January will be Drive it to Warm it Month and we are interested in drawing on the wisdom of regular Manitobans to help us spread the word. Our goal is to let Manitoba’s drivers know that all that “warm-up” idling is just a waste of gas (money!) and time and that the best way to warm their vehicles, even in our cold winter climate is to drive it!

Do you have any winter-idling horror stories? A neighbour who runs their vehicle for 15 minutes every morning…even when its only -2°c outside? Good intentioned parents idling away outside the school across your street as they wait to pick up their children?  We want to hear about them! Stories submitted will enter you to win an ecoDriver prize in January!

Submit stories to info@ecodrivermanitoba.ca

-No names, addresses won’t be included in the stories.

-Your first name and contact information is required if you want to be entered into the prize draw.

Students at Emerson Elementary Schopl signed their Idle-Free banner

Well..its on its way anyway. Melissa was fortunate enough to be able to drive out to Emerson yesterday (at 100km/h, obviously)  to visit with the friendly students and Staff of Emerson Elementary School. Their principal, Colin Toms is acting as a leader to spread the anti-idling message, as well as the signs around the community. Melissa was also asked to take 10 minutes to speak with the town council, which is responsible for giving permission for any signs put up around the community. They were also warm and welcoming and seemed quite open to the idea. Their primary concern was with enforcing the anti-idling message. While this is a legitimate concern, we want everyone to know that these signs simply act as a reminder to drivers that idling is harmful, and asks them to turn off.

Thank you Emerson for the invitation and the hospitality!

Like a lot of parents, I worry about keeping my child safe and making sure she eats enough vegetables. But I hadn’t really thought about air pollution until last February. That’s when The UPS Foundation announced a grant to help take the Clean Air Campaign’s No-Idling initiative nationwide.

The campaign aims to improve air quality at schools. How? By encouraging parents and bus drivers to turn off vehicle engines while they wait to pick up children.

Why should you care? Well, consider these facts:

•    Unlike adults, children’s lungs are still in development
•    On average, they breathe 50% more air per pound of body weight than adults
•    Children are closer to the ground, which means they’re also closer to tailpipes

My child’s school can have up to 20 cars waiting in line after school. With all those engines running, that’s a lot of pollution being pumped into the air.

At the start of school in August, I launched a no-idling campaign. Free materials, including school signs, pledge cards and flyers were provided by The Clean Air Campaign (in partnership with Earthday Network). Parent volunteers signed up to help at the PTA meeting.

Our school’s pre-campaign survey showed 80% of cars idled during afternoon pickup. We hope to make a big dent in that number when we conduct our follow-up survey.

Here’s a video from the school’s campaign launch:

Want to start a no-idling campaign? Contact education@earthday.net for tips and materials. I’ll provide an update on campaign results at my child’s school next month.

Whether you drive a 40-foot big rig or a two-door Prius, fuel conservation is a concern for most anyone. With a fleet of 88,000 vehicles on the street every day, logging over 2 billion miles a year, the automotive engineers at UPS can offer motorists some solid advice for saving fuel.

1. Plan your route. When doing your holiday shopping, consider the best way to get to the locations without backtracking. When taking a long trip, use maps or Internet sites to determine the quickest and most direct route. Another point to consider when planning your route is to avoid left turns and rush-hour traffic. Waiting to turn left and sitting in a traffic jam wastes gas. So if you can, plan your stops like UPS does, keeping them on the right-hand side of the street for the majority of your trip. Try it—it works to save fuel, time and money.

2. Schedule regular car maintenance. Maintaining your car can affect its gas mileage. Following the maintenance schedule in your car’s owner’s manual will keep your car properly tuned and help it burn less fuel. Making sure you have a clean air filter is another tip that can have an impact on MPG.

3. Check your tire pressure. Tires can lose air over time because of temperature fluctuations. When tires are under-inflated it creates more resistance with the road. That resistance means more gas is used to move the vehicle. You can use the tire pressure guide in your owner’s manual or on the driver’s door jam to fill them to the proper PSI (pounds per square inch).

4. Drive responsibly. Driving style can affect the gas mileage of your vehicle. Making a fast start from a stoplight or driving over the speed limit can reduce fuel economy. Aggressive driving not only wastes fuel but also is harder on car parts like tires, brakes and steering components.

5. Reduce the weight in the vehicle. Unnecessary items in the trunk can contribute to lower gas mileage. Eliminate anything you don’t need.

6. Use the car with the best gas mileage. If you have more than one car, use the one that gets the best gas mileage when making long trips. UPS tries to match its vehicles to the needs of its routes. In some cases, that means deliveries are made by bicycle, particularly if the streets are too congested to pass through easily.

7. Reduce idling. UPS has a “no idling” policy, which means all of our trucks, no matter how short the delivery stop, are turned off. When you sit idle you are getting zero miles per gallon. That does not mean you should turn your car off at a red light, but if you are running errands you should turn the car off and pull the key when leaving the vehicle. Idling for 30 seconds uses more fuel than restarting your engine, and idling for 10 minutes a day wastes an average of 24.6 gallons of gas per year.

8. Don’t drive. There are probably times when all of us could walk, ride a bike, carpool or take public transportation. While UPS drivers don’t take the bus to make deliveries, we do use bicycles, mopeds and even “walkers” who deliver documents in dense urban areas on foot.

Bonus Tip! UPS drivers practice safe driving habits that also help save gas. Leaving a space cushion between you and the car in front can help smooth out your driving pattern. This technique helps you avoid not only accidents but also lessens the need for hard braking and the accompanying acceleration that follows. If you smooth out your driving you will save fuel like the pros at UPS.

