Sunday, December 13, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Blog 8 My Stuff and consumption Habits
I am quite proud of my consumption habits. I am a self proclaimed very frugal (not cheap!) individual. I don’t need the latest video card for my computer, nor do I buy a pair of shoes every 3 months.
I am one of those evil 2 wheeler motorcyclists that people love to hate. I buy 2 tires every year, plus the drive chain, sprockets. Lets not forget about the sheer amount of pollution my exhaust pipe spews into the atmosphere. In my defense, I don’t own a car, and the fuel consumption on my bike is about 5 L / 100km, which is very decent by car standards. However the emissions is not something I’m proud of.
But getting away from my hobby, I am not a big consumer. I don’t believe in spending any of my hard earned pennies. I try to save as much as possible for those inevitable rainy day events. I try to recycle whenever possible. When I visit the grocery store I always use a reusable cloth bag (which is the only bag I can get at the superstore).
The lecture in class revealed that the soles of running shoes contain many heavy metals and other toxic substances. I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in 3 years, but that doesn’t help much when everyone else’s shows are walking toxic waste repositories.
I recently purchased a metal water bottle. I think plastic water bottles for the most part are a huge waste. However they are convenient when running out of the house or going on a hike and you need to keep the weight of your backpack down.
More pressure needs to be put on manufactures to find alternative methods of production of goods. I also think that the manufactures should implement recovery systems for products. Items such as computers contain many rare metals, and a lot end up being thrown into landfills. If the manufactures would even offer an incentive, albeit a small one, for the return of some computer components, I believe this would be a major step in the right direction.
Also, manufactures should make products that don’t need to be replaced every 6 months. This will affect their bottom line at first, but I believe that if a manufacturer will stand behind their product for 3-5 years, more people would be inclined to purchase it.
I think there needs to be a major shift in our society away from consumerism. People need to realize they don’t have to keep up with the Jones’, and that there is no shame in having something older. The whole image is everything and bigger / newer is better is a very destructive image
A new way of thinking is required, but that in itself is wishful thinking
I am one of those evil 2 wheeler motorcyclists that people love to hate. I buy 2 tires every year, plus the drive chain, sprockets. Lets not forget about the sheer amount of pollution my exhaust pipe spews into the atmosphere. In my defense, I don’t own a car, and the fuel consumption on my bike is about 5 L / 100km, which is very decent by car standards. However the emissions is not something I’m proud of.
But getting away from my hobby, I am not a big consumer. I don’t believe in spending any of my hard earned pennies. I try to save as much as possible for those inevitable rainy day events. I try to recycle whenever possible. When I visit the grocery store I always use a reusable cloth bag (which is the only bag I can get at the superstore).
The lecture in class revealed that the soles of running shoes contain many heavy metals and other toxic substances. I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in 3 years, but that doesn’t help much when everyone else’s shows are walking toxic waste repositories.
I recently purchased a metal water bottle. I think plastic water bottles for the most part are a huge waste. However they are convenient when running out of the house or going on a hike and you need to keep the weight of your backpack down.
More pressure needs to be put on manufactures to find alternative methods of production of goods. I also think that the manufactures should implement recovery systems for products. Items such as computers contain many rare metals, and a lot end up being thrown into landfills. If the manufactures would even offer an incentive, albeit a small one, for the return of some computer components, I believe this would be a major step in the right direction.
Also, manufactures should make products that don’t need to be replaced every 6 months. This will affect their bottom line at first, but I believe that if a manufacturer will stand behind their product for 3-5 years, more people would be inclined to purchase it.
I think there needs to be a major shift in our society away from consumerism. People need to realize they don’t have to keep up with the Jones’, and that there is no shame in having something older. The whole image is everything and bigger / newer is better is a very destructive image
A new way of thinking is required, but that in itself is wishful thinking
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Blog 7 Synthesis of presentations.
Today we had all the groups from the class present their various topics from “A Geography of Hope” on themes pertaining to sustainability. Overall I found it enlightening, albeit at times some of the groups overlapped each other, but I suppose it’s the same in the realm of sustainability, where topics will overlap.
