From the "Ideas" section of the Toronto Star newspaper, Friday, September 28, 2007, section "Ideas", page AA8, comes the following article by Kathleen O'Hara about the provincial "leadership vacuum" on climate change.
LEADERS FUMBLE GREEN BALL
Kathleen O'Hara
Are we all living on the same planet, being exposed to the same frightening information about climate change? Based on the provincial election campaign so far, I wonder. You would think that the status quo is fundamentally fine, but just needs adjusting. Far from it.
There is no shortage of reminders about the crisis we face. Lester R. Brown of the Earth Policy Institute wrote: "Saving civilization means restructuring the economy -- and at wartime speed," Author Jeremy Rifkin states: "There are rare moments in history when a generation of human beings are given a new gift with which to rearrange their relationship to one another and the world around them. This is such a moment."
Yet, I detect no real appreciation of this "moment" from our provincial campaign, no sense of urgency, no vision of a relatively carbon-free future. During the leaders' debate, no one picked up the green ball and ran with it. The closest thing to inspiration was Howard Hampton saying we needed "leadership" on the issue of global warming.
This leadership vacuum is tragic because, in spite of the fact that many of us support the crucial transition to green, it isn't going as well as it could or should. Instead of confronting the Earth's crisis in a co-operative, enlightened way, some are using it to make a questionable buck. Take wind power. Who would have thought it could be controversial? Harvesting energy from thin air without drilling, refining, transporting. No need to exploit foreign resources, no wars or occupations. It sounded like a godsend.
But controversial it is -- from the islands near Kingston to Atlantic Canada to Australia, the U.K. and India. People are protesting against the turbine "monstrosities," "the juggernaut which runs roughshod, unchecked over some of our loveliest land," "the resources exploitation and industrial domination over our territory."
Over the summer, the proposed introduction of what one opponent called "industrial scale wind plants" on nearly Wolfe and Amherst Islands divided these quiet, rural communities. Some secretly leased their land to Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. so that the Calgary-based company could install more than 80 steel turbines on each island.
Dividing families and friends, the company's methodology was far from green. Anti-wind-plant protest groups were formed. On Wolfe Island, opponents were worried about the distance of the 90-metre-tall turbines from homes, a wetland and bird migratory routes. After taking a township bylaw to the Ontario Municipal Board, the setbacks were increased, much to the relief of many. The issue still festering on Amherst Island.
These controversies illustrate that our society hasn't learned anything about how we have reached today's crisis, how running roughshod over lives and resources just doesn't work. The fact is that we can't simply create new sources of energy; we must create a new kind of society -- by building and designing our new systems in humane, democratic ways with strict regulations and community input.
Rifkin warns that we can't allow our energy future to be hijacked by profit-driven corporations the way the Internet was. "The great promise of the Net . . . has been compromised, at every step of the way, by commercial interests determined to gain a foothold over the medium."
Yes, the world is getting off to a rocky start when it comes to "saving civilisation." Here in Ontario, it doesn't look like any person or party is going to lead us out of the increasingly hot wilderness -- no matter what the election outcome. That is a disgrace when so much is at stake.
Kathleen O'Hara is a Kingston-based journalist and writer.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Green Living
This article by Peter Gorrie is from the Toronto Star, Saturday, October 6, 2007, page U2:
NATURE
The art of reconnecting
Claudia Davila offers and "inconvenient truth" to those who believe they can buy their way to a small environmental footprint.
"That's the easy route, and it's just a start," says Davila, 34, an illustrator and designer of children's books and magazines.
Her message: we need to recognize that we're part of the natural world and reconnect with it.
"If we just keep shopping" -- for energy-efficient appliances and other "green" products -- "we miss the whole root of the problem."
Davila was born in Chile and came to Canada as an infant in 1973, after the overthrow of the elected government by General Augusto Pinochet.
"My whole life, I've really appreciated nature and tried to reconcile how humans interact with it," she says in the tiny College St. apartment she shares with her husband artist Michael Cho.
"It's just something inside of me. It tells me that humans are not separate from nature. We're part of it."
