The Backlash

Hey, let's keep trashing the planet in case Al Gore is wrong!

According to a the Huffington Post, the number of Americans who believe that climate change is connected to human-caused pollution is at its lowest point in three years. Only 57% of Americans now believe this inconvenient truth -- down from 77% in 2006, when Al Gore's film was released.


Phelim McAleer is the director and producer of an anti-climate change film, Not Evil Just Wrong, that's been screened recently. In a nutshell, Gore made a few errors in the film, errors he addressed later, but McAleer jumps on some alternative scientific views such as, "Ice is the enemy of life," which make it clear to his followers that global warming will actually save us all.

Change is hard and terribly inconvenient, and we desperately want to believe it's all a big lie because that would be very nice, wouldn't it.

Suzuki was in town last weekend. I missed it because of a flu, but a colleague mentioned two things he said that are lingering with me this week. The first, demographers predict that we'll have 9.2 billion people by 2050, but Suzuki thinks we'll actually lose about 90% of our population in the next 100 years as we eradicate one eco-system after another. We can't survive if the oceans and forests are depleted. McAleer's film suggests Gore thinks the end of the world is coming. Not at all. It's just a dramatic reduction in the population of our species. The world will be fine without us.

The second thing Suzuki said was that the most important thing educators can do is to tell each student to go home and tell their parents, "If you love me, you will do everything you can to stop harming the earth."

I put this second message on our hallway display board. I leave the first message for classroom discussions.

And, of course, if people are wavering on the brink of inaction because they're not sure it's worth it, because we'll all die anyway or because it's all a big conspiracy created because Gore has money invested in solar panels or something, then watch Greg Craven's exploration of the issue using a Pascal's Wager type of analysis.

We're really making a huge choice between these worst case scenarios: If Gore's wrong, and we all stop driving as much, turn the furnace down, recycle the A/C, stop buying so much crap, eat less meat, insist on organic produce, etc., then we might have an economic depression for a time as some jobs are lost particularly in oil-dependent industries. But other jobs will be created in solar and wind power, on farms that will require more human power, etc. So in a matter of time, people will shift employment, and the economy will re-stabilize. It will likely never recover to where it was two years or so ago, but that was an unhealthy gain anyway - for obvious reasons.

The second option we have to choose from is, if Gore's right, and we all do nothing differently. If we choose this option, we will become extinct.

I'm having problems uploading the video, so you'll have to click here.

Then buy Greg's book which just about killed him to write!

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Shop Mindfully

This is our third eco-challenge. Since we'll be celebrating Me to We day on Friday we're focusing on the Free the Children campaign by getting out awareness of the ways children are employed or enslaved worldwide. The display will have info on fair trade products as well as samples of coffee and chocolates. This all fits well with Re-Think Waterloo's presentation of David Suzuki talking about what we can do to change the world this coming Saturday at Centre in the Square. There will also be many displays and the culmination of this year's 7th Generation Challenge in which local high school students try to figure out the best way to make a difference.

On Friday we'll also be showing the Me to We day speakers in the auditorium on a loop so people in MSIP classes can opt to be inspired instead of reading.

Here's some info on fair trade products:



On Chocolate:

Free Trade Chocolate

Cadbury, Nestle, Mars, Hershey’s, Toblerone... (Mars + Hershey’s = 2/3 of US chocolate)

Sold everywhere

Big companies purchase cocoa on international exchanges where cocoa from the Ivory Coast is mixed with cocoa from other countries. It’s estimated that 40% of this chocolate is from known slave plantations.

90% of Ivory Coast cacao plantations use slave labour – mostly young men and boys as young as nine from impoverished areas enticed by traffickers who promise them paid work, then sell them to plantation owners who beat them, forcing them to work 18-hour days. In 2000 it was estimated that about 15,000 children from 9 to 12 were sold to plantations that year.

Clear-cut areas of the rainforest to grow cacao trees in the sun where they yield more beans but require a huge amount of irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizers because they’re more susceptible to disease, insects, and drying. 80% of the rainforest in the Ivory Coast that has been cleared is used for cacao trees.

The mono-culture (only one kind of plant grown in a huge area) destroys the biodiversity essential for many rainforest creatures.

Fair Trade Chocolate

Cocoa Camino, La Siembra (main Canadian importer of fair trade chocolate)

Sold at 10,000 Villages and many health food stores,

Purchase directly from plantations so they can ensure labour standards are met.

Grow cacao trees in the shade, the way they prefer to grow, requiring less irrigation and no pesticides or fertilizers.

Grown under the canopy of the natural rainforest, over 23 bat species, and huge variety of birds enjoy living in the cacao trees.

Sales of organic chocolates (grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers) are growing by 70% each year in the U.S.

The fair trade logo guarantees that producers have divided money equitably and used environmentally sound farming methods.


On Blackspot shoes:

Blackspot is our experiment with grassroots capitalism. After spending so many years railing against the practices of megacorporations like McDonalds, Starbucks and Nike, we wanted to prove that running an ethical business is possible.

The reality is that most of us have to buy shoes on a regular basis, so we wanted to introduce an option that is socially and environmentally responsible to a market that is sorely lacking in similar convictions.

Blackspot shoes are made with hemp, recycled tires and vegan leather and produced in fair-trade or unionized factories. We sell only to independent retailers worldwide in order to cycle money back into local economies.

Blackspot is also an open-source brand, which means that it can be used by anyone for any purpose at no cost. Our hope is that people with similar philosophies will be inspired by our experiment and start their own business ventures, spreading indie culture and providing ever more alternatives to buying from megacorporations. Blackspot is about more than marketing a brand or deconstructing the meaning of cool – it's about changing the way the world does business.


Weekly Eco-Challenges to date:

1. Drive Less
2. Give a Little

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Make Poverty History

This week we're having a canned food drive, so the eco-challenge is focusing on poverty. I'll have some of the following tid-bits of information on display along with some canned food.

"Poverty and environmental degradation go hand and hand. The lower your income in this country, the higher the likelihood that you will be exposed to toxics at home and on the job. The greater the risk that you will suffer from diseases -- ranging from asthma to cancer -- caused or exacerbated by environmental factors. The harder it will be for you to find and afford healthy food to put on your table. The less likely you are to live in a community that provides safe outdoor spaces for you and your family to enjoy. And, as recent history tragically exposed, the more vulnerable you are to environmental catastrophes, whether they are natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina or human-made tragedies like the Exxon Valdez.
In short, the worst consequences of environmental degradation are visited on the homes, workplaces, families, and bodies of the poor." (from here)

Second Harvest is a Toronto organization that collects perishable food about to be tossed out from grocery stores and restaurants and delivers them to food banks throughout the city. It started with just one person who saw food waste and hunger side by side and did something about it. What would it take to do that in our community?

Ontario recently passed a poverty reduction act which intends to reduce the number of children living in poverty by 25% in the next five year.