Team 1 covered the topic of sustainable energy and used a case study from Denmark, which was mentioned in our course book “A Geography of Hope”. Their local case study was from Barrie, Ontario and dealt with solar powered lights to be used in parks.
The main point that I gathered from group 1’s presentation is that our current supply of energy comes from dirty sources. Coal and oil power plants not only produce CO2 in vast quantities when power is generated, but also during the extraction of the raw fuel and the transportation of it to the power plant. The case study the group used was an island in Denmark called Samso. All the electricity generated on the island comes from wind turbines. In fact, wind turbines produce 24% or 3100MW of Denmark’s power. In Canada, we have a similar amount of wind generated, at 3150 MW according to http://www.canwea.ca/pdf/Canada%20Current%20Installed%20Capacity_e.pdf. We still have a long way to go, as there are still many coal fired plants, such as Nanticoke in Ontario still in operation.
Wind power is also a major player in Denmark’s economy, which contributes to wind power being very sustainable to that country.
Group 2, which is my group, covered sustainable transportation. We looked at a case study from Singapore dealing with hydrogen fueled cars, and a case study that I had found comparing 3 universities across the country and the impacts of implementing a universal transit, or u-pass had.
The hydrogen cars in Singapore were not overly sustainable because of the cost of the car and the infrastructure needed to sustain them. It is pointless to produce a car if the fuel can only be replenished a 1 station. The case study regarding the universities was of particular interest to me because I’ve worked for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) for the past 3 summers, so I had somewhat of a vested interested in the study. The long and the short of it was the introduction of the universal transit passes at The University of Victoria, The University of Western Ontario and St. Mary’s University was a success. It increased the public transit use of students to bring them to and from school. It also increased the use of public transit on weekend and non school hours. Another benefit of increasing public transit and reducing car usage was that land that was otherwise used for parking lots was able to be built on, which preserved green space.
The idea of a transit pass has been thrown around RRU. This would not work in the least at the school. It is in an isolated part of Victoria, in Colwood, which doesn’t have much of a public transit system to begin with. There aren’t enough students at the school to make it economically feasible to implement. Lastly the school doesn’t have the road infrastructure to facilitate full sized buses coming into the campus every 10 minutes between 8 and 9, then again between 4 and 5.
Group 3 covered sustainable urban development. I’m not sure what their examples from the book were, although I think it was the distillery district in downtown Toronto and Belmar, a suburb of Denver Co. Both of those examples dealt with having a pedestrian friendly core and keeping cars out of the main area. The example that group 3 used was Dockside Green in Victoria and Malmö in Sweden. Dockside Green is a green minded persons’ wet dream. It is built over a Brownfield, incorporates waste reduction, on-site heat generation, and even maintained part of the Galloping Goose Regional Bicycle trail. Malmo is a large city in Sweden that encompases many sustainable features. It has a power plant which burns biogas. Many of the apartment complexes in Malmo are now sporting solar panels to reduce energy consumption. Malmo helps to increase its sustainability by reducing the ecological footprint caused by hydrocarbon fueled power plants.
Ideally, I would like to see RRU use some solar panels so the school can come close to achieving its sustainability goal, but unfortunately the weather in Victoria between November and March doesn’t favour the sun.
The case study the group went into detail about was the use of green roofs. Green roofs contribute many different factors to sustainability. They clean the air due to the roof being “green”. They are made from placing soil on top of a conventional asphalt roof and planting various flowers, bushes and other plants. Green roofs also reduce storm water runoff, which helps to clean water ways and prevent peak surges from occurring. There is also the added benefit of having a place for birds to rest and providing them with shelter.
Group 4 had a similar theme to group 3. They covered sustainable buildings and green roofs in Toronto. I should mention that I did a study of a degraded watershed in Toronto, the Black Creek. One of the recommendations that I had to improve the watershed as a whole, and solve a number of water quality problems associate with the creek was to implement the use of green roofs throughout the Black Creeks 66 km2 watershed.
