looking for info

A half hour of google-fu turned up nothing. I heard the same reports, but they never mentioned the source. I heard it on Global, so I extensively checked their sites, and AP, BBC.

Could it have come from the same source of information O'Reilly draws his information from? Just a thought. If it is for real, I'm just as interested to read it as you are Marcarc. Kevin

When I first read about it (this past Wednesday, I think), I looked at several Canadian newspaper Web sites for more information. The article with the most information (which unfortunately still wasn’t all that much) came from the Ottawa <a href="http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/National/2005/10/13/1260340-sun.html">Sun</a>, which mentioned that <a href="http://www.pollutionwatch.org/">Pollution Watch</a> produced the “air pollution report card”, and that the <a href="http://www.cec.org/">Commission for Environmental Coöperation</a> provided the American numbers. The latter organisation seems to be loosely connected to the NAFTA through the <a href="http://www.cec.org/pubs_info_resources/law_treat_agree/naaec/download/Naaec-e.txt">North American Agreement on Environmental Coöperation</a>. I think that the quoted numbers were something like a 1.8% reduction for Canada and a 45% reduction for the USA over the (eight year?) timespan. (I had a look around on the US EPA Web site, and found a spreadsheet that noted that there were a couple of changes in measuring some types of air pollution during that period — I don’t know how much of a rôle that might have played in the level of reported reduction on the American side.)

Iwould suggest that the earlier post saying that it may be "same source of information O'Reilly draws his information from" is most accurate. I cannot belive that ANY industrial nation has or indeed CAN reduce emissions by that much without a major turnaround in the way we do things. It is IMPOSSIBLE that the U.S. has done this at the same time as they reject international accords to meed set gidelines, therfore it MUST be misinformation!!!

I don't think that's true, which is why I"m looking for the study. I'm certainly not going to assume something is wrong simply because of some prior biases. As they mentioned in the story, one of the main reasons for the decline is that the US has essentially moved most of it's industrial base offshore by outsourcing most of its manufacturing. That has been borne out by labour studies which show that the US is, like Canada, essentially an importer of goods and an exporter of services. Many of the main products for export are foodstuffs, which product little in the way of air pollution. Oil, gas and coal are the chief culprits and southern ontario has become more reliant on coal due to problems with nuclear facilities. I'm repeating myself but most states have extensive rebates on ecological products, including renewable energy resources, many of them targetted to the individual's homes, whereas in Canada the government will only support such things if they are grid connected and controlled by the government's energy corporations. Also, under Clinton many environmental incentives and regulations were tightened, and the study may reflect that, and not the more recent gutting by Bush. So there is certainly no reason to discount the study based on bias. Canada has long been the US gas station, and we are well known for being energy pigs. We are not even close to meeting Kyoto standards, so signing the accord really hasn't accomplished much but put more money in PR companies wallets as they advertise on how to get US to reduce greenhouse emissions. It is possible that it's findings are questionable, most studies have some caveats, but I don't find too many reasons to discount it outright. PS: not signing an international accord doesn't surprise me, the US may very well have known what Clinton's reforms and outsourcing would do and they wanted to give americans yet another reason to trust their own government and not international institutions and accords.

[QUOTE]I'm certainly not going to assume something is wrong simply because of some prior biases.[/QUOTE] Now I don't think anyone suggested that <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/wink.gif' alt='Wink'> I was just poking fun at O'Reilly. I won't assume this as wrong either. If you find anything out, please post it here. Thanks! Kevin

Ok, I saw a little hint of this on Gobal tonight. http://www.canada.com/toronto/video/GN051017reeb.html Sorry, no text, just a video link. Basically because of the emergency in the gulf states, power plants can burn coal till their hearts content, limits on gasoline additives that reduce emissions have been lifted. The clean air act may even be suspended in the event of another disaster. The key in the report is that the EPA is changing the way they monitor emissions from power plants. Hourly instead of a once-a-year test. So, by changing the way emissions are calculated, you change the statistics. By increasing coal burning for example, but monitoring more often they'll probabally see a reduction in the average emissions. Can you say "winter Toronto smog alerts"?