70% of all low-income children in Ontario live in families where at least one parent is working part-time or full-time, yet the families are unable to earn enough to lift family income above the poverty line. (from here)

Make Poverty History has an on-line form that people can submit directly to Stephen Harper to encourage him to make poverty a larger issue at the next G8 (G20) meeting in Haliburton next June (pictured here). Haliburton's beautiful, but do they realize June is the only month with mosquitoes and black flies? June is the only month I don't go to the cabin. Anyway, the form takes less than a minute to complete and send. Click on the link to make a change.

(It's not folding today.)
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Bike Rally How-To

Monday was world Car-Free day. It's hard to organize things early in the school year, so we'll be holding a Drive Less Week next week that includes a car-free day on Friday. We'll be ticketing cars with incentives to walk like we did last year. Then we're going to start weekly eco-challenges, so watch for them here every Friday. If you're a teacher, you can stay one week behind and not have to think about what to do with your environment club this year!

On Wednesday, we might actually have a Bike Rally. But we can't call it a "bike rally" because it encourages racing, so instead it's called "Raiders Ride for the Earth" which is pretty nice anyway.* This way we can include all forms of human-powered vehicles like skateboards and roller blades too. The only problem is we haven't had anyone sign up for it yet.


I asked my class if the $5 entrance fee was the problem. Most said "no," it's the biking they don't like. I carve out time to be able to go cycling, so that's a bit baffling to me. They said they'd pay $5 NOT to bike in the not-a-rally. That conversation was juxtaposed with Terry Fox Day celebrations at the grade school next door. As I got to school, 9 and 10-year-olds were all running around the block, and they were all struggling to run. It's not a big block. Well, at least they tried. Even the olympic torch is doing more driving than running.

Along with the ticketing and the ride, we're challenging people to walk any place they need to go that's under 3 km. In our display case, we'll have a map that shows exactly how far that is by including distances from the school to various landmarks around us. I chose that limit because I made my kids walk to gymnastics when they went at 8 and 10, and that's about 3 k. So, surely high school kids can make it that far. It's just for one week, but we're hoping once people start a challenge, they'll keep with it. Once they see how short of a distance 3 k really is, and how much better they feel walking more, maybe they'll like it. Or, they'll be late for work and never try it again!

Raiders Ride for the Earth How-To

This takes several weeks of planning and several months of waiting on approval from admin. We used to run car rallys annually, but people are much more wary of letting teens bicycle. There was a recent article in the local paper about how fearful people are of cycling even though we're about twelve times more likely to die from a car crash than a bike collision. Only about 5% of cycling accidents are caused by a car trying to pass a bike. Most of the rest common causes of accidents are because cyclists don't always pay attention to the rules of the road. This is unfortunate, yet at the same time it's lucky because there's an easy fix: teach cyclists the rules and enforce them. I hate cyclists who race through stop signs; it makes me look bad. Earlier in the week, at the Ontario Cycling summit, Jim Bradley agreed. We'll see where things go from here in our province. Anyway, back to the not-a-rally:

Before we got going we had to make sure we had enough students to organize and run each event, and had enough teacher supervisors for each event and for every road crossing.

Teams of four sign up and pay $5 each to participate. All proceeds will go to charity. The winning team gets to choose the charity. That's pretty much the grand prize. They go to four different activity areas in town and do a scavenger hunt to get points. They don't get points for speed, so anyone can attend. They get points for general awesomeness.

Teams go to the activity stations in different orders so there's not a backlog. One activity has them running a relay on a variety of kid toys including tricycles, a horse, and a wagon. The get points for speed and technique. At another they have to put extra-large lingerie over their clothes and sing karaoke at the city square. They get points for collecting the most change from strangers (for charity) for their performance. Another station has them balancing a bucket of water on their heads and walking through a mine-field of garbage. And the final one is a garbage sort relay where they have to correctly separate garbage into recycling, composting, bottles, paper, and garbage.

We'll provide each contestant with a clue to the first station, a pair of gloves, and a bag. As they ride, they must collect several types of garbage on the trails. We're lucky because our school is close to a trail that leads to a park and to the uptown. On top of all this, they'll also have to do a scavenger hunt that includes getting signatures on a petition for something, like more bike racks on the main street, and getting little things from local shops that have an environmental or social justice focus (10,000 Villages, etc.).

Back at the school, students will have to use a glue gun to make a piece of art with the garbage they collected. Judges will determine the most creative entry. Then drinks and treats will be had by all as the scores are tallied. We sent out letters asking for prizes from various cycling places in the city, but none responded so far.


Some Info and Quotations for a Display:

We're hoping to encourage more walking rather than encourage alternative cars. Electric cars still need electricity from somewhere, and it's often not from solar cells. Instead of finding new, less hazardous ways of getting around in cars, I prefer to focus on the healthiest types of transportation: cycling and walking.

Want to get healthier and save money? Walk or bike instead of driving.

Walking and biking...
slow the progression of disease
tone up your body
reduce blood pressure
improve your immune system
help maintain your mental ability
reduces stress
can relieve depression and anxiety
create safer communities
help you get to know neighbours
might make you live longer!

Cars increase...
climate change
the hole in the ozone layer
acid rain
urban sprawl
oil spills
landfills
smog
noise
road rage
water pollution run-off
accidental deaths!

Can we obliterate the car before it obliterates us? The longest journey begins with a single step, not with a turn of an ignition key.

A good resource for information is the book Divorce Your Car by Katie Alvord. We had several books in our info display also.

There was a critical mass held on World Car-Free Day, but I also advertised the ones held the last Friday of every month, which is today. We encouraged car pooling and car sharing. There was a proposal for bike sharing in Waterloo made over a year ago. We'll encourage students to write to our mayor to encourage that to be a reality.

After all this, let's just hope we get some takers!



***
*We're KCI Raiders with a pirate mascot. It used to be a horribly offensive 1st Nation mascot, so we decided to change it. That final decision was made just before the Somali pirate issue. Even before that I had hoped we could be raccoons, but I was outvoted.


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Compost Update

Check out our giant pile of compost! Typically I dig out the usable compost to add to my gardens in the spring, but at school, because it all sits all summer, it seems to make the most sense to dig it out in the first week of September before more stuff is added. Our horticulture teacher had me pile it beside the composter, and he'll get to it soon. Here's the pile. It's amazing to me how well this very simple task works with minimal effort. You can see a piece of eggshell that hasn't quite turned. And there's a few sticks in there. But mainly it's just rich fertile soil that can augment any garden. At home I dig it in about an inch deep between plants, and add some to the bare patches in the lawn before I throw down a mix of grass and clover seed. It beats chemical fertilizers.



In our region there are concerns about the half a million dollars it costs to take leaves off the curb. It's such a no-brainer that people should compost. It can work in apartment complexes too. I have several gardens and five people worth of food scraps and one bin like the one I made for school can easily handle it all. Yet so many have doubts, they just won't try it at home.