Alright, here is the second part of the blog about signs. This will finish them up for this time at least until I find more that I can share with everyone. Have fun!

Please comment I would love the feedback

If it is not in use, then why is it there?

if there is a sign, is there not already a problem?

invisible what? People?

hahaha wow

where are we not supposed to swim?

where am I supposed to park my flying car?

what to say about this one...?

100...mph?

to..ease congestion?

keep left...when there is a huge hole there?

have fun with this one

hahaha wow

evil construction workers..

even though this is not a sign, it is still amazing

how do I get in?

better hope it is not to serious

I am glad they made it plain

watch out for those dangerous gravestones

All customer complaints should be taken care of this way

I hope they have a cell phone

Thanks to whoever made this bilboard

poor cockroaches...:(

what is this gate guarding?!

does this guy still have his job?

bummer, I wanted to cross when cars were moving

does the local trafic have flying cars?

only in America

but...I don't speak dog!

but I already gave my arm and leg last time I got gas!

can buggies go 55?

fine failure

Dear Mr. Driver of the Snap-On Tools Truck that Idles in front of my House every week for Hours on End,

You are ruining the environment.

Specifically, you are ruining MY environment.

Your truck is noisy and stinky and I have been wondering for months now why in the world YOU CAN”T TURN YOUR ENGINE OFF WHEN YOU ARE NOT IN THE TRUCK.

Please. Stop. Idling.

Thank you,

Me plus all the little creatures (even the snakes) that live around here

UPDATE: I finally met the owner of the auto-body business next door. Turns out the Snap-On guy has an on-truck computer that he’s running on a generator the whole time he’s visiting. I don’t feel totally comforted but at least it’s not just pure laziness. And I think my complaint may result in the guy idling somewhere else.

Still.

There has become a consciousness among bus drivers at  holdovers that previously had them idly idling. They now shut their engines if they will be staying for 3 minutes or longer.  The MTA and the posted signs about $2000 fines have made the difference.

Now truckers making deliveries need to come on board.  Often a request  by a  pedestrian results in compliance. It is illegal in NYS for trucks and buses to idle more that 3 minutes.

Well, today is blog action day, and it is time to deliver on the ecoblog front, as promised.  Now, I don’t really want to write a boring post telling everyone that they should change their lightbulbs to compact fluorescents, or turn down their thermostat two degrees, or remember to recycle their newspapers.  I also don’t want to write a post bragging about the things that we do (yes, we recycle, compost, and turn the lights out when we leave the room).  I had planned to post about the projects around our house that we have done and plan on doing to reduce our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, but to tell the truth, today my mind is elsewhere.  And that is because I did something today that I think will make a waaayy bigger difference in the grand scheme of things than changing a lightbulb.

In the spirit of blog action day, I am going to stray a bit from my intended blog topic, and reveal a little bit about what it is that I do every day when I’m not painting cabinets or building fences.  I am…(cue drumroll)…an Idle Free Ambassador.  And what, might you ask, does and idle free ambassador do?  Well, I tell people to turn off their engines!  Ha!  Actually, I do lots of other stuff, including research and providing education and awareness about air quality, climate change, and vehicle emissions.  So every single day I’m actually doing work to help protect our earth and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Today was a special day though, because today I gave my very first presentation to a classroom full of twelve year olds.

Why is this such a big deal?  Well, because kids really are the future – they are the ones who will have to grow up and deal with the problems being created today, and they are the ones with the power to change our course.  Today it was great to talk to twenty-seven kids who were receptive and enthusiastic, and that definitely gives me hope.

And while we’re on the topic, just in case you’re wondering what type of impact idling has on climate change, here are a few facts:

• Just 10 seconds of idling uses more fuel than restarting the engine
• For every litre of gasoline used, 2.4 kg of carbon dioxide are produced
• If every driver in Canada reduced idling by just 3 minutes a day, it would be equivalent to taking 320,000 cars off the road!

Food for thought.

Doing nothing is hard. With today’s urban lifestyle, time is such a luxury, idling is harder than some might think. Work, working late nights, deadlines, meeting up with friends, family time, work, chores, laundry, books to read, dragon boat training, yoga class, work, did I mention work?

I was down with a stomach flu today. Took a sick day and thought I could do some writing and idea thinking from home. No such luck. I felt pukey and slept all day. (Still, it was better than last night when I felt pukey and must-stay-within-ten-steps-of-a-toilet crappy at the same time.)

Still, if you have better luck at doing nothing, here’s 10 to try:

10 Ways to Enjoy Doing Nothing
by Tom Hodgkinson

Advice on how to switch off — no thoughts of your to-do list — from a man who has devoted his career to the idyllic art of idling.

One morning, nearly 20 years ago, I was lying in bed. It was late. I was supposed to be working, but I seemed glued to the mattress. I hated myself for my laziness. And then, by chance, I picked up a collection of writings by Dr. Samuel Johnson, the 18th-century wit and the compiler of the first comprehensive English dictionary.

In the book were excerpts from a weekly column he had written called The Idler, in which the great man celebrated idleness as an aspiration, writing in 1758, “Every man is, or hopes to be, an Idler.”

This was an epiphany for me. Idleness, it seemed, was not bad. It was noble. It was excessive busyness that caused all the problems!

So I got out of bed and started a magazine called The Idler, in order to remind people of the forgotten, simple pleasures of doing nothing. I even wrote books about it. And, yes, you could say that idleness became my life’s work. So, based on all those years of tough-going research, here are my top tips for people who find it difficult to just be.

