Edmonton Journal
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Edmonton Journal

How big is your footprint?; Shopping smarter, consuming better, and making educated choices will make a difference

By: Tom Barrett

Date: Jun 03, 2007

EDMONTON - You're increasingly worried about climate change and other pressing environmental issues, but unsure what you can do personally to steer things in the right direction.

An onslaught of weather disasters, ominous habitat changes and stern scientific warnings about even larger problems in the decades to come have convinced you to make changes in your own life and demand political action as well.

You accept the opinion of most scientists that the increasing release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by human activity is the primary cause of most of these problems.

You're concerned that if you and your political representatives do not act decisively now, the worst predictions of environmental disaster will come true. More and more extreme weather, less and less clean air and water, the loss of traditional plants and animals, and radical and frightening climate change.

Environmental change begins at home, so you want to start living a sustainable life while calling for your city, your province, your country and your world to make similar commitments.

You might be just beginning, or you could be looking to move beyond the positive steps you have already taken; to make an even bigger commitment to shrink your environmental footprint, to go green and live an ecologically responsible life.

START SMALL

So where do you start?

The one thing you don't want is to try to do too much too fast, says Ricardo Acuna, executive director of the Parkland Institute, a not-for-profit organization focused on environmental issues.

"People need to go one step a time," Acuna says. "Otherwise it's like a crash diet. You do it for six weeks and then you give it up and are reluctant to try again."

Michael Kalmanovitch, owner and manager of The Earth's General Store, sees people all the time who are suddenly inspired to lead a greener life.

He thinks that's great, but he cautions them to take their time.

"You don't want to overwhelm people who are just becoming environmentally conscious," he says.

"People who want to go all the way instantly, it just doesn't work. It takes a little time to change the habits of a lifetime," Kalmanovitch advises.

If people make slow and steady changes that don't wholly disrupt their lives, those changes are likely to become habits that will be easy to maintain, he says.

So you could start by changing your light bulbs, for example. Compact fluorescent light bulbs, which are now widely available, use 75 per cent less energy than the traditional incandescent bulbs.

They cost more, but last 10 times longer than incandescent ones. According to the people at the environmental group, Flick Off, you will save $45 on your electricity bill over the lifetime of a fluorescent bulb.

It's not hard to make a change that is easier, less expensive and better environmentally.

No one's suggesting you rip out all your traditional bulbs at once, but as they burn out replace them with fluorescent ones, except where you have a dimmer switch.

While you are at it, make a conscious effort to turn off lights when you leave a room or go out.

Again you will be doing something good while saving money.

Another winner is grass-cycling. Instead of raking up the cuttings after mowing your lawn, leave them there as a source of water and nutrients.

That way you won't need to water the grass as much or use fertilizer.

It may look funny to you at first but it is the environmentally soundest way to look after your lawn. It's also hard to knock a better way that is also less work.

Transportation is another key area for those concerned about the environment.

You don't necessarily have to suddenly begin taking public transit to work every day, says Kalmanovitch. Maybe you could start with once or twice a week and try to get used to it.

"Every time you don't take your car is a win," he says. "Every time you take public transit or pedal your bike instead of driving, is a win."

Most people will still want or need a car to pick up the week's groceries or to get the kids to their current activity, but there's always carpooling as well. Whatever cuts back on the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.

Buying permanent shopping bags for your groceries instead of getting a fist full of plastic ones every time is another easy change. Most of the big grocery stores sell them. The trick is remembering to bring them with you.

"Another big one is to stop buying bottled water," Kalmanovitch says. "It's mostly tap water anyway. Better to fill a reusable bottle with tap water and leave it in the fridge if you like it cold."

Then there's car idling. Even if the city doesn't pass a bylaw, you can still act as if they had. The folks at Flick Off remind us that two minutes of idling could have driven you for a mile. Thirty seconds is enough to warm up your car. The best way to warm it is to drive it.

Reducing your footprint

For practical purposes you can divide people concerned about the environment into Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 (see box on F2). Those who are becoming green, those who are living green, and those committed to virtually any change that will improve the environment.

A look at The Earth's General Store's online catalogue (www.earthsgeneralstore.com/) will show you it is a gold mine for people who want to green up their life to any degree. There are all kinds of things for sale, whether you're just beginning, or interested in any product that will reduce your environmental footprint.

You can buy a composter, reusable cloth diapers, environmentally friendly food, clothes and personal care products, cleaning products, etc. Plus there are books and magazines chock full of ideas and product suggestions.

People who have already taken preliminary steps to be more environmentally friendly might want to try composting or using grey water from their tub after bathing or showering to water their lawn. The more ambitious might abandon their air conditioner or just not buy one for home or car.

Speaking of cars, a hybrid car or even no car would be a bold step. Biking to work all year round would be nearly the ultimate.

There are also low-flush toilets or dual flush ones depending on how much water you need. Clothes can be washed in cold water, solar panels can be installed and if you can afford it, experts can dig down far beneath the surface of your yard to install a geothermal heating system. You can also call people in to do an energy audit of your house and make suggestions as to how to make it greener and more efficient.

