2:00 a.m. - 2003-07-25
Air Time
I just finished my exercises - not really an issue most of the time. The difference today is that I hadn't risked it for the past two days, because of air the quality here. A combination of very hot weather, a high pollution index, and several very large forest fires sending palls of smoke this way, just made it too dangerous to attempt. I have asthma, but I can control the effects most times with different herbal medicines that haven't produced any noticable side effects to date. I don't use the presciption type meds, because they cause heart palpitations and high blood pressure, among other wonderful things. The last two days though, nothing I used helped my breathing. I struggled with both coughing and wheezing for fairly long stretches of time each day.
It may seem odd, but people in Alberta have one of the highest levels of respiratory illness in North America. The official line is that no one understands the "why". Maybe that's because of a refusal to measure for certain things in the air quality index. For one thing Alberta, oil rich province though it is, accounts for nearly 80% of all coal generated power used in Canada. Why? Because it underlies such large parts of the province not far under the surface. It's cheap fuel. In fact there's one coal seam that's been burning underground around the Red Deer area for decades and the deposit is so big it will likely continue for the foreseeable future. No big deal - there's lots more where that came from. Right?
Now, long term longitudinal studies in areas like England clearly demonstrate the incredible damage particulate air-borne matter from burning coal has on the human body. However, our provincial government and the industry in question claim that their new technologies make those issues obsolete. Uh huh. They are so enamoured of the economics of coal power, that last week the provincial government shut down and shut in nearly 1000 clean burning gas producing wells near Fort McMurray so that it wouldn't interfere with the extraction of huge bitumen reserves (also a fancy name for a certain grade of coal - one that produces coalbed methane, I think)from the oilsands project that it has a fairly large stake in. Now the planning for this turn of events has been going on for at least three years, so of course the issue of pollution measurement is a touchy one. It explains more about the provincial government's stand on the Kyoto Protocol than anything else. Why? Well one of the key benchmarks for measuring pollution levels is the presence of methane.
Next up for pollution in Alberta? Sour gas - meaning gas with high levels of sulphur as part of its composition - and recent changes to provincial legislation for its control and extraction. Now gas plants have to be able to extract very high percentages of that substance from the raw gas before it is sent to market - that part is very stringently regulated. There was a Bill 5 that was brought into effect last year that was supposed to reduce H2S pollution at the wellhead significantly by curtailing or ending the practice of "flaring" the gas to burn off the sulphur which of course releases it directly into our air. Great - right? Well at the workshop I attended on the Kyoto Protocol at our university last year, the scientists presenting on air pollution conceded yes, that the bill did stop flaring as a source of pollution. However, new regulations opened up the opportunity to "vent" the sulphur from the wellhead instead. They stated that measurements of sulphur from "flaring" had decreased by X%, but the measurements of sulphur released into the air from venting not only replaced that number but increased it by a significant percent.
Now why is sulphur in the air a problem? Well, I was given the opportunity to visit a sour gas plant with a group I was working with. When we arrived we were all given special protective suits to wear - we looked like astronauts. WE were each issued an alarm. When one of the other staff asked what it's purpose was - our tour guide told us it would go off if there was a release of sour gas in the plant. He said we would then have three seconds to get out of the building or the sulphur would kill us. There was a death of one oil rig worker just recently from just such an accident.
So why does our government agree to allow this type of risky use of power sources when we have so much wind, solar, water and clean gas and oil to draw from? Just synchronicity of course, but one of my e-newsletters "Forgotten History" featured an article by a British journalist (BBC and The Observer)on the shenanigans that were and are occurring in Alaska right now. Doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between our provincial government's ethics and those of the US congress.
One can find the article on the journalist's website www.gregpalast.com, under the title Valdez. What was equally interesting to me was an article he had written on the automation of the vote in the US with respect to the last presidential election in 2000 and how it was used in Florida. Being a Returning Officer in Canada, I was quite concerned to learn what had gone wrong. I'm almost sorry I opened up that can of worms. Voter's Lists are very difficult to keep up to date and clean because of the high mobility of our citizens. What I read combined with Alvin Toffler's commentary in "The Third Wave", is enough to make me want to be even more cautious about ever endorsing an automated voting process. The one good thing I can say about stumbling onto his website tonight was that it made me forget about not being able to catch my breath for a while - I didn't have any left once I finished reading his articles.
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