PEI's Environmental Efforts

Unfortunately, two provincial Cabinet ministers, Gerard Greenan and Carolyn Bertram, were involved in a car accident on the return from an Atlantic Ministers meeting in Sackville, New Brunswick, when they were struck by a fishtailing Geo Metro. Thankfully, they were merely shaken, with no need to visit the hospital. Fortunately, the article provides enough details to know the limited concern for public funds and the environment that this government has.

Greenan and Bertram were travelling together in a government owned Camry. This car has five seats. Fisheries Minister Alan Campbell was following behind in another vehicle, and offered to drive them home, their vehicle being too damaged to drive. Since he had room for two additional people in his vehicle, one could assume it was also a five-seat vehicle.

The name of the meeting "Atlantic Ministers Meeting" would leave one to believe that the entire cabinet would be travelling, 11 people, or the largest in recent history. If three ministers were using two cars for this ca. 1 hour drive (from Summerside or Charlottetown), then extrapolation of data shows that 11 people travelled in 8 vehicles (numbers rounded). This drive should take no longer than 3 hours from any point on PEI, and it would be relatively easy for Ministers to meet in Summerside and Charlottetown and carpool from there. The poor weather would extend the drive marginally, but is there really any reason why at least 4 people cannot travel in one vehicle for a relatively short distance?

Given the fact that this was winter driving, I will do a quick fuel calculation based on a popular, compact, four wheel drive SUV, the Ford Escape. I will use a model that I'm familiar with, the 2008 XLT with a four-cylinder engine. I will use a rather low-end fuel economy (it gets much better than what I will display, simulating terrible driving/conditions). At 12 liters/hundred kilometres (real life, expect 9-10 lt/100 km), the drive per vehicle would consume 12 litres from Summerside. Eight similar vehicles would burn approximately 120 litres, assuming five depart from Charlottetown and three from Charlottetown. The cost of only fuel, based on the regulated pump price on PEI, would be $128.40, based on the pump price acquired from www.peigasprices.com. The Carbon Dioxide released would measure 273.6 kg. This is without counting other requirements, such as oil, purchasing new tires and replacing parts for the vehicles, visits to mechanics (not for the accident), etc.

If, however, the government had chosen to carpool, we will assume one car departed from Summerside and two from Charlottetown, for simplicity. A total of approximately 360 kilometres would be driven, for a fuel burn of 43.2 litres, a cost of $46.10 and a CO2 release of 98.5 kg. Not to mention this frees up 5 vehicles for other people to drive!

What would PEI's Government save if they carpooled? They would save the taxpayers $82.30 (that's a game for your PS3), they would stop 175.1 kg of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere. These numbers concern only one direction of travel, so more realistic numbers would be $164.60 saved and 350.1 kg CO2 diverted. Sure, the numbers aren't huge, some people may laugh at the minuscule savings, but when your province has over $1.3 billion worth of debts ($10,000 per person), every penny saved is a definite start. Not to mention we'd be able to breathe a little easier.

Sure, this post isn't exactly scientific, you could argue that maybe only four vehicles were driven anyway, there's also the possibility that the Toyata Camry was the most fuel efficient vehicle driven, since there are also large vehicles in the government's fleet, and some ministers may have driven a private vehicle. Our tax dollars are not a joke. When the government stops wasting them and makes efforts to cut our debt, it will be a happy day.