I worry about public perception

[Dan Andrews]

Battle of the Green Team columnists

Posted By MATTHEW VAN DONGEN AND TIFFANY MAYER

Posted 7 days ago

I won't gloat. Well, not a lot. I mean, I think I'm allowed to enjoy my victory just a little bit.

After all, I have been anointed the greenest of them all -"them" being Matthew Van Dongen, my fellow Green Team columnist.

Last month, he and I set about to test the proclamation by the Ontario Power Authority that women are greener than men, particularly when it comes to electricity conservation.

Matthew and I decided to put this to a more comprehensive test. For the month of November, we took scrupulous measures to track just how much good -or damage -we were doing to the planet.

We logged how long we showered in the morning, our mileage, the food we ate and where it came from, the amount of garbage we chucked and how long we left the lights on. Then we handed off our data to the green minds at Zerofootprint, a group promoting the low-carbon lifestyle, to determine a winner in our eco-battle of the sexes.

Turns out Matthew is spewing more than 11 tonnes of greenhouse gas, on average, into the atmosphere each year. Me, I'm just over 8.5 tonnes. The average Canadian generates 9.8 tonnes.

Despite some scares along the way -I discovered my cat Otis adds half a tonne of greenhouse gases to my emissions count, thanks to a healthy appetite for meat -I can't really say I'm surprised I won.

But Graham Takata, Zerofootprint's manager of climate change services, wasn't about to chalk it up to gender. Instead, he attributed it to Matthew's odometer. My fellow Green Teammate is a serial commuter.

"I don't really think there's much of a gender difference here, just more of a lifestyle difference," Takata said.

So while Takata isn't saying we have another point in our favour in the perennial battle of the sexes - sorry girls, I tried -what he is saying is this: I am the winner.

Here's a breakdown of how I kicked Matthew's green (but not as green as mine) butt.

Battle diet: Matthew's view

As an unrepentant carnivore, I feared battling Tiffany the vegetarian in our carbon countdown.

Mouth-watering meat simply makes more greenhouse gases than supposedly luscious lentils. My burger-to-be eats more, spends more time in trucks and passes a surprising amount of methane gas.

I figured this simple fact would drive a steak through my chances. Cook my goose. You get the picture.

Luckily, the chow-down showdown was actually between me and her three greedy felines.

Turns out I have "a similar meat uptake" to Sonny, Maya and Otis combined, according to Zerofootprint's calculations.

"Three cats can eat a lot of meat," said Takata, who labelled me a "moderate" meat eater for a human. "If you made the choice to eat more local produce and organic produce, you could actually tip the scales in your favour."

As it stands, my eating habits still created an estimated one tonne of additional greenhouse gases compared with my competitor.

In addition to skipping the chicken wings, Tiffany gets virtually all her veggies from local farmer Linda Crago. Of her regular groceries, including soups, cereals and dairy, at least half were organic or from Ontario.

She rarely eats fast food.

Only Tiffany's carnivorous kitties stopped this mismatched battle from turning into a slaughter.

Still, Takata offered me a small moral victory.

"It's not essential to be a vegetarian to be a low-carbon person," he said consolingly.

It sure helps, of course. But buying local and/or organic "is the No. 1 diet choice people can make to reduce their carbon footprint," Takata said.

Why? Transporting and packaging far-away goods requires huge amounts of energy. Organic foods eliminate the eco-impact of pesticides.

This gives me hope.

I've recently begun buying beef from Rowe Farms, which sells meat only from local, veggie-fed cows. The company can tell you where in southern Ontario your steak grew up, and guarantees it's free of antibiotics, growth hormones and pesticides.

This doesn't include my six fast-food burgers last month, of course. Or the sliced sandwich meat I love so much.

Temptations of the flesh aside, Takata said I could noticeably improve my dietary carbon count by simply searching for more Ontario fruit and organic veggies in my grocery store.

I will. Also, Tiffany is getting two new cats for Christmas.

Battle travel: Tiffany's view

I'm feeling slightly guilty about this one.

I normally clock about 2,000 klicks

a month in my small, fuel-efficient car. Last month, though, I racked up only 1,500.

So, why the guilt? November maybe wasn't the most accurate example of my habits and gave me an unfair edge over Matthew.

Those 500 kilometres I shaved from my travels also came at my mom's expense. I didn't make the trip home to Waterloo once last month to see her. Believe me, guilt abounds.

But back to the real culprit here. Matthew's recent move down the QEW gives him a 100-kilometre round trip to work each day, adding two extra tonnes of greenhouse gas to his tab.

Admittedly, I'm no innocent, either. My drive is roughly half that.