More's the pity.

And in other news, KCI's green efforts were lauded in the local paper, unfortunately they didn't mention the blog!


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Abstinence Education

Riding tandem on my last post, one way to cure the population problem, which some call the number one threat to the planet, is for people to stop having sex. And now there's a new product that can help people not have sex without harming the environment! No batteries needed because it works kind of like a wind-up toy. From the website: "Batteries discarded end up in our landfills around the world. Most batteries contain heavy metals (mercury, cadmium, lead), which are the main cause for environmental concern. If waste batteries are not disposed of correctly, heavy metals may leak when the battery corrodes, and so contribute to soil and water pollution and endanger wildlife. Increased levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide act to enhance the natural greenhouse effect and accelerate irreversible changes in the climate." See, they really do care.

That's it.
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The Population Problem

I saw 9 on the weekend. It's a great apocalyptic film, a warning about the dangers of technology, but the ending isn't clearly positive. Monsters are tricked and killed, but there's still no life as we define it - the type that eats, reproduces, etc. For a real happy ending I needed a little plant to struggle up through the rubble like in Wall-E.


Both films made me think of Alan Weisman's book The World Without Us which is the subject of an article in bitch this month. The book documents the probable outcome if people suddenly ceased to be. According to this book the world will take relatively little time to regenerate without people in the way trashing the place. The visual I had in my head when I read it was the Manhattan of I Am Legend, with deer running through a forest sprouting up through asphalt, but without all the zombies. We do not need to save the planet for its own sake; it will be fine on its own. We need to save it for our survival.

I loved the book until I got to his final conclusion: to save the world, we must regulate childbirth - one child per woman, no exceptions. Now that we are considering covering assisted reproductive services under Medicare in Canada, it has become a hot issue.

The problem with limiting women to one child in order to save the planet is that many people in the western world have few children already, the Canadian average is 1.6 children, yet we produce the most greenhouse gases - far more than parts of the world with a child per woman average closer to 5 or 6.

I think if I had fewer children I might have spent my excess cash on stuff for myself. I might actually have a car. We tend to spend what we make - at least - and without RESPs taking up a chunk of my pay, I could possibly be a much larger environmental problem. I would like to think that I would use my time and money for good, buy land and plant a mixed forest for instance, but, unfortunately, I am a pretty typical human being.

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Eco-Surveys

Katie at EcoChick conducted an environmental survey to check out the attitudes of 50 people in Toronto. We teach how to conduct surveys in social science courses, and it's an easy lesson to modify for an environmental focus. She found the deal breaker for most people was cutting down consumption, and that some didn't understand the environmental concerns with meat production.


I've said it before, but food is hard for me. I don't grow my own because I forget about it, and it all withers, rots or feeds the raccoons. For some reason though, I have no problems tending to a flower garden. And I completely understand the problems with meat production, but I still eat it (organic, grass fed, and free range when I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of convenience for the world). I've been vegetarian twice, both for 2-3 years at a time, and my biggest hurdle is it doesn't seem like a meal without meat. Intellectually, I understand this is just as mindless as people preferring tap water at a blind taste test but still insisting bottled is better. But on a gut level, there it is. I've been raised on meat and potatoes, and that's a lot of years of conditioning to try to overcome. I'm still working on it.

The problem I have with some surveys like this though, and particularly with the standard eco-footprint analysis, is there's often no good answer for people who are already very environmental. Two of the questions focus on cutting down on personal consumption. I really buy nothing but food and essentials. I was at a mall yesterday buying the two required pairs of running shoes for my daughter for school (one for indoors, one for out). Having not bought clothes for myself for years, a long-sleeved shirt caught my eye. The 80s are back, and it makes me feel like a teenager again. I tried it on, and the sleeves were made for someone who doesn't canoe all summer, so I put it back. Whew, that was close.

The eco-footprint calculators (this one's really cute even though it places me in Calgary, but this one is more educational) often increase the footprint if you never ride the bus as if it means you're driving instead. Or if you don't wash your car rarely, it means you wash it often instead of the possibility of never washing it or not owning a car.

These are minor concerns but good to keep in mind when students are creating surveys.

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On Necessities and Luxuries

We got a propane fridge at the cabin this year, and when it stopped working on the one time we were up for a week, it was really hard to go back to the cooler - to smelling the questionable milk before using it every time, and trying to keep the cold cuts from swimming in the water at the bottom. At home a fridge is a luxury I'm not ready to part with, unlike this blogger who unplugged it and deals with the consequences. Up north for a week, it's possible the propane we use for a small fridge might be similar to the gas we would otherwise use to go back and forth to town for ice, so I don't feel too guilty. As a good backwoods camper, I can survive without milk on my cereal or cheese on my nachos, but the kids aren't as accommodating. After years without, the fridge has become a necessity.


It's curious to me what we can live without. The blogger I linked can live without a fridge, but still uses a dryer. I haven't used our dryer for years. It's there in the basement for an emergency (like a flood??), far from the washer two floors higher - upstairs where all the clothes are kept. Without kids, I could manage without the washer too. I hand washed in first year university - too poor to go to a laundromat - and it wasn't so bad. But I like to know my perishables are safe to eat.

I know many people who won't put a glass of water under a tap and drink it. They've been convinced that bottled water is better. Even if they tell me they understand that our municipal water is much more heavily regulated, they insist the bottled stuff just tastes better. Even after blind tastes tests at our school showed students that most of them preferred the taste of tap water, they still walked away thinking bottle is best. Advertising is some powerful stuff.

Many friends with a strong environmental bent can't believe I survive the summers without air conditioning. We close the doors and windows and curtains when it's hot out, and open them all at night IF the temperature outside is cooler than the temperature inside. In these parts, I don't remember a heat wave ever lasting more than three weeks. After that long the house might get sticky, so we sleep outside. And maybe we don't get as much done during the heavy humid days, but that's okay. My kids have acclimatized to the heat; they didn't have a choice. And relatively speaking, it's barely a heat wave. This is Canada after all.

I've actually never lived anywhere that had A/C, so it's really easy for me to do without. That's the thing, really: once we get something, we can't remember how to cope without it. Yesterday's luxuries and all. I've also never owned a car, and I manage my in-town trips easily. A colleague once saw me at a mall about 10 k from home and insisted I couldn't have biked the whole way - as if someone must have dropped me and my bike off somewhere. The city grows smaller when you walk and bike everywhere.

If we can stop adding more and more luxuries to our lives, we can stop thinking we actually need them to cope with temperature changes and distances and dirt. But all those commercials and all those TV people and neighbours and friends that have all the new stuff are very very compelling.

If covetousness is a sin (it's right there in the top ten list), and tempting people to covet is even worse, and our laws are based on judeo-christian morality, then shouldn't advertising be illegal?

