I’ll be there with the My Sustainable Canada team hopefully enjoying another epic day of skiing under blue sky and sunshine.

And as an added bonus it’s St. Paddy’s Day (my favourite holiday – ok it’s not a holiday, but a great day for celebration!) I’ll be drinking green beer in the village in honour of the earth and St Paddy’s Day!!

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

Towards the end of the article there was a small statement about the effects of children on the environment. The argument is that as you add another person to the planet you increase your carbon footprint by adding another person. Thus to really minimize your footprint on the earth you shouldn’t have children.

Meet VHEMT (pronounced vehement) a movement (and as they say, not an organization) to stop breeding.

“The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology […] the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens… us. Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom. When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature’s “experiments” have done throughout the eons.”

Not for the faint at heart, but an interesting notion.

There might be some rational behind this. The Mayan’s predicted that the earth would see a ‘doomsday’ and mankind as we know it would be eliminated. Like the dinosaurs someone/something might be researching us in the future to uncover what caused our demise. The global warming scientists say that we are destroying our the fragile earth at an alarming rate, even calling it a ‘weapon of mass destruction‘. Some go as far to say that there is no way to reverse the damage, that we are on the path to destruction.

What are the options?

Having children is a personal decision, I’m not advocating either way. I have my opinions and will follow what I believe in. The obvious two options are have children or don’t have children. Another way of looking at it is for every couple have two children; replace yourself when you leave this earth. In the MACLEAN’s article they make a reference to the starving children in the developing countries and if we really are being selfless that we should adopt, since many of those families are large and cannot sustain themselves. Whatever decision you make just make sure it is the right one for you.

The strategy institute set out the following mandate to achieve the following through the variety of presentations:

1. Capitalize on infrastructure spending
2. Stimulate economic recovery
3. Enhance environmental sustainability
4. Assure accountability and transparency
5. Manage your risk
6. Attain greener energy
7. Build strategic partnerships
8. Measure performance of suppliers and vendors

The conference was a good balance of case studies and the creative science behind projects including, the necessity of public engagement, how to make a project successful, what climate change is doing to our infrastructure and how to effectively manage existing infrastructure.

The Keynote Address: Setting Priorities for the Improvement of National Infrastructure

The keynote address by Graeme Purves was brilliant and highlighted how climate change was affecting global infrastructure and then delved into some Scottish and UK examples. To set the priorities the Scottish government began with a framework, combining public perceptions with government priorities. In the end the government produced the National Planning Framework that highlighted the 14 essential projects that would benefit all Scottish residents; but Purves did state that at the at the municipal level the federal government was willing to engage in discussion about improving the local infrastructure, but that there would need to be a cost-sharing agreement. I think globally that is true that nationally infrastructure projects should be selected that benefit the country and at the regional and municipal level there can be cost-sharing agreements but that the entire infrastructure cost will not be borne by the national governments.

The Necessity of Public Engagement

My bf works in the digital marketing world so I get to learn a lot about the benefits from social media and public engagement from him. I believe that the engineering/public sector world is lagging in this area, but finally the trends of social media are catching on. From twitter to facebook to building a website that engages people to using mobile phones and including traditional public information sessions, all of these are essentials are key to capturing the greater audience for any infrastructure project. Three speakers discussed the importance of public engagement and social media.

1. Joseph Virgilio, a councillor in the Town of Markham spoke at length about social media and how the current mayor used it to capture the vote in Markham. Virgilio spoke about the successes of having an intuitive website and about creating social media campaigns; two of the most successful campaigns being the ‘Gridlock, Rapid Transit & You’ as well as the ‘Quest for the Best.’ Markham also successfully used an on-line voting system for the most recent mayoral election (will we see something like this in the next federal or provincial election?)
2. Kim Stephen’s the Program Director for the Water Sustainability Action Plan for BC weaved social media and public engagement through his presentation. Stephen’s didn’t mention specific social media programs in his presentation he did discuss the importance of them, including the website waterbalance.ca. Success did come from a ‘coffee table’ book, as Stephen’s described it, Living Water Smart that BC created to engage the public on the water crisis in BC.
3. Cathie O’Toole the CFO of The Halifax Regional Municipality also spoke to the benefits of social media. The infrastructure of Halifax, like many other Canadian cities, is aging and failing. Halifax is looking to find a balance between priority projects and what is important to the public.