Group 4 used a case study of a house called the Chateau Mango. The Chateau Mango was designed with sustainability in mind. It comes with the usual assortment of solar panels, south facing windows, special paint to heating and a way to recover air conditioning moisture. The 1500 ft2 was quoted at costing $125,000. I’ m not sure which currency that is in, but I’ll assume the Loonie. More houses should be designed with sustainability in mind, it will greatly improve the ecological footprint and GHG of our society if our homes could be more energy efficient.
Group 5 unfortunately didn’t upload their powerpoint to the course site, so I cant speak about that presentation.
Group 6 covered Smart Design. Smart Design uses ideas and technologies used to efficiently create long term living/working space. It can reduce the negative effects on ecological health and improve the quality of life for residents. Smart Design can come from LEED certification. LEED certification is a rating system of how “green” a building is. It uses elements similar to the previous groups Chateau Mango in its design. Bio-mimicry is another example of Smart Design. Its taking natures design and modeling it into a man made structure. The best example that I can think of for this is the airplane wing. A birds wing was the inspiration for Orville and Wilbur Wright to build their Wright Flyer.
Group 6 referred to Royal Roads University and smart design. They provided the following examples of how RRU contributes to smart design
• Compost bins in the classrooms
• Recycle plastic and glass
• Composts paper towels
• Non-flushing urinals (Water efficiency)
• Restoring the Colwood creek watershed
• Bateman Center (Gold LEED certified
I don’t agree with this completely. Installing a compost bin in a classroom doesn’t take the design of the building into considering, its just putting a bucket in a room. Restoring Colwood creek and the much hyped Bateman Center will be good examples of smart design.
Team 8 covered the ideology of sustainability. They covered the use of communication in the realm of sustainability. I believe this is a fundamental factor in the sustainability movement. Without effective communication, its impossible for them message of sustainability to spread.
Team 8 also focused on advertising, and a term called green washing. In a nut shell (cue Austin Powers joke) green washing are all the outlandish claims that a manufacturer will use to market and sell a product to the green crowd. I found this slide to be quite interesting
TerraChoice Environmental Marketing: 1018 products, 1753 claims
• Sin of the hidden trade-off (998 products, 57% of claims)
• Sin of no proof (454 products, 26% of claims)
• Sin of vagueness (196 products, 11% of claims)
• Sin of irrelevance (78 products, 4% of claims)
• Sin of fibbing (10 products, <1% of claims)
• Sin of lesser of two evils (17 products, 1% of claims)
• Sin of worshipping false labels (23% of claims)
It pretty much sums up how I feel about most so-called green products. They might be in a green bottle, but that’s the extent of how green they actually are.
Team 8 used David Suzuki as their case study and example of a good communicator. He is one of the faces of the green movement, and can reach a wide audience with his messages. He has his TV show, The Nature of Things, he’s also on CBC radio, he has written more than 40 books, and even has a Facebook page.
The presentations were very well done and thought provoking. I enjoyed them thoroughly. I am glad we got the opportunity to research and discuss various aspects of sustainability.
Team 1 covered the topic of sustainable energy and used a case study from Denmark, which was mentioned in our course book “A Geography of Hope”. Their local case study was from Barrie, Ontario and dealt with solar powered lights to be used in parks.
The main point that I gathered from group 1’s presentation is that our current supply of energy comes from dirty sources. Coal and oil power plants not only produce CO2 in vast quantities when power is generated, but also during the extraction of the raw fuel and the transportation of it to the power plant. The case study the group used was an island in Denmark called Samso. All the electricity generated on the island comes from wind turbines. In fact, wind turbines produce 24% or 3100MW of Denmark’s power. In Canada, we have a similar amount of wind generated, at 3150 MW according to http://www.canwea.ca/pdf/Canada%20Current%20Installed%20Capacity_e.pdf. We still have a long way to go, as there are still many coal fired plants, such as Nanticoke in Ontario still in operation.
Wind power is also a major player in Denmark’s economy, which contributes to wind power being very sustainable to that country.
