Un-Bottle it!

I’ll bet that you have heard something about the anti-bottled water campaign haven’t you? Is bottled water good? There are some redeeming qualities. It can be easily transported to areas that don’t have public utilities (like regions in sub-Saharan Africa or even New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina), it is a safe source of water when water bourn viruses are a problem (like in Walkerton), and it is healthy (you know zero calories and all that).

And there is the bad. Coca-Cola has been accused of polluting water basins, Suez has been accused of instigating civil unrest in South America when they privatize public systems, and everybody is being accused of making a mounting of money from a commodity that many people debate is a human right. And there is also the matter that it is only being tested every once and a while (voluntarily I might add), that the plastic bottles they come in leach chemicals into the water, and that buying bottled water undermines confidence in public utilities.

Hhhhhmmmm, tough decision I guess. Well on Tuesday I went to the Un-bottle it presentation at St. Joe’s Church. It was hosted by CUPE and featured the irreverent Maude Barlow. Kind of strange huh? A church hosting a union funded event featuring one of Canada’s biggest NGO activists. Not exactly an unholy alliance but not exactly your everyday run of the mill event. So why did these people come together?

Allow me to give you some long-winded context. In one hundred years from now is it possible that historians will look back and think that we were crazy to try to commodify water and sell it at thousands of times the price of what it costs to get from your tap? Is it possible that we are draining precious aquifers for limited profit at the expense of future generations? And is it possible that in the future, wars may be fought over water instead of oil?

If you can answer yes to any of those questions than there you have it; strange times call for strange alliances. People have come together in order to deliver a message. Maybe we need to slow down and take a look at the activities that we are passing off as normal.

Recently the University of Ottawa has introduced a sort of ban on bottled water. They haven’t out right banned it but they are they are not letting departments buy water for an event and get reimbursed for it. This actually makes sense because if bottled water costs thousands of times more than tap water, than this is tantamount to fiscal mismanagement.

So although it is possible that the wars for water may soon be a reality, the war against bottled water is already here.

The Unfinished Revolution

“Twenty-five years ago they spoke out and they broke out

Of recession and oppression and together they toked

And they folked out with guitars around a bonfire

Just singin' and clappin' man what the hell happened.”
- Walking on the Sun (Smash Mouth) -

I recently heard an interview about what could be the most exciting thing to happen in a generation. It turns out that after years of toiling, scratching together small fortunes, and finding ever new ways of increasing creature comforts, the boomers are back.

So let me get you caught up real quick. The boomers were one of the most amazing generations in western history. They single-handedly proved that the power of the people has the ability to set political agendas. They ended Vietnam, they brought about awareness of sexual orientation, and they helped solidify the gender equality movement. And then, as Smash Mouth so eloquently put it, BAM – what the hell happened? They became the generation that displayed the most veracious consumption habits in history, and don’t forget a little dash of complete disregard for social rights around the planet.

But then there was hope. Like a wildfire clearing the brush from an overgrown forest, something is changing. It turns out that an increasing amount of Boomers (or The Woodstocks as Adbusters loving refers to them) are turning a new leaf. It seems that nowadays, an increasing number of boomers are becoming bored with there careers. Maybe the word that I am actually looking for is anxious. And it appears that after years of work this generation has amassed the financial security they were looking for and are now starting to realize that there is some unfinished business.

So imagine this, you have worked for many years at a job that likely didn’t fulfill you. You are on good financial footing and could retire anytime in the near future. You see the disastrous state of the planet and you say it’s time to roll up your sleeves, it time to get back into the game. Why not, you have the time, money, and skills.
Julia Moulden is the author of a new book called “We are the New Radicals: A Manifesto for Reinventing Yourself and Saving the World”. She argues that people are now taking up the gauntlet they left behind years ago and using their skills to make things right.

I think I have been dancing around this for long enough. Here is the reason why this movement is so important. Think of people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Al Gore. They used the wealth and knowledge collected during their lives and decided to use it for good. Their technical skills, charisma, and networking potential make them incredibly powerful agents of change. Now, if even a fraction of the Boomers alive today make this switch; imagine the benefits to NGOs, to community organizations, and to the sustainability in general.

I don’t know what the definition of karma really is but I do know this, the Boomers helped change the course of history. Their dreams of a better planet inspired a generation of reform. Then, their apathy created a shift towards unethical over-consumption. Now there are glimmers of hope that they have shaken off the cobwebs, that they are not going to put the fate of the planet on the shoulders of the subsequent generations, that they are going to finish the revolution that they started.