How to Make a Project Successful

Several presentations pointed to the post-war through the 60’s build of Canadian cities, which means that we are in a second phase of rehabilitation and rebuilding. With all this construction it is important to set your project up for success from its initial conception. Three ideas were discussed regarding this, Public Private Partnerships (P3s), How to Pick the right consultant, and how important planning is.

1. P3’s are the standard now in BC says Sue Fimrite, Project Director of Partnerships BC, which is a subsidiary of the BC Ministry of Finance. From Design-Build all the way through including the management and operation BC has found was to mitigate construction and price risk through the use of P3s. The number of successes is immense but some of the hallmark projects include the Charles Jago Northern Sports Centre, The Sea-to-Sky Highway and the Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre.
2. John Haythorne presented on how to pick the right consultant to make your project a success. He is a partner with Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP and holds degrees in engineering and law, but more importantly has been involved in a variety of projects throughout his career. Briefly his strategies for effective selection for infrastructure project are:

• Align selection/evaluation criteria to goals for infrastructure
• Evaluate for value
• Use market competition to define scope
• Retain consultants early
• Use consultants to retain consultants
• Get meaningful references

3. Plan, Plan, Plan!! Jennifer Keesmaat a Partner of the Office for Urbanism gave a brilliant presentation on the necessity for planning. Perhaps I enjoyed this one most because of my love of engineering combined with all the knowledge I’ve gained from Phil about Marketing; presenting a plan for a major infrastructure project combines engineering with an effective presentation. Keesmaat drove home that projects are only successful with plans and the plans should be comprehensive, multi-disciplinary and collaborative. And the proof is in the case studies; all of the projects presented had success because they had well sought out plan.

How Climate Change is Affecting Our Infrastrucutre

More storms. More intense storms. More extreme weather. It is the reality of climate change. Gordon McBean the Director of Policy Studies of the Institute of Catastrophic Loss Reduction at the University of Western Ontario (my Alma matter) spoke extensively on climate change and how to prepare the existing and new infrastructure to cope with climate change. McBean’s key message, “The climate has changed, will continue to change and humans are the main cause.” From this we, engineers, scientists, planners, etc., must reduce the impact infrastructure has on climate and reduce the infrastructure’s vulnerability to a vulnerable, changing climate and its extremes. Climate change was a theme that ran through many of the presentations and is one of the key challenges facing many of Canada’s urban centres. Steve Dorey, VP of External Relations of Hydro One emphasized the critical role climate change will play and stated that “climate change is the key challenge of the developed world.”

Climate change is a reality and we are all being forced to deal with it. It simply is not just about changing what we are doing going forward but mitigating what we have done in the past.

Effective Management of Existing Infrastructure

“If you build it, they will come” – made famous by the Phil Alden Robinson movie Field of Dreams. But once you build it make sure you keep track of it. It was some what of a shock to hear that municipalities were catching up on tracking the construction of the post-war boom still. From initial construction through maintenance some of the projects had no organized records. However, some municipalities were the opposite, acting proactively to plan for how to build maintenance programs for their functional, existing infrastructure.

1. Cathie O’Toole of Halifax admitted that the city was poor at keeping track of their infrastructure in the past but that the future held the prospects of an organized data base to best manage their existing infrastructure and allow for the planning of new, effective infrastructure. From here she tied the presentation in with planning and its necessity for maximum efficiency
2. Colin Prang the Manager of Infrastructure Preservation for the City of Saskatoon. Saskatoon has been proactive with their pavements and has captured the notion of spending $1 at the right time and it saves you millions of dollars in the end. The focus for Mr. Prang is roads and he has set up an extensive evaluation system that rates pavements from very good to poor and from this he developed an extensive rehabilitation system to match his evaluation system. Saskatoon employs an extensive array of rehabilitation techniques from rut filling, to overlays, to complete reconstruction. Again the success of this program is its ability to effectively manage the existing road infrastructure and to be proactive with the restoration.
3. Steve Dorey also spoke to effective management of existing infrastructure and how it relates to energy in Ontario. The Ontario government has committed to the elimination of coal fired plants by 2015. Dorey stated that this would be a success with a commitment to ‘green’ energy and nuclear (although given the most recent announcement about nuclear this seems impossible). In order to effectively make the switch it was necessary for an evaluation of the existing coal fired plants; how much energy are they producing, where is fed to but also what other energy infrastructure could Ontario rely on, local and foreign.