That depends on when the yearly test is done. If you are monitoring hourly I would suspect that emissions would actually go up. I didn't watch the newsfeed though, damn realplayer-why is it you need three media players on your computer (plus flash) to see all the video!

[QUOTE by Rural] I cannot belive that ANY industrial nation has or indeed CAN reduce emissions by that much without a major turnaround in the way we do things. It is IMPOSSIBLE that the U.S. has done this at the same time as they reject international accords to meet set guidelines, therfore it MUST be misinformation!!![/QUOTE] But it could be possible that the USA has done this to meet domestic guidelines, e.g. those of the California Air Resources Board. The EPA spreadsheet that I’d mentioned above can be found <a href="http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/2005/pdfs/detailedtable.xls">here</a>. According to it, most of our air pollution is carbon monoxide, and roughly two-thirds of our CO emissions come from highway vehicles. Between 1995 and 2003, the emissions from highway vehicles was reduced from 83.8 million tons to 58.8 million tons. This happened not because of a 30% reduction in our distances driven, but because of the introduction of EPA Tier 1 emission standards (and the more stringent CARB Low Emission Vehicle standards in the states that adhere to CARB) in 1994 — over that eight-year span, older cars were replaced by new cars that emitted far fewer pollutants. The introduction of the next generation of emissions standards, being phased in between 2004 and 2008, promises to reduce emissions even further. I for one look forward to seeing some choice in diesel models here once low-sulfur diesel fuel is mandated nationwide next year. Certainly engines and catalytic converters that function more efficiently are not “major turnarounds” — in the big picture, they’re fruit that are hanging fairly low. However, it’s a reasonable first step, even for treaty-wary nations like my own.

[QUOTE BY= Brother Jonathan]I for one look forward to seeing some choice in diesel models here once low-sulfur diesel fuel is mandated nationwide next year.[/QUOTE] I am considering a Mercedes Smart Roadster as my next car. ~$18,000 CAD. I'd also like to see the Peugeot 406 and 407 models and Ford Focus with a diesel option in Canada. But, I digress . . .

So, to make up for being offtopic, <a href='http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_db/index.cfm?theme=3'>here</a> is an interesting little link. I just wish they would break out CO2 emissions by source. I really would like to verify that autos produce more emissions than industry.

Good link, and the topic just about dead anyway. To break it down even further I got these numbers: Estimated CO2 emissions per megawatt capacity of EBRD-financed power plants over 20 years of full capacity operations Total emissions for a new power plant Coal 159,968 Natural Gas 79,484 Oil 135,188 Diesel 174,061 CO2 (in metric tons) Emissions in lbs. per KW/h power produced Coal 2 Natural gas 1 Oil 1.7 For extraction: 3.1 tons of CO2 per ton of oil 3.7 tons of CO2 per ton of coal 1.85 kg of CO2 per m3 of natural gas This is from the european bank for development and reconstruction and uses numbers for NEW plants, no doubt older ones are far worse. The numbers I got from here: http://www.seen.org/pages/ifis/ebrd/method.shtml So the next thing to be done, which I haven't, is to break down power usage. I seem to remember somewhere that the vast majority of power is used by industry, in southern ontario with all it's auto and manufacturing plants it wouldn't surprise me. In our house we used, if I'm reading my bill correctly, 604 kw/h of power and since a good percentage comes from coal I'd estimate 1208 lbs of CO2. In fact, they should put that on the bill as a motivator to people. However, I would guess that industry uses far more, but I can't remember where I got that info from. I understand that theirs a way to exchange tax credits for pollution points or some such thing, in this it's too bad that we are a single federation since clearly the vast majority of Canada's pollution comes from it's economic engines in Alberta and Ontario. So the rest of the country gets no recompense for their lack of pollution. Although per capita it is no doubt worse in a place like Nova Scotia where most of their power derives from coal (imported).