Author Archives: Blair

Are Gas Stoves Really Responsible for 12.7% of Current Childhood Asthma Cases in the US?

Posted on January 12, 2023 by Blair

The news has been full recently with stories about the risk of childhood asthma caused by natural gas stoves. As someone who specializes in risk assessment and has experience with indoor air chemistry this seemed like it was right up … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate Change Politics, Risk Communication, Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Understanding Risk Assessment as a form of Sustainable and Green Remediation

Posted on January 2, 2023 by Blair

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to write more posts that explain, in plain language, how our environmental regime in BC protects the public with respect to contaminated sites and to help clear up common misconceptions about contaminated sites. … Continue reading →

Posted in Chemistry and Toxicology, Risk Assessment Methodologies, Risk Communication, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Understanding the role of, and opportunities for, Canadian fossil fuels in our net zero future

Posted on August 3, 2022 by Blair

In my review of Seth Klein’s A Good War, I took issue with the author’s statement that in order to fight climate change we need to eliminate the fossil fuel industry. I have repeatedly pointed out how ridiculous that claim … Continue reading →

Posted in Oil Sands, Pipelines, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Reviewing Seth Klein’s A Good War – An interesting historical treatise that ignores the details of climate science

Posted on August 1, 2022 by Blair

In A Good War the author makes it clear he really doesn’t understand our climate challenge from a technical and scientific perspective. To use a metaphor from the book, the author builds his cathedral using a flawed foundation, resulting in a structure unable to support his basic premise. It is worth the read for the historical perspective it provides but sadly like many recent tomes on climate change, the book has less to do with fighting climate change and more to do with eliminating/defeating Neoliberalism Continue reading →

Posted in Canadian Politics, Climate Change, Climate Change Politics, General Politics, Leap Manifesto | 4 Comments

BC’s new School Food Guidelines: an attempt by bureaucrats to squeeze the joy out of our kids’ childhoods while stripping away parental choice

Posted on April 15, 2022 by Blair

I am the parent of three school-aged kids and the president of our local elementary school Parent Advisory Council (PAC). Last night our PAC looked at BC’s Proposed 2022 BC School Foods Guidelines For Food & Beverages in K-12 Schools … Continue reading →

Posted in Canadian Politics, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Why you needn’t fear the “Dirty Dozen” fruits and vegetables

Posted on April 14, 2022 by Blair

There are certain things you can count on with the coming of spring. Two of the earliest are the arrival of the first Mexican and Californian strawberries in the produce aisle and the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) annual “Dirty Dozen” … Continue reading →

Posted in Chemistry and Toxicology, Risk, Risk Assessment Methodologies, Risk Communication | 1 Comment

Why an over-budget Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project will still not be a financial loser for the Federal government

Posted on February 7, 2022 by Blair

Last week new details emerged about ongoing cost increases on the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX) Project. If news media is to be believed, the price of the pipeline will likely exceed $17 billion. A far cry from the initial … Continue reading →

Posted in Canadian Politics, Pipelines, Trans Mountain | 56 Comments

Do Canadians really consume the equivalent of a credit card worth of plastic every week? – Of course they don’t

Posted on January 26, 2022 by Blair

This week I was directed to a factoid I had somehow missed that is currently making the rounds. That “humans consume the equivalent of a credit card worth of plastic every week”. The factoid was being used by the CEO … Continue reading →

Posted in Chemistry and Toxicology, Risk, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Digging into that paper that “associates” VOCs in indoor air and tap water samples with Northern BC LNG wells – a likely example of spurious correlations

Posted on September 24, 2021 by Blair

This week I was directed to a new paper in Science of the Total Environment titled Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor air and tap water samples in residences of pregnant women living in an area of unconventional natural gas … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Why Climate leaders sometimes build pipelines – understanding the climate implications of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Blair

One of the most common refrains of the activist community during our recent federal election was the line “climate leaders don’t build pipelines“. As I will explain in this blog post, this refrain, while catchy, is wrong. I have written … Continue reading →

Posted in Canadian Politics, Pipelines, Trans Mountain | 2 Comments