1. Banish the guilt. We are all told that we should be terribly busy, so we can’t laze around without that nagging feeling that we need to be getting stuff done. I rejected my guilt upon learning that Europeans in the Middle Ages felt no shame for lolling about. Their favorite philosopher, Aristotle, had praised the contemplative life, and the monks spent a lot of time just praying and chanting. Guilt for doing nothing is artificially imposed on us by a Calvinistic and Puritanical culture that wants us to work hard. When you understand that it hasn’t always been this way, it becomes easier to shake it off.

2. Choose the right role models. Most of the great musicians and poets were idlers. So feed yourself a diet of John Lennon, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, and the like. Carrying a slim volume of verse in your purse or pocket can be therapeutic―something from Keats, who wrote of “evenings steep’d in honied indolence,” or Wordsworth, of course. (What could be more idle than wandering lonely as a cloud?) It’s delightful to read a few lines while you’re on a bus or a train, then stare out the window and ponder their meaning.

3. Sketch a flower. If you are new to idling and feel compelled to be purposefully occupied, sketching a flower at the kitchen table can be an excellent way to bring some divine contemplation into your life. The act of drawing makes you observe the bloom in a way you never have before. All anxieties fly away as you lose yourself in close study. And at the end of it you have a pretty little sketch.

4. Go bumbling. Bumbling is a nice word that means “wandering around without purpose.” It was indulged in by the poets of 19th-century Paris. They called themselves flâneurs and were said to have taken tortoises around on leads, which gives you an idea of the tempo of their rambles. Children are good bumblers. Try making a deliberate effort to slow down your walking pace. You’ll find yourself coming alive, and you’ll enjoy simply soaking in the day.

5. Play the ukulele. The ukulele is the sound of not working. My wife hates it for that very reason: The twang of those strings means that I am not doing something useful around the house. I keep my ukulele in the kitchen and play it at odd moments, like while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil.

Okay, the article’s not mine (but the pictures are) so I’ll end here. And really, I just wanted to get to the ukulele part. I used to have a ukulele at home when I was a kid, but I don’t know where it’s disappeared to — a telling sign of how things have changed.

The whole article’s from Real Simple, so you can read it all here.

Allo there! I am sitting down to carve this latest entry into my mossy log of idleness on Kat’s laptop, as a few days ago my trusty iMac went to sleep…and didn’t wake up again. This is obviously slightly inconvenient for me, but it has led me to reflect that, having quit the world of work for a life of leisure, I can’t really hold it against my electrical appliances if they elect to do the same thing. Kat herself is, as I write, in the kitchen letting out little yelps and gasps as her eyes and nose are overpowered by the fresh horseradish she’s grating to make roasted sweet beet relish. No pain, no gain, it seems, even in culinary matters…

Anyway, to the crux of the biscuit. Last weekend we really did get some gorgeous weather up here; and so on Sunday, we decided that we would FINALLY get round to cutting back or uprooting most of the dense foliage that was our garden. Doing The Garden and using it to grow our own food has always been part of the plan since moving up here nearly two months ago; however, a more important part of the plan was also to not do anything out of a sense of being obliged to do it, or having to Get The Job Done. We have been determined that everything we did from now on would be because we wanted to do it; and on the many occasions that we could have made a start on the garden, we elected instead to stay in bed, go on a walk, or spend our time in some other idle and wholly fulfilling pursit. To again quote Thoreau:

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning…I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery…I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance…For the most part, I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune…My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock…This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting.

Henry David Thoreau, describing the way a life should be lived – and the way we are endeavouring to live our lives up here in Hebden Bridge, having made our escape from the western world’s new Religion of Success, and the Cult of the Job. However, as I have stated before, being engaged in an activity which is fulfulling and enjoyable, though it may well be termed Work, can be a vital part of a truly free life; and this weekend we both felt a mutual zeal for getting out there and Doing Some Work In The Garden. And so it was that on Sunday afternoon, we stepped out into the sunshine, waded into the garden wearing shorts, t-shirts and walking boots – and then immediately wished we hadn’t, as we received several stings on various parts of the body from the multitude of nettles that had grown up. Nevertheless, determined not to be thwarted, we continued hacking away for several hours until we had thoroughly lain waste to the small rainforest that had grown up during a very wet August. It was great fun, hacking at brambles with shears and uprooting great clumps of nettles; especially satisfying was pulling up handfuls of a pink-flowered plant we have yet to identify but which grows all over this area like a rash, and which makes a wonderful popping noise when the hollow stem is snapped.

We also uncovered several hidden treasures, including a hoe and many plant pots (which is useful), a sink (which may turn out to be useful), and a rotting sunlounger, mouldy tent and soggy bookshelf (definitely not useful). Our garden is now a lot more spacious than we first thought, which is a nice surprise. We are planning another day of clearing the remainder of the organic and non-organic waste tomorrow, and then we can begin the business of preparing the soil, and deciding what we are going to plant first! Whatever it is, I don’t think Kat’s going to want much to do with horseradish in the near future…

As a 2003 study from the Seoul Development Institute put it, “Idling in Seoul is ubiquitous.” That remains true today, as Laura Fine laments, and it comes at great cost to the well being of the city, the country, and the environment at large.

Despite living in a city with supermarkets on every corner, four bus systems, and an unbeatable subway, many citizens in Seoul insist on leaving their motor vehicles running while they are no longer occupying them. This is not a special situation – something that occurs, say, when a driver is waiting for his boss. This is an everyday occurrence. It might make sense during the winter, when temperatures are said to be at freezing-level on a good day, and even lower with heavy wind chill, but not year-round. In the heat of summer, with the streets already smelling of rotting kimchi, Koreans, young and old, truck drivers and housewives, insist on the convenience of a constantly running car.

