When is the Best Time?

When is the Best time to plant a tree? 30 years ago. When is the next best time to plant a tree? Today. When is the Best time to switch to a sustainable economy? 30 years ago. When is the next best time? Today.

We have a Corporate, Consumerist, Cancerous economy that is destroying our environment, devouring the middle class and celebrating growth and greed in a manner that threatens our survival as local communities and a global civilization. It would have been a good idea to begin the transition to a sustainable economy back in the ‘70’s when the Science Council of Canada came out with their study “Canada as a Conserver Society”. We did not. Surely we should start today.

Instead, when the greedy cancer cells in the stock market over reach themselves, our current leaders and our central banks rush to pour our money by the billions into their gaping mouths and bottomless stomachs. More growth for the rich, more public debt for the people. And our current leaders threaten the disappearing middle class, the employed workers with economic disaster if they don’t feed Wall Street and Bay Street.

Now is the time to make the transition to a sustainable economy. How about a fund to support workers and their families who lose jobs as the Corporate, consumerist, Cancerous economy collapses. How about a fund to invest in sustainable technologies. How about a fund to invest in training workers for the green collar jobs in our communities.

Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.

Overnight our current leaders can find $180,000,000,000.00 (count the zeros - one hundred and eighty BILLION dollars) to bail out their buddies on Bay Street and Wall Street. They tell us this will save us. They are wrong. It wastes our current resource removing a small obstacle from the tracks of a train racing off a cliff. Today’s obstacle is a warning to stop the train and turn it around. To understand why our current leaders will be shoveling in coal (or bundles of taxpayers dollars) forever read “A Short History of Civilization” by Ronald Wright. The elites in society never get it. Their elite position depends on propping up the past not embracing the future. They’ll keep driving the train long after it has left the tracks.

I want a future I can be proud to pass on to our children. Let’s get off this train and start building a path to a sustainable, equitable and community based future. We may have to walk that path and share rides to get there. But I’d rather get there on my own two feet than go over a cliff in the padded seats of this train.

Tony McQuail

Conservation & Efficiency Before Technology

I recently attended a Symposium sponsored by the Centre for Applied Renewable Energy in Brussels, Ontario. The title was “Merging with the Green Economy” and it was an encouraging look at opportunities for rural renewable energy products and Green Collar job possibilities in Rural Communities. I particularly liked David Blaney’s comment “our sons and daughters can pursue their interests and stay local if we push renewables.”

It was also exciting to hear John Wilkinson, the keynote speaker and Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation, say that we need to rejoin all the other species on the planet in living in a sustainable fashion. He then went on to say that photosynthesis and metabolism are what makes the rest of the world work and that we need to find our way out of the darkness of the choice we made 150 years ago when we began becoming so dependent on fossil fuels. This is good stuff and I’m glad to hear it.

But I did have a concern as I reflect on the symposium. Most of the talk was about technology. Now I agree we need to be shifting to biofuels, and solar panels and wind generators. We need to be making a transition to a renewably fueled society. But I also agree with Richard Heinberg, who in his book, “The Party’s Over”, says there is no one silver bullet that can replace our current level of Fossil Fuel use, only silver BB’s, each a small contributor to meeting our energy requirements. We need to
be thinking about innovative ways to organize our society and economy so we need less energy NOW, not just working on new energy sources and more stuff. The more we can lower our energy useage, the greater our success in shifting to renewables.

As an example, consider a situation where four people are driving daily from a rural township to jobs in a local town. If each gets a hybrid car that doubles the mileage they are currently getting with their existing cars and each continues to drive to work they will cut their fuel needs by 50%. However, they will have the cost of buying new cars and the manufacture of those cars will take a lot of energy and resources. On the other hand, if the 4 decide to car pool to town they can cut their energy use by 75% RIGHT NOW with no additional cost for new cars and no additional energy and resource use to manufacture them.

