Prime Minister Stephen Harper's insistence that the torture of prisoners Canada hands over to Afghan authorities is a problem for Afghanistan, not Canada, calls to mind Tom Leher's lyric about rocket scientist Wernher von Braun's apparent indifference to the consequences of his work on Germany's World War II V2 rocket: Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? 'That's not my department', says Wernher von Braun. In fact, as Bob Rae points out in the same Globe and Mail article, transferring prisoners with the expectation they may be tortured is a violation of the Geneva Conventions - a war crime,...

23 December, 2009

Here's a clever wrinkle:  Nova Scotia Environment estimates that its Power of Green conference tomorrow will have a carbon footprint of about 50 tonnes, but some smart folks in the department's Climate Change Division arranged to offset these notional atmospheric emissions. With money from the Natural Gas Association, they will  convert the Metro Turning Point Shelter to gas heat and replace its residential grade washers and driers with more efficient, commercial units. This will save more than 50 tonnes of carbon annually, cut the shelter's electricity bill in half, and render the conference carbon neutral. As Tom Leher might say,...

20 October, 2009