EVENT DATE: December 10, 2009
TOPIC: Cap and Trade for Greenhouse Gases: What is it, why does it matter, Kingston benefits

Ted Hsu’s interest in global warming and climate change has grown steadily in recent years.  He is Executive Director of SWITCH – a non-profit organization that aims to make Kingston a leading centre for alternative and renewable energy.  It provides a network for businesses, research institutions, public sector participants, and volunteers.  He spoke about our energy economy, greenhouse gas offsets, and ways to influence public policy.

Ted is highly active in the community.  Among other things, he co-chairs the Kingston Environmental Advisory Forum – which assists the City in environmental strategy.  He studied physics at Queen’s University, received his PhD at Princeton with a thesis on high temperature superconductivity, and worked as a research scientist at UBC, CNRS Grenoble, and AECL’s Chalk River Laboratories. He then moved into finance, working with Banque Nationale de Paris in Philadelphia and Paris, and with Morgan Stanley in Tokyo.

   Ted provided members and guests with a highly informative session on the “cap & trade” framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions within Canada, and in cooperation with the United States and other world nations.  He described the framework for attacking the CO2 portion of global warning in a succinct manner, with an excellent demonstration using an example for three sample CO2 emitters.  The short question period was handled effectively, but it was all too brief to satisfy the obvious interests of the enthusiastic audience.