Rock stars do it. Movie stars too. And now the Canadian government is jumping on the “carbon footprint” bandwagon, funding greenhouse-gas reductions to offset the environmental impact of its work on the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced today that Ottawa will spend $150,000 on activities to offset the estimated 7,600 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions created by federal bureaucrats working on the Olympics.
"Canada is proud to be the first host country in history to help offset the greenhouse gas emissions of its Olympic Games," Mr. Prentice said in a statement.
The existing scientific consensus holds that a buildup of greenhouse emissions including carbon dioxide – caused by burning fossil fuels – is destabilizing the climate around the Earth; this causes the icepack to melt and contributes to a rise in average temperatures.
Activities by federal public servants that burned fossil fuels include air travel, accommodations and support for the lengthy cross-Canada Olympic torch relay.
The Canadian government said it will use the methodology employed by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games to calculate its "carbon footprint" – how much greenhouse gas that bureaucrats ended up burning.
Ottawa is also is sticking close to home in funding greenhouse-gas emission reduction activities. It plans to use a competitive bidding process to purchase the offsets based on rules it's already developed for trading of such emission reductions.
Environment Canada said some of the measures that could be funded to offset emissions include biomass gasification systems for renewable heat and power production, electricity production from hydrogen fuel cells or high-efficiency commercial building heating.
The federal government is also trumpeting other efforts it's taken to lighten the environment impact of the games, including:
»The roof of the Richmond Oval skating arena is made from recycled wood taken from trees destroyed by pine beetles.
» Federal funding for the Canada Line rapid rail transit system that runs 19 kilometres to downtown Vancouver from the Vancouver airport; this reduces motor vehicle usage on Vancouver's roads.
(Photo: Spectators try to stay dry in rain and fog as they arrive to watch Olympic snowboarding today in Vancouver. Mike Blake/Reuters)
