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