Them's big boots Jack:
According to the David Suzuki Foundation, Jack Layton and the NDP have spewed the most emissions along their 38,343 km campaign trail, emitting 383 tonnes of carbon up to and including Sept. 30.
The Tories follow a close second, having emitted 317 tonnes along their 43-city tour, and the Liberals came in third at 284 tonnes.
But while the NDP may be the biggest campaign polluter at first glance, they've also committed to spending $60,000 of their election budget on carbon offsets, points out Dale Marshall, spokesman for the Suzuki Foundation.
Similarly, the Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party have pledged to buy carbon offsets or credits to neutralize the emissions produced by plane and bus travel. The Conservatives, meanwhile, are the only party to refrain from offsetting their campaign.
But what's cleaner? To offset longer distances travelled, or to shorten the journey and not offset?
"I'm going to give you a very Canadian answer," Marshall said. "You have to do both. We favour buying high quality offsets, but what we tell everyone is that the first step is to reduce your emissions as much as possible."
I remember some easily dismissed Liberal defences, that said all the criticisms were unfounded, but nobody seemed to care, the optics too delicious. Apparently, the truth of the matter, the Liberals are leaving the smallest footprint, the NDP much larger.
It's a trivial point, but then again is it really? Walk the walk mustache ;)
13 comments:
except Steve that Air Dion spent the first few days of the campaign on the tarmac and it also broke down. If it was available for more of the campaign it's possible he would have flown more to date.
Trivial points, eh?
Ah mark, was waiting for that one. You do the math, per day it's still more, even if you eliminate the first couple days. Nice try though :)
And, besides, wasn't this plane supposed to be so much less efficient, WAY WAY more than the eco-conscious NDP. No matter how you slice, it doesn't ADD UP. But anyways...
When it has the technical difficulties they moved to a back-up plane (from Porter Air iirc), so there wasn't less flying going on then.
Jeff
Stop messing with an incorrect talking point.
A bigger question, why didn't Harper, the guy who "cares about his children" get offsets to set an example??
Steve, I assume that this piece was meant in jest, but just to be safe, come on. You're going to slam Jack for simply having gone to more places and reaching out to more Canadians in more parts of the country??? Of course, as was pointed out before, the Liberals footprint was helped by having their plane spending all that time on the tarmac. And of course the New Democrats are offsetting every bit of their pollution with much more in carbon offsets. All of that equates does to "walking the walk", and it's too bad that Mr. Packsack can't deal with it ;)
Oh cam, you just used the same lame point again- do the math, get back to me.
And Mr. Packsack has offsets too.
Why didn't Jack do something environmentally astute like May? Hey look, you characters love poking fun when it suits you, then you get your back up when Suzuki points out your inconsistency. Why should you have all the fun?? ;)
Just to add, I know for a FACT that Dion planned on doing a bus tour well before the writ drop, to show an awareness. Anyways, on with the deflections...
The article that you didn't link to, was not slamming the ndp. Layton big carbon offender as right under the by-line it states "Plans to spend $60G on offsets."
I wondering though, if "the team" flying all around Canada has been included in the Liberal carbon footprint calculation. Well the New Democrats have one plane for one leader, the Libs are having to use lots of planes for one leader and the "great pretenders to the throne" as backup to Dion. Just wondering if you included the mini-leaders wee footprints too?
Jan the hack, did you even READ the post:
they've also committed to spending $60,000 of their election budget on carbon offsets, points out Dale Marshall, spokesman for the Suzuki Foundation.
Just the facts please, you're puking out more than HARPER, offsets or not, as the article also states :)
Can we get some better excuses here? Anyone?
And the little-mini leaders in waiting, did you count their wee footprints, because the liberals really really care about the environment - right?
Well Jan - if you are going to do that we might as well add up all the carbon from all the candidates from all the parties.
K?
They don't need to buy carbon offsets, they can get them free here:
http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com
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