Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist (40 page)

The “Green” Olympics

The 17th Winter Olympic Games were held in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994 and were the first Olympic Games to have guidelines for sustainable infrastructure. Norwegian leaders and architects quickly realized this meant maximizing the use of renewable wood for the Olympic venues. They pioneered the use of wood to create large arched beams in the arenas for indoor events, such as hockey and speed skating. This marked the beginning of Greenpeace’s campaign against the use of wood in Olympic buildings.

By the year 2000, Greenpeace had quietly succeeded in convincing the government of Australia that native wood and PVC should be banned from the Games of the 27
^th
Olympiad, the Sydney Summer Games. In return, Greenpeace agreed to let Australia call the Games “The Green Olympics.” Ironically this meant the Olympic venues for the 2000 Sydney “Green” Olympic Games were built almost entirely with steel and concrete.

The engineers who built the venues could get by without native wood (they imported wood from other countries), but they weren’t going to give up using PVC pipes for water and sewers, electrical conduits, wiring insulation,
etc.
They laid PVC pipes for water and sewers in the foundations. Greenpeace arrived with a backhoe and TV crews and dug up some pipes, declaring through the media that the government had broken its promise to ban “The Poison Plastic.” This embarrassed the government and caused concern among suppliers and industry groups. Many letters were written and many meetings were held at the end of which the government pledged to conduct materials specification and procurement policies in a more transparent manner in future.

In 2002 we learned that Greenpeace had gained control of the Sustainability Committee for the Toronto bid for the 2008 Olympics. Working with the wood and vinyl industries we managed to obtain a copy of the recommendations from the Sustainability Committee to the organizing committee in charge of the bid. Building on the Australian campaign the document recommended that most wood products, PVC, tin, and cadmium be banned. We were amazed that Greenpeace seemed to ignore the fact that most cameras, cell phones, and laptop computers use batteries made with cadmium. Did they plan to ban most battery-operated devices from the Games? Even more incredulous was the inclusion of tin in the committee’s list. To this day we don’t know why it was included, but apparently Greenpeace and the committee members were not aware that bronze is made of tin and copper. A few days later, just before Bid Committee was to accept the Sustainability Committee’s recommendations, we placed an opinion editorial in a major Canadian national newspaper that was headlined, “No Bronze Medal at the Green Olympics.” The phones in the Ontario premier’s office lit up and we soon learned that the recommendations had been rejected. Beijing eventually won the bid for the 2008 Games.

The experience we gained during the Toronto bid put us in a good position to help Canada with the Vancouver bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics, which Canada did win. Canada also won the most gold medals (14) and the gold medal in hockey, our national sport. This last triumph was the most gratifying. At the Greenspirit head office in downtown Vancouver we witnessed more than 150,000 people celebrate the victory in the streets.

One of the main features of the Vancouver Olympics was the extensive use of native wood in the skating arenas.
[11]
In addition, the new Convention Center on the waterfront showcased British Columbia wood in a stunning manner. Premier Gordon Campbell, in his third term of office, personally supported the use of as much wood as possible. He linked it to the fact that wood is renewable and beautiful and results in reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world witnessed this display of wood’s warmth and beauty and were no doubt impressed. It was a proud moment for Vancouver and British Columbia.

Wood in Residential and Commercial Buildings

For many years building codes in Europe and North America restricted the height of wood-framed buildings to three, or at most four, stories. Advances in architecture and an increasing awareness of the environmentally beneficial qualities of wood have resulted in many jurisdictions raising the maximum height to six, eight, and even nine stories in the case of the record-holder in the U.K. Built properly, wood frame buildings of this height have better resistance to earthquakes than similar concrete structures.

In the United States and Canada, the Wood Works! organization,
[12]
[13]
a project of the Canadian Wood Council
[14]
and the Binational Softwood Lumber Council,
[15]
works with architects and builders to promote the strength, versatility, beauty, and environmental attributes of wood. There is a tremendous potential for wood to replace steel and concrete in low-to-midrise commercial buildings.

All things considered it makes sense both environmentally and economically to use more wood in our buildings, especially where it is not exposed to the elements and kept dry. If wood is protected from water and sunlight, it will last for hundreds of years. The more wood we use, the more trees we must grow and therefore the more land will remain forested. That is the real win-win solution for the environment and the economy.