Davila's awareness started to turn into action when she was studying fine arts at York University and met up with like-minded people.
Her "beginning attempts at a smaller footprint" included biking to work and school, buying in bulk, producing as little waste as possible and delaying the purchase of a car.
Today, she buys as little as possible and second-hand whenever she can. She uses the library instead of bookstores. She and her husband share a car with her parents and married brother. She buys local foods, and uses found objects and scrap paper in some of her art.
One of her frustrations is that, since she lives on the second floor over a store, the city won't let her use a green bin for composting.
Davila is also focused on peak oil -- the realization that we're running out of fossil fuels. It's the subject of a book, Spoiled, that she has drawn and written, as well as Internet blogs she hosts.
In her optimistic moments, she sees the impending fuel shortage as a chance. "It's a symbol of a wake-up call for people. It's hopefully an opportunity to realize that we've fallen so far away from our relationship to nature . . . That we have to give back as much as we take."
-- Peter Gorrie
NATURE
The art of reconnecting
Claudia Davila offers and "inconvenient truth" to those who believe they can buy their way to a small environmental footprint.
"That's the easy route, and it's just a start," says Davila, 34, an illustrator and designer of children's books and magazines.
Her message: we need to recognize that we're part of the natural world and reconnect with it.
"If we just keep shopping" -- for energy-efficient appliances and other "green" products -- "we miss the whole root of the problem."
Davila was born in Chile and came to Canada as an infant in 1973, after the overthrow of the elected government by General Augusto Pinochet.
"My whole life, I've really appreciated nature and tried to reconcile how humans interact with it," she says in the tiny College St. apartment she shares with her husband artist Michael Cho.
"It's just something inside of me. It tells me that humans are not separate from nature. We're part of it."
Davila's awareness started to turn into action when she was studying fine arts at York University and met up with like-minded people.
Her "beginning attempts at a smaller footprint" included biking to work and school, buying in bulk, producing as little waste as possible and delaying the purchase of a car.
Today, she buys as little as possible and second-hand whenever she can. She uses the library instead of bookstores. She and her husband share a car with her parents and married brother. She buys local foods, and uses found objects and scrap paper in some of her art.
One of her frustrations is that, since she lives on the second floor over a store, the city won't let her use a green bin for composting.
Davila is also focused on peak oil -- the realization that we're running out of fossil fuels. It's the subject of a book, Spoiled, that she has drawn and written, as well as Internet blogs she hosts.
In her optimistic moments, she sees the impending fuel shortage as a chance. "It's a symbol of a wake-up call for people. It's hopefully an opportunity to realize that we've fallen so far away from our relationship to nature . . . That we have to give back as much as we take."
-- Peter Gorrie
Living Green & Leading by Example
Toronto Star, Sat., October 6, 2007, Section U, "Green Living".
For the Children
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
Small changes can yield big results, especially when the goal is healing. You can learn from friends whose reusuable shopping bags and energy-efficient lightbulbs inspire green living. Pick up a few eco-friendly habits and feel good for passing yours along. Saving the environment can be easier than you think.
_____________________________________________________________________
The following is an article by Dr. David Suzuki, in the Toronto Star, Saturday, October 6, 2007, "Living Green," page U1. Dr. Suzuki is a scientist, author, professor, lecturer, and Canada's leading environmentalist:
What does it mean to live green? Unless we live under a rock, we are all part of a way of life that is unsustainable because it is undermining the life support systems of the planet -- air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity.
Globalization conceals much of the ecological cost of our way of life. From the moment I wake up in cotton sheets under wool blankets, I benefit from materials grown, shipped and manufactured all over the world.
Think of the source of the coffee, sugar, newsprint and ink, porcelain dishes and metal cutlery that help us start the day. By the time we get to all the components of our radios, or TVs, cars, phones and computers, you realize we are invisibly plugged in to the rest of the world and if 6.5 billion people aspire to our standard of living, the burden on the planet will be overwhelming.
But 30 million Canadians making small changes in our lives -- rejecting disposability, consuming less and more judiciously, driving less, etc. -- can nevertheless be very significant with no diminution in the quality of our lives.
