Course:IGS585/OK2019WT2/SpeakerJaniceLarson

Janice Larson - UBC Okanagan

To add your reflection, log in using your CWL and select edit. Starting below any other material on the page, add your name using the heading style. It will appear as your name with a horizontal line. Below this, add your reflection. Your reflection should be no more than 500 words.

If you are commenting on another reflection, select edit and insert your comment after the original reflection. Use the 'Sub-heading 2' style to add your name above your comments.

Below is an example of how a reflection and a comment should be organized. You can copy the content inside the box and paste it to get the formatting right.

Name of Reflection Author This is a reflection on the presentation by the guest speaker. Name of Commenting Author This is a reflection the reflection of the author above.

The following table are the pairings for commenting on each other's reflections. These pairings are unique for each reflection.

Author - Commenter Pairs

Ariele	Aditya	Stephenie	Amarpreet	Jeffrey
Maria	Madeline	Ian	Nadia	Nicole

Ariele Parker

Reflective Thinking. I enjoyed the presentation with Janice Larson. I appreciated how she started the class with introductions, it is a great icebreaker and effective way to ensure the subject matter and examples given are relevant for the audience. I found that Janice instantly commanded attention with her professional credentials and confidence. The material covered is fairly new to me and not an area that holds as much interest as other areas of sustainability so I appreciated that I was exposed to a high level yet detailed review of renewable energy resources in Canada through Janice’s well organized powerpoint. If I could best summarize how I felt in the class it was curious. I haven’t spent a lot of time researching energy sources and as we went through her presentation I realized that in Canada, especially BC, we are well situated to utilize many forms of renewable energy. I also appreciated that Janice stuck to her area of expertise and did not try to speak on subject matters outside her area of expertise.

Analysis. The energy source Janice mentioned that I found most interesting and relevant to some of my specific areas of interest was Bioenergy. Within biomass, I am especially interested in waste management and fam intersted to further explore how the local wine industry can use it (sustainable agriculture). According to this report, Bioenergy is the largest renewable energy source globally – accounting for 73% of all renewable energy supply. I find this statistic to be very intriguing and am excited to further explore this area.

Making Connections. As I have reiterated in each reflection, I am a Canadian citizen that grew up in Alberta till the age of 16 then moving to British Columbia. I also have a bachelor’s degree in business management from UBC Okanagan and nine years working in the marketing industry prior to starting my masters. I have a strong appreciation for businesses that find opportunities and niches in the marketplace. I have passed on the ironandearth.org resource to some family members and will continue to share it with others. I also had not previously head of the Okanagan Sustainability Leadership Council (OSLC) and am excited at the opportunity to attend as her guest. While Stephanie has spoken on some of the drawbacks of solar panels in precious classes, I do appreciate that Janice mentioned she has solar panels on her home. It is always inspiring to have a presenter who is enthusiastic about their line of work and the subject matter they are presenting. Janice was a true inspiration and I look forward to interacting with her on campus in the months and years to come.

Maria Correia

Thanks Ariel for your reflection. I too learned a great deal from Janice's presentation in terms of the range of options in energy sources in BC and the extent to which these energy alternatives have been adopted. And like you, I also appreciated Janice's example of how renewable energy solution could be socially and economically viable. You mention the business sector; indeed, bringing in business must be part of the approach to the climate crisis, and there are a ton of resources on this if you are interested in exploring further. Here is a recent link. Also, I must say, I was surprised at the statistic that bioenergy accounts for 73% of all renewable energy supply worldwide; it seems very high and I will explore this further given my own interest in renewables. Finally, I will let you know about the next OSLC meeting if you would like to attend and participate.

Stephenie Hendricks

Janice Larson’s years of experience was evident in her presentation. I’m very appreciative of the time she spent sharing her knowledge with us. She appears to be doing important, good work.

I was particularly impressed with the efforts she has been involved with for biomass fuel production.

I tried and failed to have complete confidence in her perspective.