Does it save time? Or, is it that the Korean cars are poorly made and cannot handle the constant change of going on and off? To my knowledge, neither is true: everyone knows that it takes seconds to turn on a car, and Korean-manufactured cars such as Kia, Dae Woo, and Hyundai are of a quality on par with those made by the Japanese. So. Why?

The only conclusion I have been able to come to during my time here is that the Koreans,masters of the tech-wave – and the fastest internet in the world - want what they want when they want it. It is about those precious seconds saved. Taking the time to turn the key is just too inconvenient. Maybe this is why South Korea, with a land mass smaller than a hundred other countries, has the ninth greatest carbon emissions level in the world. Were they a bigger, more populated country, their emissions-level might come close to matching the heavy hitters – the U.S. and China. Fortunately, they’re restricted by an ocean and a DMZ.

Read more of Laura Fine’s letters from Seoul

CBC AUDIO.

In case you missed it the first time.

We are sending this out as there are many new councillors across the country that have recently taken on this issue.

This strategy of “manufacturing scientific uncertainty” comes directly from the industry’s denialism playbook. The industry invests big money for public relations campaign to raise doubts about the increasingly definitive scientific evidence. They realize that if you could argue about the science, then you can stop municipalities from trying to address the problem. If the new ‘science’ which is bought and paid by industry doesn’t work, they fall back on the argument of ‘choice’ – whatever the risk to society, it the citizens right to do so. This is just another example of industry’s scientific consultants who specialize in product defense. Not unlike tobacco, oil and climate change. Corporate spin experts have recognized that manufacturing doubt works and if they do it well they can stop government legislation, or at least slow them down for years. This is a growing trend that disingenuously demands proof over precaution in the realm of public health.

AUDIO: Reporter Giacomo Panico discusses the details on CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning

http://cbc.ca/ottawa/media/audio/ottawamorning/20080811drive.ram

Feds revamp stance on idling after meeting with drive-thru group

Last Updated: Monday, August 11, 2008 | 11:35 AM ET

CBC News

A federal government website that highlights the negative health and environmental effects of idling your engine has revamped its message after meeting with a group representing drive-thru restaurants.

‘It’s gonna make it harder for every city politician to make the argument that we need to have restrictive legislation on idling.’— Ottawa Coun. Clive Doucet

The “Idle-Free Zone,” a website managed by Natural Resources Canada’s office of energy efficiency, was removed for review following a meeting with the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association. A revised version was posted five months later, on July 22, that:

• Advises drivers to shut off their engines after 60 seconds of idling; the previous version advocated turning engines off after 10 seconds.
• Does not refer to 5,000 premature deaths annually in Canada linked to air pollution, as the previous version did, and no longer includes posters bearing images such as a girl choking and slogans such as “Idling is killing our environment.”

The website says its purpose is to help communities and environmental groups stop engine idling.

Carol Buckley, director general of the office of energy efficiency, confirmed that the restaurant association met with Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn on Feb. 7.

According to Lunn’s spokeswoman, Louise Girouard, no one from the office of energy efficiency attended the meeting. Girouard confirmed that an e-mail was sent from Lunn’s office on Feb. 8 asking the site to be taken down.

Buckley said the site was temporarily removed because the office didn’t want to leave any misleading information online while it was being revised.

“We wanted to make sure that the website reflected all of the latest data and information that was available about this topic,” she said, adding that in the end the changes were “not really significant.”

The change to the recommended amount of idling time was made because of access to new research taking into account the wear and tear on a car’s battery and starter caused by shutting off and restarting the engine, she said. Previously, the site said such wear and tear was minimal.

The new site now also refers readers to Health Canada instead of detailing the health impacts of idling because Natural Resources felt that wasn’t really their jurisdiction and they wanted to focus on the effects on climate change, Buckley added.

“I think the emphasis in the earlier text was a little strong. Today’s vehicles are more efficient when it comes to smog emissions,” she said.

Site ‘lacks balance’: restaurant group

Joyce Reynolds, executive vice-president for government affairs for the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, said the group corresponded with a number of government officials at various levels about the website, which was used by many municipalities to develop their own anti-idling bylaws.

‘What I would like to see is that Natural Resources Canada put the same amount of emphasis on these other driving behaviours that they do on idling.’— Joyce Reynolds, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association

“Our concern is that municipal decision-making must be based on facts and scientific evidence,” she said. “And we were seeing some municipalities that were focusing on the health impacts of idling based on information that was incorrect and misleading.”

The association argues Natural Resources Canada didn’t put enough weight on pollution caused by a puff of contaminants produced when an engine is restarted after being shut down.

Reynolds said some of that misleading information on the “Idle-Free Zone” site has now been corrected, but the site still “lacks balance.”

In particular, she said, it doesn’t deal with other driving behaviours that cause greenhouse gas and pollution emissions, such as excessive speeding, rapid acceleration and poor vehicle maintenance.

“What I would like to see is that Natural Resources Canada put the same amount of emphasis on these other driving behaviours that they do on idling,” Reynolds said.

With regards to idling, the changes to the site will have an impact on municipalities, Ottawa city Coun. Clive Doucet said.

“It’s gonna make it harder for every city politician to make the argument that we need to have restrictive legislation on idling. It’s not good news for cities anywhere,” said Doucet, who pushed hard for an anti-idling bylaw in Ottawa.

A bylaw banning idling for more than three minutes in Ottawa went into effect on Jan. 1, 2008.

With the aim of reducing pollution from idling cars, a number of cities in Canada — including London, Ont., North Vancouver and Sarnia, Ont. — are thinking about making it tougher for restaurants to build new drive-thrus.

