Yesterday a friend of mine at work ran a session on how the built environment influences our physical activity regimes, based on a Transportation Research Board Report from 2005. The premise of his presentation is that the world is becoming less active, obesity rates are on the rise, we are dependent on the car, more of us live in suburbs and overall we are less healthy and less happy.

In the US there is a program called Healthy People 2010, which promotes physical activity and lowering obesity rates. From the site I navigated my way over to their Quick Guide to Healthy Living, which provides expert advice on nutrition & fitness as well as several other programs to help you live an active and healthy life.

In Canada we have the Health Goals whose overarching goal “As a nation, we aspire to a Canada in which every person is as healthy as they can be – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.” Our Health Canada site seemed to have similar information on how to lead a healthy life.

The presenter is one who believes in active transportation, eating well and living life in a sustainable manner. He promotes cycling to work and being active with colleagues through the day. And he states that while vigourous activity may not be for everyone being a healthy person doesn’t require much effort. Under Healthy People 2010 the following constitutes healthy living:

30 minutes of light activity 5 times per week

Or

20 minutes of vigorous activity 3 times per week

Even better, you can divide those 30 minutes of light activity into 10 minute chunks. Take a break and walk for 10 minutes at work; you’ll probably be more productive for it. Park further away and force yourself to walk that extra distance to and from the office. Walk to lunch. Walk 5 flights of stairs before you get on the elevator. Simple things you can do to squeeze in some extra activity.

Work hours are longer. Driving times are increased as we drive from suburb to work and back again. No longer is the grocery store, drug store or restaurants within walking distance. Our time competes between exercise and the computer, internet and video games.

There are many programs in place to create healthy cities. Toronto has changed its mandate and now has pedestrians and cyclists at the top of it’s design hierarchy instead of cars and trucks. Under the Healthy Schools Program Ontario elementary school teachers are required to provide 20 minutes of vigorous activity to students each day.  And while our lives become busier and efficiency becomes necessity having the infrastructure in place to make our lives more active will promote a healthier society.

According to the 2009 Quality of Life Index that includes 194 countries Canada ranks 19th. The ranking is based on weighted factors that includes cost of living, leisure and culture, the economy, the environment, freedom, health, infrastructure, risk & safety and climate. A full list of all the countries can be found here, including how they categories are weighted and calculated.

As for where we will be in 2010? It’s unknown right now but it will likely be falling even further behind. It’s no secret that Canada is starting to lag, we are becoming known as the country of polite polluters.

Canada the only country that agreed to the Kyoto Protocol backs away from the ratification

The Kyoto Protocol asked for all nations involved to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by a certain percentage below 1990 levels by 2012. Canada agreed to cut emissions by 6% below 1990 levels, formally ratified the Kyoto Accord at the end of 2002 and in 2006 the Canadian government announced it was abandoning the Kyoto targets. Even wore Canada is currently 26% above 1990 emission levels.

Why are we backing away from the Kyoto protocol? Why can’t we meet our environmental targets? According to George Monbiot it is because of all the potential economic benefits of exploiting the oil of the Alberta Tar Sands. But as Monbiot explains it’s not really oil and that’s why it might be so environmentally destructive. In his article The Urgent Threat to World Peace is … Canada, Manbiot sums up the tar sands …

“It’s actually a filthy mixture of bitumen, sand, heavy metals and toxic organic chemicals… To extract oil from this mess, it needs to be heated and washed. Three barrels of water are used to process one barrel of oil. The contaminated water is held in vast tailing ponds, some of which are so toxic that the tar companies employ people to scoop dead birds off the surface(10). Most are unlined. They leak organic poisons, arsenic and mercury into the rivers… Refining tar sands requires two to three times as much energy as refining crude oil. The companies exploiting them burn enough natural gas to heat six million homes”

Canada might become known as a corrupt petrostate. According to Environmental|Defence Canada has The Most Destructive Project on Earth, the Alberta Tar Sands. The open-pit mines needed to extract the tar sands will be the size of the UK; our pristine landscape will be destroyed and that not directly destroyed by the open-pit mines will be indirectly ruined by all the leaching chemicals.

Could Canada to be expelled from the Commonwealth?

Copenhagen, a place where the commonwealth leaders have congregated to find common ground for the future of the global environment. As Kyoto is about to expire the goal is to have a legally binding agreement in place. But Canada will only participate if meets our economic objectives.

Yesterday I wrote about the triple bottom line accounting principle, people, planet, profit. Harger is regressing, he’s moving away from people and planet and purely exploiting profit. As Europe invests in green infrastructure Canada is investing in ‘dirty’ infrastructure. Globally, Harper and our Federal government our tarnishing our Canadian image.