Her description of “harvesting” the “bad wood” from the pine beetle forests is at odds with what I have heard from Sinxit indigenous people and biologists in the Kootenays who maintain that forests need the fallen wood to nourish insects, root and mycelium systems, which enrich the soil and hold precipitation in watershed lands. It seems her view of forest value is limited to “wood products.” Having researched for those working on revising the BC Forestry Management plan, I was disappointed to not hear the progressive views regarding revision ideas, including halting sales of wood to outside entities (U.S. and China), creating plans that would re-open local mills to provide local employment, modeling sustainable community based mills such as the Procter Harrop mill near Nelson, BC, placing equal value on forests as sacred indigenous places, preserving important biodiversity ecosystems, watersheds, and recreating places for people to enjoy nature. Still, if I understand correctly, the "waste" from the pine beetle phenomena led to biomass energy production in the province, which is significant.

Her years in the political sphere were evident with her deft avoidance of other controversial elements, such as natural gas production and nuclear waste.

Hearing the frame that natural gas is a “bridge” to renewables is upsetting. Having worked with communities in the U.S. destroyed by fracking, with sick people, sick animals, a huge guzzling of fresh water and production of toxic chemical run-offs, the benefit just doesn’t seem worth it.. I’ve been told by natural gas advocates that fracking here in BC happens in “uninhabited” areas – but it seems the lands are indigenous lands and that the hereditary elders often have no “say,” especially if their opinion disagrees with the oil and gas company.

Her address of the “nuclear risks” seemed to be a brush off on one of the most urgent issues in sustainability. What do you do with radiation that won’t break down for hundreds of years? How do you store it? Blaming nuclear  catastrophe on placement of nuclear power plants near earthquake faults doesn’t work to eliminate the hazard here in BC because this province, as she pointed out, is in the realm of the “ring of fire” with considerable seismic activity – hence the geothermal options.

I am sure that Ms. Larson has done the best that she could - and it’s clear that has done a tremendous amount of important work within the system. Perhaps it’s time for new voices to come up and challenge some of the status quo – or at least to give folks like Ms. Larson political cover to reject the notion of a sustainability that includes obsolete forestry methods, natural gas and nuclear power.

Ian Turner

I'm glad that in your reflection you brought light to the idea that the lands being used for these various energy projects are "uninhabited". One thing that really struck me during class that I'm surprised was never brought up was when Janice made the seemingly throw away statement that "95% of the land is BC is crown owned". This, of course, is directly contradictory to what we heard and discussed last week with Marlowe, when we were told the majority of land in BC is unceded land. Clearly there is a disconnect somewhere, and I'm more inclined to believe the latter of these statements. Given the role Janice previously played within the provincial government, statements like that further demonstrate to me that something really needs to change in the way we are currently doing things - even if consensus on issues is not possible, it's important for all those impacted to be informed, and to have their say in what should happen.

Madeline Donald

I found Janice both inspiring and inspired, primarily because it seemed to me she has a fundamental understanding of where our sustenance comes from, the land, and has still managed to work for many years in a political realm where "it will always come back to economics." Now, the latter is frustrating because what she means when she says economics is a supply and demand fiat money system, which she reiterated numerous times in her answers to questions and explanations about the low price of hydro electricity and resultant reduced incentives to develop alternative power generation infrastructure in the province. That said, it is something I could not do, to be enveloped in that world, and it is for that reason, plus her seemingly enduring optimism, that I find her inspiring.

As I have made clear on numerous occasions during our class sessions, the inability to think out of the profit-or-perish box is infuriating to me. Money, the three-pillar uses of which are a 1) a medium of exchange, 2) a unit of account, and 3) a storage of value, plus the less often discussed fourth, a massive socio-cultural agreement (we collectively decide that this thing will be useful for these purposes even if we can agree on little else), has been for so long in Western culture a stand in for those four components that we have come to equate them. The most pernicious of these equations is, I think: money=storage of value. We may have read stories in high school history text books about bouts of soul-crushing inflation during which a loaf of bread cost one wheelbarrow full of bills one day and two wheelbarrows the next, but that doesn't seem to dissuade us from assuming that the 1s and 0s that orchestrate our bank accounts are as good as gold, which is at least conductive and shiny. Garlic, is also a storage of value. I can harvest in the summer and store garlic over the winter, deriving deliciousness-value from it at each and every incident of use. I would prefer to talk about the value of garlic and the soil, labour, and care conditions that make garlic possible.

