fetid air from your house, strips the heat from it, and adds the heat to the cool fresh air it pulls in (and the opposite in summer). This is an essential element for most commercial HVAC systems. But like a lot to things in the building code, they are not part of regular residential construction.

Also, a heat exchanger is only good at providing healthful air in a forced air heated building. You can use a heat exchanger on liquid based radiant heating, but this does nothing about the stagnant air. Do you see how this poses a problem for bureaucrats and builders? If they put radiant heating in your house to encourage you to only heat one room at a time, and want to give you a healthful environment, they would have to build a separate ventilation system thereby doubling your HVAC ( Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning ) costs.

It is much easier for Environmentalists, Bureaucrats, Builders and Energy Providers to preach about sealing up your homes to save energy demands on an old energy grid. You are then expected to live in a toxic zone where you get mysterious headaches, sensitivity to a wide variety of things (MCS) as you liver backs up and rebels, long drawn out chest infections, fatigue, listlessness.....and on and on. Do any of these things sounds familiar?

Don't believe me? Then do this experiment. Seal up your house and spend a weekend in it ( most guys won't have a problem with this during the playoffs). Then, go outside to a lush green area just around sunrise and breath in. If you are in a dense urban area, you may have to drive to a local nature reserve. Notice a surge in vitality? That is your lungs saying thank you.

This is the kind of environment you were meant to live in, but have been encouraged to lock yourself away from. Think about it.

Colin

Tankless Inline Hot Water Heaters Incompatible with Low Flow Fixtures

This post is a clarification on the development hot water heating devices and the lack of a unity of standards.

If you are thinking of getting an inline water heater, or " tankless" hot water heater, you had better do some serious research first. Do not just go in and tell your local plumber to install a unit without going through some serious calculations.

The first glitch I came across is that you need to run the water full out to activate the system. So if you have flow regulators installed on your taps and appliances you won't get any hot water. The specs on the tankless hot water heater call for a flow rate of around 1 gallon/ minute. So, to have your shower in the morning you have to turn the shower and sink on full hot and let them run until the unit turn on and the water feeds through your lines. ( Remember to do this before you run your dishwasher as well.)

During this warm up period, the tankless heater is burning 4 times the amount of gas as a regular heater. This may mean that you need to get a larger gas supply line put in. If you choose the electric version you may need to get a special high demand electric line. This means that you are using huge amounts of energy during these peak demand times.

A low flow shower head reduces the water flow to about 2 gallons per minute. The tankless water heater can only produce hot water (70F) at about 3 gpm. This means that you will most likely have your tap nearly on full hot. So remember this if there is anyone else wanting to use hot water at the same time. Notice that the ads for these units show a line up of people waiting to have a shower, NOT everyone having a shower at the same time.

So where is the saving coming from? Time. The tankless hot water heaters are supposed to have a 20 year lifespan. You would go through 3 standard tanks by that time. Also there is a saving on the energy used to heat the standard reservoir tank.

BUT! What if you just made a habit of turning the dial on your hot water tank to " vacation " when you head out the door each day? If you are really keen, you can even turn it down at night and then back up when you are making your breakfast. It only takes about 20 minutes for mine to reach full capacity. We have automatic thermostats, why not on our hot water heaters? They have them on commercial units.

In summary, if you have a steady demand for hot water, then a tankless hot water heater makes sense. This is for convenience more than ecology. The energy savings seem to be calculated during the resting periods since the inline hot water heaters use huge amounts of energy when in use. Standard tank heaters can be modified to be more economic and ecological.

So do your research and be sure to ask some hard questions when it comes time to change your hot water heater.

environmental housing

Beware the quick fix. OK that sounded a bit drastic, but think about it for a sec. How much money is going in to advertisements and programs telling us to consume less and live in freezing dwellings and go out and buy all sorts of "energy saving" devices? And how much money is going into revising the building codes? How much money is going into creating community geothermal resources? How much money is going into credits for retrofitting older structures to enable new GREEN technology? Ummmmm ..... zip?

Why not ask your local politician about these things next time he/she lectures you about turning down the heat and watering your petunias?

Environmental housing starts from the inside out. Politicians should make changing the building code their first priority. Plan for the future. In my area, R20 is considered normal insulation. Why not make it R40? That alone would reduce heating and cooling costs. Solar technology is coming fast, but few buildings can supports the extra load. Why not change the code to double the load capacity of roofs?

