28 | August | 2008 | Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist

Making buildings more environmentally friendly is the easiest and most effective way to cut climate-changing carbon emissions, often slashing energy costs by up to 70 percent.

So why isn’t there a massive effort to “green up” existing buildings and set green standards for all new construction?

Apparently energy costs aren’t high enough. And then there are multi-billion-dollar government subsidies paid to the energy sector to lower the actual cost of energy, tilting the market away from green buildings towards the cheapest built structures.

FACT: The most efficient buildings today use about 70 percent less energy than conventional properties.

Despite proven environmental, economic and health benefits of green buildings they only account for 2% of all new commercial buildings and even smaller percentage of new homes.

See full article:

Cut Energy Costs 70%: Save Money, Live Better, Help the Climate

A new multi-million government PR campaign claims Canada is a “clean energy superpower“. Meanwhile oil production from Canada’s oil sands — the world’s dirtiest oil — is ramping up from 1.2 million barrels a day to 3.5 million. Sadly yet another example of a government resorting to the “big lie”.

By the way virtually all of this oil goes to the US market.

I wrote a series of investigative articles for IPS on the enormous environmental impacts of Canada’s oil sands in 2006. That series has been updated and collected into an e-Book format (download for free).

Here’s an excerpt from Oil Stains in the Boreal Forest: The Environmental Cost of Canada’s Oil Sands

THE ‘RECIPE’ TO MAKE A TANK (75 litres/20 gallons) OF OIL SANDS GASOLINE :

* Dig up two tonnes of earth and rock
* Burn up to 1500 cubic feet of natural gas to boil approx 700 litres of fresh water to process the dirt
* Throw away 950 litres of toxic mine tailings and emit 480 kilograms of CO2, the main greenhouse gas causing global warming

REPEAT 1.2 million times a day (one barrel of oil makes about 75 litres of gasoline)

Note: this analysis does not include local air pollution, impacts on wildlife and local people from oil sands operations and pipelines.