Group 2, which is my group, covered sustainable transportation. We looked at a case study from Singapore dealing with hydrogen fueled cars, and a case study that I had found comparing 3 universities across the country and the impacts of implementing a universal transit, or u-pass had.
The hydrogen cars in Singapore were not overly sustainable because of the cost of the car and the infrastructure needed to sustain them. It is pointless to produce a car if the fuel can only be replenished a 1 station. The case study regarding the universities was of particular interest to me because I’ve worked for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) for the past 3 summers, so I had somewhat of a vested interested in the study. The long and the short of it was the introduction of the universal transit passes at The University of Victoria, The University of Western Ontario and St. Mary’s University was a success. It increased the public transit use of students to bring them to and from school. It also increased the use of public transit on weekend and non school hours. Another benefit of increasing public transit and reducing car usage was that land that was otherwise used for parking lots was able to be built on, which preserved green space.
The idea of a transit pass has been thrown around RRU. This would not work in the least at the school. It is in an isolated part of Victoria, in Colwood, which doesn’t have much of a public transit system to begin with. There aren’t enough students at the school to make it economically feasible to implement. Lastly the school doesn’t have the road infrastructure to facilitate full sized buses coming into the campus every 10 minutes between 8 and 9, then again between 4 and 5.
Group 3 covered sustainable urban development. I’m not sure what their examples from the book were, although I think it was the distillery district in downtown Toronto and Belmar, a suburb of Denver Co. Both of those examples dealt with having a pedestrian friendly core and keeping cars out of the main area. The example that group 3 used was Dockside Green in Victoria and Malmö in Sweden. Dockside Green is a green minded persons’ wet dream. It is built over a Brownfield, incorporates waste reduction, on-site heat generation, and even maintained part of the Galloping Goose Regional Bicycle trail. Malmo is a large city in Sweden that encompases many sustainable features. It has a power plant which burns biogas. Many of the apartment complexes in Malmo are now sporting solar panels to reduce energy consumption. Malmo helps to increase its sustainability by reducing the ecological footprint caused by hydrocarbon fueled power plants.
Ideally, I would like to see RRU use some solar panels so the school can come close to achieving its sustainability goal, but unfortunately the weather in Victoria between November and March doesn’t favour the sun.
The case study the group went into detail about was the use of green roofs. Green roofs contribute many different factors to sustainability. They clean the air due to the roof being “green”. They are made from placing soil on top of a conventional asphalt roof and planting various flowers, bushes and other plants. Green roofs also reduce storm water runoff, which helps to clean water ways and prevent peak surges from occurring. There is also the added benefit of having a place for birds to rest and providing them with shelter.
Group 4 had a similar theme to group 3. They covered sustainable buildings and green roofs in Toronto. I should mention that I did a study of a degraded watershed in Toronto, the Black Creek. One of the recommendations that I had to improve the watershed as a whole, and solve a number of water quality problems associate with the creek was to implement the use of green roofs throughout the Black Creeks 66 km2 watershed.
Group 4 used a case study of a house called the Chateau Mango. The Chateau Mango was designed with sustainability in mind. It comes with the usual assortment of solar panels, south facing windows, special paint to heating and a way to recover air conditioning moisture. The 1500 ft2 was quoted at costing $125,000. I’ m not sure which currency that is in, but I’ll assume the Loonie. More houses should be designed with sustainability in mind, it will greatly improve the ecological footprint and GHG of our society if our homes could be more energy efficient.
Group 5 unfortunately didn’t upload their powerpoint to the course site, so I cant speak about that presentation.
Group 6 covered Smart Design. Smart Design uses ideas and technologies used to efficiently create long term living/working space. It can reduce the negative effects on ecological health and improve the quality of life for residents. Smart Design can come from LEED certification. LEED certification is a rating system of how “green” a building is. It uses elements similar to the previous groups Chateau Mango in its design. Bio-mimicry is another example of Smart Design. Its taking natures design and modeling it into a man made structure. The best example that I can think of for this is the airplane wing. A birds wing was the inspiration for Orville and Wilbur Wright to build their Wright Flyer.