To make a transition to a sustainable society we need to be thinking creatively about how to encourage and support that type of behavior AND how to design an economy so that it doesn’t crash and burn when the demand for private automobiles drops or products are made so durable that they last decades. We need to develop ways that we as individuals can work together to reduce our energy needs and where we as a society can encourage frugality, durability and simplicity without putting half the population on unemployment. If we replace the cancerous growth of our throwaway consumer society maybe one of the benefits could be a 20 hour work week. Wouldn’t it be great to have that extra time for our families and communities as well as a sustainable economy too!

Tony McQuail

Been to Council Lately?

Have you ever been to a meeting of your local council lately?

If not, it's an eye opener let me tell you...but also a 'feel gooder' seeing democracy play out in front of you, as contorted as it might be.

Proposals coming forth to the Town of the Blue Mountains last night ranged from a townhouse development downtown to an eco-agricultural residential community on the periphery of Thornbury to a new dog kennel operation being proposed by our neighbours! Good thing we’re dog lovers…

Not surprisingly the different projects all had the proponents and opponents, to a degree, with some people simply voicing their opposition to ‘change’.

My feeling is that change is a good thing, an inevitable thing, but that at the very least we deserve and should in fact demand progressive change that will meet the needs of today while doing our best to address the prospects of future generations.

For the most part I think that the TOBM, backed by increasingly progressive municipal and provincial regulatory frameworks, is trying to set a course for sustainable development. Ultimately though, it will be our willingness to embrace new forms of green building, densification around existing municipal services and creative multi-use projects that address everything from energy to waste, transportation to food that will allow us to steer the ship of civilization in a sustainable direction.

We’re not their yet. Some of us are still clinging to strict notions of the single family home, big garage for the SUV to get to the Supersentre for a mass consumption of cheap goods lifestyle.

Unbeknownst to some, sustainable development is not something that comes in a box that we can buy at an everyday low price. A better future will involve a revaluation of what is really important to our lives and shifting towards new notions of well-off means: healthy food without nutrient deficiencies or chemical externalities; communities that function like large families, not gated communities built on the basis of exclusion; and efficient municipal services that empower people and protect the environment that supports us...for example.

While we might feel powerless to change policies at the national or provincial level more than every 4 or less years (such as why we continue to subsidize industrial farms that sell their goods below cost of production to compete on the world market, rather than support small organic farms that are producing healthier food for local consumption) your local council probably has open meetings weekly.

So the next time you get a ‘Notice of Adjustment’ in the mail or see something that catches your eye in the newspaper, head down to your local council chambers for the meeting and have your voice heard. You’ll feel good about it, probably bump into some of your friendly neighbours and be able to keep tabs on what kinds of new developments are taking place in your community. And forget the Cineplex, for the money these open council meetings may be the best heart pounding entertainment value around.

Posted by Farmer Ryan

And We're Off...

As you will know by now, the writ has been dropped and we are into another federal election campaign.

There are many important issues that must be addressed in this election including climate change, a potential economic slowdown, and most recently, issues of democracy and accountability that have been raised through the actions of the Harper government.

I thank you far your strong support in past elections. Together we have brought Green support in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound from a mere 4% to a precedent setting 33% of the popular vote. Now we need to take it over the top and send the first elected Green to represent us in Ottawa.

Dick Hibma was selected to carry the Green banner for us at our AGM early in the spring. Now I'm asking all of you, my past supporters, to rally behind him to make a Green win a reality. Dick has been a good friend and a solid Green supporter. He adheres to the key values of the Green Party and his credentials are excellent. Dick served on Owen Sound City Council for 13 years, as well as serving in other important roles such as the chair of Conservation Ontario.

Now Dick needs you.