Janice introduced herself as a "farm girl", which means she probably understands the value of garlic. My uninformed assumption is that Ian, our previous biofuels-interested guest, did not grow up on a farm. The land-use and extractive and damaging practices caveat I was waiting for when Ian spoke never came, but Janice raised it, and for that I was grateful. It gives me hope to see enthusiastic farm-folks moving and shaking in spaces in which the value of garlic is not an acceptable topic, while still grounding practice in our complete and utter reliance one land that gives us life.

Aditya:

Janice definitely lit up the room with her enthusiasm while presenting to us. Its one thing to preach about sustainability but another to actually practice it in one's personal life. I share your concern regarding the apples-to-apples comparison of conventional "cheap" fossil fuels and renewables. If we are going to use economics and money to compare them it is important that we account for the adverse environmental and health impacts of using fossil fuels. While almost all things have a monetary value ( the price we are willing to pay to have it), some things also have intrinsic value or even emotional value.

Aditya Shingvi

This week guest seminar gave me some useful insight in the challenges and opportunities faced by the adoption of alternative energy sources in Canada. One of the slide by our presenter Janice, mentioned that transportation accounts for as much as 36% of the GHG emmisions which seemed odd to me considering 95% of the population of Canada is concentrated within 25 kms of the US border. The level of penetration of cars and personal vehicles owned per capita has to be really high to explain the numbers. On the other hand most GHG's emissions by developing countries can be attributed to the production of energy and not transportation.

Janice mentioned that some of the problems that explain the difficulty in adopting alternative sources of energy is the widespread availability of cheap power from fossil fuels and hydroelectric power from dams. The only way to provide a level playing field seems to be policies and regulation such as carbon tax.One such example of a policy that are currently in place to close the gap between green energy and that dependant on fossil fuels was providing an operational rent holiday to wind farms that will allow them to recuperate their investment with a smaller period were the wind mill pays for it self (pay-back period of 6-8 months approx).The net metering program also encourages small producers to sell any extra power they produce to BC Hydro or Fortis. This dependance on using the existing grid and infrastructure of these monopolies can act as barrier to do sustainable business for small producers.

Madeline Donald

This does not so much feel like a reflection as a summary of some points Janice made.

While the 95% in 25km of the border statistic is perhaps an order of magnitude off, yes, you are right, the country is concentrated in population around the 49th parallel. It is however a very long border, often touted to be the longest uncontested land border in the world. That leaves a lot of room for movement, mostly in private automobiles (you are right, the penetration of car ownership is very high), for even if someone would like to take a train the services have been rendered so impractical that, give the choice, a cost-conscious person would drive a hummer across the country with the a/c blasting before purchasing a train ticket from Vancouver to Halifax.

Jeff Nishima-Miller

I was very impressed with Janice Larson’s ability to dissect each renewable energy source in BC. In discussing energy sources, Janice was able to communicate her hope and excitement for future possibilities in regard to moving towards a more sustainable future.

I left class impacted by the discussion of ‘circular economies’. As defined by an online search, circular economies are alternatives to traditional linear economies (i.e. make-use-dispose), where resources are used for as long as possible, and once the maximum value has been extracted, other products are generated from the waste or sites. For example, Janice explained the possibilities for using spent natural gas sites for geothermal exploration, which could cut up-front costs by using previous infrastructure (i.e. resource roads, drill sites, etc.). The general idea is multi-use extraction sites, which takes a problem (i.e. development projects which are no longer operational –thus leading to further developments elsewhere) and turning them into opportunities. A greater emphasis of approving projects, which offer potential avenues towards a circular economy, would help contribute to cleaner production patterns at the industrial level. The question is - how do we adopt suitable, clear policies and tools to do so when the short-term economics may not match those of traditional linear economies.

