The editor came up with a witty title for it: Cast a solution for cement pollution, and it was minimally edited (for brevity, I guess), so that’s nice.

Why am I blogging about it (again)? Because it’s important to keep solutions like this in the public realm, in front of people. Otherwise, we all climb back into our cozy (not!) boxes and carry on as usual.

Here’s the letter, as published:

Cast a solution for cement pollution
Times Colonist
Published: Thursday, November 13, 2008

Re: “Cement industry fears carbon tax squeeze,” column, Nov. 8.

Kudos to the B.C. Liberals for putting industry under pressure — not to destroy it, but to force it to innovate. It really is time for more creative thinking when it comes to environmental issues. Municipalities and industries need to step up, perhaps to collaborate.

Finding ways to sequester the carbon dioxide produced by cement production continues to be a contested holy grail for the industry. The “squeeze” of a carbon tax might actually make sequestration a more realistic goal.

A Nova Scotia company, Carbon Sense Solutions, recently claimed it has a process that sequesters all emissions from cement production by storing them in precast concrete products.

Our cement factories typically don’t also produce precast concrete products, but consider a scenario where there is more creative co-operation between industry and municipalities. In such a world it might make sense to add facilities that produce precast concrete products, if municipalities (which also need to meet carbon-neutral goals) found ways to use precast concrete (vs. concrete mix) for public works (roads, sidewalks, etc.) projects.

There will have to be a lot more innovative thinking, literally to disrupt traditional supply-chain setups. If the carbon tax “squeezes” industries and municipalities to embrace that disruption creatively and constructively, it’ll be a win-win for us all.

For more on the still-contested methods of carbon sequestering in cement making, see www.technologyreview.com/energy/21117/page1/.

Yule Heibel

Victoria

I’m also happy to know (via an email I got from Les Leyne in response to this letter) that he’s on the case, here and in other areas concerning the environment. Good to know!

The other day I came across two versions of the same article, published by two different papers in the Canwest newspaper empire, about Susanne Butscher, the woman in Britain who recently was able to give birth to a baby because her twin sister, Dorothee Tilly, donated one of her ovaries to her almost two years ago. The article was by Ian Austin, and was sent out by the Canwest News Service: it appeared in my local Victoria paper, The Times-Colonist, and presumably was sent out multiple times to the other newspapers in the Canwest chain. The second version I read appeared in The Calgary Herald.

Normally I don’t go hunting for multiple versions of the same story, but I read the Times-Colonist version first and was intrigued to know whether the story had had much additional exposure. So I googled the names (Susanne Butscher and Dorothee Tilly). While lots of other articles turned up, I was immediately struck by the headline in the Calgary Herald version: Vancouver woman becomes aunt and mother. Why did that seem noteworthy?

Well, living in Victoria, I’ve become a tad over-sensitive to how my city is made to disappear off the national stage, as though out here on the We(s)t Coast only Vancouver existed. Because, you see, the Times-Colonist version reported that Dorothee Tilly is from Victoria, yet it’s a detail that was dropped from the national version (which also didn’t list Austin as the author).

Here’s what the hometown version looked like (I bolded a couple of lines for special emphasis):

Donated ovary allows sister to give birth

Ian Austin, Canwest News Service

Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Dorothee Tilly became both an aunt and a mother last week when her twin sister gave birth to baby Maja

Maja was conceived using an egg produced by Tilly’s ovary, which had been transplanted into her identical twin Susanne Butscher.

“It’s a miracle,” Tilly said yesterday. “We have the twin telepathy thing. I feel like I’m a part of her, and she’s a part of me.”

View Larger ImageDorothee Tilly, with her children Johanna, 7, and Lars, 5, is also an aunt of a special nature to her sister’s child.
photocredit: Debra Brash, Times Colonist

Tilly, 39 and from Victoria, already had two children, but her sister gave up hope of having kids of her own after she went into early menopause.

Then Butscher’s gynecologist told her of groundbreaking research at the Infertility Centre of St. Louis, Mo.