The cynic would way it is because developers are the main contributors to local politicians. Developers do not want extra costs. But what about the Environmental Impact On Housing? That is left up to the poor sucker who buys the substandard housing and has to rebuild the place over the years.

You move in and strut about a bit and feel king of the castle for a day or two. Then you find that you are evil. Who knew? Opinion about the environmental impact of housing and the urban sprawl make you the victim of every special interest group.

"You are wasting electricity...better spend a few thousand and increase insulation. You are wasting water. Better go find a rain barrel or two and get a permit to build a reservoir and dig up the front yard. You are spewing pollutants during your commute...oh, better buy an electric car to take you to the park & ride which is miles away and only runs certain hours ...if they feel like it. Forget taking a bus, no bus service connects to the commuter service. Sorry.....oh but you have to pay extra insurance on the vehicle since you are technically using it to commute to work.

Ummm did we mention that you are evil and selfish for wanting to live in a quiet area, surrounded by nature and away from the constant din and smell of downtown? I'm sure there is a pamphlet around here.....we just got a government grant to print up a bunch.

You should be downtown in our high density enviromental housing.......oh, but don't bring the kids....too noisy...disturbs our dogs. Besides the dogs have all the green space designated to them as free run areas. Kids just get in the way. David Suzuki? Oh no he doesn't live here. Are you kidding? He lives by the sea in a Ritzy Kitzy Area. You don't expect him to put up with all this do you?

HAH! AL GORE?
You almost made me choke on my matcha tea frappe! Of course he doesn't live here. He lives on his estate....when he is not flying around the world. Oh that reminds me, we are all turning our lights off for a month to offset his carbon footprint....it is the least we can do. Care to join?"

Eco-Density = Warehousing People to Save the Planet

Beware of social planners. In fact, beware of ANY planners. They tend to be those who "know best". Hmmmm does this sound familiar? Any Lenin's come to mind? ( Hint: Not John ) I'll come back to that thought later.

Eco Density is being promoted by all sorts of "planners" out there. It will save the earth. It will conserve resources. It will keep rich farm land productive. It will help make the delivery of services efficient and economical. It will create a perfect world! Or will it?

It will jam thousands of people into close proximity. It will reduce the living area of a family into 800 square feet and make them pay over $400,000 for it. It will reduce choices by restricting mobility, so groceries will cost whatever the vendors want to charge. It will increase noise levels and affect sleep and mental health. And most importantly, it will isolate Humans from Nature.

Oh that is very green.

Let us save nature by warehousing people. Now where have we seen this experiment before?
Does the word " projects" ring a bell?
How about the ugly concrete " people's housing" the soviets constructed after they ran everyone off their land?

Oh you may think I'm sounding extreme and paranoid. But history has a great store of times when the good intentioned elite intellectuals fell in with the power hungry. I hear the same retoric today.

To the elite, people are a problem and at best a disposable renewable resource. Is that how you see yourself? Are you huddled in you cold winter room under the erie glow of florescents and watching ads for a brilliant Las Vegas nirvana? Let's see....you feel guilty turning on a light in another room.......they....oh! They don't seem to feel guilty at all!!!!!!!!! What is it that really makes you feel alive?

Many have said that being in touch with nature has sustained and renewed them. How many successful therapies are based on reconnecting people with nature? Many. More than any other technique. We are told that our mission is to preserve, protect, and nurture nature.......but not to interact with it except in officially prescribed doses and under strict supervision.

Sacrifice is the call. Guilt is the whip. Fear is the goad.

Where is fullness of life?

Where is the exultation of communion?

It is where the "planners" want it to be........in a documentary on your HDTV screen.

Eco density is a way to take people out of nature. It is a concept built on the belief that man is separate from nature. Oh! Isn't that how we got here in the first place?


SOLUTIONS:

OK It is not fair to rail against an idea without offering alternatives.

I'll put some of my ideas on other posts but here is a quick summary.

Spread people out and make their dwellings constructed in tune with nature.
Use satellite village models where goods can be moved into hubs using energy efficient transport.
Start the idea of "Victory Gardens" again.

I'll go on in other posts, but instead of warehousing people through ecodensity, let them integrate back into nature with proper building codes ( and yes) development plans.

Also a quick note on commuting. Planners are too old! Web 2.0 is here. All your kids are electronically connected. This is the future. Use it.


OK this is as long a post as I want to go. I'll fill in more later.
Leave a comment if you found this interesting.
Colin