Clay and Wattles

This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet.

-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

The title of this post is one of my favourite sayings. I suspect it is a quote from someone, but I can’t find any references to it. Perhaps it is a Buddhist koan. It is especially apt when the thing you are doing is travelling, especially by inter-city bus.

After spending so much time on the bus (roughly 46 hours) during my trip last week, I’ve learned a bit about how to travel.

Firstly, I should point out why bus travel is among the best long-distance travel alternatives (along with rail, and, for the really patient, walking and cycling). The other alternatives, private automobiles and airplanes, produce vastly more greenhouse gasses per distance travelled under most circumstances (click here for some figures). A compact fuel-efficient car with three passengers may begin to approach the efficiency of bus travel, but most vehicles generate many times more emissions, especially with only one or two passengers. Air travel isn’t even in the same range as other methods of transport, though I was suprised to learn that long-distance international flights generate fewer emissions per unit of distance than shorter domestic flights. This is based on CO2 emissions only and doesn’t consider the other greenhouse impacts of burning aviation fuel high in the atmosphere.

There are many variables and ways to measure, but it seems clear that bus and rail are usually the best environmental choices for long-distance travel. Bus travel has the additional advantage of being cheaper than air, allowing us to work less and find the extra travel time we need. The direct trip costs may not be cheaper than automobile travel, but the overall cost of car ownership is much more. When I mention bus travel, people often balk at taking so long to get to their destination, yet these same people don’t hesitate to travel by car the same distance, generally taking even longer.

Long-Distance Bus Travel Tips

• bring one of those inflatable neck pillows, an eyeshade, and earplugs; an extra pillow or thin blanket may also come in handy
• bring good, healthy food along so you aren’t at the mercy of greasy spoons
• get off the bus for at least a minute or two at every rest stop and stretch
• consider breaking the trip into multiple day-long segments and stay in a hostel, campground, motel, or with friends for the night – it costs more, but might make the trip tolerable and even fun

After proving to myself that taking the bus from Yellowknife to Edmonton is quite practical, I plan to do so for all my southern travel from now on. A lot of northern destinations are only reachable by air, so I may still find myself flying sometimes, but I will take the bus or train whenever possible. This is another example of a lifestyle change that reduces convenience a little, but seems like the only choice.

Our 72-hour whirlwind bus-powered invasion of Alberta was a success. The bus trip wasn’t so bad and we all arrived intact.

The photo at left shows Michael Miltenberger, MLA for Fort Smith, and Doug Ritchie, Ecology North Program Director, holding a copy of the “right to water” resolution passed in the NWT Legislature (that’s me holding up the banner in the background). The photo was taken at the rally we held on the steps of the Alberta Legislature. Members of our group met with the Conservative Environment Minister and members of the Liberal and NDP caucuses. We were surprised and pleased by the number of print, radio, and TV reporters who showed up at the rally. My main contribution was the words I wrote for our marching song (the title was Paul Falvo’s idea):

Let It Flow, Let It Flow, Let It Flow
(to the tune of “Let It Snow, Let it Snow, Let It Snow”)

Oh the tar sand mines are frightful
But that Al Gore’s quite insightful
And since we’ve no place to go
Let It Flow! Let It Flow! Let It Flow!

Athabasca shows signs of stopping
And Mackenzie’s flow is dropping
The spigot’s turned way down low
Let It Flow! Let It Flow! Let It Flow!

If the North doesn’t win this fight
How we’ll hate going out in the stream!
If Alberta can use foresight
All the way north will stay clean!

The land is slowly dying
And, my dears, we’ll soon be crying
But as long as you love us so
Let It Flow! Let It Flow! Let It Flow!

The event was a lot of fun and seemed to have an impact. Thanks are due especially to Doug from Ecology North and Lindsay, Leila, and Meredith from the Prairie Chapter of Sierra Club. Great job, everyone!

Yellowknife activists are hitting the road for World Water Day! In just two hours, I’ll be boarding the Frontier Coach Lines bus for the 23 hour trip to Edmonton, Alberta. I will be joining my wife and daughter and about a dozen others for the trip to Edmonton and a rally at the Alberta Legislature. Ecology North and Sierra Club have jointly organized the trip.

We are specifically trying to draw attention to the implications of Alberta tar sands development for NWT water. Water from the Athabasca River is already being diverted into tar sands mining operations, where four barrels of water are used for every barrel of oil produced. The tailings are stored in enormous ponds which eventually leach toxins into the land and watershed.

We are worried about two problems: 1) the more water used, the less water that flows through our rivers and into our lakes, and 2) the water that does flow may end up poisoned with naphthoic acid, arsenic and other toxic by-products.

The Government of the NWT has also asked Alberta to slow down its use of water for the tar sands. We’ll be adding our voices.

If you are in Edmonton on Thursday, March 22nd, join us at the Legislature at noon. There will also be a film screening that evening at the downtown public library.

Another week, another committee. I am the new chair of the City’s Solid Waste Management Advisory Committee. As always, I’m already impressed by the progress City staff are making – the new user-pay rules have cut down Yellowknife’s solid waste substantially over the last year. Even so, we’ve got lots of room to do even more.

I’m looking forward to the results of the waste stream audit which is coming up soon. I’m sure it will only confirm my suspicions: we are still throwing away enormous quantities of cardboard and organic materials. The committee is working on priorities to help ensure that we target the areas where we can get the biggest improvements during the next couple of years. We also want to specifically try to get the message out to our largest business sources of waste – if only a few more of them started recycling cardboard, for example, we could reduce our total substantially.

For more info about the City’s recycling program, click here. I’m sure I’ll have more to report soon.

Things are moving along well with the Yellowknife Direct Charge Co-op. Our new and highly official Environmental Committee will hold its first meeting this month. We have five keen members and I’m sure I’ll have more to report soon.

As our first initiative, Christa Domchek and I (with the help of her toddling daughter, Juniper) have made three forays down the aisles of the store trying to list all of the organic products the Co-op carries. We’ve discovered a few new and interesting items which will soon appear on a list available at the store’s member services counter. We haven’t quite finished listing (it is quite amazing how many different things are on the shelves), but keep asking for the list so the Co-op will know how keen you are!

Because of the ocean’s inertia, by the time the first signs of [temperature change of the water] are felt, it will be far, far too late to reverse it. If you wish your great-great-grandchildren and those who come after to know the taste of oysters, we need to limit CO2 emissions now.

-Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.

-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Instead of really experiencing the highs and lows, pain and joys, that make up a life, many of us use TV just as we use central heating – to flatten our variations, to maintain a constant “optimal” temperature.

-Bill McKibben, The Age of Missing Information