Guest blog by S. A. Shelley: When it comes to energy matters, as in all matters that affect our health or fiscal wellbeing, we tend to be our own worst enemies. There are two components to the global warming surge:  greenhouse gases, which insulate the planet and prevent heat energy from radiating into space, and heat exhaust generated by human activity. The latter is often overlooked and forgotten by most people but is just as critical a factor in global warming. We wrote a blog a few years back highlighting the thermal inefficiency of internal combustion engines (ICEs) which on aggregate pump out a heck of a lot of waste thermal energy compared to their transport energy use (Throwing Away 3 of every 4 Gallons of Gasoline Bought). This is one area in which electric vehicles (EVs) crush ICEs:  EVs use a much greater proportion of their energy to move people and stuff and emit far, far less waste thermal energy. Point to EVs. But there is a myriad of other personal choices that people can make today, without switching to EVs, that will on aggregate reduce the rate of global warming.

For one thing, individually and collectively, we need to stop doing dumb things. On a recent tour of Calgary during a heat dome (heat wave) when local temperatures approached recorded maximums for an extended period, l observed several dumb activities. In Fig. 1, there can be seen several propane fueled fires burning as decorative night lights.

Any person with a modicum of chemistry knowledge can calculate how many joules of heat energy were pumped into the environment on that already overheated evening. On a single basis this probably doesn’t have a butterfly effect on the environment. But then in Fig. 2, we see a lovely dining spot in Calgary in which at lunch time, some diners are cooled by big fans, while decorative fires burn elsewhere.

Now I started to wonder why, during a heat wave, people, in this case restaurants and hotels, were burning decorative fires. What sense did it make to pump more heat into an already overheated world?

It gets worse. On this trip to Calgary, I toured a couple of new residential tenement buildings. In each building, there was a natural gas fireplace burning away quietly in the main lobby. I asked one building manager why she thought it necessary to burn a fireplace during a heat wave. She replied, “Some of our tenants feel chilled by the AC, so they like to sit by the fire.” Perhaps a better option would have been to turn down the AC a bit and stop pumping more heat into an already hot environment?

It’s not just a Calgary thing. Fig. 3, shows the “River of Fire” festival in Providence this weekend.

This bane of unnecessary waste heat extends beyond places trying to look fancy or in vogue. It extends into the realm of big trucks, the kind that adle-brained noodniks (Canadianism for rednecks) love to drive while “rolling coal” to impress other noodniks (EPA Finds Rolling Coal Is Making Pollution Worse in America).

It extends to one garbage truck per second hauling yesterday’s fast fashion to a landfill or incinerator. (These are the economic, social and environmental impacts of fast fashion).

And it especially extends to prince of privilege Prime Ministers who jet hither and dither from a fire in Jasper on the west side of the continent one day (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with Jasper fire evacuees) to a sporting regatta in Newfoundland on the other side of the continent the next day. (Trudeau’s Regatta Day appearance). Vanity knows no bounds with some people it seems.

Greenhouse gas emissions are measurable and hence the fight to curb those. Human vanity is broad and immeasurable but just as damaging to our world, and we haven’t yet paid enough attention to fixing that.

Vive l’Alberta Libre!

In Memoriam, Mom.