all about a canadian guy living in canada

John W. Snow: Whine a little more, please.

Someone call the whaaaaaaaaambulance, we’ve got a terminal case in John W. Snow, the chairman of Cerberus Capital Management, the company that’s buying Chrysler. According to him, a Senate bill that would raise the fuel economy standards to 35mpg for cars and light trucks by 2020 is

a set of standards that are so one-sided that they can’t be met and which have the risk of sinking the U.S. auto industry.

Oh do shut up, Mr. Snow. Your industry is slowly killing the environment, and you have the technology to easily meet these goals. Your bad business decisions are sinking the U.S. auto industry. Why is it that Japanese auto manufacturers aren’t crying about this bill? Why just the U.S. auto manufacturers who insist on building gas guzzling Hummers and Escalades instead of pushing hybrids and alternative-fuel vehicles? Maybe you might want to take some lessons from Toyota or Honda on how to run an auto manufacturing company instead of putting your head in the sand and saying “whaa the government is trying to kill us whaa”.

via the new york times

[tags]chrysler, fuel economy, john w snow, automobile industry[/tags]

§433 · July 12, 2007 · Economy, Environment, United States · Comments Off ·

Spot the country…

It’s inflammatory and shocking and gets the point across:

Spot the country that’s got the love affair with SUVs. Spot the country that loves their plastics and doesn’t have very good recycling programs set up. Spot the country that’s in the back pockets of the oil and automobile companies. Spot the country that’s killing the planet in more ways than one.

Via duran.

[tags]gasoline, petrol, oil, environment[/tags]

§431 · July 11, 2007 · Environment · Comments Off ·

Ahoy me hearties!

Avast! Thar be a booby trap in Veggie Booty! Stay away or be sent to Davy Jones’ Locker! Arrgh!

§429 · July 1, 2007 · Environment · Comments Off ·

DON’T BELIEVE THEIR LIES

Together we can save millions of gallons of water from chlorine and detergents.

You Decide

Leave towels you wish to re-use hung up or on the rack.

Towels you leave on the floor will be washed.

Conservation takes care of everyone.

Help us make a world of difference.

This sort of thing is all the rage in hotels these days. Go to almost any chain hotel and you’ll see a card hanging from the towel rack asking you to help the hotel save water and energy. The above words came from the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Tucson, Arizona.

I like to conserve water. I hung my towels over the shower curtain rod every morning after having a shower.

But when I went to have a shower the next day the towel seemed different.

So I tested them. One morning after having my shower I marked the tag on the towel I’d just used with a pen. Hung it up from the shower rack and went on my way.

When I got back from the conference that night I checked the towels. None of them had the mark!

I wrote “DON’T BELIEVE THEIR LIES” on the back of the card.

[tags]hotel, sheraton, conservation, environment[/tags]

§417 · June 11, 2007 · Economy, Environment · 1 comment ·

Why NASA Administrator Mike Griffin is a bonehead.

Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer has a good rant on why NASA Administrator Mike Griffin’s comments on global warming are nonsense and ridiculous:

Mr. Griffin seems to be implying that we should throw the dice and see what happens. He is definitely saying that we cannot say for sure if we should do anything or not. That’s utter nonsense. That’s like saying that I am healthy, but maybe sticking a knife randomly in my body and twisting it around might improve something somewhere.

§415 · June 1, 2007 · Environment · Comments Off ·

Fewer seals to kill, fewer seals to hunt. Thanks global warming!

For the longest time animal rights activists have been trying to get the Canadian government to shut down or greatly diminish the yearly seal hunt off the east coast of Canada. The seal hunt used to be a marvel of brutality, with hunters skinning seals alive or killing them before they were weaned from their mothers. It’s recently become a little less brutal, with regulations and guidelines about when seals can be killed. There’s also a yearly quota set by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

It looks like animal rights activists might be getting their wish, as the DFO reduced 2007′s quota by 65000 to 270000, a drop of nearly 20%. Why?

Not because of anything the animal rights activists did, but because of something we all contributed to: global warming.

Baby seals can’t swim very well. They’re essentially tubes of blubber for the first two to three weeks of their life. If they fall off the ice and into the ocean, they drown.

In 2002 the ice was so thin that about three-quarters of the seal pups drowned. This year’s ice coverage is even worse. In fact, this is the fifth bad year of ice in the past seven.

There aren’t any winners here. Animal rights activists must be saying that this is the wrong way to stop the seal hunt. Seal hunters lose their income and jobs. And worse of all, hundreds of thousands of baby seals drown.

Further information: National Geographic, Washington Post, DFO press release

[tags]seal hunt, canada, global warming[/tags]

§403 · May 2, 2007 · Canada, Environment · 4 comments ·

Top Ten Hurricane Katrina Songs


Before I get started, I’m going to give you the opportunity to duck out right now. I know that some people get offended by gallows humour, and this post is gallows humour. If you read this post and take offence, well, screw you, I warned you.

Right then, let’s get to it.

Top Ten Songs in honour of Hurricane Katrina:

  1. Going Nowhere – Andrea Parker (dedicated to those stuck in gridlock trying to evacuate)
  2. You Could Feel The Sky – Boards Of Canada
  3. Breakin’ Up The House – Colin James and the Little Big Band
  4. Look Happy, It’s The End Of The World – Matthew Good Band
  5. A Common Disaster – Cowboy Junkies
  6. It Can’t Rain All The Time – Jane Siberry
  7. Alert Status Red – Matthew Good
  8. Evacuation – Pearl Jam
  9. When The Levee Breaks – Led Zeppelin
  10. New Orleans Is Sinking – The Tragically Hip

Also, I hear that the mayor of New Orleans has declared a fatwa against Katrina and the Waves.

§110 · August 28, 2005 · Environment, Humour · 43 comments ·

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