Issues: IssuesTRANSPORTATIONCanada is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita, contributing to global warming and air pollution, which in turn lead to respiratory and health ailments. Individuals account for one quarter of these emissions, largely due to driving cars (including cars driven to school!). Did you know that 50% of new car purchases in Canada are sports utility vehicles (SUVs)? Some say these are the worst invention for the Earth since DDT. They don't have to live up to car emissions standards, since they're classified as full trucks. It's time we get out of our SUVs and onto public transit and bicycles. It doesn't have to be every day - even once or twice a week makes a huge difference! And if it's raining or snowing, we still don't each need a car - why not carpool?
Show your support for sustainable transportation: bike or walk around your town, leaving chalk messages on bike paths or bike lanes congratulating local people for biking, and in parking lots reminding people of the option of carpools and buses. Or why not hop on your local transit system with your friends and perform spontaneous public theatre, thanking transit riders for making an Earth-friendly transportation choice! Or, you could organize a critical mass (huge group of people biking together) and use old cardboard boxes to make colourful funky signs to wear on your backs, with messages like "FOSSIL FUEL FREE!" written on them, to promote sustainable transportation. If you're leaving town, consider biking! People across Canada bike up to 150 km a day to visit friends and relatives, camping in a park or crashing at a cheap youth hostels along the way! If you're not ready for long-distance biking quite yet, you can always take the bus or train instead of your car (bus is the better of these two options). Flying? Air travel is the worst form of transportation - however, if you are going to fly, there's lots of cool ways to offset your carbon emissions. Okay, so you have to take your car. Great news - there is a way! Check out the latest gas-electric hybrid car or other low-emission vehicle. They are admittedly more expensive than regular cars, but the Canadian government now has monetary incentives for buying Earth-friendly cars, and in the long run, your gas costs go down big time! A Honda Civic hybrid, for example, gets 1000 km per tank of gas! That saves a lot of gas money - hey, now you can get afford to get those handy pannier bags for your long bike trips! Okay, maybe you can't fork out the cash to buy or rent a new hybrid car. There are still TONS of things you can do in your own car (besides not driving it, although that's still Number One!). Turning off the air conditioning, rolling up the windows, not speeding, and reducing your idling time all reduce your gas use and greenhouse gas emissions! If every driver of a light-duty vehicle in Canada avoided idling for just five minutes, we would save 1.9 million litres of fuel worth more than $1.3 million, more than 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (the equivalent of taking 350,000 cars off the road!), and contribute to improved air quality and respiratory health in our communities! Transportation Resources:
WATEROur most precious resource and a basic human right, water should be used respectfully. Although in Canada water is plentiful, we share it with 15 million other species, and unnecessary chemicals and electricity are used to treat every wasted drop. Plus, our supply of clean water should never be taken for granted. Less than one-half of one percent of all the water in the world is actually drinkable! If our current consumption trends continue and the pollution of our lakes and rivers (by factory farms and industrial waste) doesn't stop, we WILL run out of clean drinking water in Canada! In the end, though, it is also an issue of respect - 2 billion of the world's people lack access to clean water, leading to dehydration and numerous deadly diseases. The average Canadian household consumes 640 litres of water a day - imagine how much your school community uses! The average toilet (including the ones in your school) uses 24 litres every single flush! By the time we take 20 minutes in the shower, leave the tap on brushing our teeth, and water our lawn to keep it pretty and green, we've wasted a lot of water! This can be reduced by using a toilet dam (something to put in your toilet's water tank to take up space and reduce the water per flush!) or replacing your toilet with a small hole in the floor (just kidding!). Really, just switch your toilet with a low flow toilet. Take a staggered shower (turn the water off while you get sudsed up), turn off the tap while you brush your teeth, and be proud of your brown lawn - it's saving the world! Or you can replace your grass with a vegetable or herbal garden and grow your own food (see below for more details). If you're really cool, you will follow some old advice my Grandma told me: if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down. Sounds gross? Not if you keep the seat lid down - and you are totally saving water! Bottled water is also a huge issue, and well worth reading up on.... if you dare! Water Resources: Inspiration from - www.ryanswell.ca Tips - www.ucsusa.org, www.cdphe.state.co.us/ Bottled Water - www.canadians.org/ Water Conservation Tools from - www.ec.gc.ca, and www.sahra.arizona.edu Water Information - www.thewaterpage.com FOODMmmmmm... food. Every food choice (of every day!) offers opportunities to make yourself and your planet a little healthier, whether you're eating at the cafeteria, at a restaurant, or out of your own fridge. Pesticides, genetically modified organisms, chemicals, artificial sweeteners - what are you putting into your body? Do you want to grow healthy and happy? But doesn't everything that's good for me taste bad? No way, Batman! Check out some ways you can tantalize your taste buds, your stomach, and Momma Earth all at the same time! We promise that you will be able to taste the ethics!