Case Studies

1. Portland, Oregon: Known as one of the best US cities to live, Portland sent Karl Lisle, Sr. Planner, to talk about the success of a well planned city. Their slogan really sums it up well, “…we planned. it worked…” Ultimately the goal for Portland is to have everything within a 20 minute walk or bike, aka twenty-minute neighbourhoods. As they continue with the city, Portland is expanding its cycling and public transportation routes. Lisle believes their strategy can be applied globally; Build a sustainable economy through job growth, prosperity and a sustainable way of life.
2. Yellowknife, Northwest Territories: The Deputy Mayor Mark Heyck came to present. Before he opened his presentation he asked the audience if and when a more sustainable way of presenting would happen; the projectors consume a disproportionate share of heat and electricity. Yellowknife was named the most sustainable small city in Canada for 2008-9 by the Corporate Knight’s Magazine. Much like the twenty-minute community of Portland with a city of only 20,000 people Yellowknife is promoting a similar theme, have a compact city with easy access to biking and walking trails. Unfortunately unlike Portland, Yellowknife faces very harsh winters where people become much more car dependant.
3. Windsor BIIG/DRIC: Dave Wresinski the Project Planning Division Administrator of the Michigan Department of transportation presented on the proposed new Detroit River crossing. This is trans-national project that links Detroit and Windsor. With the Ambassador bridge reaching the end of its useful life and the tunnel unable to manage the capacity; jointly both the Canadian and American governments are investigating a new crossing. Without getting into too many details Wresinski discussed the challenges with the project including budgeting issues since two countries are involved and the fact that the current Ambassador bridge is privately owned and operated. Likely funding for this project will come for the private sector making this one of the first P3’s for Ontario.

I’m hoping I can attend again next year but also hope to see more on some of the larger cities infrastructure projects. There is a lot of interesting work coming out of California and I think all the Canadian Metropolis’ can learn from it. Other great infrastructure ideas that should be included:

• Tunneling – such as the Chanel Tunnel and the new Vancouver rail link between the airport and Burnaby …
• ‘Green’ Infrastructure – topics such as GFRC (glass fibre reinforced concrete), blast furnace slag, recycling old concrete & aggregate, using renewable resources …
• Changing the Transportation Culture – promoting active transportation in cities, telecommuting, webinar hosting …

There was a lot of great information at the conference and over the coming weeks I’ll expand some of the information.

Ontario with its cold winters and (usually) hot summers creates a unique environment growing some of the most delicious fruits and vegetables. And as our community awareness about global warming, climate change, etc increases so does the demand for the local farmers markets.

Tfmn.ca
The Toronto Farmers market network is an attempt to combat climate change while bringing the residents of Toronto Local Ontario Produce. Each week across the city there are various farmers markets, some open all year others are only seasonal.

Hot foods right now.
Asparagus. And soon to come strawberries. Mmm

List of Markets (Alphabetically)

Appletree Market
200 Eglinton Ave. W.
Thursdays, 3-7 pm, April 23-Oct 29 outdoors, Nov 5-April 22 indoors

BirchCliff Village Farmers’ Market
1512 Kingston Road (east of Warden)
Fridays, 3- 7 pm, June 5 to October 23, 2009

Birchcliff Village Indoor Market
1688 Kingston Road
Thu 12-7, Fri 12-7, Sat 10-5, Sun 11-5, Nov 2008-May 15, 2009

