I forgot to post this yesterday, but my Clean Break column in Monday’s Toronto Star takes a look at the Ontario Power Authority’s recently released Ontario “load forecast” discussion paper and its assumption that new lighting technologies — i.e. compact flourescent lights — will only offer a slight increase in lighting efficiency in the residential sector over the next two decades. I found this difficult to believe, and used the column to point out the many innovations around compact fluorescents, LEDs, silicon-based lights, and lighting systems based on fibre-optic cabling.

Are oil finds in the Gulf of Mexico making you optimistic about the world’s oil supply? Wake up — you’re dreaming. The Globe and Mail’s Barrie McKenna takes issue with those who dismiss peak oil theorists on the basis that new headline-capturing oil discoveries are an indication that we’re not running out of this black gold. “All these things are really just trees, obscuring the view of the horizon,” he writes. “Don’t let them trick you into thinking the landscape has fundamentally changed since mid-August.”

Are oil finds in the Gulf of Mexico making you optimistic about the world’s oil supply? Wake up — you’re dreaming. The Globe and Mail’s Barrie McKenna takes issue with those who dismiss peak oil theorists on the basis that new headline-capturing oil discoveries are an indication that we’re not running out of this black gold. “All these things are really just trees, obscuring the view of the horizon,” he writes. “Don’t let them trick you into thinking the landscape has fundamentally changed since mid-August.”

My Toronto Star colleague Christopher Hume has written up a great series of columns over the past week comparing clean-energy and green initiatives in Stockholm, Sweden, to the lack of action in Toronto. In his first article, “Canada, It’s Time To Grow Up,” Hume compares his return to Toronto from Sweden as a trip back to the dark ages. He points out that the Scandinavian country started to get serious about weaning itself from oil back in 1973. In fact, Sweden has set a goal for itself to eliminate its dependence on oil by 2020. Perhaps that goal won’t be reached, but at least it has the goal.

Hume’s other articles look at the success and public acceptance of an IBM-designed downtown vehicle tolling system in Stockholm for reducing urban congestion; the clean track record in Malmo and other Swedish cities for using energy-from-waste facilities to generate electricity and reduce post-recycled municipal solid waste; the quick redevelopment of Stockholm’s waterfront compared to the paralysis we’ve experienced in Toronto; and the increased use of biogas and biofuels in Linkoping to power buses, taxis, cars and even trains.

I spent a month in Stockholm and travelled the country on a fellowship back in 1995 and learned first hand how much more progressive it is compared to North America. Hume’s series is particularly timely as Toronto’s mayoral race gathers momentum, and it highlights how little we truly have done and how, when looking at a city like Stockholm or country like Sweden, tangible green initiatives can be done today to tackle pollution and climate change.