Building upon the same point, the group ‘Iron and Earth’ essentially operates by using the same closed loop framework- but focuses on transitioning oil and gas workers into similar, but more sustainable industrial pursuits. In more detail (as discussed in class), Iron and Earth is a group committed to incorporating more renewable energy projects into the scope of work of existing oil and gas workers. They are transitioning skilled workers (i.e. the established human infrastructure) from the oil and gas industry into renewable energy project developments. Let’s not forget that oil and gas workers are people too, with families, responsibilities, etc. It is important that transitions are made for these workers, as the same way we may view climate change as a catastrophic event which will inevitably alter our very existence, on a local level, for these workers, the end of the oil and gas industry does the same thing.  

It is too easy to think about topics such as climate change, habitat loss, pollution, resource use, etc. and become anti-development all together. I have been guilty of it myself. This view point is widely unrealistic though, as we rely on energy and natural resources for literally everything we do (eating, drinking, recreating, etc.). Instead of being anti-development all together, I would suggest that we look at each project individually to assess the long term cumulative impacts of said project, and how it might contribute to ‘closing the loop’ towards a circular and sustainable economy.

After this discussion, I left class feeling positive- as Janice had a ‘glass half full’ approach, where she was able to see problems, and change the scope of view, to see them as opportunities. It appears as large scale recycling of extractive/industrial infrastructure offers some exciting opportunities moving forward, which may offer an avenue for meeting the needs of the present and future.

Nicole Bamber

Jeff,

I also really like the idea of a circular economy. I read the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by Michael Braungart and William McDonough, which gave a lot of interesting examples of that type of design for products. Similarly to Janice's talk, that book gave me hope for sustainability within a capitalist, industrial society.

I also talked about facilitating the transition of workers from the oil industry to other sectors such as the renewable energy sector in my reflection. I totally agree that these are people with families and needs, and they are not bad people just because they work in an unsustainable industry. I also think that as skilled workers, it won't be particularly hard for them to find jobs in other trades that require similar skills to what they already do (keep in mind that I have never worked a trades job, so this is just an opinion!).

Ian Turner

During class this week I was struck by 3 separate, yet in my opinion equally valid ways to reflect upon the talk we heard. I was unable to pick just one to focus on, so I've instead chosen to try to briefly address all three.

1) I was shocked to hear Janice make the statement that "95% of the land in BC is crown owned". To me this was directly contradictory to what we heard and discussed last week with Marlowe, when we were told that the majority of land in BC is unceded territory. I'm more inclined to believe the latter of these two statements, but it's made me wonder exactly what kind of relationships do each of these energy projects (whether fossil or alternative) form with different indigenous stakeholders (if any)? Lately we've seen significant unrest over the proposed LNG pipeline through Wet'suwet'en unceded territory - is there similar unrest elsewhere with all of these different energy projects that we heard about, and we just aren't hearing about it in the media because they aren't of the same scale? Or, specifically for alternative energy projects, is there not the same amount of unrest because these energy production methods are considered "clean" and don't have the same negative connotations as a fossil fuel pipeline? I think Janice making this statement, given her previous role in the provincial government, is a clear reinforcing example of everything we heard and discussed last week with Marlowe.

2) Janice presented us with a great number of alternative energy development projects taking place around the province, which she seemed genuinely excited about. However, we've seen marginal increases in energy generating capacity of renewable processes in BC relative to growth in hydro generation over the same time period. To me, these projects seemed like short-sighted make-work projects aimed at diversifying energy generation in BC simply for the sake of diversification. Although each of these projects may be beneficial relative to fossil fuels during the use phase of their life cycle, each of them will also have an environmental payback time due to emissions incurred during the construction phase. Given the fact that hydro accounts for 85% of electricity generation in BC, and all other sources (both renewable and fossil) account for just 15%, I question whether the environmental payback times of these alternative energy projects are sufficiently short to justify their relatively little contribution to the total BC energy grid mix. If it's a project that requires any insignificant amount of impact intensive building materials such as concrete, I imagine the payback times are not short. I sincerely hope these kinds of issues have been taken into account by the government in their decisions to proceed or not with different energy development plans.