Worse still the leaders of the Commonwealth are growing frustrated. As they implement policies and laws to meet ambitious emissions goals, Canada is seriously lagging behind. Other leaders of the Commonwealth are commenting on the divide between Harper and the other leaders.

Harper is waiting, waiting until his big brother to south takes a stand and tables proposals. According to Harper we are too connected to the US to table any proposals.

Our environmental and economic future lie in the hands of Steven Harper. If he chooses to ignore the ambitious goals being tabled in Copenhagen and solely looks out for the oil interests in Canada, than Canada will lose much of it’s good-faith with global leaders. Worse if Harper permits the complete extraction of the Tar Sands, Canada will be labeled as one of the world’s worst polluters; we’ll be chastised by the rest of the world.

Reading the LEED manual really gets you thinking out all the small things one can do to have a more energy efficient home and office. Simple things like living or working near a grocery store and restaurants. Changing old lightbulbs to more energy conscious ones. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Bringing your own coffee mug instead of the non-recyclable, non-compostable cafeteria/Starbucks one.

The LEED manual also showed me that it is not enough. Have 5% recycled material. Reduce water consumption by 20%. Use pervious materials on 50%. What? That’s it? At a conference about a year ago a someone said that being sustainable isn’t enough, that we need to regenerative; meaning our buildings have to be carbon-neutral or better yet carbon-negative (meaning that they absorb more carbon than they produce).

LEED Canada is changing in the beginning of 2010 and I believe that the US is already there. More stringent, real changes should be part of the manuals; hopefully we are moving toward sustainable, regenerative buildings.

No cars? Ok well it would make transporting food, goods and people impossible so Zermatt allows small electric shuttles – they look like mini buses. All the vehicles are made in the town. The goal is to minimize the air pollution and preserve the view of the Matterhorn by eliminating the combustion engine.

The first thing I noticed on my trip was the amount of electric vehicle congestion. The roads are very narrow in Zermatt and everyone walks, with their skis in tow, to and from the lifts. Our walk each day was almost a km and we frequently were halted as we had to wait for the vehicles to pass us and others coming from the opposite direction.

Zermatt is also in a construction boom, in every direction you look you can see a crane. This means even more vehicles are passing through the streets delivering construction materials. Plus they have now permitted large, diesel trucks to deliver concrete and other large machines (i.e. bobcats) to site. Some of the sites were so inaccessible that goods were delivered by helicopter. Overall is what congestion mania, in the sky with the cranes and helicopters, and in the streets with all the vehicles.

Overall Zermatt is pristine, preserving the air and it’s cultural heritage. Hopefully this construction will come to an end soon. I’v never been to Zermatt in the winter, when the slopes are fully covered, but even in my preseason visit I can see the majesty of the Swiss Alps.

I often get asked when I have to put my lunch together, when I have time to keep the fridge stocked with fresh foods and generally reminded by people that they just don’t have time to prepare healthy food. I decided I would put together some of my ideas on quick and healthy foods to go (at home and dinner meals to be a follow up)

Simple ways to create quick, healthy meals

• Keep cleaned, cut-up lettuce in your fridge – many stores sell pre-washed lettuce in clamshell containers or bags. Most of the fancier greens like baby spinach, arugula and mache (my favourite) and they tend to have more nutrients in them too Plus it is always easy to add some protein and carbs to have a well-balanced meal
• When making dinner make a bit extra for a left-overs lunch the next day
• Eat fresh, local fruit – most of the time it just needs to be washed to be eaten
• Use local vegetables that can be eaten raw or only need a few minutes of steaming
• Have yogurt as a side dish – yogurt is packed with calcium, protein and all the good probiotics. And with all the great flavours there should be one to suit your palate
• Keep a bag of trail mix on you – I am almost always hungry. Instead of opting for the donut, chips or candy I usually have a bag of mixed nuts, raisins and dried cranberries on me. It’s a simple way to get some energy with a whole bunch of great flavours.

And when you are trying to make your decisions in the grocery store, try to opt for the local, organic varieties.

To add to what Marni said, here is what I believe, “Healthy, everyday eating can be simple and delicious.”

Marni has some great holistic recipes on her website for quick and easy meals. In the end it is a matter of finding balance and making time for the things that are important to you. Nutritious food doesn’t have to take a long time to prepare and in the end you’ll find you have more energy, fewer afternoon crashes, you’re more positive and you won’t miss the greasy food you used to eat for lunch.

Our membership demographic is weighted to those who are ‘older’ (more people in the >40 category than the <20) and the majority of people still like to receive their publications bi-annual publications in print. As my bf once said ‘print is dead,’  I’m looking for ways to reduce the footprint of the magazine.

Steps we’ve taken so far to make sure it is more sustainable

1. Sourcing paper from recycled and sustainable sources
2. Mailing the publication to households instead of to each member (sometimes we would have up to three duplicates in one house)
3. Limiting the number of pages (extra content will be available in our blog style website)

But I am trying to find other ways to save energy and costs. Any suggestions?