“The doctor told my sister, ‘You and your twin sister are ideal candidates for this surgery,’” said Tilly.

Tilly said her sister’s request initially made her feel “a little awkward.”

“With two children, I counted my blessings,” she said. “My major driving factor was to help her.”

The transplanted ovary helped Butscher’s battle with osteoporosis, and let her stop taking hormones that had their own negative side-effects.

Her daughter’s birth in England almost two years later was an unexpected surprise.

Despite her genetic contribution, Tilly said she’s not Maja’s parent.

“She’s my niece,” said Tilly. “I don’t think I’m the mother.”

Tilly is planning to visit her sister and baby Maja in England sometime soon.

“It’s the gift of life,” she said. “My sister is super happy. She’s trying to get some rest after the whole ‘miracle thing.’ It’s just amazing the attention she’s getting from around the world.”

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008

Compare that to the version in The Calgary Herald (which I’m guessing is also how it looked if it ran in any of the other Canwest papers):

Vancouver woman becomes aunt and mother

Canwest News Service

Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Dorothee Tilly became both an aunt and a mother last week when her twin sister gave birth to baby Maja.

Maja was conceived using an egg produced by Tilly’s ovary, which had been transplanted into her identical twin Susanne Butscher.

“It’s a miracle,” Tilly said Tuesday. “We have the twin telepathy thing. I feel like I’m a part of her, and she’s a part of me.”

Tilly, a 39-year-old Vancouver Island resident, already had two children, but her sister gave up hope of having kids of her own after she went into early menopause.

Then Butscher’s gynecologist told her of the groundbreaking research at the Infertility Centre of St. Louis, Mo.

“The doctor told my sister, ‘You and your twin sister are ideal candidates for this surgery,’ ” said Tilly.

Tilly said her sister’s request initially made her feel “a little awkward.”

“With two children, I counted my blessings,” she said. “My major driving factor was to help her.”

The transplanted ovary helped Butscher’s battle with osteoporosis, and let her stop taking hormones that had their own negative side-effects.

© The Calgary Herald 2008

While there isn’t a huge difference between the two versions, there is enough of one to make me worry about the veracity of what I can read in the papers. Yes, Victoria is on Vancouver Island, so it’s technically not a lie to say that Dorothee Tilly is from Vancouver Island – but why the change in Austin’s text from “Tilly, 39 and from Victoria” to “Tilly, a 39-year-old Vancounver Island resident”?

And what about the headlines?  The first version has an accurate, non-sensational headline, and the article specifically includes Tilly’s disclaimer about not feeling like she’s the “mother” of the new baby.  The second version not only leaves out the disclaimer (which was an affirmation of science – “She’s my niece” – and appropriate kinship – “I don’t think I’m the mother”), but in fact offers a headline worthy of The National Enquirer.  With that headline, most readers will probably miss the point of the transplant, which was to help Butscher in her battle with osteoporosis: “[Butscher's] daughter’s birth in England almost two years later was an unexpected surprise.”  That sentence was left out of the national version.

When I set out to write this post, I was most concerned by how the national version of the article managed to erase Victoria from the map. I’m still concerned by that – it’s a serious issue in my book since it happens too often.

But compare the two versions and decide.  From where I sit I conclude that the locally reported story is stronger, more vivid and accurate; and that dissemination via a media monopoly results in stories that are bereft of complexity and therefore realism, and are skewed to grab eyeballs (perhaps through some level of sensationalism).

Some key excerpts from Leyne’s article:

When Premier Gordon Campbell whipped together a carbon tax exemption for municipalities just in time for their September convention, the lineup formed quickly for similar breaks.

Assorted sectors of the economy have ideas on why they should get some help in coping with the carbon tax. The municipalities won their case because they have no one to pass the costs on to, other than taxpayers, who are already paying it in their own lives. So the municipalities’ carbon tax bill will be picked up by the province — if they promise to get carbon-neutral by 2012.