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Green Right to the Very End

The Star had an article about green burials in Cobourg, Ontario. I've always had issues with the way we're laid to rest, particularly the mahogany trees that have to be felled to contain a corpse. I'd be happy to be dumped in a pit reminiscent of the final scene in Amadeus. Now that's a real option - almost. There are no biodegradable body bags in Ontario, but we can be put in the ground in a cardboard box. One reluctant client (or client's daughter really) of a similar burial ground in Britain said the white cardboard casket reminded her of an IKEA flatbox, but nevertheless, it's the remnants of plentiful trees, not the solid boards of a less populous species. The law states that we have to be buried in something. If we're down far enough to avoid getting dug up by animals, I can't imagine the necessity for a container at all - as if a cardboard box will throw off the scent. It seems a formality, a sign of being civilized.


They don't embalm the body with chemicals either, so the body has to be buried quickly. This means the funeral can't be open casket - just as well if the casket reminds people of the Trondheim collection. In fact, if it's difficult to assemble people in a timely fashion, the funeral will likely have to take place after the burial. Personally I've never been thrilled with open-casket funerals anyway. The dead body is not the same as the person I knew. It's just a bag of bones. But for some people that will be the stopper.

Another potential stopper is the lack of any markers. There are no tombstones in green cemeteries, only wildflowers. They advertise that people can come to visit the meadow, instead of the one little plot of ground. In Britain they allow a tree to be buried on the actual plot to mark it, but that will be a problem if this takes off. Your tree of choice likely can't be contained to a three by six area. My mother was cremated, which is not at all eco-friendly, but it did allow me to keep her ashes under a tree at home.

But if markers aren't an issue, and not having a casket at the funeral is acceptable, then it seems a reasonable choice.

ETA - It was very unfortunate timing that I posted this shortly before we lost a student at our school. I'll keep it up because I do think how we embalm and bury our dead under a layer of cement is an important environmental issue to address, but I'll post more so it's not the first thing that comes up on the screen, although the tragedy has left me too distracted to write much lately.

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The End of Suburbia

I use this film, The End of Suburbia, to start students' understanding of cars, urban sprawl, media, and mass consumerism, and I segue into plastics, another petroleum-based product. If there's no petroleum for cars, we won't have any to make plastics either.

After reading Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast I actually question the peak oil theory. But even if we've got oodles of oil, it's being restricted in a way that's far beyond our control. No matter what, we've got to find ways to live without it. This film helps students understand how it all got so out-of-control.



The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream
(Gregory Greene, 2004, 78 min.)

The Thinkers:
James Howard Kunstler – The Geography of Nowhere (blog – kunstler.com)
Peter Calthorpe, Urban Designer – Sustainable Communities
Michael Klare, Prof at Hampshire College – Resource Wars
Richard Heinbert, Journalist – The Party’s Over
Matthew Simmons, CEO of Simmons Co. International, “insider” perspective
Michael C. Ruppert – From the Wilderness
Julian Darley, Environmental Philosopher – GlobalPublicMedia.com
Colin Campbell – The Coming Oil Crisis
Kenneth Deffeyes – Peak Oil: Hubbert’s Peak
Ali Samsam Bakhtiari – The Journal of the Iranian Petroleum Institute
Steve Andrews – Running on Empty

The U.S. makes up 4% of the population of the world, and uses 25% of its oil

“If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst.” – Hardy

Benefits of Suburbia:

Space Affordability Convenience Family-centered Upward mobility
It’s the American Dream; but it’s not sustainable.

Suburbia is the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.

Suburbia is the dream of country living for the masses far from the city filled with
Pollution, noise, effluence, stenches, factories, vulgar worker culture…

1880s/1890s – like a manor in a park – best of city and country living
1910s – streetcar suburb
1920s mass motoring – automobile suburbs – cheap oil
depression and war – oil is cheaper than drinking water
1946-1950 – Veterans Energy Housing Program (post WWII American Dream)
- 5 million homes built in suburbs; everybody’s middle class now
- false promise; cartoon country living
- no connection with the country (river, forests, fields) just manufactured lawns
- no amenities of town – worst of city and country living
- destruction of cities; and big plans for cars

Car dependency

- GM destroyed rail-cars to sell gas powered buses and cars and make highways
- No suburbs if not for cheap oil to fuel cars

August 14, 2003 – power outage – “It’s a red light, but we didn’t get it!” - Simmons
“We have to grow electricity or we can’t grow our economy.”

*** We are at or near peak oil production worldwide – we will still have oil produced for a while, but it will decrease each year, and increase dramatically in price. We can no longer afford our lifestyles – our cars, home heating, air conditioning, etc. The gap between what we want and what we can have will grow, and this will cause multiple problems in the world. ***

** Dr. M. King Hubber, renowned geologist, predicted this problem in 1956. Why didn’t we listen?? Why didn’t we take precautions??

Predicted Consequences – worst case:
- What if US and China go to war over oil?
- No more trucks available to deliver food, so we’ll all starve.
- Decreased economic activity, recessions, then a never ending depression.
- Violence around filling stations.
- Government lies about why oil is so expensive; more dishonest wars.
- Tremendous struggle to maintain entitlements to suburbia.
- Electing maniacs who promise they can maintain our lifestyles.
- Scramble to get out of suburbia.
- Expect a war for the remainder of our lifetimes. The US must not allow any other country to take over oil reserves.
- Suburbs will be the slums of the future with crops growing on front lawns.

Predicted Consequences – pro-active community involvement:
- Dramatic change in individual lifestyles.
- Everything we do must be made smaller and more local. We must grow food closer to towns.
- Need more independent farming (no more fertilizers or pesticides available).
- New Urbanism – return to traditional communities; re-learning principles of town planning, classic grid development, and high-density at cores.
- Live locally (work, school, food production…), become less car-dependent, and pay attention to how you use energy.

** Will we listen now?? Will anyone take precautions? When the KCI rules were about to change, I warned students to find a place to sit and claim it as their own territory before everybody’s fighting for a place. But nobody moved out of the halls until forced.

Media
- The media’s silent because there’s no up-side
- The media is irresponsible, but we all have a short attention span; we can drag our attention from sports, entertainment, etc.
- Reality is bad for business.

Benefits of the Oil Crisis:
- better neighbours
- local energy formations (solar, wind…)
- a healthier environment

Quick Facts About Petroleum and Related Products

Fossil Fuels – non-renewable natural resources from the ground that can be burned to create energy; they contain hydrocarbons, so burning causes lots of pollution and global warming. Three main types – coal, petroleum, and natural gas.

Coal is a solid fossil fuel extracted from the ground by underground mining or open-pit mining; it’s disappearing (but not that fast), and it pollutes, creating global warming; it’s heated to make electricity, and can be converted to liquid fuel like gasoline and diesel fuel. It creates more pollution than the following two forms of fuel.