Campus Jamming

Okay, so maybe this picture isn’t exactly of the campus, or somewhere in Ottawa, or even on this continent; but it might as well be. For any of you have had a chance to notice there are 2 daily traffic jams on campus. The first one usually happens around noon during the lunch time rush. The second happens at about 5:30 pm just as the majority of the employees are calling it a day and the afternoon classes are ending.

I suppose this shouldn’t come as a surprise. There aren’t too many options right now. With no busses there is way more car use, not just because of carpools but also because of people getting picked up by a friend or loved one. And of course the University of Ottawa campus is smack in the middle of the City. Normally this would be super helpful, but during a transit strike so much traffic around the campus actually hampers traffic flow on campus.

Now I do want to take a minute to say why I think that this issue is an important one. First there is the obvious problem of idling cars generating exhaust. This is not good for anyone no matter how you slice it. The second reason is a little more out there, stress. Getting caught in these traffic jams isn’t helping anyone dial down the stress they are under. Slow moving traffic on a uni-flow campus... I think that even I might lose it if I were in a car. And finally, and this one is really out there, bad karma. I don’t mean the cosmic kind that will come back to you in the next life, I mean the bad faith that can propagate because of the negative experience that people are having. If someone is doing the good thing and carpooling I certainly don’t want them to stop carpooling as soon as the strike is over just because of some bad karma.

So what’s the solution? How do we get out of this one? Well I am pretty sure that you are not going to like this answer but here goes anyways, sacrifice and good planning. The key is to move yourself away from the main campus before you get in a car. The options are walk to an external lot, use the shuttle to get to 200 Lees and go from there, or use the shuttles to get to one of the drop-off points and go from there. Or you could walk.

Yeah, those suggestions were pretty awful weren’t they? I am sorry but there isn’t very much that any of us can do. I think that the take home lesson from all this is to remember how important public transportation is. Sure we can cope in the short term but imagine no more busses?

In the long term however, there are a couple of things that we can plan for. More integrated sustainable transportation (that means bikes, ride sharing, car sharing, and carpooling) is definitely a must. More housing on campus (residence style) and more affordable student housing around the campus. And I am going to go out on a limb with this one… a U-pass. Hold on, stop booing. I know what you are thinking, how would a permanent bus pass help during a bus strike? Well a U-pass gives you political leverage. If you are part of a group that represents the majority stakeholders in a company, you get a say in how these things work.

Recycle like you give a damn

OMG, is he really talking about recycling? Didn’t we deal with all that in the 90’s? Yes I am actually talking about recycling and yes it is something that we probably should have dealt with long ago. Here is a little known fact to anyone outside of the recycling biz. In 1992 the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) for Ontario basically mandated a 60% diversion for all academic institutions. Well it wasn’t exactly a mandate but it was strongly suggested that all institutions in Ontario must perform waste audits and must create action plans to divert waste.

So what happened? Why aren’t we living in a wasteless utopia? Well you see after the MOE created the waste diversion regulation they kind of went to sleep. Yep, in fact it took 15 years before they even showed up to do their first inspection at the University of Ottawa. In between that time 2 things happened; first people stopped caring, and second, people thought the problem was taken care of. Let’s start with the latter. The government made a big stink about how important recycling was and it gave the impression to everyone that things were getting done. In actual fact that is not the case. In Ottawa it is true that almost everyone recycles at home, but away from home… not so much. Something sad like 15% of all businesses actually recycle. Check it out for yourself, next time that you step into a store, look around for a recycling bin. If you want to really make sure, snoop around to the back of the store and see if there is a big blue bin.

Now for the second part; people stopped caring. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like people are walking around dropping recycling into garbage bins maliciously. Back during the great Toronto garbage strike of 2004, a wonderful article about the helplessness of humanity was published. It wasn’t quite so much wonderful as it was scary. You see the the article was about a lady who was stuck in her apartment with no way of getting rid of the waste that the ‘garbage companies’ weren’t picking up. The quote of the day… “Why can’t somebody please just take it [garbage] away?”, she cried out while sobbing in her kitchen.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, it shows that many people don’t care about something until it is staring them in the face. If we couldn’t throw out garbage anymore we would be in a heap of trouble. Similarly we take almost everything for granted, why would recycling be any different? People think that somehow somewhere their items are being recycled. I’ll give you an example, 18%. That is the percentage of plastic bottles that are recycled in North America. I’ll bet you thought it was higher than that eh?

So all in, the average Canadian doesn’t even recycle half of the products that they use. We need to do better and hopefully RECYCLEMANIA is going to help us do that.
More to come…

Community Gardens

CSAF - Green Space and Recreational Space

I promised I would talk about CSAF more, or if I didn't... well I am now. Let's start with an anecdote, yeah that always draws people in.