As we try to increase the percentage of younger people staying in the organization we have decided to employ more digital and social media tools, which also help to decrease our print publications. We had a facebook fan page last year and we’ve now added twitter and the ‘blog’ I mentioned above.

Trying to produce a publication to appeal to both is not the simplest task but I do enjoy the challenge – I’m able to combine a few of the things that I truly enjoy in life.

Sort your garbage. Break out the recycling. Separate the compost. And make sure it is in the right bin at the right time in front of your house.

The problem is that much of the recycling and compost is still ending up in the landfills. The Toronto Star has been reporting on this over the last year and I wrote about what is happening with our compost last week. This article is somewhat of a follow up to my compost article. While riding my bike home last week I got to thinking and wondered…

If garbage diversion is a priority why aren’t the municipalities paying individuals to sort it?

I do think that as residents we should do our part and separate our garbage, but we are all human and make mistakes with what we throw in what bin. But as the Toronto Star has reported, when something ends that isn’t permitted in the compost or recycling bin ends up there than the whole load goes the landfill.

I can see the argument already from the municipalities, ‘How do you expect us to pay for this?’

Is it really an added cost? Sending waste to the landfill is expensive. About.com quoted Michael Shapiro in an article ‘Do the Benefits of Recycling Outweigh the Costs?’ where he states that “A well-run curbside recycling program can cost anywhere from $50 to more than $150 per ton…trash collection and disposal programs, on the other hand, cost anywhere from $70 to more than $200 per ton.” And that doesn’t include the revenue generated from then selling the recycled material.

Instead if the waste is diverted, composted or recycled, than there is a cost savings to the municipality. From a Life Cycle Cost perspective the overall cost for diversion is less than land-filling. Particularly when you look at it from the Triple Bottom Line perspective, the social and environmental costs from land-filling are far more expensive than those of composting or recycling.

In order to move forward and divert more of our garbage the municipalities need to step in and play a larger role. It’s time we start sorting our waste before it ends up in a landfill.

A Poor ROI

Why aren’t more scientists researching how to harvest lightning and turn it into usable electricity? From what I’ve been able to discover with my quick research online is that an a bolt of electricity holds about 5 billion joules of energy (enough to provide an average household with all their energy needs for a month), but it is only potential energy. The energy from the lightning bolt would have to be converted from DC (direct current) to AC (alternating current); AC is the electricity we use to power all our gadgets.

Even if we could capture the lightning most of the energy from the bolt is used to heat the surroundings; according to the Greener.Ideal it is believed that the loss of energy due to heat would mean that a lightening bolt could only power one light bulb for 6 months. From powering a home for a whole month to a only 1 measly light bulb over 6 moths, that’s a huge loss.

All of this though is further complicated by chaos, lightning is random. Capturing the lightning requires a massive station, which is not only expensive but fairly immobile. Since lightning is so inconsistent there is nothing that can predict that it will continue to strike the same area in the future.

The Individual Footprint

Worldwide lightning storms are predictable through the North American summer months. Combine that with some very tall buildings, like The Sears Tower in Chicago, The Chrysler Building in Detroit, and many New York buildings, and you have yourself the ideal lightning capturing station, each being hit about a few dozen times per year. But one building stands out on its own, Toronto’s CN Tower, being struck about 75 times per year.

Instead the overall energy production could be scaled back; the lightning bolts could be used to power the tall buildings. The idea of sustainability is to be able to provide your own energy without compromising the future of others. These tall buildings can do such; their unique height allows them to benefit from the lightening storms we see.

The CN tower could be the test project. Change all the lights to LED’s, reduce energy demands as much as possible and install a capturing station. Who knows maybe the CN Tower could become carbon neutral?

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.

we compost and recycle at home but when it comes to work we turn a blind eye.

Maybe it’s the ‘out of sight, out of mind philosophy’ where someone else is responsible for that waste created not us. Don’t get me wrong it is much more difficult to separate recyclables at work and forget composting, no one offers that.

Small steps to take for being ‘greener’ at work

1. If you make your own lunch use recycleable containers that you can use to take your food scraps home in to recycle (or if you’re really ambitious and your work site permits it, start a composting program)
2. When going out for lunch look for restaurants that serve local, organic foods
3. Print as few things as possible. When it is essential to print use both sides of the page (I have good eye sight so I usually print two pages per page so I get 4 pages on one page!)
4. Keep a small recycle box beside your garbage.  That way it is easier to separate your trash from recyclables when cleaning your desk area

Remember a big part of our lives happens at work. Encourage friends and colleauges to respect the environment in all aspects of their lives. As corportate sustainability becomes the trend being ‘green’ at work will get easier.