Bloor-Borden Farmers’ Market
Green P lot, Lippincott and Bloor St.
Wednesdays 3-7 pm, June 3 to October 28, 2009

Distillery District Farmers’ Market
55 Mill Street
Sundays, 10 am – 5 pm, late June to mid-Oct (exact 2009 dates tba)

Dufferin Grove Organic Farmers’ Market
873 Dufferin St. (in Dufferin Grove Park)
Thursdays, 3 – 7 pm, Open all year

East Lynn Farmers’ Market
1949 Danforth Avenue, near Woodbine (in East Lynn Park)
Thursdays, 3 – 7 pm, June 4 to October 29, 2009

East York Farmers’ Market
East York Civic Centre, 850 Coxwell Ave
Tuesdays, 8 am – 2 pm, May 22 to November 4, 2009

Etobicoke Farmers’ Market
Etobicoke Civic Centre, 399 The West Mall
Saturdays, 8 am – 2 pm, June 6 to November 7, 2009

Evergreen Brick Works Farmers’ Market
550 Bayview Ave (between Prince Edward Viaduct (Bloor/Danforth) & Pottery Road)
Saturdays, 8 am – 1 pm, May 23 to October 31, 2009

Evergreen Brick Works Chefs’ Market: open to chefs, caterers and retailers
550 Bayview Ave (between Prince Edward Viaduct (Bloor/Danforth) & Pottery Road)
Tuesdays 8 am – 1 pm starting June 2, 2009

Guildwood Village Farmers’ Market
The Guild Inn, 191 Guildwood Parkway (at Kingston Road)
Thursdays, 2-6 pm, June 11 to October 22, 2009

Liberty Village Farmers’ Market
(Liberty St – Atlantic Ave)
Sundays, 9 am – 2 pm, June 7 to October 27, 2009

Metro Hall Farmers’ Market
55 John Street, near King St.
Thursdays, 8 am – 2 pm, May 28 to October 15, 2009

Nathan Philips Square Farmers’ Market
Nathan Phillips Square, 100 Queen St. West
Wednesdays, 8 am – 2:30 pm, June 3 to October 14, 2009

North York Civic Centre Farmers’ Market
Mel Lastman Square, 5100 Yonge St.
Thursdays, 8 am – 2 pm, June 4 to October 29, 2009

Riverdale Farm Farmers’ Market
201 Winchester (in Riverdale Park)
Tuesdays, 3 – 7 pm, May 12 to October 27, 2009

St. Lawrence North Farmers’ Market
92 Front Street East (at Jarvis)
Saturdays, 5 am – 5 pm, Open all year

Sherway Farmers’ Market
North Parking Lot, Corner of 427 and The Queensway
Fridays, 8 am – 2 pm, May 1 to October 30, 2009

Sick Kids Hospital Farmers’ Market
555 University Avenue
Tuesdays, 9 am – 2 pm, June 2 to October 27, 2009

Sorauren Farmers’ Market
40 Wabash Ave. at Sorauren
Mondays, 3-7 pm, May 11 to October 26, 2009

Stonegate Farmers’ Market
194 Park Lawn Road (At The Queensway),
St James Humber Bay Anglican Church
Tuesdays, 4 – 7 pm, June 23 to October 6, 2009

The Stop’s Green Barn Farmers’ Market
The Green Arts Barn, 601 Christie Ave. (entrance from Wychwood)
Saturdays 8am – 1pm, year-round

Trinity Bellwoods Farmers’ Market
1053 Dundas St West (Northwest corner of Trinity Bellwoods Park)
Tuesdays, 3 – 7 pm, May 12 to October 27, 2009

University of Toronto Farmers’ Market
University College, 15 King’s College Circle, in the rotunda
Thursdays, 11am – 2pm, Oct 10, 2008-April 9, 2009: resuming in Sept
The Village Organic Farmers’ Market at the Toronto Waldorf School
9100 Bathurst
Saturdays, 8:30 am – 1:30 pm, Open all year

Weston Farmers’ Market
GO Train Parking lot, John St. (Weston Rd. & Lawrence Ave W.)
Saturdays, 7 am – 2 pm, May 16 to October 31, 2009
Withrow Farmers’ Market
725 Logan Ave (in Withrow Park)
Saturdays, 9 am – 1 pm, May 23 to October 31, 2009

Shouldn’t everyday be Earth day?