Today I met up with two old friends, both alumnus from the University. We talked a bit about how things are going but eventually it all came back to how things have changed on campus. Kneil and Chris have been away for about 3 years in British Columbia, so they have basically had no contact with Ottawa, let alone the campus. Anyways, this is besides the point. I gave them a tour of the campus and they remarked at some of the changes that have happened over the years.

Okay so this the part where I break from the story and tie the two points together with a revealing and shocking hook. It turns out that Kneil is one of the first hard core members of Green Campus. He was the guy that got the community garden started here on campus back in 2003. Yeah that guy! It is unfortunate that the garden wasn’t available for touring (it being winter and all), but it did get me thinking about why we don’t have more community gardens on campus.

A few years back I had a conversation about getting more gardens on campus. Maybe some small plots which employees could work on in the summer time during their lunch? Maybe some research gardens for students and professors? What about growing food for the Good Food Box Program? But I really haven’t done much about it since.

Well there are some new developments. First, some land has become available on King Edward. Well not exactly available but not exactly unavailable if you know what I mean. Well I guess I am trying to say that there is a possibility that a good chunk of space could be available the garden development. Also, the University of Ottawa has hired a new grounds keeper, Benoit, who is an actually horticulturalist. Benoit is super keen to make this campus green (please excuse this terrible rhyme).

Now we have these two important ingredients already in play and here comes the third, a public push for more locally grown food. Obviously it is not realistic to assume that we could grow all our own food on campus today, maybe in the future but not today. So that leaves one last ingredient that we need to make this soup happen, a student group or organization willing to take the proverbial torch and getting this thing rolling.

And oh yes, what does this have to do with CSAF? One of the metrics that is observed is green space and another is recreational space on campus. Community gardens fulfill both of these indicators but even more they bring together people, they promote sharing and equality, and maybe, just maybe they could help a campus find its soul.

One Million Things To Do

Now before you get the impression that this is just me pandering to the masses you should know one thing… you are probably right. Nevertheless, I am pandering for a worthwhile cause. Now some months ago CBC’s The Hour announced that they were going to be launching a program called One Million Acts of Green. If you haven’t heard of this yet than I am lead to believe one of two things. First, you live under a rock and have to attachment at all to the Zeitgeist. Second, you stay away from all forms of electronic communications, in which case good on you for not using any energy.

The One Million Acts of Green project is a challenge from George to the rest of the country to try to accomplish 1 Million acts of green over the next year. As campy as that may sound I think that they really tapped into something. Let me tell you why.

Sure going on a website to proclaim that you did one good thing for the environment is not that groundbreaking. In fact, it’s not even that impressive. Facebook has many applications that let you show everyone else just how green you can be; everything from Green Quizzes to Carbon Counters. It is precisely for this reason that I did not register with the 1 Million Acts project until now. Granted, that my motivation for joining is a little less noble.

This is pretty much how it went down. I was having a conference call with a group of Sustainability Coordinators from around Ontario. We resolved to do this every once and a while to keep everyone up to date about our goings on. It’s not a secret group or anything; we just won’t tell you what we talk about. Joking aside though, my colleague a Trent (Shelley Strain) was pleased to note that Trent University was currently leading the way for Canadian universities. They had the highest number of Green Acts accomplished by their university group. This got me thinking.

So the thinking didn’t last very long because it is the holidays and honestly… there is no time to think. But once things settled down I got back into that whole thinking thing again. I figured maybe it is time that the University of Ottawa gets it community together and gives Trent a run for their money. Plus, it is kind of a new year’s resolution thing.

So I checked out the site today and registered myself. Apparently they are already up to over 650,000 acts of green. Wow, I didn’t realize but people have really latched on to this one, and why not? Having a FaceBook application is one thing, having a nation’s collective focus concentrated into one site… that’s something else.

I dutifully ventured through the site and clicked on all the acts of green that I have been doing lately. A paltry 8 to start but I know that this will get bigger as I commit to more actions. What’s fun about the site is that it doesn’t just harp on you for not being green enough, it actually gives you a list of all the acts that you can do (and trust me there are a lot of them), how much CO2 they save, and how many other people are doing that same action. I think that this added dimension of collective progress makes the site that much more appealing. Recently Canadians took a pounding at the latest round of Kyoto talks. Yes for the bazillionth time we won the Fossil Award for being the biggest losers on the planet. But this site helps us stand up and say “Hey, we’re not all that bad! Some of us are making a difference. Some of us do care and will make sacrifices!”

So as the new year begins I will be trying to spearhead a campaign to get the campus community to embrace a few Acts of Green. Who knows maybe we can win this thing and have George Stroumboulopoulos come to our campus so we can show off some of the green things that we do here.