Gordon Taylor, an engineering consultant who has done air-quality studies for Natural Resources Canada, suggested that the restaurant association could be taking another approach to deal with criticism of drive-thrus.

“I think the restaurant association should have some kind of a pro-active campaign to say, ‘Hey, if there’s a big long lineup, consider walking in the door.’ “

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/08/11/ot-drivethru-080811.html

With school just around the corner, the endless driving cycle begins for many of us. How long should you keep your car running while waiting vs turning it off and restarting? SURPRISE, only 10 seconds. It is better to turn your car off and restart. Don’t create more pollution. Don’t use more gas. Happy driving (P.S. see if you can get some carpools started for those kid activities)

If you’ve done the milestone achievement for the classes, be happy.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11117879&postcount=16

Now please, stop being such lousy butthurt faggots and actually play the fucking game properly. (I’m looking at you, people who don’t heal others with halos. Relinquish your anger at someone else, like Valve, not the other gamers who’ve nothing to do with this.)

tl;dr GROW THE FUCK UP. Whenever Valve released updates, we all raved and treated Valve as kings. Now that they did this, people are now treating Valve as what, the epitome of evil? Sheesh.

Valve recently finished a network-wide sweep of TF2 for any and all unlockable items that had been farmed by using an idling program. While the number of users found to have done this was smaller than I expected (about 4 to 5 percent), it nonetheless was entertaining in that many people did this to get hats, the rarest item of them all, and then Valve turned around and decided to give a hat to everyone who hadn’t used an idler. Yes that’s right, Valve rewarded complacency. Users who didn’t use idlers, myself included, recieved a bonus hat that any character class can wear, called “Cheater’s Lament”. Listed as a “Level 1 Aura of Incorruptibility”. Humorous and purely aesthetic, just like all the other hats. Personally I think it was a great move to reward people who were patient enough to let Valve work out the problems in the new random drop system (which I feel still is a double-edged sword, mind you), while at the same time making it very clear to the miscreants that they will not tolerate this again.

And I can understand those who want hats really badly, but the thing is the hats don’t do anything other than add aesthetic changes. So in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal. Heck I don’t even play as the spy that often as I used to and yet he’s the only class I’ve gotten a new hat for. It’s a novelty, nothing more, and certainly nothing worth losing your other hard-earned items over.

Plus, they’ve altered things so that the chances of finding a hat are increased. So there’s that to consider, which is nice.

Hey guys, here’s a new post about a completely different game. It’s a PC game of course and I’m sure you already know what it is as stated in the title and even the picture. Team Fortress 2! Anyway, I stumbled across an interesting program that will alleviate a lot of the random chance faggotry that Valve has molded into the game, specifically the hats. Of course, weapons can be achieved through achievements as usual so no one really cares about that crap.

In any case, here’s a better and efficient way of getting hats and that is via idling. Yup, but it isn’t your average idling; that is, not sitting in a server with your game client minimized while you’re off looking at porn or something. Instead, there’s a idle program that does not border illegality in any way. The SteamStats Idle Program will bring up a DOS window that uses Steam as its basis. It then connects to a non-VAC secured server and it stimulates an idle-like status in a server. Whenever you get an item, it’ll be noted in the DOS window which contains timestamps and so forth. Thank the great person that made this program. Awesome stuff, I better get a hat in a week or two… Give your thanks to Drunken on that forum if you ever get anything awesome.

Again, here is the link. Banzai TF2 hats, I can’t wait for my Brigade Helmet..

Edit 1: Sorry, looks like Valve creamed the program altogether.

http://tinyurl.com/albertideation

While Keith and I were in Tennessee we went to a presentation by Chris Gibson and Vicki Lewis of Green Driving Solutions.  There has been a fair bit of media around increasing gas mileage ever since gas prices started creeping up a few years back so we were feeling like we were pretty comfortable with how to increase gas mileage.  Well, we were surprised!  There was more to learn that we hadn’t heard about so I thought I would share a few tips with you today and let you know where you can go for more information.

Did you know that for approximately every 15 minutes of idling you burn 1/4 gallon of gas????  I had already committed myself to not idle but after hearing that I vowed to skip drive-thrus unless absolutely necessary.  The estimate is that 3.8 million gallons of fuel are wasted EVERY DAY by idling.  WOW!  If you are going to be stopped for more than a minute or two it is better to turn your car off and turn it back on.  Modern, fuel injection, vehicles use less gas starting than the vehicles of 30+ years ago.  So if you remember your parents telling you it wastes gas to restart your car, that was then, this is now.

Another myth is that you should let your car warm up before you drive it.  Not true.  Cars today are designed to be started and driven immediately and actually the engine will warm up faster if it is being driven because it is designed to have air moving through it.  I heard from a friend who was visiting a European country that they had a law against idling and you would get a ticket if you were found idling your car while scrapping snow from your windows (or for any other reason).  I don’t see that law passing in the U.S. of A., but it would be good if we could all be a lot more conscious of our idling habits and decrease them.

One thing you may not know is how “emissions” happen.  When the engine is running, gasoline gets squirted into it and it burns the gasoline to create energy.  The unburned gasoline goes out the tailpipe as an emission.  (Pretty simplistic view of an engine and how it works but I hope it makes sense.)  Anyway, if spark plugs aren’t working properly to make a spark then the gas won’t burn or if too much gas is in the engine (because someone put their “pedal to the metal”) it will produce more emissions.

Studies have also repeatedly shown that there is a driving “zone” that gives a person the best gas mileage.  It may vary from car to car but I have heard that it runs between 45 and 60 miles per hour.  You probably recognize that this is lower than most state’s maximum speed limit.  Does anyone else out there remember when the speed limit was 55?  That was done in response to the oil crisis of the 1970’s when the nation was trying to decrease our oil consumption.