It is a day to remind us that we abuse its environment and we should have more respect for it. We’re on a slow learning curve but we’re getting there.

The History of Earth Day

Earth day began in the US in 1970 when Senator Gaylord Nelson became concerned about over-population and exploiting the natural resources the earth had to offer. Earth Day’s original goal – to create a healthy, sustainable environment through environmental citizenship.
Earth day is now a part of 174 countries and 17,000 organizations and the goal is still to promote environmental stewardship.

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

What about now? What should we be doing? Recycling isn’t enough; to recycle requires a lot of energy and effort and leaves a footprint on the environment. It should definitely be part of the strategy but the first two ‘R’s’ should play a stronger role. The future will be about diversion, about creating products that can be composted, creating products in smaller packages. It will be about local farming, local ingredients, walking to the grocery store. It is webinars and meeting with local experts. It will be about multimodal transportation, active transportation, and smaller personal automobiles. The future will be what we make it.

What do they do?

Remember the ecoAuto program? I wrote about it back in September. It was a program developed by the Federal Government to influence more people to purchase more fuel efficient cars. Pollution Probe had a hand in that and continues to advocate it; although the program has ended now with no new program in sight.

Policy Direction

Bob Oliver, the Executive Director of Pollution Probe came into my policy class yesterday to give a presentation. His presentation focused on automobiles and fuel efficiency.

Did you know we are still operating on the same fuel efficiency standards today that were implemented in the 1970′s?

That doesn’t mean that the innovation has stopped. Instead we know have cars that have the same fuel efficiency of the 70s that are more powerful, faster and larger; there weren’t too many SUV’s on the road back then. Now that society has become accustomed to this more powerful, faster, bigger car we have to work with consumer demands and develop technology that can make these cars more fuel efficient. According to Oliver the technology is in place it is just a matter of implementing it.

Size vs Fuel Efficiency

There are two schools of thought for comparing the fuel efficiency of vehicles, either by weight or by size. Either way you tend to see the following trend, as size or weight increase there is a decrease in the fuel efficiency.
Oliver said he liked the size comparison better. Instead of penalizing or rewarding heavier or light cars this looked the wheel base. Size is a measurement of the area of the wheel base; from centreline to centreline longitudinally and horizontally. The problem with weight he said is that that big and small cars get grouped into the same buckets. Since the line on the graph is the trend, a lighter SUV could be shifted towards the smaller, fuel efficient cars. Because it is the outlier, one light SUV compared to many small, ‘normal’ weight cars the SUV weight is virtually excluded; it is the outlier. Instead with size the fuel inefficiency of size is recognized.

Improving Fuel Efficiency

Oliver said we need new standards for fuel efficiency. That doesn’t mean that all the cars, light trucks, SUVs, etc should have to achieve the same standard. Instead go back to the graph, make the overall trend for all cars to be more fuel efficient. Oliver stated again that there was a grocery list of technology that could be used on modern cars that could make them more fuel efficient.

It looks like Pollution Probe can help lead the way in the climate war. Together with other NGO’s and government agencies we can help to preserve our environment for future generations.

1. Bring camaraderie to your commute
Carpooling saves gas and turns traffic delays into socializing opportunities. If you have really good friends in the car you can take turns between driver and ‘napper,’ extra ‘z’s’ are always appreciated..

2. Be an informed eater
If you’re torn between the trout and the halibut, text 30644 with the message “FISH” and the type you’re considering to learn which is the more sustainable choice (fishphone.org). I just read a great book called FOOD by Alphabet City (more to come on this tomorrow) but it talks about making informed decisions with all the food we eat.

3. Junk the junk mail
Inundated by catalogs but too lazy to call and get off their mailing lists? Just register with catalogchoice.org, which will do the legwork for you. (Services like greendimes.com and 41pounds.org stop other kinds of junk mail too–for a fee.)

