The Changes

VANOC has worked hard to reduce the emissions associated with the Games. It has worked with the various categories:

World's First, in Electric Cars, eh? Yes, in Vancouver

Who Killed the Electric Car? Well, in Vancouver, a small victory in reviving the electric car happened today!http://www.geocities.com/robert04mat/electric_pickup_truck.html

We've been using revived batteries successfully for electric bikes and scooters. Now, we have a 4-wheel electric vehicle that appears to be the first 4-wheeler to run only off "scrap batteries." By G. Tang and R. Matthies. First successful road run was on February, 2007, in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

This Electric Pickup Truck Runs on Revived Batteries
http://www.geocities.com/robert04mat/electric_pickup_truck.html

Photos of the work, from the start...

http://towing-s15.blogspot.com/

http://electric-pickup.blogspot.com/

Anybody travel in the poorer parts of the world and wonder how they afford costly imported toilet paper? Do some research and share your discovery, too. (I know the answer.)  

 Just a little humour below..

 Funny Picture -- Who Needs Toilet Paper?.

Hi y'all.. manufacturing plastics uses up tons of energy -- just like batteries, as mentioned in my 'change' for 2007. One website states that it takes 50X the energy to make an small non-rechargeable AA battery than the battery actually produces -- not to mention the waste disposal issues. Think of plastic as you would a non-rechargeable battery, then.

I'd going to try to be somewhat "plastic-neutral" by reUSEing my plastic. Everybody here can help become plastic-neutral, too. How? Give my summer school students your **clean** plastic salad boxes, tubes, PVC pipes (from construction renovation), plant pots, shoe boxes, salad spinners, yogurt containers, and any other object that could conceivably made into a musical intrument -- where they will be used to teach inventive, creative, recycling -- at the Sustainable Music Factory. I'll provide drop off locations - school and college locations in Vancouver, West Van, and North Van in a follow up post.

Ironically, our recent wild, windy weather comes from global warming/climate change!

Since BC has some of this planet's best wind resources, why not put it to good use? With wind turbines -- like the ones we helped people make at Science World. You'll also see revived batteries (battery recycling, or rather reUSE) and plastics recycled into toys!

Here's a link to photos..

Today started off with dark skies, and a rainshower. It didn't stop my electric biking, going from Main and Broadway to the St. George's school campus near UBC, travelling along the "spine" of the city, the 37th Avenue bike route, crossing Vancouver's highest points, on a very windy day.

How do I do this, when most cyclists are hiding, waiting for better weather? Its easy. I wear ski goggles to keep the eyeballs from freezing, and a really good $2 face mask (smog mask) sold by Daiso at the Aberdeen Mall in Richmond. I also use a biking rain poncho which is popular in China -- there's a version made locally in Vancouver by the Bike Doctor on Broadway. To prevent cold hands, I wear neoprene gloves used by divers.

I caught onto offsetting carbons a couple of years back and offset my carbons through offsetters.org whenever I travel. In the States expedia.com (I don't know if expedia.ca does this too) allows you to offset carbons when you book a ticket. Fantastic. My wife has just convinced her father who flies weekly to offset his carbons whenever he travels.

It adds a few bucks but is completely worth it.

If anyone is going to fly Westjet, I'd like to encourage them to first go to http://offsetters.ca/ and then link through their site. Basically, Offsetters get rewarded for people visiting Westjet and Offsetters then takes that money and invests in projects that create emission reduction projects. It costs you nothing (NOTHING).. really. Just follow the link. Of course, if you fly another airline, you can also use Offsetters, or Climate Care (UK), or othes....