Winners & Sinners for Fall 2008

Join the debate! We'd love to know what you think about the issues raised in Winners&Sinners. What's your view of the tar sands? Would buying a bottle of water that uses less plastic make it more attractive to you? Just type your comments below and be part of the dialogue - and the solution! Winners Drink eco responsibly Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and PEI are all phasing out plastic bags in provincial liquor stores. The stores will offer paper bags or a variety of inexpensive reusable bags. Good news since, as everyone ought to know by now, plastic bags are bad. They're mostly manufactured using petroleum byproducts and they'll be around long after our grandchildren are gone, since they don't biodegrade. Brown-bagging it has never sounded so good. This definitely computes Dell's Studio Hybrid is the latest example of the company's vanguard efforts to green its wares. The petite PC (about the size of a college dictionary) looks good - we like the bamboo finish - and, even better, it uses up to 70 percent less energy than a typical desktop and is ENERGY STAR 4.0 compliant. The biggest innovation? It comes with a kit that tells you how to recycle it when you're moving on to even greener pastures. Preserve and protect The Nature Conservancy of Canada has committed to protecting 550 square kilometres of remote valleys, mountains and lakes in south-central B.C. The acquisition of the land, known as Darkwoods, is the largest, single, private-conservation project ever undertaken by a Canadian non-profit organization. Darkwoods includes nationally and provincially threatened species. The property was purchased with the support of the Canadian government through the Natural Areas Conservation Program. Sinners Plastic is plastic is plastic Nestlé is promoting its Eco-Shapeâ„¢ water bottle because it uses up to 30 percent less plastic. Whatever. All plastic bottles are a wasteful use of resources (including the water that fills them) and clog up landfills. The average energy cost to produce and ship just one plastic bottle of water equals one-quarter bottle of oil - plus the process creates greenhouse-gas emissions. Meanwhile, we live in a country where, for the most part, tap water is pure and can be consumed in a glass or reusable stainless steel bottle. Let's drink to that. Money isn't necessarily green A study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the richest 10 percent of Canadians create a 66 percent bigger ecological footprint than the average Canadian household. Size Matters: Canada's Ecological Footprint, By Income is the first Canadian study to link national income and consumption patterns with global warming. "All Canadians share responsibility for global warming," says co-author Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence. "But wealthier Canadians are leaving behind a disproportionately larger footprint." Fines are not fine According to ForestEthics, the Alberta government is not enforcing environmental regulations in the tar sands. Oil companies were fined a mere $249,000 in 2006, despite numerous environmental violations. By comparison, library fines for Calgary and Edmonton totalled more than $4-million in the same year. In 2007, the province issued two Environmental Protection Orders against Syncrude and Suncor and one Environmental Enforcement Order against Suncor. Neither was prosecuted or fined.