So watch how heavy your foot is this holiday weekend and don’t peel out of your in-law’s driveway just because you are eager to get home.  Accelerate slowly and when you stop for a meal on your drive home, park the car and walk in to the restaurant, you could use the stretching and exercise anyway.

You can find more information and purchase the Green Driving Solutions DVD (90 minutes packed full of information for only $24.95) at www.GreenDrivingSolutions.com.  If you are in the Ann Arbor area you can get the DVD at Quest Martial Arts 734-332-1800.

Donna Copeland is an Independent Shaklee Distributor with a passion of helping the people and planet to be healthier.  She loves using Shaklee’s Basic H2 for cleaning the car (although it doesn’t get cleaned as often as it should) and the H2 Wipes are very handy for wiping down the inside of the car and recyclable when you are done with them.  Find more information at www.Shaklee.net/DonnaCopeland/GetClean

Dear Citizens,

As citizens of London, you have an opportunity to voice your concern for our shared natural environment.  The startling stats can be found below.

The City of London will be making changes to our idling bylaw which was introduced in 1999.  City staff have recommended a one minute anti-idling bylaw with exemptions for temperature only for severe temperatures.

Proposed Amendments June 1st 2009

On June 1^st it was amended to three minutes by ETC (Environment & Transportation Committee) and our current temperature exemptions were added back in.  Currently – Toronto is looking at ten seconds.  Burlington is 60 seconds with no temperature exemption.

If you missed the deadline today at 9am for the agenda – you have until the June 15^th, 9am, for your comments to be added on as ‘added’ communications.  On the 15^th the recommendation will go to council.  On the 22^nd – there will be a public participation meeting.

Lastly – please engage your family and friends to write in a brief submission or call our elected officials in support of the one minute bylaw as presented by city staff. (Removing the amendments made at ETC which made it much weaker).  Our councillors want to hear from us.

Thank you in advance for your care and concern for we all breathe the same air.

It is our hope that sooner rather than later municipalities across Canada and the world will find the political will for a 10 second maximum tolerance on idling, as well addressing the infamous drive-thru issue.  Drive-thrus continue to proliferate as climate change escalates and air pollution becomes more and more dire.  For more information contact Canadians for Action on Climate Change: canadianclimateaction@gmail.com

Email addresses | Copy & Paste:

adecicco@london.ca,

bmacdona@london.ca

barmstro@london.ca,

bpolhill@london.ca

cmiller@london.ca

councillors@london.ca

dwinning@london.ca

gbarber@london.ca

ghume@london.ca

husher@london.ca

jbaechle@london.ca

jbryant@london.ca

nancy@nanbran.com

paul@paulhubert.ca

pvanmeer@london.ca

rcaranci@london.ca

sorser@london.ca

seagle@london.ca

tgosnell@london.ca

wloncc558@rogers.com

Please Cc:

Kevin Bain (City of London Clerk) kbain@london.ca

Linda Rowe (City of London Secretary) lrowe@london.ca

The Numbers:

• Ontario’s smog causes 9,500 deaths per year, medical association says.  Of these 1,000 occurred immediately after times of intense pollution.
• The research on the human costs of pollution and pollution-related diseases estimated that around 21,000 people in Canada will die from breathing in toxic substances drifting in the air this year with 3,000 of those deaths due to short-term exposure to smog.
• By 2031, short term exposure to air pollution will claim close to 90,000 lives in Canada, while long-term exposure will kill more than 700,000, the report said.
• Ontario and Quebec residents are the worst hit Canadians, with 70 percent of the premature deaths occurring in Central Canada.
• In the past 15 years alone, there has been a fourfold increase in asthma in children under 15 in Canada.
• OMA estimates for annual premature deaths (2130) due to smog in Toronto alone were almost three times the number of deaths (831) Health Canada attributes to secondhand smoke exposure for the whole of Canada.
• In 2008, 80 per cent of those who die due to air pollution will be over 65.
• 25 Canadians under 19 will die from short-term acute pollution exposure this year.
• Children are the most vulnerable breathing 50% more air per pound than adults.
• A child’s breathing zone is lower than adults so they are more exposed to vehicle exhausts and heavier pollutants that concentrate at lower levels in the air.
• In 2008 there will more than 9,000 hospital visits and 30,000 emergency room visits, and 620,000 doctor’s office visits, stemming from air pollution.
• Eight thousand people a day die from air pollution. There are 3 million annual deaths, worldwide.
• Emissions from an individual idling a car in London, will emit nearly the same amount of emissions volume as the total annual emissions from an individual in Bangladesh.
• More than 20 million people have been displaced by climate-related sudden-onset natural disasters in 2008 alone, according to a new study by OCHA and the Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
• The total number of people affected by natural disasters due to accelerating climate change has risen sharply over the past 10 years, with an average of 211 million people directly affected each year, nearly five times the number impacted by conflict in the same period.
• April 2009: CO2 hits 800,000-year high at Mauna Loa Observatory Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii (USA) Atmospheric CO2 reached 389.47 parts per million (ppm).
• Wednesday June 10^th – co2 went up again.  It is now at 390.18
• The human respiratory system can only handle an upper level of 426 ppmv before the blood begins to become acidic after long-term exposure.