Food Resources: Sustainable Food Choices and Agriculture Info- www.gaiaproject.bc.ca, www.informedeating.org, www.ffcf.bc.ca, www.iatp.org, www.centerforfoodsafety.org, www.eap.mcgill.ca Litterless Lunches - www.saveonfoods.com/ Vegetarian Info at - www.forest.fireshui.com, andwww.davidsuzuki.org Vegan sites - www.vegan.org, and www.vegforlife.org Vegetarian Recipes from - www.vegetarianrecipe.com/default.asp, www.vegkitchen.com, and www.ivu.org/ Gardening - www.thevegetablepatch.com Eating Local - www.ucsusa.org, www.davidsuzuki.org Organics - www.naturespath.com, www.cog.ca Fair Trade - www.transfairusa.org, www.transfair.ca, www.oxfam.org.uk, www.cocoacamino.com DEFORESTATIONForests are more than just pretty places to go for a hike. When trees are 'clearcut' for wood and paper, our lungs lose their best friends! Not only do we get oxygen from our buddies the trees, they also suck out all the carbon dioxide (and other pollutants, thank-you very much!), keep the soil rich and healthy, and provide habitat for gazillions of animal species. So why are we bussin' on the trees, yo? Well, we need paper and wood! But do we need so much? Approximately 300 million tons of paper is produced worldwide annually, and nearly 40% of our municipal landfill solid waste consists of paper and paperboard! Valuable forest resources are being depleted, air and water are suffering from increased pollution and waste volumes are growing way beyond acceptable levels. With projections for almost a doubling of global paper consumption by 2010, we 'clearly' need to 'cut' our paper use. Share ideas on how to save paper by making posters, (printed on the other side of used paper, of course!) with some facts and paper-saving ideas (i.e. making notebooks out of used paper, photocopying on the other side of used paper, buying recycled paper, etc.). Place the posters over photocopiers or in other areas of tree carnage. You can also place thank-you posters in libraries, thanking people for saving trees by sharing books, magazines, and newspapers. You can even save money by checking out the latest bestseller at the library instead of buying it! Don't forget to check for a recycling bin wherever you go and make sure there is one! If not, ask for one, or make one for them! Convince your school to double-side all handouts, newsletters, and other printed materials, and to explore alternatives to paper products used in your school, or at least make sure that all paper is 100% recycled paper! Wipe your clean hands on your pants instead of using paper towels, or if you are wearing no pants, explore sustainable paper towel alternatives. While you're at it, why not put a poster (on reused materials of course) in your school's bathrooms that says: "yes... paper towels DO grow on trees". For legal reasons, we are not permitted to advocate using your hands to wipe, but you can make sure that the TP is 100% recycled, and cut down on the number of squares you use. Your custodial staff will appreciate the lack of toilet clogs! Resources: Sustainable Paper/Wood Info: www.woodconsumption.org, www.woodconsumption.org, www.iied.org Awesome books to get from the library: Otesha Reading List Saving Paper in your school with: http://dnr.metrokc.gov Paper Towel info: www.greenseal.org Sustainable Paper Alternatives: www.treeco.com ENERGY USEWhere were you during the blackout of 2003? That's right - in the dark! Approximately 23,000,000,000 (aka a lot!) tonnes of CO2 (carbon dioxide in chem talk!) are spewed into the Earth's atmosphere every year. That's more than 700 tonnes every second! Our crazy thirst for energy contributes to this problem, as we need to burn more coal or oil, or build more hydro dams and nuclear power plants to meet our increasing demand. This all contributes to climate change. What? Electricity is made from water, too? Darn straight sister! But the current capacity of hydroelectricity, wind and solar energy isn't sufficient yet, and dams destroy ecosystems beyond repair, so we still have to burn that coal - yech! - Unless we curb our consumption! Here are some bright ideas:
Energy Resources: Sustainable Energy Info- www.gaiaproject.bc.ca, www.davidsuzuki.org, www.wam.umd.edu Climate Change at - www.panda.org Green Schools and Solar Panels on - www.tcdsb.org Energy Efficient Lighting - www.healthgoods.com Energy-Efficient Appliances Info - www.davidsuzuki.org WASTE AND PACKAGINGIn the late 1990s, the City of North York started collecting garbage twice a week - with a seven-bag limit! Where does it all go? Out of sight? Out of mind? Well, we're out of room! The United States alone produces 180 millions tons of garbage every year. It seems like we treat this planet as our personal landfill. Every product has a life cycle - it comes from the earth and must one day return to it. Much of what we use - especially mad crazy packaging of little tiny things - will end up as garbage that will sit around under the Earth for eternity, or get incinerated (burned) and spew gross stuff (including greenhouse gases) into the air. Most of it is garbage within days or even hours of buying it! BUT - theRe is a way! Really! We pRomise! R you Ready foR a gaRbage Revolution? (get the hint?)
Resources: Awesome Waste Games at: http://web.mit.edu, www.ucsusa.org/game CLOTHESEvery year the average North American spends $2,400 on clothes alone, and that's not including cosmetics! Each season (and often every month!) entirely new stocks of clothes pour into your favourite retail chain, and advertisements and billboards push the necessity of acquiring the "newest" style, colour or fad...is it really necessary? How many wardrobes do we need for one body? Do we need a new backpack every year? Even without the questionable (and very often downright inhuman) labour practices employed to make many of our clothes, our obsession with filling our closets with an outfit for every conceivable occasion (including the crucial school day of... Tuesday!) produces incalculable material waste for landfills. Growing non-organic, non-shade-grown cotton for our clothes also requires the use of pesticides and the clearcutting of forests. The more leather we wear, the more cows must be raised, slaughtered, and skinned (the same environmental costs - water pollution, deforestation, energy use - apply from the vegetarian argument in the Food section above). So do we walk around naked? Again for legal reasons, NO. Do we wear the same outfit every day? Why not? My friends in Nicaragua wear the same clothes every day, and it's hotter and muddier there! Okay, so you can have more than one outfit, but you CAN make a huge difference in reducing your Ecological 'Shoeprint' through a little thing called creativity!
One last thing - think cosmetics could possibly be good for the Earth? There are serious environmental consequences, but there are Earth-friendly cosmetics options out there (just Google it!). Clothing Resources: Ethical clothing research - www.ethicalconsumer.org/magazine, www.responsibleshopper.org Sweatfree-schools info - http://www.labor-religion.org Sweat-free clothing at - www.newdream.org Letter writing with - www.caa.org.au Child Labour info - www.globalmarch.org/index.php Sustainable Clothing info - www.ecoeverything.com, www.wam.umd.edu Buy Nothing Day info - www.adbusters.org Cosmetics dirt - www.ethicalmatters.co.uk Inspiration - www.freethechildren.org URBANIZATIONAccording to David Suzuki, North Americans spend 95% of their time indoors! Our cities are losing valuable green space and sprawling out into rural areas faster than you can say "strip malls and big box stores." Our neighbourhoods are becoming concrete jungles that produce carbon dioxide instead of turning it into oxygen. Cut off from the natural world, our understanding and respect for nature becomes more and more non-existent. We can identify far more celebrities and corporate logos than species of plants or wildlife (and no, neither Kermit The Frog nor the Survivor cast count as wildlife!). And our excessive time spent in artificially conditioned climates leaves us with respiratory problems and weak immune systems! Consider how much time YOU spend outside in the sun (or the rain or snow - even more fun!) getting to know Mother Earth better. How much green space is there at your school? How many times are your classes outside? Does your biology learning come from a textbook (made of clear-cut, old-growth forest paper), or from direct, first-hand experience outside? Is gym class done in a concrete room or out in the fresh air? After school do you hang out outside, or inside watching re-runs of Saved By The Bell and The Simpsons (both cool shows, but nowhere near as fun as a hack circle, practicing your handstands, or frisbee on the beach)? Do you play sports on PlayStation or at the park? Do you get lost in your favourite novel on the couch or under a tree? Make good use of your green spaces to show your school and community that they are needed and appreciated. Nowhere to skateboard or BMX? Write to your