Climate Control Bureau senior policy adviser and Environment Canada spokesman Burns Coutts*(link now dead) gets a 5 year jumpstart on the One-Tonne Challenge.
*Dorothy Halton [,,,] was found strangled to death in her condo. She was an emergency room physician who was described by her friends and family as compassionate, energetic and talented. Her ex-boyfriend, Burns Coutts, a senior policy advisor with Environment Canada, was charged with first-degree murder. (December 2004)
Hat tip – Kevin Jaeger
I think the Federal bureaucracy should do it’s part and show us the way.
1st. Set the office thermostat to 10C (or 50 F.)
2nd. “No more paper for you!”
3rd. Anyone who complains will join the work crew building the road to Tuktoyaktuk, with hand shovels, in winter.
4th. Since Parliament should show leadership, they should go first.
It’s for the children.
More seriously, as a pal pointed out, it’s not the general thought that’s so annoying about this “challenge”; I think we can all agree to use less energy is a good thing, the annoying thing is the assumptions in the adverts and website that people are gratuitiously wasting energy.
e.g. “Don’t idle your car” -fine, but in rural Saskatchewan (heck, Montreal) in January when it’s -20C and some windchill, stopping your car (if it’s at all dodgy) doesn’t sound like a fine idea to me: it’s a potentially life threatening decision.
The things I’ve seen are all on a fifth grade level and a slow 5th grader at that.
People make rational decisions.
This challenge doesn’t appeal to the rational: e.g. You’ll save money if you insulate correctly, or carpool or etc…
Feh.
Fred
Just so you know, this noble Senior Policy Analyst is now sitting in a jail in Ottawa after snorting coke and strangling his girlfriend, a brilliant ER doctor. Google him to find out the details.