Whatever your talents, abilities, and time availability, you can have a significant impact on the outcome of this election. There are many ways to get involved and help send the message of sustainability to Ottawa.
First of all, you can drop into the new campaign office at 833 2nd Ave. E., across from Owen Sound City Hall and check the “wall of action”. There will always be jobs, small and large that you can take on in your spare time.
Second, call 519-416-4220 and talk to Jeff Brownridge, Dick’s campaign manager about what role you can fill.
Finally, you can request a sign and make a donation to the campaign. Signs will be ready shortly, and donations are needed to run a fully funded winning campaign. Donations can be made by cheque or through the campaign website at http://dickhibma.com/ .

I firmly believe that we have the best candidate by far in this election, and I will be investing my time in seeing Dick elected on October 14th.
I trust you’ll join me in furthering the causes of democracy, sustainability, and social justice by giving what you can in time, energy, and finances.

Yours in a green future.

Partisan Abuse of Power

Before my editor has a chance to add it to my credentials at the end of this column, I'll tell you up front that I was the campaign manager for the Green Party candidate, Shane Jolley, in the last provincial election. I also worked for Sebastian Ostertag when he ran federally for the NDP. And when I was still too young to vote, I helped in Alan Lawrence's campaign at the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership convention when Bill Davis won the day.

So all my political cards are now on the table.

Only once in my voting life can I remember putting my X beside the name of a candidate who became our representative. Richard Allen became the Minister of Colleges and Universities and took a considerable amount of heat from long-time party members who were frustrated that party policies were not all being turned into government legislation. Richard would patiently remind us that he was now a member of a government that was elected to act in the interests of all the people of Ontario, not just those of our own political stripe.

I thought of his principled stand when I heard CBC radio's investigation into a meeting between Natural Resources minister Gary Lunn and lobbyists representing, among others, restaurants with drive-throughs. The next day, the ministry's Idle Free Zone website was withdrawn for months for important changes, like the removal of any reference to premature deaths from air pollution and a change of recommended idling limits from 10 seconds to a minute.

Assuming that the original site was based on solid research and was posted at taxpayers' expense for the protection of the Canadian people, what changed in the course of a meeting between food industry lobbyists and the Minister? The same minister was involved in the firing a government geologist for not using the phrase “Canada's New Government” in his correspondence and dismissing Canada's nuclear safety watchdog when her recommendations didn't suit the government agenda.
For whom is the government working?

Whose interests were at heart in the writing of a recently leaked Conservative Party plan to end a program funding the promotion of Canadian culture abroad? Having cut specialized transport of touring art exhibits and funding for any film of which it doesn't approve, the Conservative government now feels Canadian ballet companies and exhibits of the Canadian Museum of Civilization should not be shared with anyone outside Canada. And they seem particularly afraid of journalists speaking abroad, even those many Canadians hold in high esteem - Avi Lewis (called a “general radical”) and “left-wing” Gwynn Dyer. These decisions reflect very partisan and anti-cultural views.

But perhaps the most vexingly partisan act of late has been close to home. This week, for the fourth time in as many weeks, we've received a piece of mail from Larry Miller, MP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound. His constituency staff, who are told that part of their job is to help Larry get re-elected, tried to convince callers that these mailings were paid for by the Conservative Party. It is easy to understand why they would make this mistake, because the literature looks and reads just like a campaign leaflet.

To his credit, Mr. Miller admitted that the thousands of dollars spent on this material came from the taxpayers of Grey and Bruce. Mr. Miller claimed that the expense was justified – this was a way of informing residents of the government's actions and getting public opinion on the issues.

In the summer. Four times. In four separate mailings.

I'm all for politicians seeking input from citizens, but everything about these “surveys” smells of haste to spend while it can be done at taxpayers' expense – an election in the wind. There is no new information or direction; the messages are self-congratulating, fear mongering and childishly insulting to their main opposition.

If Mr. Miller wants to know what we care about in Grey-Bruce, or how we feel about the job he and the Conservative government are doing for us, why didn't he just ask us himself? One well-crafted message from our own MP with local and national questions would do it. Our residents have plenty of opinions and creative ideas. And he could have saved us the cost of three of the four mailings.

