Teen Pedals Across Canada for Climate Change

  • 17 year-old Malkolm Boothroyd rode a bicycle for 3 months across Canada. Here he is giving a speech at the end of his trip on Parliament Hill. (Photo by Karen Kelly)

All over North America, people
are becoming more concerned
about the dangers posed by
climate change. Karen Kelly
spoke to a teenager who comes
from the far north of Canada,
one of the areas of the continent
that’s already feeling the effects:

Transcript

All over North America, people
are becoming more concerned
about the dangers posed by
climate change. Karen Kelly
spoke to a teenager who comes
from the far north of Canada,
one of the areas of the continent
that’s already feeling the effects:

Malkolm Boothroyd is 17. He lives in Whitehorse in the Yukon, a province at the northern tip of Canada.

It’s a wild mountainous place, with huge caribou herds, moose, bear, and foxes. It’s also a place where climate change is already evident.

The winters are shorter. The permafrost and sea ice are melting. And for young people like Boothroyd, it’s a source of worry.

“Climate change is impacting wildlife patterns, tundra ponds are vanishing. We are one of first places that will feel the severe impacts of climate change. Growing up in the Yukon, you’re maybe more aware of that.”

Boothroyd says already the native Inuit tribes are having a harder time living off the land. And he felt frustrated by what he sees as the Canadian government’s lack of action.

The government has not kept international commitments it made to reduce the gases that cause climate change. So he decided to head to the capital city of Ottawa to lodge his complaint.

Ottawa is 3,700 miles away from the Yukon.

(sound of gears)

Boothroyd hopped on his bicycle.

“I think there are days when you question your sanity, when you’re sitting out in the rain with black flies all around your head and with a soaking wet tent and wondering, ‘why am I doing this?’ But I don’t think there was any time I wanted to go back or anything like that. I just wanted to see the project through and make sure we were here on Parliament Hill to give our message to the government.”

It took him just under three months to ride from the northwestern tip of Canada near Alaska to Ottawa, which is just north of New York State.

His mom rode with him for the first 1,200 miles.

Then he joined up with other young riders, arriving for a rally on Parliament Hill in late September.

“I’m 17-years-old, and that means I’m too young to vote. But I believe I should have a say in decisions that are made on this Hill because when Parliament makes decisions about climate and energy, its people my age – people who are too young to vote – who will live in the world determined by what decisions made.”

(applause)

About a dozen members of Parliament and maybe 50 cyclists showed up for the rally. Boothroyd talked to hundreds more as he rode across the country.

He says he wasn’t just doing it for a good cause, he was doing it to protect his home.

“You’re very protective over wherever you grew up, and the place you know very well and love, so if you see a threat to that, you want to do everything you can.”

Now, Boothroyd is a regular twelfth grader again.
But unlike most, he’ll be keeping a close eye on the climate change talks taking place in Copenhagen in December.

He’s hoping his effort convinced the Canadian government to do more.

For The Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Faster Payback on Hybrids

  • High gas prices cause some hybrid vehicles to recoup prices faster (Photo by Ben VanWagoner)

Hybrid cars are generally more expensive than their gasoline counterparts. But as Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports, high gas prices mean several hybrid models are recouping their costs faster:

Transcript

Hybrid cars are generally more expensive than their gasoline counterparts. But as Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports, high gas prices mean several hybrid models are recouping their costs faster:

Hybrid cars like the Nissan Altima and Toyota Prius take around 4 years to pay back their premium. That’s according to the automobile research firm Edmonds.com. The GMC Yukon hybrid has the shortest payback period of the SUVs – almost five years. The hybrid that comes in dead last is the Lexus 600H.

John O’Dell at Edmunds.com says the Lexus could take over 80 years to recoup its premium.

“In that case you have a v8 engine that’s hybridized you’re really using the hybrid for some additional power and performance. You’re not using it – well you are using it for a little bit of gas savings – but we compute those saving to be a mere $192 dollars a year.”

That’s compared to more than a thousand dollars a year in gas savings for the Yukon and the Prius.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton

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