municipal officials and ask for a skate park (tell them it'll keep you out of the malls and out of trouble - they'll love that!). If there are green spaces at your school, why not make them pesticide-free? Get some friends together and take care of your local green spaces, or even plant a veggie garden or a peace / philosopher's garden (to sit and think in peace) at your school (offer the veggies to your school caf for a special salad or stir-fry lunch). Resources: Pesticide-free green spaces - www.davidsuzuki.org Get Outside, Get Active! - www.newdream.org Green Schools Guidelines - http://www.greengrounds.org/ Proposals for Funding for Greening Schools - http://treecanada.ca, http://www.evergreen.ca BUSINESS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Our individual choices and actions totally contribute to a sustainable environmental future for the whole world. But a considerable proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, pollution of our air, water, and soil, and excessive energy consumption results from choices and actions made by businesses, especially the manufacturing sector. A 2003 study found that 90% of North American overall pollution comes from large-scale companies - one coal power plant in Nanticoke, Ontario, accounted for over half of the increase in Canada's air pollution from 1999 to 2003!
Resources: The 'dirt' on your favourite companies - www.ibuydifferent.org, www.newdream.org, www.wam.umd.edu Conscious Consumption - www.unpac.ca Parliament of Canada - find your MP Government of Ontario (find your MPP) CONSUMERISM AND OVERCONSUMPTIONA big part of why we have lost our connection with nature is that we can't SEE it! Media and advertising permeate all areas of our lives - in fact, the average North American youth sees 20,000 commercials every year! That's enough to give you a numb brain! Everywhere we look - on buses, on billboards, and even at school! - we see advertising encouraging us to be cool and to fit in by buying some product or service. Let's call it Eye-Brain Pollution! We must all look critically at how the media underlies our consumer culture, and the unsustainable and often unattainable societal norms the media encourages. And look closely because sometimes, somehow, some of the most damaging products are often advertised subliminally under environmental premises (Earth-ravaging SUVs are often advertised with pristine natural backgrounds, the same ones their fossil fuel emissions destroy). We call it co-opting activism - selling products by appealing to our conscience but not actually doing anything about the issue. Don't let commercials fool you! Question everything! No walking zombies allowed in the Earth Revolution! In fact, question everything you read here, too! How do you know anything is true? Find out for yourself! In addition to the advertisements you see every day on buses, billboards and clothing, advertising in schools is on the rise (it's an extremely controversial issue, especially surrounding the pop mega-giants - what do you think?). Is there enough media-free space in your daily life? Television, magazines, and newspapers are huge sources of advertising, so if you're still into media, why not make your own, or read alternative forms of media. And don't forget handstand practice and that hack circle - turn off the TV and enjoy the beautiful outdoors. Finally, commercialism distorts our culture by turning every event into a reason to consume. Anthropologists say that holidays reflect a culture's values; in North America every holiday is a sales event. So why not rethink these gifts:
Oh, and by the way, why must every prize and award for sporting events and school contests involve converting natural resources into "winning" symbolism? What does that mean? Find goofy sustainable ways to reward effort and participation - make everyone a winner, including Mother Earth!
Resources: Advertisements in schools - www.ericfacility.net, www.mediafamily.org, www.education-world.com TV turn off campaigns - www.adbusters.org Alternative Media - www.rabble.ca Creating your own media - www.indymedia.org Media Education - www.mediaed.org Deconstructing Advertisements - www.adbusters.org Commercialization of holidays - www.napa.ufl.edu, www.newdream.org Sustainable Gift Ideas - www.newdream.org Rethinking Competition - www.learning-for-life.org (pdf file) MORE ON...EARTH AUDITS AND ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINTS - RESOURCES
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