Leyne notes that one of the first industry groups to come forward was the cement producers, who claim that the carbon tax will chew up to 107% of their profits (quite the claim…).  The cement industry produces a huge amount of CO2, has to find a way to reduce its carbon footprint, and is crying about how the carbon tax is going to put them out of business.  Leyne notes, however, that European manufacturers have lived with a carbon tax regime for years, and are still doing ok.  So it’s really more about changing the industry’s mindset — maybe to something more like “yes we can,” as opposed to “no can do.”

Leyne writes that some of the greenhouse gases produced by the cement industry are “unavoidable”:

Cement is the powdery glue that holds concrete together when water is added. Making the stuff involves emissions. More than half of the emissions are unavoidable — breaking down limestone releases carbon dioxide. The rest of the emissions come from generating the heat used in the process, which is mostly done by burning coal. The industry is already paying the carbon tax on that fuel and claims a bill of $6 million since it took effect July 1.

I was reminded, however, of the MIT Technology Review article, A concrete Fix to Global Warming, which focused on how CO2, released during the production of cement, could be sequestered in cement products.  That means that instead of focusing on buying offsets and so forth, a better approach to reducing the carbon footprint for real would be to focus instead on incorporating CO2 sequestering methods into the manufacturing process.

The industry is worried it’s being driven out of business:

“Surely to God you weren’t trying to put us out of business when you came up with the carbon tax,” McSweeney told politicians.

Liberal MLAs had no response. But privately, the government doubts the claims of peril.

The presentation was almost identical to one the industry made in Europe several years ago. But carbon taxes were imposed widely there, and the impact was minimal.

Government also discounts worries about competitors outside the province. With just a handful of big companies in the world, it’s not a competitive industry. And cement has to be produced close to where it’s used. (pg.2 of article)

So what’s in that MIT Technology Review article to help with this problem?  Well, part of the problem from my point of view is that, as per Leyne’s remarks, most of the emissions are unavoidable and that you’re upping the ante by burning coal to create the needed heat for processing.  The implication is that there’s nothing in the manufacturing process that let’s you shift the equation, yet the Technology Review article (see particularly page 2) suggests there are plenty of people working on different ways of sequestering the CO2 that’s released.

Which means that this is an industrial process ripe for new thinking and disruption, and the municipalities could jump into the breach to kick-start the process.

Which brings me to my letter, written out of frustration over the slowness of adaptive and innovative strategies by municipalities here, even when our provincial government is kicking them (as per Bill 27).  Here is the letter I wrote:

Kudos to the BC Liberals for putting industry under pressure — not to destroy it, but to force it to innovate, because it really is time for more creative thinking when it comes to environmental issues.  Municipalities and industries need to step up, perhaps to collaborate.

It’s known that finding ways to sequester the C02 produced by cement production continues to be a contested holy grail for the industry.  The “squeeze” of a carbon tax might actually be the opportunity to make sequestration a more realistic goal.

A Nova Scotia company (Carbon Sense Solutions) recently claimed that it has a process that sequesters all emissions from cement production by storing them in precast concrete products. Our cement factories typically don’t also produce precast concrete products, but consider a scenario where there is more creative cooperation between industry and municipalities.  In such a world it might make sense to add facilities that produce precast concrete products, if municipalities (which also need to meet carbon-neutral goals) found ways to use precast concrete (vs concrete mix) for public works (roads, sidewalks, etc.) projects.

There will have to be a lot more innovative thinking, literally to disrupt traditional supply-chain set-ups.  If the carbon tax “squeezes” industries and municipalities to embrace that disruption creatively and constructively, it’ll be a win-win for us all.

(For more on the still-contested methods of carbon sequestering in the cement-making process, see http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/2…)

No idea if the paper will publish it, but here’s hoping for creative innovation from industry and municipalities.

Admittedly, I was really surprised to see @timescolonist show up on such a site.  Not only that, but its editor-in-chief, Lucinda Chodan, also tweets: @lchodan.