The Costs:

• The national economy: air pollution will top eight billion dollars in 2008, and by 2031 it will go over 250 billion.
• The Ontario Medical Association estimated that health care costs caused by poor air quality in 2000 would amount to nearly $630 million, not to mention the $566 million in costs due to workers taking sick days.
• In Ontario alone, lost productivity will cost Canada $349,400 this year. By 2031 that will total over $9 million in damage.
• Healthcare costs in the province will be $221,800 this year, up to almost $6.5 million total by 2031.
• Economic damage to quality of life will hit $194,100 in Ontario in 2008, up to $265,000 in 2031 and totalling almost $5.5 million by that time.
• Economic damage due to loss of life will cost $3,644,100 in 2008, rising to $6,367,200 in 2031, and totalling $115,674,500 by 2031.

Air Releases of Carcinogens by Province

Rank	Provinces	Air Releases of Toxics of Carcinogens (kg)	Percentage
1	Ontario	2,736,369	38. 18 %
2	Alberta	1,283,727	17. 91 %
3	Quebec	1,261,851	17. 61 %
4	British Columbia	797,639	11. 13 %
5	New Brunswick	392,403	5. 47 %
6	Manitoba	369,686	5. 16 %
7	Saskatchewan	115,839	1. 62 %
8	Nova Scotia	97,280	1. 36 %
9	Newfoundland	65,029	. 91 %
10	Northwest Territories	29,103	. 41 %
11	Prince Edward Island	18,325	. 26 %

http://www.pollutionwatch.org/

Think drive-thrus are insignificant?  Think again …

idling-report-markham1

We have used the calculations provided to us in this study (idling times are completely in line with Tim Horton’s own study (3-4.5 minutes) & with the national average of 3.84 seconds) to produce a very conservative number for the total number of emissions, etc. produced in London drive-thrus.

London has 156 drive-thrus – so we have based our amounts on (29 x 5) 145 as opposed to 156 to keep our results conservative.

Here are the results: (City of London only)

• Idling time: 108, 795, 760 minutes.
• Fuel Wasted: 2, 175, 925 litres of fuel wasted.
• Emissions: 590 tons of carbon dioxide & other pollutants.
• To offset this amount of pollutants in one year we would need to plant 29,220 trees.
• Fuel wasted – enough for an average car to circle the globe 425 times.

And this is ONLY London based on only 150 drive-thrus. Imagine the result from all cities in Ontario, in Canada, in North America, in the world.

For more info. on this study (data) please contact us at councilofcanadians.london@sympatico.ca

We thank Dave De Sylva for taking the time, effort, (out of pocket) costs and conviction to produce this report.

http://drivethrulies.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=309

Idling at drive-thrus creates health problems  | Beverley J. Anderson is the air quality educator for the Williams Lake Environmental Society, in partnership with the Williams Lake Air Quality Roundtable

Published: June 05, 2009 7:00 PM

People like drive-thrus.  So do fast food chains, since drive-thrus supply more than half of their business.

Banks have now gotten into the act, and there are even plans for drive-thru pharmacies.

You can enjoy a donut and coffee, burger and fries, transfer funds to your chequing account, and fill your prescriptions without ever leaving the car.  No problem.

Except, that is, for a little environmental problem caused by people idling their cars in drive-thru lineups.  Idling is when the motor is running but the car doesn’t move.

Forty-five seconds of idling burns the same amount of fuel it takes to drive one kilometer.

Calculations drawn from a Canadian survey (NRCan’s website) of driving habits and behaviour suggest that many Canadian motorists idle their vehicles for about eight minutes a day (especially in the winter) resulting in a combined total of more than 75 million minutes of idling a day.

This day alone uses more than 2.2 million litres of fuel and produces more than five million kilograms of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and is equal to the amount of fuel required to drive more than 1100 vehicles for a year or to idle one vehicle for 144 years!

The popularity of drive-thrus means longer lines and longer wait times, which means more idling.  Environmentalists, city governments, and TV reporters have noticed.

A CBC news team recently staked out a restaurant drive-thru in Winnipeg for one hour, and not long before that natural resource economists from the University of Alberta observed a restaurant in Edmonton for 54 hours.

In both cases the average wait for every car was just over 5 minutes.

Their study also found that motorists in Edmonton spent almost 5,000 hours idling at drive-thrus annually; it was also estimated that, at a single fast-food outlet outlet, the carbon dioxide emissions were 385 kg per day, or about the same amount of emissions as 17,300 SUVs create on the road.

And what about the potential health hazard to drivers essentially bathing in fumes while waiting in line or the staff who are serving at the windows and have no choice but to breath this in?

The provincial health officer has identified fine particulates (one of the pollutants in vehicle emissions) as the most serious form of air pollution in B.C. when it comes to direct impacts on people’s health.

To top it off, idling for just 15 minutes a week (say, two minutes and a bit for a coffee every day) burns through an extra $60 to $100 of fuel a year, and with the rise in fuel costs we are seeing these days, this will only increase.

If this were in Toronto, London, Niagara Falls, Richmond or any other Canadian city with anti-idling rules, they would also be breaking the law.  Idling bylaws usually make three minutes the legal cutoff.

Other sources such as Natural Resources Canada division of the federal government recommend cutting the engine after 10 seconds.  After that you’re wasting more gas than you would use to restart your car. They focus heavily on what is good for your vehicle — and your wallet.

They report that restarting your car has little impact on the starter and fuel pump: http://www.aboutmyplanet.com/environment/dont-drive-through.

Any wear and tear incurred is more than made up in the fuel savings.

More than anything, cars and trucks are not designed to idle.

Excessive idling can cause grease, grime and other build-up to accumulate on other engine parts.

Plus, if every Canadian motorist avoided idling for just three minutes every day of the year, carbon dioxide emissions could be reduced by 1.4 million tonnes annually. This would be equal to saving 630 million litres of fuel and equivalent to taking 320,000 cars off of the road for the entire year.