Group 6 referred to Royal Roads University and smart design. They provided the following examples of how RRU contributes to smart design
• Compost bins in the classrooms
• Recycle plastic and glass
• Composts paper towels
• Non-flushing urinals (Water efficiency)
• Restoring the Colwood creek watershed
• Bateman Center (Gold LEED certified
I don’t agree with this completely. Installing a compost bin in a classroom doesn’t take the design of the building into considering, its just putting a bucket in a room. Restoring Colwood creek and the much hyped Bateman Center will be good examples of smart design.
Team 8 covered the ideology of sustainability. They covered the use of communication in the realm of sustainability. I believe this is a fundamental factor in the sustainability movement. Without effective communication, its impossible for them message of sustainability to spread.
Team 8 also focused on advertising, and a term called green washing. In a nut shell (cue Austin Powers joke) green washing are all the outlandish claims that a manufacturer will use to market and sell a product to the green crowd. I found this slide to be quite interesting
TerraChoice Environmental Marketing: 1018 products, 1753 claims
• Sin of the hidden trade-off (998 products, 57% of claims)
• Sin of no proof (454 products, 26% of claims)
• Sin of vagueness (196 products, 11% of claims)
• Sin of irrelevance (78 products, 4% of claims)
• Sin of fibbing (10 products, <1% of claims)
• Sin of lesser of two evils (17 products, 1% of claims)
• Sin of worshipping false labels (23% of claims)
It pretty much sums up how I feel about most so-called green products. They might be in a green bottle, but that’s the extent of how green they actually are.
Team 8 used David Suzuki as their case study and example of a good communicator. He is one of the faces of the green movement, and can reach a wide audience with his messages. He has his TV show, The Nature of Things, he’s also on CBC radio, he has written more than 40 books, and even has a Facebook page.
The presentations were very well done and thought provoking. I enjoyed them thoroughly. I am glad we got the opportunity to research and discuss various aspects of sustainability.
Blog 6 An example of sustainable development – Dockside Green
Dockside Green was unheard of to me before I moved to Victoria. I had even rode my bicycle past it one a trip along the Galloping Goose Regional Trail without knowing it was there. I was completely unaware of it being a prime example of sustainable development in the CRD.
Dockside Green is a 1.3 million ft2 mixed use sustainable community development. It’s a co-development of Vancity Credit Union and Windmill West. It is build upon a former 16 acre Brownfield with the intention of fulfilling a three part philosophy in sustainable development of environmental, social, and economic responsibility. The 16 acre side was quite toxic. It contained many spilled chemicals and heavy metals and one third of the land is landfill from garbage.
Dockside Green achieved a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) designation of platinum. The development obtained 63 points, whilst only 52 were needed for platinum. Each suite within the Dockside Green development has meters that monitor water and power consumption, which the residents can use to reduce their consumption habits.
Also to reduce the environmental footprint and consumption of the devilment, a number of other services were used. Solar power is used extensively. Street lights, garbage compactors
the steps to be taken in hopes of reducing Dockside Green’s environmental footprint include:
• the use of solar power technologies, including street lights and garbage compactors
• wind turbines
• the incorporation of green roofs on many buildings, including the first three phases of residences
• use of only native and adaptive species in landscaping, and the planned planting of over 1000 trees on the site overall
I don’t think Dockside Green is perfect, not by a long shot. But it’s a step in the right direction. If more buildings like Dockside Green are built in Victoria and across Canada, it could be the critical mass needed to bring sustainability to the fore front of todays society.
Dockside Green is a 1.3 million ft2 mixed use sustainable community development. It’s a co-development of Vancity Credit Union and Windmill West. It is build upon a former 16 acre Brownfield with the intention of fulfilling a three part philosophy in sustainable development of environmental, social, and economic responsibility. The 16 acre side was quite toxic. It contained many spilled chemicals and heavy metals and one third of the land is landfill from garbage.
Dockside Green achieved a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) designation of platinum. The development obtained 63 points, whilst only 52 were needed for platinum. Each suite within the Dockside Green development has meters that monitor water and power consumption, which the residents can use to reduce their consumption habits.
