The Green Life



  • Catherine Porter, an environment reporter for The Star, has long thought of herself as green. She composted years before the city's green bins. Her one-year-old is the only baby at childcare in cloth diapers. And she bikes to work most frost-free days. What a shock then, to learn last spring that her eco-footprint spanned 6.6 hectares - enough to cover Nathan Phillips Squares plus three downtown city blocks. Since then, she's been on a mission to bind her feet...


    Peter Gorrie can't remember a time he wasn't fascinated by the environment and he's been reporting on it, off and on, for more than 20 years. Over that time, one conclusion stands out: Less is more. Conservation is the answer to just about every environmental question. That's why, apart from speed and convenience, he's a year-round bike commuter and is working, and spending, hard to shrink his energy bill. He does, however, burn up a few watts communing with a screensaver of his favourite place: in a canoe on a roadless lake in Northern Ontario.

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February 27, 2008

Mr. Bug has no problem with coal

I spent a few days down in West Virginia looking into where we in Ontario get much of our coal. It was eye-opening. If you haven't had time to read the article, then check out the slide-show (same page). It's a Cole's Notes version.

One of the most damaging thing about mountaintop removal coal mining is the valley fills it creates. Basically, they lop the top third of a mountain off and then pitch it all into the valley below.

Some people who live in those valleys are understandably upset about it. And they've started to take the companies, and the government to court -- first for doing it, and then for allowing them to do it.

This has inspired a Pro-Coal group in the area called "Friends of Coal." It's funded by Walker Machinery, a company that's in the business of providing mining equipment -- and fixing it --  for these very mines. The owner of the company, Steve Walker, says the locals opposing the mines "range from uninformed citizens to eco-terrorists." The water coming off these mine sites are "almost completely cleaner than the water that's already there," he says.
And then the biggest threat -- without mining, the state will have to turn to gambling to make money.

His company has funded this ad. It's an enlightening picture of American politics around global warming.

-- Catherine Porter

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Comments

It's hard to believe no one else has commented on this article, though I've thought of it off and and all week and am just getting around to emailing you. I felt sick when I read about the destruction of mountain tops to fuel our society's appetite for energy, even though I've been a Bullfrog Customer for more than a year. Why not give this green electricity producer some coverage and perhaps save a few mountain tops?

My point is that with all the Canadian coal that we ship to Japan and China why can't we ship some of that to the Eastern Canadian power plants and help create jobs.

They close mines in the Maritimes and then buy coal from the States. Why!!!!!!

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