3) Janice noted that she worked as part of team dedicated to demonstrating to the International Olympic Committee that the 2010 Vancouver Games would be as "clean" as possible when securing the Olympic bid for the city. I found this interesting because in some of my reading for our final project on the development of sustainable neighborhoods it was noted that development of these neighborhoods is often catalyzed by a major international event, with an Olympic bid given as as a specific example leading to the development of the Hammarby Sjöstad neighborhood in Stockholm. While these major international events provide a perfect excuse for cities to partake in sustainable development as a method of showing off to the world, I wonder how we can similarly incentivize smaller communities to partake in this kind of development as a method of showing off to the world without the need for an international event as a catalyst. Kelowna, for example, will never sniff anything the scale of the Olympics, a FIFA World Cup, etc. Does this mean then that the ability to show off on the world stage must be limited to larger cities like Vancouver, Beijing, Tokyo, London, etc.? The Okanagan already has an internationally acclaimed wine-making industry, so perhaps that would be a place worth starting from?

Stephenie Hendricks

Ian, I find your analysis of Janice Larsen to be spot on. I hadn’t thought about the “Crown” owned land issue, but you compared her statements neatly with Marlowe Sam’s.

I also hadn’t thought about the comparison to her terms in office and actual stats on renewable energy use – good point!

Finally, I agree about the world event “hook” for suddenly deciding to do something important, and an interesting point I hadn’t considered. (In Brazil, they murdered homeless street children because they were “unsightly” prior to the Olympics). This points to wanting an appearance of sustainability, but not necessary a reality of it.

Larson’s role in government was in direct opposition to a very powerful industry that drives Canada’s entire economy. We have to have some understanding of her – it could not have been easy. So I think we need to give her some considerable credit for getting as far as she did within the system under the influence of powerful corporations.

I wonder if the economic nose dive that is happening now across the globe could be a boost to renewable energy. If Canada can become more self reliant toward renewables, that could be a silver lining to this crazy state of affairs.

Nicole Bamber

Janice's talk about the opportunities presented in the clean energy sector felt very inspiring and gave me hope, which doesn't happen particularly often when dealing with sustainability issues. One thing that stuck out to me was her optimism about renewable energy as a source of new job opportunities. So often, the narrative is that we shouldn’t shut down fossil fuel facilities because those jobs are people’s livelihoods and those are the main sources of economic gain in our country. While there is obviously some truth to this, I have seen an interesting comparison that someone made online, to the change from video rental stores such as Blockbuster, to streaming services such as Netflix. It is also true that people used to work at Blockbuster and they were out of a job when it closed, but this is the way of technological change. Industries must adapt to new situations, in this case the consumer demand for digital video streaming, rather than hard copy videos rented in-person from a store. The same can be said about the switch from fossil fuel to renewable energy. The energy sector will still exist (and will likely still be growing in demand, despite my opinion that we need to focus much more effort of reducing consumption), the sources of energy must simply change to keep up with the climate altering effects and limited availability of fossil fuels.

The way that Janice talked about renewable energy opportunities was a refreshingly different take on that old narrative. She framed it in a way that these opportunities were new jobs, and new entrepreneurial opportunities, in addition to everything that already exists. This is a contrasting view to the concept that all the oil workers jobs will just disappear, and all these people will be out of a job and our economy will slow down. Of course, the reality is probably somewhere in the middle, but this is at least a promising way for the renewable energy sector to describe itself. This also relates to an idea that I’ve had (and many other people have had, this is not an original thought), that the purpose of fossil fuels in today’s society is to provide the energy needed to invest in renewables. This seems like a win-win situation, where oil workers can still keep their jobs for the moment, and it can help facilitate a transition to working in the renewable energy sector. Also, the renewable energy sector gets the benefit of well-established and subsidised sources of energy and workers to establish the technology necessary to start producing renewable energy, since the cost and difficulty of designing and implementing these technologies can be high.

Jeff Nishima-Miller

Nicole,

I really like the blockbuster to Netflix analogy. That is a transition that I have never looked back on. I would love to see a large scale energy transition as flawlessly as the video transition, but is already so much more nuanced and complicated. It has become even more of a mess as our neighbours to the East have put all their eggs in one basket, without accepting that a transition is inevitable. From the outside, it appears the same as investing in a blockbuster during the infancy of Netflix- bad timing.