Also to reduce the environmental footprint and consumption of the devilment, a number of other services were used. Solar power is used extensively. Street lights, garbage compactors
the steps to be taken in hopes of reducing Dockside Green’s environmental footprint include:
• the use of solar power technologies, including street lights and garbage compactors
• wind turbines
• the incorporation of green roofs on many buildings, including the first three phases of residences
• use of only native and adaptive species in landscaping, and the planned planting of over 1000 trees on the site overall
I don’t think Dockside Green is perfect, not by a long shot. But it’s a step in the right direction. If more buildings like Dockside Green are built in Victoria and across Canada, it could be the critical mass needed to bring sustainability to the fore front of todays society.
Blog 5 My social capital and what affects it
Social capital reminds me of the force. In the words of the great Jedi Master Yoda “The force surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock...everywhere! Even between the land and the ship”.
My take on social capital is that it’s the thing that brings everyone together, which then can allow people to work together for a common goal, either to fight the dark side, or increase our sense of community and improve our way of living.
In class we learned that social capital comes from many different factors, and our professor had us draw out our social capital network so that we can see how everything is related with another, and how it defines us in a community which then leads to our social capital.
There seems to different definitions of social capital available to us. Bourdieu (1985:248; 1980) first defined the concept as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more of less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition”. Another perspective of social capital sees it as friends, colleagues, and more general contacts through which you receive opportunities to use your financial and human capital” Burt (1992: 9). Many analysts have emphasized the centrality of two factors to social capital: trust and social networks (Portes 1998; Putnam 1993; Woolcock 1998; Fukuyama 1995; Misztral 1996).
My social capital stems from many different factors. In the next 9 or so months, school will be a main contributing factor to my social capital. I do plan on attending a post graduate program, if possible, so my school life will continue to contribute to my social capital for 2 years after Royal Roads. My concern for the environment its another aspect of my social capital, which is connected to my school and friends.
In the realm of social capital, I am a node connecting my school network to my friend network to my family network and to my hobby network. In my social capital, I don’t believe that I have much vertical connections. I don’t have much contact with school administration, nor with local politicians or even bosses, since I am currently unemployed. There is a fair amount of bonding and bridging through between my networks, since they all overlap each other.
I do not belong to any groups, volunteer or otherwise, so that may lower my social capital. I don’t commute far or watch TV (sadly no time for that) which brings up my social capital.
Overall, I feel that I am in a good standing in terms of my social capital. There is always room for improvement
My take on social capital is that it’s the thing that brings everyone together, which then can allow people to work together for a common goal, either to fight the dark side, or increase our sense of community and improve our way of living.
In class we learned that social capital comes from many different factors, and our professor had us draw out our social capital network so that we can see how everything is related with another, and how it defines us in a community which then leads to our social capital.
There seems to different definitions of social capital available to us. Bourdieu (1985:248; 1980) first defined the concept as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more of less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition”. Another perspective of social capital sees it as friends, colleagues, and more general contacts through which you receive opportunities to use your financial and human capital” Burt (1992: 9). Many analysts have emphasized the centrality of two factors to social capital: trust and social networks (Portes 1998; Putnam 1993; Woolcock 1998; Fukuyama 1995; Misztral 1996).
My social capital stems from many different factors. In the next 9 or so months, school will be a main contributing factor to my social capital. I do plan on attending a post graduate program, if possible, so my school life will continue to contribute to my social capital for 2 years after Royal Roads. My concern for the environment its another aspect of my social capital, which is connected to my school and friends.
In the realm of social capital, I am a node connecting my school network to my friend network to my family network and to my hobby network. In my social capital, I don’t believe that I have much vertical connections. I don’t have much contact with school administration, nor with local politicians or even bosses, since I am currently unemployed. There is a fair amount of bonding and bridging through between my networks, since they all overlap each other.
I do not belong to any groups, volunteer or otherwise, so that may lower my social capital. I don’t commute far or watch TV (sadly no time for that) which brings up my social capital.