Petroleum / Crude Oil / Naphtha / Black Gold – it’s a liquid fossil fuel taken from the ground with pumps. This is what has hit peak production and will be increasing in price dramatically. It’s the raw material for solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics. Different products come directly from the separation of petroleum based on boiling points (fractional distillation) including methane, propane, gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, diesel, paraffin wax, asphalt, and oil. Soon none of these products will be affordable.

Natural Gas – is a gaseous fossil fuel (different from gasoline) that’s mainly methane. It’s piped directly from the oil fields or swamps to your house for heating and cooking. It’s also on a quick decline along with petroleum.

Hydrogen Fuel – Usable as a fuel, but it’s produced from another energy source such as natural gas (48%), oil (30%), or coal (18%). We can’t create hydrogen fuel without the use of fossil fuels. Furthermore, we can’t make hydrogen cars without using massive amounts of fossil fuels. “It’s the public’s delusion to alleviate their fear - a very rational fear because there is no plan B.”

Alternatives – non-fossil fuel energy sources:

Bio-diesel – It’s fuel from vegetable oils or animal fats. It creates far less pollution than fossil fuels. However, it takes more energy to make ethanol than to use it. The production and land use may not justify the product.

Nuclear – very expensive, pollutes as it sits in the ground, radioactive spills and accidents are disastrous immediately and for many generations to come.

Wind Turbines – need a lot of space, and are currently very expensive.

Solar Power – it’s expensive to install initially, but will pay itself off quickly as fuel prices rise, and as the solar power market increases providing more products locally manufactured. The sun hits a photovoltaic cell which creates electricity. It can be used immediately, or stored in batteries for later use. Passive solar systems can be used to heat water for household use, and to heat homes by heating thermal masses (e.g. slabs of stone). It can manage all the needs of a very careful electricity user. Our desires must still be kept in check.

An incomplete list of types of plastic: Can we live without it?
1. Cellulose (1866)
Film, clothes, ping pong balls, fake ivory, combs, jewelry, old billiard balls
(highly flammable)
2. Rayon (1891)
modified cellulose, “man-made silk”, cellophone
3. Bakelite (1907)
Radios, televisions, clocks, jewelry, lamps, new billiard balls, buttons, electrical
insulators, added to wood metals for strengthening
4. Nylon (1920s) - polyamide
clothes, packaging
5. PVC (1920s) – poly vinyl chloride
records, food wrap, surgical gloves, vinyl siding, window blinds, piping, blister
packaging, credit cards, auto instrument panels, paints, rain coats, shrink wrap,
toys, upholstery, I.V. tubing, medical supplies
6. Saran (1933) – poly vinylidene chloride
protection of military equipment, food wrap
7. Teflon (1938)
non-stick pans
8. Polyethylene (PETE/HDPE) (1933)
Pop bottles, water bottles, packaging, film, toys, communication equipment
9. Silly Putty (1949)
toy
10. Polystyrene (1950s)
Styrofoam, plastic silverware, egg cartons, fast food packaging, plastic model kits, video cassettes, televisions
11. Velcro (1957)
reusable closure
12. Polypropylene (PP)
Yogurt/margarine containers, prostheses, carpets car bumpers, medicine bottles car seats, caulking, toys, fridge interiors
13. Polyurethanes
Mattresses, cushions, transportation, furniture, insulation, ski boots, toys
14. Unsaturated Polyesters
Lacquers, varnishes, paints
15. Epoxes
Glues, electrical wiring coating, helecopter blades
16. Acrylics
Lighting fixtures, auto parts
17. Resins - Printing inks
18. Latexes - Carpets, paints
19. Urea-formaldehyde - Insulation, laminates
20. Synthetic rubber - Neoprene, fuel hoses, machinery, rocket ships, swim goggles
21. Fiberglass

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Sharkwater

Sharkwater is an excellent film about the death of many sharks as they get tangled in fishing nets and the massive extermination for the delicacy, shark-fin soup. Warning - it's a very gruesome film (for what they do to the sharks). I'd be cautious about the students I show it to. To tell you the truth, my knees get weak at the silhouette of sharks above me in the water. I mean, photographs from that angle - not that I might actually be in the water with sharks. The film wasn't able to completely unbrainwash me from the grip of Jaws. I sometimes show it in Challenge and Change or in Civics.

I happened to catch the movie at the theatre the night Rob Stewart was speaking about how he made the film. He told us he was a cinematographer, not a film maker. He got a ride to a shark habitat on an anti-whaling boat, but got arrested before he ever made his destination. He kept the cameras rolling, and this film is the result.


He mentions that Paul Watson is commanding the Sea Shepherd. Paul Watson was an original member of Greenpeace, but separated, according to some, for tactics that were even too controversial by Greenpeace standards. Giving students the whole story there makes the film even more interesting.

Here's the handout I use to start discussion:

Sharkwater
(Rob Stewart, 2007, 90 min.)

Ecology

Sharks were here before the dinosaurs when there were only two continents. Killing them (90% reduction in the past 20 years) cuts off the head of the ecosystem. They are an important controlling agent. Plankton creates 70% of the oxygen of the planet. If sharks die, then the fish they would eat, the ones that feed on plankton, will flourish, and our oxygen will be affected. Life on land depends on life in the ocean.

Media and Money

People make money off sharks being dangerous; it’s good TV. We all love monsters because we love to hate. More people are killed each year by pop machines than by sharks. (And by crocodiles, elephants, cars, and starvation.)

Only the drug trade rivals shark fins for money. The Taiwan Mafia is wealthy enough to own private docks and buildings, and an entire neighbourhood in Puntarenas (the largest province in Costa Rica).

Paul Watson was a founder of Greenpeace. He left after conflict about his methods which include ramming into whaling and shark boats.

The UN has no rule-making authority over international waters. Nobody does.

Activism

Activists are necessary in order to stop letting people get away with things, or at least making them do their crimes in the light of day. Unless people devote their lives to solving the problems, nothing’s going to change. But we only need 5-7% of the population to make a difference.

We don’t understand what we are, conceited naked apes. In our minds we’re a divine legend, some sort of God who can decide who lives and who dies. The fact is, we’re just a bunch of primitives out of control. We’re in the midst of the third world war. The enemy is ourselves. The objective is to save us from ourselves.

"Social change comes from the passionate interests of a small group of individuals. Every major shift in the world, slavery, votes for women, civil rights, apartheid…, always from individuals with passion and energy to get involved. Individuals in non-governmental organizations passionately involved in protecting the ecosystems – that’s where I see some optimism. That’s where I see some things happening."

No species survives by ignoring the laws of ecology. We know what we’re during, and yet we’re allowing ourselves to do it.

Questions

1. Why do you think some people are willing to risk their lives to save others people or animals or the environment? What factors in a life might produce that kind of selflessness?

2. Why don’t governments stop shark killings internationally?

3. People get such joy in having power over those less powerful than we are. Domination feels good. Who could you have power over if you chose to, and can you restrain yourself from enjoying that type of domination? What’s more rewarding to you than the great feeling you could get from exercising power?