Can we change to a society that covets clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and a diversity of other species as our highest priority, or will be choose to carry on with business as usual because we are unwilling to jeopardize the economy or sacrifice our hyper-consumption?
Whatever we choose, nature will ultimately impose the final limits and conditions on our survival and well-being.
We all live with contradictions. In 2000, I purchased the first Prius sold in Canada. I bicycle around Vancouver, and I take the bus or walk even more.
But I fly, and as George Monbiot's book Heat points out, air travel is the one major activity that cannot be changed to meet the large reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions necessary if we are to keep global temperature from rising more than 2C this century.
To bring human-generated GHGs into balance with the biosphere's capacity to absorb them, Monbiot asserts we must reduce our annual output of GHGs to an average of one tonne per person on the planet. At present, the average Canadian generates 20 tonnes and, according to Monbiot, a round-trip flight from Toronto to London produces one tonne per passenger.
To move toward balance with our surroundings, we have to spread information and knowledge, and that has been my rationale for continuing to fly. But it's not a satisfying one because I know people can rationalize just about anything.
For more than three years, I have been flying gold-standard "carbon neutral" -- that is, for the energy used on my behalf when I fly, I invest in putting 1 1/2 times as much green energy (solar and wind) onto the grid in developing countries like China and India.
The atmosphere is a single entity, and what happens there affects us all. By investing in such countries, we reduce their incentive to build polluting coal-burning plants.
But "carbon neutral" is not a licence to pollute. So this year I have cut my flying in half. I lumped commitments to fulfill several speaking engagements and television work on one trip.
Monbiot points out that short flights produce a disproportionate amount of GHGs because takeoff and landing are the times of greatest energy use. So I take trains between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and, although they take longer, I can work and relax and travel from downtown to downtown.
I have declined several invitations to speak abroad. And now I am offering to give speeches to various places but on condition that they be by teleconference. This month, I do my first two teleconference speeches to Australia and I hope that next year, most of my speeches will be from the comfort of a studio in Vancouver where I live.
It means I'll be better off psychically and physically, my family and friends will be pleased and, I hope, Mother Earth will have a slightly reduced burden.
David Suzuki is a broadcaster, scientist and founder of the David Suzuki Foundation: davidsuzuki.org
For the Children
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
Small changes can yield big results, especially when the goal is healing. You can learn from friends whose reusuable shopping bags and energy-efficient lightbulbs inspire green living. Pick up a few eco-friendly habits and feel good for passing yours along. Saving the environment can be easier than you think.
_____________________________________________________________________
The following is an article by Dr. David Suzuki, in the Toronto Star, Saturday, October 6, 2007, "Living Green," page U1. Dr. Suzuki is a scientist, author, professor, lecturer, and Canada's leading environmentalist:
What does it mean to live green? Unless we live under a rock, we are all part of a way of life that is unsustainable because it is undermining the life support systems of the planet -- air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity.
Globalization conceals much of the ecological cost of our way of life. From the moment I wake up in cotton sheets under wool blankets, I benefit from materials grown, shipped and manufactured all over the world.
Think of the source of the coffee, sugar, newsprint and ink, porcelain dishes and metal cutlery that help us start the day. By the time we get to all the components of our radios, or TVs, cars, phones and computers, you realize we are invisibly plugged in to the rest of the world and if 6.5 billion people aspire to our standard of living, the burden on the planet will be overwhelming.
'Carbon neutral is not a licence to pollute. So this year I have cut my flying in half.' David Suzuki
But 30 million Canadians making small changes in our lives -- rejecting disposability, consuming less and more judiciously, driving less, etc. -- can nevertheless be very significant with no diminution in the quality of our lives.
Can we change to a society that covets clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and a diversity of other species as our highest priority, or will be choose to carry on with business as usual because we are unwilling to jeopardize the economy or sacrifice our hyper-consumption?
Whatever we choose, nature will ultimately impose the final limits and conditions on our survival and well-being.
