Feeling gassy?

You’ve heard this: We are all hothouse tomatoes, trapped under invisible, gaseous glass and if we don’t stay green we’re going to go overripe faster than you can say ketchup. What’s more, you’re probably aware that the invisible gases fuelling our environmental woes are being tackled with emissions standards, cap-and-trade carbon credits and carbon taxes.

So, since you know all of that, a few simple questions: Do you really know what a greenhouse gas is?

Can you name one? Two? Six? Do you know when and where you produce them?

Well, if you can’t, have no fear; Flow is here to give you the basic whats and wheres of greenhouse gases. After all, they’re as tricky as substances can be. For one, they’re all invisible.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the four primary greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol are carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and ozone (144KB PDF), with each of them assigned a numeric “Global Warming Potential” (GWT) value. The remaining three, all man-made, are sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons.

Below are a few examples of where your actions may have produced some of these tomato-shriveling gases.

Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Where: Your soda
Car exhaust, feedlots, industrial pollution, fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is the dominant greenhouse gas for a reason—it’s in almost everything we burn, and it’s what we exhale. It’s so common, and because it’s impractical to suggest we all stop breathing, for now let’s concentrate on the C02 that makes those little fizzing bubbles in our Mountain Dew.

Nitrous oxide (N2O)
Where: Your steak
Before your sirloin was medium-rare, it was so rare that it walked, mooed and produced nitrogen-rich manure. Vegetarians aren’t off the hook either, especially if the plants they eat were grown with nitrous fertilizers. If there’s a plus side to animal waste, though, it’s that it doesn’t need to be wasted.

Methane (CH4)
Where: Your trash
Along with CO2, methane is one of the two gases found in “landfill gas”, which smells as appetizing as it sounds. But new energy techniques are trapping this noxious gas and turning it into viable fuel that, when burned, leaves only CO2.

Ozone (O3)
Where: Your car
In fairness to your car, ozone pollution isn’t all its fault. But when its exhaust comes in contact with so-called “volatile organic compounds” in the air, ground-level ozone is created. And while Canadians may be committed to stopping the depletion of the ozone layer, those added ozone gases aren’t helping.

Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)
Where: Your magic
As far as direct contributions, you’re probably safe here. Short of the electrical industry, which uses the gas to insulate high voltage circuit breakers, the closest you’re likely to come to releasing sulfur hexafluoride is when you decide to wow your friends with your incredibly low voice and magical powers. But while you might not be a burgeoning magician, you certainly do use the magic of electricity every day.

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
Where: Your cold air
What would summer be without the comforting cold of an air conditioner? Well, for starters, it would see a lot fewer HFCs, which are used in air conditioning units. And before you rush off for your backup popsicle, just remember that your freezer is chock full of HFCs too.

Perfluorocarbons (PFCs)
Where: Your foil
If you’re a fencer and read “foil” with horror, relax: This is the kind of foil that wraps up leftovers, not competitions. PFCs are released during the process of turning alumina into aluminum, a metal you’ve used if you’ve ever had brisket left over to wrap up or used virtually any other modern metal convenience.

Seven greenhouse gases and seven familiar ways we generate them in our daily lives. Their effects are varied, but in addition to their eponymous greenhouse effect, they’re also known to increase the acidity of our oceans. And since the gases clearly aren’t just generated in the limited fields of soda, magic or food wrappings, it’s important to understand exactly how and where they are produced, and how the industries responsible for generating greenhouse gases are dealing with them.

It’s always better to understand the ways your energy use affects the world you live, because even if you’re behind on your reading there’s always time to “ketchup”.

Canada’s carbon tax could come in either red or Green

Sufferers of colour blindness can be excused for a long, hard blink at a pair of proposals announced this week. Not only are they both ostensibly revenue-neutral carbon taxes designed to add a tangible cost to greenhouse gas emissions, but one is red and the other is Green.

While Liberal leader Stephane Dion made his announcement of the Liberal’s carbon tax plan, The Green Party unveiled its own version two days beforehand. Both, interestingly, are variants of the title “Green Shift” (Liberal: “The Green Shift,” Green: “Green Tax Shift”). (Given the Conservative offensive against the still-nascent plan, is it any wonder the Liberals were less inclined to include the term “tax”?

Now, for those of you with the ability to distinguish between red and green claims: can you tell the difference?

Red (1 MB PDF)

• Revenue-neutral
• $10 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions
• $15 billion in revenue
• Rural Canadians receive an annual “Green Rural Credit” of $150
• No increase on the price in fuel (in the first year)
• Lowering the lowest tax bracket’s taxation from 15 per cent to 13.5 per cent

Green

• Revenue-neutral
• $50 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions
• $40 billion in revenue
• Lower income Canadians receive “carbon tax rebates” modeled after GST rebates
• Fuel prices will increase
• Lowering the lowest tax brackets’ taxation from 15.5 per cent to 15 per cent (oddly, the Canadian Revenue Agency already posts the bracket’s rate at 15 per cent)

Get on the bus, Gus’

As the summer travel season gears up, Canada’s motor coach companies (“buses,” for those of us who aren’t up on current four-wheel lingo) want to remind you that buses are as cheap and environmentally friendly as splitting a sundae with Elizabeth May. (It isn’t their chosen metaphor, but May definitely does make those glasses work for her, doesn’t she?)

Noting that a long-distance bus ride uses about one quarter as much fuel as the same trip alone in a car, Motor Coach Canada may be making a sales pitch with a bit of green gloss but there’s no denying that when it comes to fuel efficiency it’s the more the merrier. And it doesn’t take a trip to from Sooke to Cape Breton to reap the benefits of economy either.

According to Resource Canada, “a single city bus can take 40 vehicles off the road, save 10,646 litres of fuel, and reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 25 tonnes.” What’s more, Calgary has already bolstered the existing economy of their transit fleets with green power for their rail transit. But wind power or no, transit remains a common sense environmental pitch that bears repeating: ride with a friend.

Elizabeth, call me.

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