Your Daily Greens – Bikers vs. Motorists, Cutting the Coal, and Dwindling Aspens

Daily happenings around the GreenSphere (People, Companies & Communities):

Bikers vs. Motorists: The recent death of bicycle courier Darcy Allan Sheppard has refueled the debate – the rights of cyclists verses those of motorists. The Star had a chance to interview Const. Hugh Smith, who helped in founding the Toronto police bicycle units back in 1989. He makes two noteworthy statements, including that cyclists have the right to an entire lane, and that rolling stops are allowed. Where was he during Bike Blitz week?

If somebody comes up… they’ve almost stopped, they’ve checked, they’ve looked, and they go through, that’s not the type of cyclist that we’re giving failing-to-stop tickets to; we’re giving them to the ones who are blatantly going through, who are coming and saying… “I’m beating the vehicles. I know they’ve got to stop but I don’t.” -Const. Smith

Cutting the Coal: Remember when Premier Dalton McGuinty promised to shut down coal power plants by 2007? Better late than never. Ontario Power Generation is now preparing to close four coal-fueled power units in 2010. This will put Ontario on the map as one of the first jurisdictions in the world to eliminate coal-fired electricity generation. The impact of Ontario’s coal closure plan will reduce Ontario’s carbon dioxide emissions by up to 30 megatonnes, the equivalent to taking almost 7 million cars off the roads.

Alberta Clipper: Enbridge is up against a legal roadblock in its plans to transport bitumen from oilsands in Canada via the Alberta Clipper pipeline to Superior, Wisconsin for refining. The legal firm EarthJustice, representing environmental and native groups, is challenging the $1.2 billion U.S. State Department approved project. They allege that correct analysis and assessment of environmental impacts was not carried out and that the pipeline goes against public interest.

Dwindling Aspens: The landscape across the American West is changing due to the die-off of the beautiful, iconic Aspen tree. The effects will especially be noticeable in the autumn, when the bright, golden-coloured, spade-shaped leaves will be sadly missed. Some experts are pointing a finger at climate change as the culprit for this disturbing trend and predict an almost total disappearance of the tree by the turn of the century. It’s not unlike the scourge of the pine beetle which killed off millions of acres of trees in the same areas – a disaster also linked to warming temperatures since very cold winters are needed to kill the bugs. The fallout of the dying aspens would hurt many industries, from tourism to sawmills.

Tagged as: Bicycle, Climate, Coal, Cycling, Environment, Oilsands, Power, Trees, Wilderness