I’m glad to hear that the global warming/energy crisis has been solved, and local businesses can go back to cranking up the air conditioning full blast and throwing open their doors so they can cool the sidewalk in front of their stores.
I’m not sure what’s more outrageous: the fact that this happens, or the fact that consumers fall for it and/or don’t care enough to protest.
Not to mention the fact that air conditioners displace heat, so for all the air that’s cooled in front of a store, hot air in the back is heated even further. The result is a net increase in heat that just makes hot days in the city even hotter.
5 Comments
Funny we can pass laws concerning lawn watering… but nothing for this.
It’s not good to waste anything, but I don’t think that this is at all serious enough to require YET ANOTHER UNENFORCED by-law. Besides, if this practice was BAD for business, the merchants would stop. Clearly they energy costs are offset by the increased business. Evidence for this is that in the winter, business make extra efforts, through double doors and curtains to keep the cold out and the heat in.
One word on electricity conservation. I mean, energy conservation is a good thing, but in Quebec energy conservation just means more energy to SELL to the US. I mean, why else would Hydro Quebec want us to consume less?? Because we pay less than the COST of the electricity sold to the US. Consuming any LESS by quebecer will not reduce the total electricity produced in the province. And before anyone starts complaining, remember that we pay so little for electricity BECAUSE Hydro can sell electricity.
Furthermore, our electricity is from a renewable source, i.e. hydro which has minimal (when compared to other forms of electricity production) environmental impact. Consuming more electricity does not cause more environmental damage (at least not directly, we can argue for hours about indirect impact). Someone is going to complain about flooded native lands, etc, but come’on. Those lands are flooded for decades, it’s not like more and more land gets flooded everytime you turn on a light switch.
Again, i’m not saying the concern is unwarranted, waste is never good, but let’s not get to the point of making by-laws for everything.
-holmes…
The economics of the situation are pretty simple: the more we conserve, the more Hydro has to sell to the U.S., Ontario and other neighbouring areas. The more Hydro sells to them, the less they have to find from alternative sources like non-renewable energy. The less oil and coal and other carbon emissions they spew, the better the environment.
Could you imagine dumbass store owners with doors open wide if they were paying as much for hydro as they are only beginning to pay for fuel. Everything changes when people have to pay the ‘true’ value of an item.
Fagstein,
Sounds to me that the more Ontario/US buy from Quebec the better it is for the environment, and the better it is, financially speaking, for Hydro Quebec.
Still, I don’t think that store-owners in downtown Montreal are to blame for the absence of leadership with regards to alternative energy sources. Ontarian and American energy policy is not their concern.
-holmes
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