"You can, of course, drive less, car pool, things that can really bring down your carbon impact," Takata suggested.

Tough to do in this job, but something I'm trying to be more mindful of outside of work.

I also wouldn't be feeling quite as smug about my victory had we done the tally of our travels in September. If we had, I would still be green, but this time with envy, because Matthew would have been deemed the more true blue of us Green Teamers.

That month, I hitched a ride aboard a carbon dioxide-spewing jumbo jet to visit family in Germany. And while there, I decided to go to Turkey.

Just another three hours by plane on a one-way ticket to environmental purgatory.

"Flying is something that really bumps up the carbon impact of the individual," Takata said.

You're telling me. My trans- Atlantic travels bump up my emissions this year by more than five tonnes. Yikes.

Though the science is "laborious," Takata simplified why air travel is so hard on the planet.

Its high fuel use at high altitude has greater impact than spewing greenhouse gases at ground level because the carbon dioxide is being emitted closer to where it can do the most harm.

Battle energy: Matthew's view

Apartment dwellers have it easy when it comes to power conservation. Maybe too easy.

Most apartments use less energy for heat and illumination than most houses, said Takata.

Tiffany and I scored identical greenhouse gas estimates for energy use, about 1.8 tonnes each. I found this particularly satisfying, since our battle was prompted by the suggestion women were better conservers than men.

Both of us have replaced old incandescent light with energy-efficient bulbs. We try not to leave unnecessary lights on and don't often use many power-sucking appliances.

But otherwise, our efforts are tough to quantify.

Renters can't replace their landlord's furnace, or upgrade the communal dryer to Energy Star quality. It's also tough to track power usage if you never get a bill for heat or electricity.

What we can control, said Takata, is timing.

"If you power up at off-peak times, you can make a big difference," he said. Doing laundry or using the stove when everyone else is likely doing the same often means powering up coal-fired power plants.

"When you use power at peak times, it's dirtier power," he said.

We can also turn down the heat at night, or when we leave the house, Takata added.

For homeowners, climbing energy bills are often enough of a shock to promote conservation.

Horizon Utilities will give St. Catharines customers more incentives to save when it begins installing Smart Meters in the Garden City next year.

The meters will give homeowners hour-by-hour details about their electricity use on the Internet.

That sort of tracking ability is key for would-be carbon counters, said Takata.

Zerofootprint's speciality is software allowing cities, businesses and individuals to track their carbon footprint.

"It's all about measurement, so you can set goals," he said. "Do you wonder if buying more local vegetables will make an actual difference in your carbon footprint? Now you can find out."

Battle garbage: Tiffany's view I can't really trash-talk Matthew

on this one.

Being apartment dwellers, we both

live life void of one important diversion option: The green bin.

Had either one of us had that option, all my Swiss chard stems and Matthew's fast-food scraps could have found their way into the compost heap instead of the landfill.

We were pretty evenly matched as far as what we tossed out last month. I chucked 38 pounds of trash, with the help of my partner. Matthew sent 34 pounds of garbage to the curb, with the help of his.

A trusty green bin would have seen those numbers fractioned and the competition stiffened.

But where I edged him out was with recycling. Good thing, since I'm known around the newsroom as the recycling Nazi. This could have been embarassing.

I diverted 17.4 pounds into the communal recycling bins at my building. Matthew filled about two blue boxes and one grey bin each week.

All is not wasted, though.

I moved this month, which means I am now a green bin user. No more kale stalks and potato peels in the trash for me.

So bring on those two cats, Van Dongen.

Article ID# 1358187

[Dan Andrews]

Here's my reply:

Re: Battle of the Green Team columnists

By MATTHEW VAN DONGEN AND TIFFANY MAYER

Mon Dec 22nd 2008

Matthew Van Dongen does not have to give up meat to reduce his carbon footprint. If Matthew takes up hunting to satisfy his carnivorous cravings, he would spend more time enjoying the environment he is trying to conserve. Locally grown wildlife is not raised on grains, antibiotics or hormones. Ironically enough, it was a local animal rights activist who told me, "that by hunting, one is obtaining the ultimate in free range meat".

If Matthew takes the Ontario hunter education program (www.ohep.net) and purchases licences and tags, he will help fund the Ministry of Natural Resources, who maintain the quality of our natural heritage. This would be a great fit for Matthew because outdoorsmen tend to protect their interests. A hunter's greatest assets are large tracks of undeveloped land, healthy environment and a balanced population of wildlife. We are actually contributing to the environment by harvesting deer because deer are detrimental to their habitat when their numbers get too high as they are in Niagara.