[1]
. John Perlin,
A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization
(Countryman Press, 2005), http://www.wikio.com/book/a-forest-journey-the-storyof-wood-and-civilization-0881506761-2996385,b.html

[2]
. UN Food and Agricultural Organization, “State of the World’s Forests,” Rome, 2009, http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0350e/i0350e00.HTM

[3]
. Joanne Carando, “Hawaiian Royal Incest: A Study in the Sacrificial Origin of Monarchy,”

http://www.luckyulivehawaii.com/incest.htm

[4]
. UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Forest Sector: Technologies, Policies and Measures for Mitigating Climate Change,” November 1996, http://www.gcrio.org/ipcc/techrepI/forest.html

[5]
. D. Schoene and M. Netto, “The Kyoto Protocol: What Does It Mean for Forests

and Forestry?” Unasylva 222, 56 (2005), ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/a0413E/a0413E02.pdf

[6]
. SFI, “Sustainable Forestry Initiative,” http://www.sfiprogram.org/

[7]
. CSA SFM, “Canadian Sustainable Forest Management,” http://www.csasfmforests.ca/home.htm

[8]
. American Forest Foundation’s Center for Family Forests, “American Tree Farm System,”

http://www.treefarmsystem.org/cms/pages/26_19.html

[9]
. PEFC, “Caring for our Forests Globally,” http://www.pefc.org/

[10]
. U.S .Green Building Council, “LEED 2009 for New Construction and Major Renovations Rating System,” November 2008, http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=5546

[11]
. CNW, “The Aesthetic Experience at the Richmond Olympic Oval: ‘It’s the Wood,’” February 26, 2010,

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/February2010/26/c5439.html

[12]
. Wood Works!, “Richmond Olympic Oval,” http://www.wood-works.org/

[13]
. Ibid.

[14]
. Canadian Wood Council, http://www.cwc.ca/

[15]
. Paul Perkins, “The Binational Softwood Lumber Council,” April 13, 2007,

http://www.cofi.org/library_and_resources/annual_convention/2007/pdfs/Perkins.pdf

Chapter 15 -
Energy to Power Our World

About 10 years ago I had a revelation—it wasn’t my first one but it was a beauty. Like almost every other environmentalist I had been a staunch foe of nuclear energy from the beginning. Nuclear war was our worst nightmare and we lumped nuclear power in with nuclear weapons as if all things nuclear were evil. I finally realized that I had been wrong. This chapter explains why I came to the conclusion that nuclear energy is our most important source of clean power and how it fits in with other technologies that will inevitably be part of our energy future.

I had long been aware that James Lovelock, the independent British scientist who developed the Gaia Hypothesis, favored nuclear energy as a way to reduce fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. My old Greenpeace buddy Rex Weyler had introduced me to Lovelock’s first book in 1979. He was perhaps the first prominent environmental thinker to accept nuclear energy as a solution rather than a threat. The antinuclear folks conveniently ignored his consistent support for nuclear energy while at the same time rallying to his increasingly dire warnings about climate change.

In 2002 I decided it would be enlightening to meet Jim Lovelock in person if he would receive me at his West Country home in England. Out of the blue I emailed him, asking to discuss the future of the world and he replied, Come on over. We spent a full day and an evening together. He picked me up at 10 a.m. and the cab came to take me back to my B&B around 10 p.m. In the morning we walked the cliffs above Bristol Channel, deep in discussion about everything under the sun. My main question concerned nuclear energy, but I was also keenly interested in the climate change issue, having formed the Carbon Project years earlier. I did not come away disappointed.

The interior roof of the speed-skating arena for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics was made entirely of engineered wood.

Jim Lovelock is a very compatible soul. He had a lifelong experience with the scientific method as both a PhD chemist and a medical doctor. He knew we needn’t be irrationally afraid of chemicals. And he immediately won me over to the idea that nuclear waste was not going to hurt me or my children’s children. He said, “Patrick, I would be perfectly willing to take a bundle of used nuclear fuel, properly contained, put it in my swimming pool, and use the heat from nuclear decay to pipe heat into my house.” I didn’t have to think too long to realize he was right. So long as radioactive materials are properly contained there is no risk of exposure. We are very good at making containers that last a long time. The pyramids at Giza are more than 4000 years old and yet their insides still remain dry and secure. We are also good at repackaging should the original container deteriorate with time. I lost my fear of nuclear energy.

The discussion of climate change took a very different track. Jim had already carved out a pretty radical position, stating that the three
C
s, “cars, cattle, and chainsaws” would lead to the demise of our planet if we didn’t smarten up. These philosophical musings did interest me, but I was focused on the science: does CO
₂
cause global warming? And if so is that a good thing or a bad thing? Coming from northern Vancouver Island I was not so sure a warmer world would be a bad idea.

The discussion went something like this:

P.M.
“So Jim, the Gaia Hypothesis states that all life on Earth is acting to control the chemistry of the atmosphere so as to make the environment more suitable for life. Are humans a part of Gaia and if so aren’t our emissions part of Gaia’s plan?”