I had a conversation with someone about this; he claimed that CanWest will lose brand identity by letting its newspapers and editors and reporters twitter, and that it shows they’re out of touch, not least because there’s no revenue in it for them.  His argument around losing brand identity was based on his idea that by tweeting, the papers were becoming just like you or me — like anybody who can type.

But that’s so wrong!  It made me wonder whether he understands social media.  For example, tweets by @timescolonist have actually prompted me to click through to articles, since the tweets started to include URLs to the stories.  In other words, @timescolonist’s function is to drive traffic to articles.

Paradoxically, by tweeting stories that seem to have regional and local relevance, @timescolonist is actually able to restore some measure of local relevance.  And I can tweet back at them, as I did for example when last night @timescolonist live-tweeted a local town hall federal election candidates meeting, and I twittered my appreciation of this.  Today there’s a story in the paper about this meeting, but @timescolonist’s live-tweet last night (without URLs, as the story wasn’t yet online or in the paper) helped build a kind of loyalty to (and interest in) the paper with me, who has been a harsh critic of the paper in the past (and often still is).

The other thing is that newspapers might, just might, start to understand that it’s no longer just a broadcast market, but a niche market.

The niche was derided as small potatoes for too long, but in actuality (actualite – currently, current affairs), niche markets might well be the new gold mine.

By tweeting, @timescolonist (and even @lchodan, whose tweets are rare, but very interesting when they do come) can possibly change minds and potentially win allies.  By twittering, they’re almost humanizing themselves in my eyes.  If I were cynical, I’d say, What a snow job.  But I’m not that cynical, and so I’m intrigued.  There are real people behind this after all.

And every person is a niche.

That’s savvy marketing and it might just work.  Why?  Because it’s two-way.  It’s not a one-way operation, where they work on me,  Jane Customer.  They will be transformed, too, because they won’t hold my interest with a voice that’s just another suit.  Twitter (i.e., social media, real inter-action) might just make them interesting enough to pay attention to once more.

Apparently, a smart, creative 17-year old named Brandon Rosario, full of all the usual energy that comes with that age, competed at one of our area schools, Belmont High School, for the post of class valedictorian. A day later, Brandon Rosario was called to the vice-principal’s office — and yowza, one has to wonder if VPs don’t have enough to do these days.

His speech had become an object of inquiry: was the boy giving offense? Could someone — anyone? — be offended …by his humour?

Thank gods for Youtube, because of course his speech is viewable here: Valedictorian Nominee — Brandon Rosario, so you can decide for yourself.

(An aside: I went to see a play called The Violet Hour at the Belfry Theatre last week; one of its many facets is that it’s about an early 20th century publisher who, together with his assistant, is given books from the future to read — courtesy of a strange machine that arrives uninvited. At some point in the play, the publisher and his assistant begin to “assume” the manners and speech of the future, often stopping themselves self-consciously to wonder, “where did that come from?” The best example is when the assistant gives a little speech about being “offended,” which he announces is the highest form of late 20th-century moral outrage…)

So Brandon Rosario was called to the vice-principal’s office because …why?

“As I understand it, [his speech] had racial slurs and some homophobic type of conversation,” Warder said. “And the school is investigating whether or not there needs to be discipline.”

“Some of it is biting. It’s attacking,” Brandon said. “I don’t think people understand satire these days. But investigating? Like I’m a serial killer or something?”

In his speech, Brandon tells his classmates he doesn’t have much going for him in pursuit of the valedictorian nomination. [Times-Colonist article]

I’m guessing the paper printed this good story to stir the pot — there are more people out there than not who will side with Brandon. The question is whether the conversation will do anything to rein in the sort of over-cautiousness exemplified by “managers” or “rulers” of voices-within-the-box.

Seriously, at this point I think prison inmates have more rights to, and expectation of, free speech than school pupils do — perhaps because it’s at least publicly acknowledged that the former are in jail, while we pretend the latter are free.

Update: Be sure to view the Facebook Group, Support Brandon Rosario’s fight for Free Speech.