4. Comment on any other aspect of the film.

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Environmental Citizenship

This is a lesson I used to use in the Challenge and Change in Society class, but I had to drop many lessons once we took on MSIP. Now I often use it as the final assignment on citizenship in my civics classes. I have used it successfully at the fast-forward level. It's easy to get them going, and it's easy to evaluate. It's not strictly environmentally based, but it leans that way. (Sorry I can't get columns to work on here.)


Civics: Final Project Name_________________

In a 3-5 minute presentation, teach the class about one form of activism that you have explored in depth. Present the material you have gathered, then ask one or two excellent questions to provoke a class discussion on the issue.

This will be researched independently, and presented in class _______________.

You have three choices for this assignment (just choose one of the following), BUT you may do more than one (1, 2, or 3) for BONUS marks:

1. Protest in Music
* Choose a song that you feel advocates social or political change.
* Bring in a recording of the song, with lyrics on an overhead.
* Describe what the song is about; what is the artist advocating?
* To what extent is the song influential or able to incite change?
* Lead a class discussion based on the social/political change in focus.


2. The Power of One
* Research one person that has affected change through protest such as…
Julia Butterfly Hill, Kaisha Atakhanova, Stephanie Roth, Jane Jacobs, Carolyn Raffensperger Von Hernandez, Stephen Lewis, Maria Elena Farro, Corneille Ewango, Naomi Klein, Ralph Nader, Michael Moore, Maude Barlow, Judy Helfand, Craig Kielburger, your choice
* What did they do?
* What motivated them to try to change a problem in the world?
* Lead a class discussion based on the social/political change in focus.


3. Personal Activism
* Focus on a specific problem in our community right now.
* Create a thorough action plan to change this problem yourself and to
challenge other people to change the problem with you. The following
websites might help determine how best to begin developing a solution…
http://protest.net/activists_handbook/
http://www.westernstatescenter.org/archive/wupep/handbook.html
http://www.freetheplanet.org/index.html
* Lead a class discussion based on the social/political change in focus.


Evaluation:
Research / Explanation of the Issue: /10
Ability to Lead a Discussion: /10

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Lessons in Environmental Policy

Here's a quick lesson that can be used with the Transitions in Society textbook for a grade 12 Challenge and Change in Society class. The aim is to have students familiarize themselves with some of the language of social science, and at the same time learn about change in one piece of environmental legislation over whatever time span the teacher wants to use.



Challenge and Change in Environmental Policy

Research one local environmental challenge in society today to determine the current challenges of this issue such as....

urban sprawl, landfill sites overfilling, automobile use, wind power, nuclear power, ecotourism, organic food, pesticides, reducing consumption, urban sprawl, air pollution, global warming, endangered animals, environmental issue of your choice....

Some website of use...
www.csa.com, www.ecopsychology.org, www.alternet.org, www.amnestyca.org, www.foecanada.org, www.wwfcanada.org, www.ontarionature.org, www.sierraclub.ca,
www.cec.org, www.cpaws.org, www.cleanair.web.net, www.panna.org, www.projectearth.com, www.rco.on.ca, www.greenpeacecanada.org, www.nature.org, Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, The Record, www.bbc.com, and governmental sites

Read the case study on pages 95-97 to get a better understanding of the terms used here.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the specific dominant paradigm to be addressed in this issue? A dominant paradigm insists that we have a duty to create materials wealth to make this and future generations richer, and we have a right to dominate, change, or even corrupt the natural world in order to do so.

2. What is the specific alternative paradigm to be addressed in this issue? An alternative paradigm insists that society must place a higher importance on non-material values, encourage stronger communities built on better personal relationships, and act with greater respect for nature.

3. The dominant and alternative paradigms are competing realities or worldviews (or perspectives on the issue). What argument are most often used when the two opposing groups are bargaining for reality, each trying to prove that their paradigm is more accurate?

4. How would Structuralism-Functionalists and Neo-Marxists view this issue?

5. What forces are impeding or motivating change in this issue?

6. How has this issue changed in the past several decades (e.g. since the 1970s)?

7. In what direction is the issue changing?

8. What forces would be necessary to change this issue to a point of resolution (to solve the problem)?

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EcoSchool How To

In Ontario, we have an EcoSchool program that encourages schools to compete against themselves to be as environmental as possible in practice and attitude. I found it to be a great way to encourage teachers to change some of their current behaviours. Some people, believe it or not, don't really care much about all this environmental stuff. But they do care about their jobs. As a school with a significant enrollment drop, advertising our Gold EcoSchool status is one way to attract more students and thereby keep more teachers and elective courses.

I've been environmentally conscious all my life. My parents lived during the depression and had that "don't be wasteful - ever" mentality. We were collecting cans and papers for the Boy Scouts decades before the blue box program started. I was already using hemp paper in class and teaching with the lights off. So when I heard about EcoSchools, I jumped on it for a chance to get more people on board.

I found the program a bit overwhelming to get my head around when I first read through all the info. If you're just starting, here's some organizational tips in plain English that might help:


The Basic Idea

There are six categories: communication, energy, waste, landscaping, curriculum, and activities. To get a gold standing you have to get about 90% in each category. If you blow one category, you can still get silver or bronze, which have slighty lower standards. There's a new standing now: Platinum. So I have to temper my bragging! Platinum schools have an additional mentoring program.

Where to Begin: Introduce the Idea to Staff

Prepare a 3-4" binder with 8 dividers: one for each category, a section for other ideas people have done, and a chronological section where you keep track of things that happen as they happen. The last two sections might help you fill out some of the categories at the end.

In September or early October, tell the staff about EcoSchools. Get people on board to form an EcoTeam. For full points, you need to include an admin person, a custodian, a secretary, a parent, another teacher, and some students in the team. They don't have to come to every meeting. You really just have to meet twice a year. But each person has to show up to at least one meeting. The most important person in that list, I think, is the custodian. Without custodial support, it will be a hard road. Keep a list of everyone that helped with anything all year in the communication section. And save all the agendas and minutes from every meeting that even mentions EcoSchools. Also save a copy of student announcements.

Part of the announcements and discussion should be around curriulum. You'll need seven lesson plans that last at least two classes with a focus on the environment from various teachers. I'd get face-to-face with the geography and science heads to start. But I ended up with lessons from art, business, and history too. Not only do you need the lesson plans, handouts, and rubrics (or other evaluation methods), but you also need a copy of student work. Ask early and ask often to get this section together. You can also check out the curriculum labels at the side for some lesson plan ideas to offer to teachers.

Do the Audits Early in the Year

Then do the waste and energy audits. You have to do an initial audit, and an ending one, and they have to be done six months apart, so early October is the latest. Do the waste and energy audits both at once. Unless your head caretaker keeps records of all this, it involves some hands-on work and a bit of time. Make a chart with a list of all the rooms in the school down the sides and on the top columns for recycling weight, garbage weight, lights off, monitors off, TVs unplugged, curtains closed, re-use-it box (or GOOS box) available, etc. Divide up the school, and send groups of people to different areas with a scale to record their findings. At the end, figure out what percentage of the school (roughly) is turning off the lights at night, closing curtains, how much people throw out and recycle, etc.