Having Matthew as a hunter could also reduce Tiffany's carbon footprint. Tiffany is concerned that her cats eat allot of meat. If for environmental reasons (pollution), Matthew chooses not to eat the heart, liver and kidneys of his deer, combined with the small amount of trimming from the bones; Tiffany's cats could be enjoying a locally grown, free range diet of meat for awhile. Matthew may be a better hunter than I, and if he is, he'll surely be a well nourished meat eater. Perhaps instead of an eco battle, the green team should form a partnership because there is no I in team and hunting is green.

Dan Andrews

Fort Erie

[Dan Andrews]

Well they haven't printed it yet. Probably won't either.

[hammercarp]

Good stuff Dan.

Your reply made me think about hunting and the enviroment and I remembered when Greenpeace started out they were not anti-hunting because of the same sort of things you have stated in your reply. Hunters and fishermen were the first conservationists and still are.

[AwolRJ]

Good response Dan!

I think they should go worry about Countries that actually need help! This is Canada 95 percent of the land is still pretty much untouched, Everyone lives pretty much within 100 miles of the U.S border farther north you go less and less people and less cities! Maybe all the PETA people should get on a boat and go save China, they need the help more then us! Maybe they can prevent some of these Invasive Species, that all seem to be coming from over there! I think the majority of PETA is armchair quarterbacks, they have a few crazy individuals that actually do something. Rest are all talk.

I hope they know when they are buying there vegitarian food and stuff that there money is printed off tree's, and there food is fertilized with animal waste!

[Dan Andrews]

Well in the case of the green team and other environmentalists who have chosen vegan, they claim that meat is environmentally unfriendly. Well they're generalizing meat. I agree with them in part on the farmed meat but not all meat causes pollution like in our hunters case, we actually contribute against pollution or environmental damage.

The reason I get concerned about public perception is because the no meat people are getting all the airtime and withholding info or misleading the public. They're now deeply ingrained in the media and letters like mine won't get printed anymore. Doug Draper is another. He works in the editorial department and no longer supports hunting and actually quotes guys like Dan Wilson.

Thank God we have guys like Al Oleksuik. Having John Kerr move to OOD magazine is a big loss in my eyes. Now he's preaching to the converted. At least before he was educating Toronto. There's a city that needs both sides of the story.

Perhaps I've just exceeded my airtime and its another hunters turn. Feel free to hijack my material anytime. Some of the ARA's like Catharine Ens just use a different name every time they send a letter. Maybe I should try again but with another name, same phone number.

[kevin]

I fart more when I eat vegetables, so I'll stick to venison.........in turn, lowering my methane emissions.

[smerchly]

Don't ever think the "media" will print ,televise or radio an unbiased report . They go with the dollars & "popular viewpoint" to suit their own interests . All this crap about green this & smart that , saving the planet , and "carbon foot prints " ...really makes me laugh . Simply put....they want more money from you & I ....period ! There are much greater " carbonites " out there that pollute this planet a million times over what we, as individuals contribute to the so called global warming etc -etc . The biggest one is world trade which involves thousands of ships spewing fumes from burning tons of oil each trip across the big pond & then the millions of trucks burning more fuel to get all those goods to our stores .But ,we don't seem to mind.....I am simply ignoring all this crap !

Not to mention what big industries or how some countries rid of their crap..........e.g.....

[smerchly]

todays sun ...Jan .2/09...... hunting for sport & food mentioned.......

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/editoria...898351-sun.html

[bigugli]

Another typical ranting editorial of "I have the solution to all the world's woes, and the rest of the world are idiots".

Neat pic of the dredger Bill. The ship is clearing the ship channel so the super tankers can get to port. That sediment cloud will choke off fishing for the next 5 years in a 10 mile radius as the sediment buries the plant life.

[Dan Andrews]

The headline just mixed up the words a bit.

What it was really supposed to say was:

PAUL BERTON, what a stupid Man

[Dan Andrews]

Also I was surprised to see snapping turtle mentioned in the endangered species list. There is no shortage of these here and if you can find a pond without one, its probably been well poached by the Asian black market. I searched the list and snapping turtle was not mentioned as extirpated, endangered, threatened or special concern. Here's a link to their status http://nhic.mnr.gov.on.ca/MNR/nhic/element...cfm?elid=180745

Poaching is definitely not hunting and the black market trade of wild creatures should not be included in the same story as animal management.

I'm getting madder by the minute after reading this boobs write up. I'm very disappointed that the Sun bothered to publish it. This is exactly the kind of airtime these morons are getting and changing public perception of hunting. Why do we need to constantly set the record straight?