We all live with contradictions. In 2000, I purchased the first Prius sold in Canada. I bicycle around Vancouver, and I take the bus or walk even more.
But I fly, and as George Monbiot's book Heat points out, air travel is the one major activity that cannot be changed to meet the large reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions necessary if we are to keep global temperature from rising more than 2C this century.
To bring human-generated GHGs into balance with the biosphere's capacity to absorb them, Monbiot asserts we must reduce our annual output of GHGs to an average of one tonne per person on the planet. At present, the average Canadian generates 20 tonnes and, according to Monbiot, a round-trip flight from Toronto to London produces one tonne per passenger.
To move toward balance with our surroundings, we have to spread information and knowledge, and that has been my rationale for continuing to fly. But it's not a satisfying one because I know people can rationalize just about anything.
For more than three years, I have been flying gold-standard "carbon neutral" -- that is, for the energy used on my behalf when I fly, I invest in putting 1 1/2 times as much green energy (solar and wind) onto the grid in developing countries like China and India.
The atmosphere is a single entity, and what happens there affects us all. By investing in such countries, we reduce their incentive to build polluting coal-burning plants.
But "carbon neutral" is not a licence to pollute. So this year I have cut my flying in half. I lumped commitments to fulfill several speaking engagements and television work on one trip.
Monbiot points out that short flights produce a disproportionate amount of GHGs because takeoff and landing are the times of greatest energy use. So I take trains between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and, although they take longer, I can work and relax and travel from downtown to downtown.
I have declined several invitations to speak abroad. And now I am offering to give speeches to various places but on condition that they be by teleconference. This month, I do my first two teleconference speeches to Australia and I hope that next year, most of my speeches will be from the comfort of a studio in Vancouver where I live.
It means I'll be better off psychically and physically, my family and friends will be pleased and, I hope, Mother Earth will have a slightly reduced burden.
David Suzuki is a broadcaster, scientist and founder of the David Suzuki Foundation: davidsuzuki.org
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Public Transport: Family Camping, the Better Way
Here is an article from Mike Funston, in the Toronto Star, dated Saturday, October 6, 2007, from the "Living Green," "Making Changes" section of the newspaper, page U2:
Gideon Forman of Toronto always uses public transit -- even when he goes camping with his 13-year-old son.
"I don't own a car. In fact, I don't even have a driver's licence. But I'm an avid hiker and want to instill a love of wilderness in my kids.
"Each summer for the past few years, I've taken my son camping. We've gone to Algonquin Park, the Bruce Peninsula and Point Pelee."
Their trip, camping gear and all, starts with a TTC ride to the bus or train station.
For Algonquin, they take the train to Huntsville, then a shuttle bus into the park. For Bruce Peninsula National Park, they take a Greyhound bus to Owen Sound, then a "tiny" bus up Highway 6, get dropped off on the side of the road, then hike six kilometres into the park. For Point Pelee, they took the train to Windsor, a taxi to a campground 1.5 kilometres outside the park, then hiked into the park.
"Going camping by public transit isn't just environmentally better, it's also more of an adventure. Not having a car around gives the trip more of a wilderness feel."
-- Mike Funston
Gideon Forman of Toronto always uses public transit -- even when he goes camping with his 13-year-old son.
"I don't own a car. In fact, I don't even have a driver's licence. But I'm an avid hiker and want to instill a love of wilderness in my kids.
"Each summer for the past few years, I've taken my son camping. We've gone to Algonquin Park, the Bruce Peninsula and Point Pelee."
Their trip, camping gear and all, starts with a TTC ride to the bus or train station.
For Algonquin, they take the train to Huntsville, then a shuttle bus into the park. For Bruce Peninsula National Park, they take a Greyhound bus to Owen Sound, then a "tiny" bus up Highway 6, get dropped off on the side of the road, then hike six kilometres into the park. For Point Pelee, they took the train to Windsor, a taxi to a campground 1.5 kilometres outside the park, then hiked into the park.
"Going camping by public transit isn't just environmentally better, it's also more of an adventure. Not having a car around gives the trip more of a wilderness feel."
-- Mike Funston
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