When the election is called, I'll weigh the issues of the day, assess the platform of the parties and ask questions of the local candidates before I cast my vote. But when the counting is over, I expect every elected member of parliament to act in the interests of all Canadian citizens and not just those who supported their campaigns.

Posted by AnneFS

The Biodiversity Imperitive

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. ~John Muir

When we first looked at our house in Owen Sound, one of its appeals was a beautiful green view from the kitchen window. There is a small back lawn and then a steep hill covered in lovely green plants. Most of which, it turned out, were goutweed.
Formally known as Aegopodium podagraria , this groundcover spreads enthusiastically, both by seeds and by underground tentacles called rhizomes. Every gardener reading this will be groaning by now, recognizing the unending battle we have had to introduce any other plant to the yard. We have long since ceded the victory to the goutweed.

In our backyard, this is nothing more than a cosmetic issue, and to my eyes the view is still a beautiful mish-mash of green. But aggressive, invasive plant species and monocultures can be far more of a problem in other settings.

Purple loosestrife, officially known as lythrum salicaria, was introduced to North America as a garden plant by early settlers and came over in muddy ballast water in sailing ships. With upwards of two million seeds per plant, it cheerfully spread far and wide. You've seen it as you drive along by the edges of wetlands – three to six feet tall with spikes of dense pink-purple flowers. But the next year when you drove by, you may have noticed that there was no wetland – only a huge patch of purple loosestrife.
Gone are the cattails that bound heavy metals and took them out of the environment . And the two or three hundred or more other species of plants, insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds and even mammals who used to inhabit the wetland?
Moved on. Or...didn't.

In Saugeen Shores this spring, town council made the very difficult decision to use a selective herbicide on parts of the shoreline to control a plant with the harmless sounding name “Common Reed”. Its technical name is phragmite (pronounced
“frag-mighty”) australis , and it too was introduced from Europe. Along the Great Lakes' shores it has spread more in the past few years with lower lake levels and warmer temperatures, and its toxic roots and shed foliage have eliminated many other species and devasted a delicate shoreline ecology.

For many of us, our presence in Canada is the result of a lack of biodiversity in our great-great-grandparents' native Ireland. The potato blight that caused a famine infected both of the varieties of Irish potatoes. With no resistant varieties to plant, the disease destroyed virtually the whole crop for successive seasons. The resulting starvation, disease and migration changed the face of Ireland for well over a century.
We don't seem to have learned from this habit of monoculture. The taste of bananas may soon be a memory for most human beings as the most widely cultivated variety, Cavendish, becomes susceptible to devastating diseases. 90% of the pesticides used to control them is lost to wind drift, ending up in soil and water. The high use of chemical pesticides on our own apples and corn is partly due to our insistence on popular varieties like MacIntosh and Peaches and Cream.

So here are a few things you can do. First, back to our purple loosestrife. If you see it, remove it and put it in a plastic bag in the garbage, or report it. There are a number of cultivars with pleasant sounding names like Rosy Glow, Gypsy Blood and Happy. They are supposed to be sterile, but when pollinated with naturalized species, they have been known to produce seeds that escape the garden – becoming what some local gardeners call “evasive” species. Ask your nursery not to stock these cultivars and plant alternatives like Lupines or Butterfly Bush.

Look for native species and heritage seeds and plants for the garden and try an old variety of apple or pear or corn at the market.

Read local books or join groups like the field naturalists to learn more about the flora and fauna you live with in Grey and Bruce. Take guided hikes and participate in projects to protect habitat and species, like our recent piping plover families.

It isn't the piping plovers or us. Or beautiful gardens versus chaos. It's finding our place in the ecosystem in which we live. The David Suzuki Foundation puts it succinctly - “the interdependence among organisms and their environments creates and sustains the conditions needed for survival by all living creatures.” In the big picture – our very existence is at stake.

Posted by AnneFS