The David Suzuki Foundation suggests you start by getting informed and follow that up by getting involved. That's Number 1 in their "10 ways you can stop global warming, reduce energy consumption and make a difference."

"Read books and newspapers and watch films and DVDs about global warming," the Foundation advises. "Then talk to your neighbours, co-workers, friends, family and community groups about ways to reduce global warming."

That includes politicians.

"I think the Number One thing people can do is demand political action," says Lindsey Telfer, Prairie Region Director of the Sierra Club of Canada. "People need to make sure that their views are clear to their elected representatives," she says. "The first thing I'd tell them to do is write letters to their MP and MLA and demand that they start taking action on climate change. "

Telfer says informed citizens can't just stand by while the environment suffers and the lives of the generations to come are increasingly threatened.

"It is widely accepted there will be a two-degree rise in global temperatures because of what has already been done," Telfer says. "We need our government to start taking this seriously. In our next federal election climate change is going to be a big issue. We will likely have a provincial election next year and it will be important there as well."

Polls show the environment is now for the first time ever the top issue for Canadians.

Of course people can't fairly demand action from the government and the business world unless they take action in their personal lives.

"I think the awareness is growing and that's a first step," says Parkland Institute's Acuna. "There's still a gap between awareness and personal action," Acuna says. "You can't just rant and rave about the oilsands while your SUV is idling outside."

He encourages people to start looking at ways to shrink the size of their environmental footprint, without trying to reduce from a size 12 to a size 4 in a few weeks.

Toronto Star

Idling vehicles belie green commitment

Date: Jun 03, 2007

Terminator gunning to save lives

May 31

Thank you for being the only Toronto newspaper that had any coverage of the environmental action that went on outside the Ontario-California conference. I was surprised that no other major newspapers picked up on the fact that, although this was supposedly an environmental conference, the caravan of black SUV-like vehicles used to transport the politicians sat idling outside the MaRS building. One girl approached and motioned for them to "flick off" but they continued to idle. This hypocrisy suggests that the province isn't prepared to take serious action on climate change, aside from setting up a media opportunity with the "Governator" and signing a climate change agreement that requires voluntary action from industries.

Shayla Duval, Toronto

© 2007 Torstar Corporation




Guelph Mercury

Linwood Barclay battles the satirist's curse with a smile

By: Declan Kelly

Date: Jun 02, 2007

When Jonathan Swift first published "A Modest Proposal," his biting 1729 satire that suggested the best way to solve rampant hunger and poverty in Ireland was to raise the children of beggars as a source of food for the rich, the general reaction was, according to most accounts, one of disgust and outrage. Even two and half centuries later, when actor Peter O'Toole read from Swift's famous pamphlet as part of the re-opening of Dublin's Gaiety Theatre in 1984, several audience members rose from their seats and left.

Call it the satirist's curse: being taken far too literally at every turn. It's a quirk of the job Toronto Star columnist and author Linwood Barclay has come to accept, if not fully understand.

"One of the perils I find with doing a satirical column is that there's always somebody who will absolutely believe that everything you wrote was for real," says Barclay, who will be reading at tomorrow's Elora's Writers' Festival. "And you cannot believe the stuff they will believe is for real. It never ceases to amaze me."

Case in point is Barclay's recent suggestion that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, on the heels of backing the much-maligned and poorly named "Flick Off" campaign to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, was setting his sights on the wind-energy sector.

"I wrote about other new campaigns he was coming out with including

- and I can't believe the paper let me get away with this -- a new campaign to promote the use of wind energy that featured the slogan 'Blow Me,' " Barclay says, explaining that the column in question mentioned a series of fictitious posters and buttons featuring a cartoon wind generator saying the potentially offensive slogan to a cloud.
What Barclay didn't bank on was that some readers would fail to get the joke.

"I said that (McGuinty) was so enamoured with this that he was having buttons made up and he was going to wear one when he met with the prime minister," he recalls. "But I got an e-mail from people who said 'Is this true? We're outraged and we're going to send an e-mail to the premier's office."

Mischievous almost to a fault, Barclay admits he probably could've been a touch more proactive in defusing the situation at that point.

"You just think, 'Oh, well, let them send it -- I don't care,' " he laughs.

For tomorrow's reading in Elora, Barclay will have no shortage of options to read from, with two books set for release this year. The first being "Stone Rain," the fourth in his Zach Walker series of comical mysteries, and the second being "No Time for Goodbye," a much darker work surrounding a bizarre episode in heroine Cynthia Archer's past.

"It starts 25 years ago when a 14-year-old girl wakes up one morning to find her family's gone," Barclay explains. "And then the story shifts ahead 25 years and she's never known what happened. Were they murdered? Did they figure they'd had enough of her and left? She's just never known and then things start happening in the present that take us back to that."

Despite being excited about his two latest titles, Barclay says he'll wait until the day itself to decide what he'll read in Elora.

"It's great to have these two hitting stores this year, but there's a passage from my first book (1996's "Father Knows Zilch") that I always enjoy reading, so you just never know," Barclay says.

© 2007 Torstar Corporation