Posts Tagged british columbia
Anti-Climate Dividend…
Posted by Jason Birch in Rant on June 24, 2008
Warning, totally off-topic and slightly political.
Well, you’d think I’d be happy. Our family got cheques from the BC provincial government totaling $400 as a Climate Action Dividend. So why am I annoyed?
Here’s a quote from the fancy “yay, we’re green” flier that came with each of the cheques (one for each adult):
By using 40% post consumer recycled paper for this project we saved… 262 trees, 10,780 kilograms of solid waste, 98,876 litres of water, 34,105 kilowatt hours of electricity, 19595 kilograms of greenhouse gases, 50 cubic meters of landfill space
Anyone else see anything wrong with that statement? Here it is in other words:
By using 60% non-recycled paper we… killed 393 trees, generated 16,160 kilograms of solid waste, wasted 148,467 litres of water, burned 51,157 of electricity, released 29,392 kilograms of greenhouse gases, and used up another 75 cubic metres of landfill space.
And that’s assuming (incorrectly) that the recycled portion of the paper came at zero environmental cost, and doesn’t take into account things like inks, electricity costs for printing presses and computer processing, etc, etc.
If you really want to give me money to help the environment, next time just set up a refundable tax credit for the following year. But I have a feeling that this was more about political marketing than a genuine desire to enact change.
-J
OSGeo BC Local Chapter First Meeting
Posted by Jason Birch in Advocacy, OSGeo on November 16, 2007
Today, about 24 people gathered in two offices for a videoconference to kick off the Open Source Geospatial Foundation BC Local Chapter (In-Waiting.. we still have to apply for official recognition by OSGeo)
I was really impressed by the number of people who showed up to help us get started, and by the level of energy. We had attendees from all three levels of government, private industry, and geospatial consultants. The official minutes, goals, and objectives will be posted shortly, but my impression is that we are going to be working on regional advocacy and acting as a local support group for sharing ideas and solutions around open source software and data, and open standards.
Bright shiny future, etc, etc… Come join us :)
-J
OSGeo BC – Formation and First Meeting
Posted by Jason Birch in Advocacy, OSGeo on October 30, 2007
Just a quick note about the formative OSGeo British Columbia Local Chapter
If you are in BC and interested in the promotion or use of open source geospatial (and I haven’t already hit you with the flood of spam to my frequent hangouts), make sure you get signed up and plan to attend our first meeting on November 15 between 11:00am and 2:00pm. For this first session, we will be meeting simultaneously in Victoria and Vancouver, with videoconferencing connecting the sites. A tentative agenda has been drafted in the wiki, but if you have strong feelings one way or another, speak up on the mailing list.
I am extremely happy with the interest in this organisation from all levels of government (with a strong showing by local government – yay team!), private industry, and consulting agencies. I believe that this shows two things. First, that hosting FOSS4G in your region helps to build an awareness of the capabilities of open source geospatial software, and second, that open source geospatial is now at the level that it merits serious consideration as part of any enterprise geospatial strategy.
Even if you cannot attend the initial meeting, I would strongly encourage you to sign up for the mailing list (or its web-based shadow at Nabble) and spark up a conversation.
-J
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