The Gubenator from Sacramento is perhaps one of the best politicians of this era. He owes his success to Maria Shriver who created the politician.

Well, the reality is that we are not going to ever change anyone’s behaviour re the environment (come now, what have YOU done to CUT IN HALF your energy use?). We have to get around to do what we do. Let’s get serious here: Toronto still trucks its garbage to another country in endless caravans of diesel-guzzling fume-spewing monster trucks. How environmentally responsible it THAT?

The BIG thing about the governator is that he is doing something serious and constructive about Stem Cell research and that has absolutely staggering possibilites for making millions of lives less painful and more productive and infinitely happier.

And THAT is something worth blogging about!

Arnie may be a photo opportunist as you put it, but you have to admit he has been very good for California. Too bad we cannot say the same for McGuinty and his Ontario?
Atleast Schwarzenegger’s visit to Toronto gave this city a little lift for one day from it’s blaa image. Mayor Miller should take the hint and get more celebrities to visit Toronto. This way the City will get some badly needed good exposure instead of muder after murder news.

This may appear to be opportunistic by both Swartznegger and McGinty but the basic bottom line is that our politicians simply have to tackle the environmental issues, regardless of who’s toes they are treading on. In this case the auto industry in Ontario, of course, but the auto industry have been slow off the mark themselves and should have foreseen all this coming and acted themselves to protect the environment. Now the politicians are doing so, thank goodness.

Governator meets the Fluorescent Factor.

Looking forward to the cartoons of their adventures.

Since the whole concept of carbon emissions is based on junk science, it will hardly matter what reductions are agreed to. However, increasing energy efficiency is never a bad idea, so if the carbon emission reduction agreement were directly linked to energy efficiency, or better yet, if the agreement were specifically about energy efficiency, I would gladly support it. Just imagine - a North America independent of foreign oil supplies!

McGuinty is a charlatan. Breaking his promise to the automobile industry is but one example of his spineless capitulation to polls and narrow interest groups. But the worst example of his gutless performance as premier is his abject and cowardly surrender to the natives at Caledonia. When, if ever, is he going to deploy his considerable resources to apply law and order in Caledonia as it is applied to non-natives?
P.J.Mitchell

Has he kept his word on anything so far?
R.E.Stansal

California and Toronto are examples of environmental pollution flying under the radar with the humongous number of vehicles on the road spewing out megatons of CO, NO, CO2 and whatever else comes out the tailpipe. The environmentalists like Dr. Suz use the tactic of picketing the highest profile CO2 emitters but do not mention anything about the millions of trips logged by mothers/fathers taking little Johnny to hockey, soccer, baseball or little Suzy to swimming, ballet, gymnastics. People just don’t realize that millions of day trips are just as bad as an oil sands mine if not worse. But there is no political mileage attacking the day-to-day CO2 pollution. For that you have to point to polar bears losing their habitat (who can say exactly why). And can anyone tell me why an oil sands mine is the bad poster boy of the environmentalists? It is because it is easy to measure the output of one of these mines but hard to quantify the pollution of millions of vehicles on the road. And besides who wants to be known as opposing suburban lifestyle when you can oppose big bad industry. Because Dr. Suz and the Sierra Club are charitable foundations you and I are partially funding their political activity when it is illegal to do so. That is hypocrisy at its best. I fund the NCC which is not funded by the tax payer when Dr. Suz and Elizabeth May’s former employer the Sierra Club get a free ride. It is selective focus or hocuspocus but the general public is being hoodwinked. Climate science has a way to go to reach the same status as physics and chemistry. Wait till they get a carbon tax passed and see if people are content to watch gasoline prices double or triple. Remember oil companies are in the business of making a profit and costs have to be passed on to the end user, the consumers. It is not going to be pretty. Arnie and Dalton can agree to all these photo-op agreements but they mean diddly-squat until someone ends up paying for their smiles and handshakes. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

Re: “The Terminator in Toronto”

According to the NCC Daily Blog of 30 May 2007 “Today the premier will be signing an accord that requires a 10% reduction by 2020 in the carbon content of Ontario’s transportation mix. Has the Premier forgotten that the auto industry drives Ontario’s economy, and that he has pledged not to take any action that will harm the province’s auto makers?”

* * *

Traffic congestion is the major cause of preventable emissions from expressways. Eliminating expressway traffic congestion, will massively reduce both smog-producing emissions and carbon dioxide gases, generated by vehicles on these routes.

The North American automotive industry has made impressive strides to improve the fuel economy and emissions performance of its vehicles.

* * *

Since June 2002 I have been developing a practical and cost-effective new technology - Expressway Traffic Optimization (ETO) — that prevents traffic congestion on controlled access highways (e.g. in the GTA: 401, 403, 410, 427, QEW, DVP, Gardiner Expressway, etc.) while ensuring that such routes operate at maximum safe sustained traffic flow performance.

ETO uses simple public luminous signals, emitted from pavement-embedded signal/detector devices, to guide individual drivers to use speed and spacing appropriate for current traffic conditions.

Please visit www.gettorontomoving.ca/ITS-ETO.htm for more information about the ETO technology, which forms part of the transportation plan of The Toronto Party www.thetorontoparty.com

I have discussed the ETO concept with engineers at the Ministry of Transportaion of Ontario (MTO). These engineers have told me off the record, that ETO looks promising and definitely deserves a thorough feasibility investigation. Numerous others, both experts and ordinary drivers, have confirmed that ETO is very likely a feasible solution to the world’s expressway treaffic congestion problem.

* * *

Premier the Honourable Dalton McGuinty and his colleagues, have made all the right noises about ETO, in brush-off letters they have written. But when it comes to action, thay have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they actually don’t care, about fixing the terrible traffic gridlock that afflicts expressways in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

Since 30 April 2004, when I sent my first email about ETO to the Minister of Transportation of Ontario (then the Honourable Harinder Takhar), a passive Dalton McGuinty government has permitted powerful Ontario government bureaucrats blatantly to stonewall investigation of the promising ETO technology.

In a letter dated 18 June 2006, the present Minister of Transportation of Ontario, the Honourable Donna Cansfield, confirmed her government’s lack of leadership. Minister Cansfield pushes all responsibility for proving ETO feasibility, back onto its inventor, and declines to invest Ontario government resources to support an ETO feasibility investigation.

The McGuinty government spent $100,000,000 of taxpayer money, to construct experimental carpool HOV lanes in the GTA. Yet McGuinty et.al. can’t find 0.5% ($500,000) of that $100,000,000 amount, to fund a thorough detailed investigation into the feasibility of ETO technology.

Unfortunately for Ontario voters, John Tory and his Ontario PC Party, have been slow to recognize the potential of ETO. This is surprising, considering that the sordid details of three years of Ontario Liberal Party government stonewalling of ETO, could make for pointed questioning in the Ontario legislature, in the runup to the 10 October 2007 elections.

Steve Petrie, P.Eng.

ITS-ETO Consortium

It still remains to be proven(never possible in science anyway)that CO2 emissions are the cause of climate change.The point being that it is politically expedient to use public opinion to maintain power regardless of the relevance or validity of the opinion in question.Talk about jumping the gun and instituting drastic changes to industry for political advantage and all I suspect for the worse.I am all for cleaner air but lets tread carefully.Richard Poole.