The other part of the audit is to go through a day's worth of garbage to see what percent is recycling, compostable, etc. This is a many-hands-make-light-work kind of job. This year I did it with a few teachers and one student. The rest of the club didn't show up even though they picked the day to accomodate the most people. That happens. Next year, I'll be getting my class to do it as part of the anthropology unit.

Finally, you'll have to meet with the head-custodian at some point to find out all about your heating and cooling systems. Have a student do an interview with the questions on the checklist!

Fill out the forms necessary, and put all the info (including rough work) in the energy and waste sections.

Now What?

From October to March, you need to actually try to educate and alter behaviours around environmental issues. Start by "making an action plan with your EcoTeam." In other words, get together with anyone interested and brainstorm everything you might do to affect people in the school. Even an impromptu discussion in the staff room should be included. Write it all down and include it in the communication section as a whole, but then also include how you're going to affect energy, waste, and landscaping, and what kinds of activities to plan (you need four for full marks) and put those ideas in the individual sections. It's a lot of paperwork, ironically. Next year they might be willing to do much of it on-line.

Action Plan Ideas

Also check out the "cool ideas" label at the side. I'll keep including more as I come up with more - and hopefully others, like YOU, will have some ideas to add too. As you implement the plan, take photos of everything.

Energy:
* Put stickers on the lights and monitors that remind people to turn them off.
* Put a sign by the door that asks people if they turned off everything and unplugged (or turned off the power bar attached to) the TV, DVD player, etc.
* Offer prizes if any class has all their monitors off at the end of the period. This takes a bit of work from students to check.
* Make Earth Hour last a day (preferably not a Saturday), and encourage teachers to teach with the lights off regularly - even if they just turn off a bank of lights. We've found low lighting makes the students calmer too.

Waste:
* Get a recycling program going if you don't have one
* Get composting going
* Put up signs to remind people what can be recycled - even better: put signs on the garbage can to indicate only the items that should go in there. (pretty much just candy wrappers and meat, cheese, dairy waste if you don't have a digester)
* Put a "re-use-it" box (or GOOS box) in each room. My high school kids didn't like the GOOS (good-on-one-side) word, so we changed it.
* Put recycling boxes in the bathrooms if you use paper towels to dry hands. It's still paper.

Landscaping / Schoolyard Greening:
* Create an area somewhere that students can work outside
* Plant some shade trees or windblock trees

Activity Ideas

Pick four of these. If you have more ideas, please let me know in the comments or by e-mail if it's detailed.

* Set up a Free Store.
* Get together a team for the Envirothon.
* Hold a "Leave Your Car at Home" week.
* Have a Paper=Habitat week. We held an assembly with Down To Earth, and I tried to get staff and admin to decrease the amount of paper they use (my suggestions). Unfortunately they think we need a committee to discuss it all before we can begin.
* Sell mini-bins for smokers to put their butts in to stop the yard being littered with the most toxic and most common pollution individuals make.
* Hold a Water Week. Sell stainless steel water bottles, offer water taste tests including water from the school's tap, and show a movie like Sharkwater or FLOW.
* Have a movie night with a speaker and a current environmental film like Wall-E. Or an oldy like Dawn of the Dead. (It's about mindless consumerism - really.)
* Have a poster making contest that deals with a specific environmental concern.
* Get on board with Turn off the TV or Mental-Detox week.
* Have a bike rally - like a car rally but with teams of bicycles.
* Make a film about what your school has done this year.
* Have an Earth Day celebration. We do an EarthFest concert. I'll write more about that soon.

Final Audit

In early March, do another waste and energy audit. Get your students to start hounding teachers (or other students at this point) for their environmental lesson plans.

The Package

Take a day off. We get release days, but do what you can if you don't. Go through everything you collected over the year and make sure all the checklists are complete. Did you meet with every type of person on the list? Are the audits and action plans complete for the energy and waste sections? Do you have photos of the landscaping plans and actual landscaped areas? Do you have info on all your activities? Did you scrounge up seven lesson plans with student work?

Send it in to your board rep usually early April or late March. Someone might come in a few weeks from now to check out your school. After that, think up a display for the EcoSchool presentation ceremony.

Thank everyone involved profusely and with food, so they'll come back next year to do it all again.

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The Big Necessity

This photo is from a Globe and Mail article on Oliver Parsons- Baker who, it's hard to tell, is dressed as a giant turd in order to bring attention to the plight of people without clean water. He's one of many Trafalgar Square Plinthers who mix art and activism. His sign says, "G8 leaders - take action on the sanitation crisis NOW."

When we're talking about people getting sick from drinking dirty water, the vast majority of the time it's not because of industrial pollutants clouding the water. It's feces. Human feces.

When I saw the Borat movie, I laughed at parts, but thought the bit with him defecating in a plastic bag was too over the top. Come on - who doesn't know how to use a toilet?!


Then I read The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why it Matters by Rose George. Lots of people, a good 40% of the world, don't have access to toilets, and many have never seen one. And the crisis of water-borne diseases spreading, and babies dying of dehydration isn't primarily about drought or environmental catastrophes. It's about people not having adequate sanitation. The water crisis is really a poop crisis.

And the plastic bag scene? They're called helicopter toilets. In some places people really do use a plastic bag, then throw it up on the roof. At the very least it keeps the streets clean right?

Here's a few tidbits I got from the book and share with classes. Page numbers follow each fact:

Four in ten people in the world have no access to any type of toilet, bucket or box. They are open defecators. They live surrounded by human excrement that gets brought into the house on their feet, fingers or clothes. (2) A toilet isn't a right; it's a privilege. A huge privilege.

"A gram of feces can contain 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts, and 100 worm eggs." (2) This is the reason I have issues with using green bin "compost" that includes dog feces and diapers as fertilizer on food. Diarrhea kills a child every fifteen seconds. It kills more than AIDS, TB or malaria. 90% of diarrhea is caused by fecal contaminated food or water. It's not a water-related disease, but really a shit-related disease. We focus on water sources and pollution, but not on the real cause of the problem: poop in the streets. But nobody wants to talk about that. The greatest hurdle that has saved the most lives worldwide isn't medicine, but sanitation. "No act of terrorism generates economic devastation on the scale of the crisis in water and sanitation. Yet the issue barely registers on the international agenda." (68) "Cholera and typhoid kill so many million kids a year, which amounts to two jumbo jets full of children crashing every four hours." (78)

Ninety percent of the world's sewage ends up untreated in oceans, rivers, and lakes. Most of that comes from big cities in the developed world. "Even the best-equipped humans still don't know what to do with sewage except move it somewhere else..." (6)

Sewer systems in large cities are stymied by oil and fats poured down drains, and by garbage flushed down toilets or dropped down the sewer grates in the streets: cellphones, Q-tips, pads, goldfish, etc. Flushing with water means we increase the gallons of waste flushed by twenty times. (19-21) At our cabin we use a composting toilet - the waste product goes under the trees deep in the bush, not on the garden or anywhere near a water source. The toilet uses no water at all. When you think about it, it's kind of insane to use drinking water to flush the toilets. We got the bottom of the line model, and I highly recommend it.