Eliminating unnecessary idling is one easy action that Canadians can take to reduce their GHG emissions that are contributing to climate change

Everyone agrees, however, that idling comes down to every driver’s choices. So, next time you’re in a rush to get a coffee, why not beat the smog-filled line-up snaking around the building and just park.

Chances are you’ll be in and out faster than you would if you were still waiting in the drive-thru.

Beverley J. Anderson is the air quality educator for the Williams Lake Environmental Society, in partnership with the Williams Lake Air Quality Roundtable.

Phone 250-392-5997 or e-mail bevanderson09@gmail.com for more information.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/williamslaketribune/lifestyles/47007192.html

Expert’s advice: Don’t waste gas in idle time at fast-food windows

Friday, June 05, 2009

BY T.W. BURGER tburger@patriot-news.com

Robert Davis has a pet peeve.

The retired Navy submariner and PECO energy-efficiency expert sees long lines of vehicles sitting in line at fast-food restaurant drive-through windows and it drives him crazy.

Davis is no off-the-wall crackpot. He has done his homework, counting cars at fast-food joints near his home in South Lebanon Twp., doing research and interviewing the owner of one of the stores.

The way Davis figures it, drivers waste $103,000 or more in gas a year waiting in line for food at just those three restaurants. That’s a considerable amount of money for people to sit and wait for a burger and fries — while tables inside sit empty.

“It’s a big waste,” said Davis, 74. “I talked to the owner at the place down the road. He said 75 percent of his business is at the drive-through.”

So, what is the solution?

Davis has one of those, “well, DOH!” answers.

“People should just go into the store,” he said. “Half the time you go in and the drive-through will have a long line, and the inside isn’t busy at all. The only ones using the windows should be the disabled or people with kids in the back of the car. Is that good sense, or what? What’s hard about that?”

Critics have long said drive-through restaurants add to pollution and waste resources and fuel the nation’s collective obesity.

National Restaurant Association officials have said, through prepared statements, that the choice to use the drive-through or go inside is one made by consumers.

So, is the drive-through really faster?

In an admittedly unscientific test, a crack investigative team — namely, this reporter — picked a fast-food franchise at random in Lower Paxton Twp. at lunchtime Thursday to see how the drive-through compared to getting lunch from the counter.

There were eight vehicles in line. The 4×4 pickup ahead of us jackrabbited away each time the sedan in front of him moved forward. He gunned to the window too fast and stopped too far away to grab the bag from the attendant. He had to lean way out the window to get his lunch and change. Very cool.

The elapsed time from when we entered the line until we were handed the bag of food? Nine minutes, not including the time spent sticking change into a pocket after we left the line.

We parked, walked in, and ordered a coffee to go with the sandwich.

It took seven minutes, from car door to car door.

OK, it was only two minutes faster. But that was seven minutes when the car was not running.

Using the information that Davis has collected, the average wait in a drive-through line uses enough gas to go five to six miles. Those seven vehicles in line ahead of us sucked down enough fuel to drive about 40 miles.

By the way, about half of the tables inside the restaurant were open. At lunchtime.

Davis and a herd of environmentalists and economists with him believe that if Americans simply become more efficient in their lifestyles, dependence on imported oil would no longer be an issue.

“How many guys have spilled their blood so that we can drive our cars?” Davis asked, rhetorically. “We have to be more mindful of what we’re doing.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/124416510232520.xml&coll=1

The Verdant Vigilante

WBUR’s Here and Now radio show recently covered the story of George Pakenham, the self-named “Verdant Vigilante.”  Pakenham roams the streets of New York City engaging in citizen enforcement of the city’s anti-idling law.  The law, which has been on the books in various forms since 1971, prohibits idling for greater than 3 minutes (1 minute in front of schools).  The problem is, according to Pakenham’s informal research, three quarters of the drivers in the city are unaware of the rule.  For the last two years, he has been personally educating the public on his way to and from work (as a Wall Street banker), approaching idling drivers and distributing literature about the law and the penalties.  He reports no serious dust-ups in the more than 1400 encounters, and boasts a success rate of 77% in persuading folks to switch off their engines.

Pakenham’s efforts are no small matter.  Vandenbergh and Steinemann estimate that if American drivers eliminated unnecessary idling, greenhouse gas emissions would drop by 6 million tons annually and result in a gasoline savings of 640 million gallons each year.  No doubt there would be health benefits for bystanders associated with reduced emissions as well.  (The conventional wisdom regarding the benefits of idling—such as reducing wear on the engine or minimizing increased pollution from cold starts—no longer holds given the advances in automotive technology.) 

EPA and the American Transportation Research Institute report that anti-idling statutes and rules are on the books in forty-one states, counties and municipalities across the country.  New Jersey boasts one of the most stringent, limiting idling to two minutes in many circumstances.  California has a variety of idling standards, and recently identified more stringent enforcement of those rules as an early action measure for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions under the of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.  They may want to get in touch with the Verdant Vigilante for enforcement tips.

http://www.sierraclub.bc.ca/quick-links/Turn%20it%20off%20handout.pdf

Idle-Wise campaign: One small action by a single person does have enormous impact.  Alone, it is a symbol – an example to many others.  When multiplied over hundreds, thousands and millions, it can be world-changing.  One small action every person can take is to shut off their vehicle if idling for 10 seconds or more, and to urge others do the same.  Turning off your engine saves gas and money, as well as cutting down on CO2 and air pollution.  We no longer accept people littering or giving us their second hand cigarette smoke.  Vehicle idling has even more serious implications, so let’s shut off our idle engines and educate other people to do the same.