I couldn’t agree more that if we are going to invest further in fossil fuels, the revenues and energy should be used as transition fuels towards renewables. This might be where LNG fits into the equation (as Janice mentioned), as the GHG emissions of LNG are less than those of coal. Sometimes, transitions can be awkward, and it is a choice between the lesser of two evils, as we will not be able to close every coal fired power plant around the world without effective alternatives.

For those who are reading this and might be interested, here is an article that explains (in-part) how LNG may fit into the transition period.

Maria Correia

Janice Larson’s session was highly informative.  I was familiar with some of the alternative energy sources in BC (geothermal, biowaste, solar, wind) but others were new to me (ocean energy, the use of riverbeds to generate energy, for example).  Moreover, it was useful to have a broad overview of the renewable energy systems in BC and learn about the extent of their application and use (or lack thereof, as the case may be).  It was also promising to learn that BC was a hub of innovation on energy alternative technology, even if these innovations are largely being exported to other parts of the country.  The Stockholm case, which Janice presented, and which generates all its energy from waste, was noteworthy in that it shows us what is possible when the right incentives are in place.  And Copenhill in Copenhagen, demonstrates that creative thinking can generate solutions that are socially, environmentally and economically sustainable. We need this kind of creativity to address our environmental challenges here in the Okanagan, such as with the Glenmore methane gas capture system.

Janice shared some excellent resources. I was particularly keen on ironandearth.org. It has been wearisome to hear the Alberta premier complain endlessly about the federal government’s lack of support to the oil and gas industry.  At least some in the sector in Alberta are thinking ahead of the transition that needs to happen; and it is particularly encouraging when it is the oil and gas workers themselves who see the writing on the wall and are advocating for the renewable energy sector.

And yet, at the end of the presentation, I was left wondering what our efforts to diversify our renewable energy sources adds up to in terms of reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our GHG emissions.  BC is already generating almost all of its electricity (95%) from renewable sources, as noted by Ian above.  And looking at our GHG emissions in the province, we need to place our focus on transportation, which accounts for 36% of those emissions in the province.  Janice noted that BC is a leader in Canada in terms of EV uptake, but this does not amount to much:  at about two percent, Canada is still the lowest among high income countries.  But it is not just lack of interest in EVs that concerns me.  A CBC commissioned poll of Canadians conducted in 2019 found that while most Canadians (two-thirds) recognize climate change as a top priority, half of those surveyed would not pay more than $100 per year in taxes to prevent climate change.  To put things in perspective, a monthly Netflix subscription costs $120 annually.  At the end of the day, behavioral change related to climate change is dictated for the most part by financial considerations -- at least for now.

In sum, collectively as a community, as a province, and as a nation, we have a long way to go in terms of addressing the wickedness of sustainability.  But I am left with optimism from Janice’s presentation, that technology is at least heading in the right direction and we have champions like Janice and the Okanagan Sustainability Leadership Council, which inspire me to be more actively involved in climate action and sustainability issues.

Ariele Parker

Maria,

I really appreciate the facts provided in your reflection. It is absolutely staggering that Canadians would not pay more than $100 per year in taxes to prevent climate change! How sad this stat is in making the reality of our situation real. Coming from a marketing and communications background this really makes me worried to think how much money and effort will need to be put into education in order to help people understand the severity of the situation. Thank you for your very well articulated reflection and for summarizing by re-addressing the wicked problem, very well said!

Nadia Mahmoudi

In my view, the topic of “clean energy” is inspiring as it brings hope to our unsustainable lifestyle. I enjoyed how she was presenting this topic for us as if it was her own favorite subject as well. It sounded very motivating. She had a good and transparent discussion about every form of renewable energy sources in BC, and in Kelowna; I was not entirely familiar with all the potentials in this region.

Energy production has never been my field of study. Still, since I have come to Canada, I am exposed to several discussions and presentations either in IGS-related communities or in my engineering community, and I have concluded that this must be one of the hottest issues in this region.