Many people are getting involved in this crisis including Matt Damon (NGO H2O), Jay-Z, Chris Martin... "Globally, if universal sanitation were achieved by 2015, it would cost $95 billion, but it would save $660 billion." (72) One toilet for the few people on NASA's space shuttles costs over $20 million. (225) Unfortunately, sanitation wasn't part of the Millennium Development Goals. It's still seen as less vital than malaria and AIDS aid even though it kills far more people.

Shit can be used to build bricks, and biogas can cook your food. (111) It's being used as an alternative to propane or coal in India and China. (124)

There's an entire chapter devoted to biosolids and the hazards of having sludge too close to living quarters or food (or crops). It hasn't been studied enough for anyone to say conclusively that it's a problem, or else we'd have to stop spraying crops with crap. "The waste-water industry is intimidating...dissent is not encouraged.... We are their lab rats." (169)

The best part of the book, I think, deals with human psychology. How do we change people's habits? "Health messages rarely have an impact.... Reason rarely persuades people to change behaviour.....Target the product to wants not needs." What do people want? Status and friends (even more than cash, which is really just a means to get status and friends). So some activists in this fields use the catchprase, "Building dignity through toilets." They also found it useful to awaken disgust, to use crude language about they way people are living, in order to encourage a different way to live: pit latrines are the most economical system for impoverished countries. None of the people that are developing ideas discussed in the book have applied for patents. "None wants to remove his useful ideas into expensive inaccessibility." (218)

By 2050, half of all people will live in countries that are chronically short of water. Yet we waste it so carelessly all the time. In times of drought, people stop flushing toilets unless absolutely necessary. "In a drought context, darker yellow pee in toilets signifies moral rectitude." (236) People can get used to anything.

And the conclusion?

"In 1940, Harold Farsworth Gray concluded that "urban man today still unnecessarily pollutes streams, bathing beaches, bays and estuaries, without benefit of the excuse of ignorance which was available to his ancestors." We have less ignorance and less excuse. The first thing sanitation needs is a spotlight shining on it. It needs to be unshackled from shame." (238)

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E-Car Rebates

Dalton McGuinty is planning to give us a break if we buy an electric car in the form of a rebate worth up to $10,000. It's not, as some critics suggest, a break only if you buy an electric Chevy as a means to help GM, but any e-car. It's a way to encourage all manufacturers to change direction. And some manufacturers are way ahead on this one, like the Zenn producers in Quebec. I haven't been much of a fan of McGuinty's mainly because of his preference for golf courses over environmentally-sensitive spaces, but I do like this idea.


Jim Bradley says, "We want all auto makers to embrace this strategy to help Ontario become a centre of production for innovative, world-leading automotive technology."

Even better, though, would be ways to motivate people to stop driving. Locally, some people think the Light-Rail Transit will be successful on that front. I'm still dubious. People change their behaviours only if the rewards are great enough. You have to really hate driving to be willing to walk or cab or drive to the train station, take the train, then walk or cab to work from there. I'm not convinced traffic is bad enough in this region to make LRT a more rewarding alternative. And a $10,000 rebate is a pretty hefty reward attached to a new car.

In Germany, one company is offering a 7% discount to all customers who leave their car at home. The green rebate is already attracting 3-5 customers each day. And it is hoped to reduce traffic and parking problems in the area as well as attracting more business.

We need more initiatives like this - and soon.

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Some Burning Questions on Campfires

When we're out camping, it's always a treat to sit around a campfire roasting hot dogs or s'mores. But, unless the fire is necessary for warmth or food, I think it really is best as a treat that happens rarely, not an every-night event. We typically save it for the final night.


Here's my thinking on the matter: 1. When dead trees decay naturally, they release the same amount of GHGs as when they are burned, but it happens much faster unnecessarily. 2. The more firewood people buy, the more trees are felled for the wood, so we can stare at something pretty. So the fewer trees we have to absorb carbon dioxide. I think trees are more important (and prettier) than fires. 3. Even if people only burn wood they find on the forest floor, so no trees are cut then dried for fires, those decaying trees on the ground provide important habitat for many insects, birds and animals.

Any arguments to the contrary? (So I can feel okay about that last night of the trip.)

If you're going to have a fire, don't do it like this:


Campfire Fun - Explosion - Funny blooper videos are here

Do it a bit more like this:


How to Minimize Your Campfire's Impact on the Environment -- powered by eHow.com


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Asbestos and Benzene: On-Going Threats

Hey, here's my first guest post! It's from James O'Shea with The Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Center (maacenter), "the web's leading organization for relevant and authoritative information regarding asbestos and health complications associated with asbestos exposure."

***
Green Living: Improving Health For Today and Tomorrow

Much attention has been paid in recent years to what seems to be a growing environmental conscience in the United States. Going green used to be considered expensive and a luxury for those who could afford the trend. Now it appears that we are learning that not only is adopting more environmentally conscious attitudes good for our economic situation, but also our….health? Yes, if we dig a bit deeper we can see that dirty industries and backwards policy are actually harming the health of the earth for our children and the health of her inhabitants today.


How Does Environmental Policy Affect Public Health?

There are two levels of health consequences associated with dirty industry, both direct and indirect. The direct consequences are examples like increased asthma rates in areas with high smog indices. Chlorofluorocarbon release into the atmosphere has shown to decrease the filter of direct sunlight on the planet, resulting in more concentrated ultraviolet light reaching the surface of the earth. Perhaps it is no surprise then that in countries with depleted atmospheric gas, skin cancer rates are among the highest in the world.

The indirect health consequences are harder to see immediately, but closer examination reveals that these are, in fact, perhaps the most hazardous. Bi-products of dirty and backwards industries, such as coal and oil processing, include cancer causing substances like asbestos and benzene. A U.K. study conducted in 2002 indicated that coal and oil industry workers are at a much higher risk of developing pericardial mesothelioma (associated with asbestos exposure) and leukemia (traced to benzene and heavy-metal exposure). Dr. Robert Taub among many other doctors who specialize in this area understand that these are substances that can be directly traced to antiquated pre-regulation equipment in industries whose environmental hazards are even more inherent.

Can we really afford to continue on the path we were on before? Investment in clean industry means not a healthier planet for our children and grandchildren, but also a healthier place for us to live today.

--July 13, 2009 Written by James O’ Shea with the maacenter


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