4. Become a mix master
DIY kits make it easy to blend up your own nontoxic household cleansers, skin products, and pet-care items (all from eco-me.com) as well as all-natural baby food (freshbaby.com). If that is too much for you, try to purchase the green friendly ones. They may be a little more expensive but aside from the benefits to the environment, think about the benefits to you. We still don’t really understand what those toxins will do to us, so for now I’ll stick with more natural stuff

5. Learn to share
At neighborrow.com and borrowme.com, you can find neighbors willing to lend you books, tools, or other things you’d rather not buy. Start a lending library at your school or work.

6. Give back on your next getaway
Count whales or plant trees in exotic locales–opportunities abound at greenvolunteers.com and in The Ethical Travel Guide (Earthscan) and The 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life (National Geographic Books).

7. Just say no to bottled water
If tap water is good enough for some of the country’s top restaurants, isn’t it good enough for you? I thought about this a lot the other day and the whole Bisphenol-A stuff – if a bottle is unsafe to be reused, how safe are the contents in it that have been sitting in there for days, weeks, months, etc ?

8. See more meaningful movies
Sick of Hollywood fluff? Subscribe to a socially conscious film series at earthcinemacircle.com or ironweedfilms.com and get cinematic conversation-starters delivered to your door.

These are just a few things we can do. As I mentioned here in a previous post One Million Acts of Green is another great place to start.

Here is to a happy and healthy 2009!

More recently on the show he has been promoting One Million Acts of Green; your way to make a difference to the environment. The simplest way to describe it is you track the way you minimize your impact on the environment by subscribing to the site and subscribing to the things you participate in

My One Million Acts of Green include:

• packing a litterless lunch – not only is it better for the environment it is usually better for my health to; I can pack a well-balanced lunch
• do laundry in cold water – add an environmentally friendly laundry detergent to that and it’s even more green.
• drink Tap water from a refillable stainless steel water bottle
• compost and recycle at home – about every two weeks we only throw away about half of a small grey bin. I can’t wait for the day when there is no grey bin

Those are just a few but probably some of the most important to me.

What are your acts of green?

Dr. Vanderburg promptly arrived in class this week and got right into the thick of things. Our class size was about half of last week, but it is a keen group of individuals interested in being part of the sustainable discussion.

His lecture was based on chapter 1 of his book, Living in the Labyrinth of Technology. The focus of the lecture was Connectiveness, from Biology-based to Technology-based over to Culture-based connectiveness. We didn’t really dive into biology-based connectiveness but focused in on the other two.

Technology vs Culture

What does this connectiveness mean?

Let’s start with Technology. All of technology requires a through-put of energy. This in turn requires both direct and indirect inputs. Eventually as you trace the production of a good or service it will cross the biosphere-society boundary and connect us back to our natural environment.  Culture-based connectiveness ties us together through symbolization; the human brain relates everything to everything else.

Prior to the industrial world we were a culture-based society. We learned what our ancestors learned and followed in their footsteps. We followed their religion, their language their belief.

And then Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations and everything changed. Agreed I have over-simplified things here a lot but the notion of the technical division of labour changed everything,

We went from a culture-based society to a technology-based society.

We became a society craving higher income and more consumer goods to purchase with our new wealth. Skills became mechanized and simple and people started designing machines to do human jobs. Our society went from depending on what our ancestors had known to challenging the limits of science.

With this desire for new technology came the degradation to our environment. It was around 200 years ago that we began to ‘industrialize’ around that same time, Vanderburg explained, the world average temperature began to rise.

Make the Earth Greener and your day brighter.
The Holland Trade Agency was a sponsor and had a booth in the exhibition. They were promoting ‘greening’ the earth by putting plants in your office.

Why?

Well as we all know plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen as their waste. As an incentive they were offering plants to participants and I was fortunate enough to bring one home. (The artwork in the background is a local Toronto artist, Ryan Barrett). Not only will your plant help the environment but they also tend to bring a positive energy to any office.