My supervisor is working on hydrail, so my broadest information is about how hydrogen fuel works. And over time, I have learned that most of the renewable energies are still at the stage of trial and error, and no one has actually come up with an efficient and well-developed production of any form of transporting vehicle with renewable energy. The batteries, the vast storage spaces for supply, controlling the highly explosive nature of hydrogen, and an engine that actually works well with hydrogen fuel, all still are at the theory level.

I was thinking about CNG and LNG that we discussed in our class in this session. Yesterday I came across with this sentence in a book:

W. McDonough and M. Braungart: “if a car is heading south, slowing down does not cause it to head north. Sooner or later, you need to turn the car around 180 degrees. No matter how “less Bad” you are, it will not make you good.”

It is not like I do not appreciate it; I myself used to have a CNG car back in Iran. But the truth is that I never felt good about it, I was just feeling less harmful to the world.

Janice's talk was very inspiring; because when people see success in a field, it is their natural subconscious reaction that "why other problems cannot be solved? we can do this." However, I believe that many important parts were left unmentioned, it was mostly a managerial presentation, about the potentials, the costs, and what has been done. It was not something comprehensive that covers all parts of technical aspects; also, the efficiency part was overlooked, and other environmental impacts of using these clean energy was not mentioned. Despite not meeting my expectations for the “knowledge mobilization” part of the class, Janice's talk, overall, was great, and all in all, I believe that inspiring people is the best part of team building towards a major goal for our future community.

Amarpreet Kaur

Hi Nadia,

I agree with the sentence “if a car is heading south, slowing down does not cause it to head north. Sooner or later, you need to turn the car around 180 degrees. No matter how “less Bad” you are, it will not make you good.” that sooner or later we have to come up with a more sustainable and efficient fuel system. Moreover, be it a CNG, Petroleum or coal driven system, everything will finish one day, so its totally on us that weather we want to go upto that extent of finishing them or use them efficiently and save something for future generations.

Amarpreet Kaur

The last session with Janice Larson, was very knowledgeable as it exhibited multiple energy production techniques used in BC. I thoroughly enjoyed the session and found it more engineering oriented. The topic that attracted me the most was the GHG emissions by transportation, as it was one of the major factor which nearly produces 36% of green house gases. I am really surprised living in a developed nation with ample technology and awareness we emit more GHGs in transportation rather than in producing the energy. On the contrary, in most of the developing nations the major contributor to GHG emissions is the process of generating energy but in our case, it seems the people are not responsibly aware in using the transportation. A lot of initiatives are taken by the government to make people aware like using public transport, bicycles for short distances and car pooling etc. Perhaps, looking at such high percentage of GHG emissions it seems we lack in some personal responsibility.

Additionally, I also think that inclining more toward producing energy from natural gas will not lead us to a sustainable and equitable state. The idea given by Janice of using the natural gas might reduce our monetary expenditure but it also accompanies certain negative impacts. As we know that natural gas is a non-renewable source of energy, it is a great probability that one day we will run out of it. Moreover, burning natural gas produced Carbon Dioxide, also as Janice mentioned that many indigenous communities are not receiving the benefits of renewable energy and still rely solely on locally generated electricity that comes from diesel powered generators. These fuels release Greenhouse gases which are one of the main contributor to climate change.

To mitigate these issues, government need to come up with certain policies through which they can make people more aware of their responsibilities and shifting more toward public transport rather than using their personal vehicles. Further, imposing carbon taxes will also help in limiting the use of carbon based fuels and providing indigenous communities with energy produced from renewable resources will further reduce the GHG emissions and also help to achieve the sustainable state.   

Nadia

Amarpreet,

I totally agree with you that people unfortunately do not feel responsible for these emissions, and the majority of them prefer to stay in their own comfort zone as long as they can.

about CNG, I also think you are right. CNG is both non-renewable energy and produces undesirable emissions, though it is a cleaner fuel...

I do not think that we should put the onus of solving every problem on the governments, everyone can lead by example. the higher demand in public transportation, or biking, results in increasing in the supply. however, I do agree with you that the governments are not doing very well in addressing this problem. as long as they care about their profit instead on addressing the problem, they do not seem to be able to solve this issue.