Overall, I feel that I am in a good standing in terms of my social capital. There is always room for improvement
Blog 4 sustainability of RRU campus
Blog 4 sustainability of RRU campus
Whenever I hear of any institution, whether it be governmental or education, mention reducing carbon emissions, going grid neutral, buying carbon offsets, I always chuckle to myself.
One my favourite T.V shows is “King of The Hill”. The character of Dale Gribble is a conspiracy theorist. In one particular episode, a local propane company was planning to help the environment by purchasing carbon offsets. Dale Gribble mentioned that carbon offsets “are all the rage in Hollywood”. He goes on to say “They’re like a get-out-of-fail-free card for people concerned about the environment, but not concerned enough to actually do anything.” That basically sums up my feelings on the matter.
Our first guest speaker regarding the sustainability of the RRU campus was Dr. Steve Grundy. He is on the campus sustainability committee. I liked him. He was realistic about the sustainability of the campus and the goals that were set forth in the sustainability plan.
The major components of the sustainability plan are as follows
• Greenhouse gas management will result in a 50-per-cent net reduction of emissions from 2007 levels by 2020.
• Going grid-positive will see Royal Roads adopt alternate energy sources not only sustainable but also able to provide surplus electricity and heat that will be made available to local purchasers.
• Campus transportation options include reducing the number of commuters driving alone to the university; re-routing traffic circulation; consolidating parking lots; and implementing a shuttle service.
• Building and heritage conservation projects include re-development of existing buildings and construction of new facilities while maintaining the unique attributes of the campus.
• University stewardship plans include the creation of a Green Purchasing and Product Stewardship Policy and the expansion of Campus Green, university-wide stewardship initiatives led by employee and student advocates who will encourage manageable grassroots projects that minimize waste streams and conserve natural resources.
Dr. Grundy had said some goals had been met in reducing emissions, but the goal of going grid positive by 2010 will not happen. I’ll paraphrase here, but he basically said that the goals have no real meaning, and its just something set forward for good public relations. I applaud his honesty in the whole matter. I find that too often people are unrealistic when it comes to environmental issues. There are lots of goals, but no action on how to attain them.
The next guest was Darren Gardham. He is the supervisor for the custodial and housekeeping services. He had a profound impact on the sustainability of Royal Roads. He told our class that when he first started at the school, the effects of the chemicals were quite harmful. He had to take time off because they were so severe. He took it upon himself to find a better way of cleaning, without the use of strong chemicals.
One of the solutions he came up with is the use of a microfiber cloth to clean surfaces. The product was demonstrated to him by the manufacturing company of the cloths, and after seeing the results under a black light of a washroom that was cleaned, he was convinced. The microfiber cloths cleaned just as well as the chemicals, of course without the harmful odors and other by products associated with strong chemicals.
Another item Darren initiated was the composting of paper towels on campus. I forget the numbers he gave us, but there was a substantial savings from paper towels being diverted from landfills which now go for composting.
After Darren we had the manager from the Habitat café, and her name escapes me at the moment. She said that the café uses corn starch based cutlery, and puts all food waste from plates into an organic garbage bin for composting. Im glad to see the school is taking composting seriously. In my house, a few km away from the school, there is no composting available. A lot of food gets thrown out when it should be composted.
The last two guests of the day were Nancy Wilkin and Keri Laughlin who are part of Royal Roads’ sustainability plan. They didn’t tell us anything we hadn’t already heard, but I found it quite amusing to hear the positive spin a politician (Nancy Wilkin is former deputy Minister of the Environment for B.C) puts on the schools sustainability plan. This was in stark contrast to the grim picture that the first guest. Steve Grundy had presented us with.
I applaud Nancy and Keri for being part of the sustainability plan, but I don’t think the school can be sustainable. Its my personal opinion that the school doesn’t have its priorities in order. The main priority seems to be that they must pat themselves on the back at every moment possible while praising that bloody castle. The gardens and peacocks come 2nd and 3rd, while students and sustainability are way down at the bottom.
I believe the school could become more sustainable, if the effort was put into it, and the bottom line was ignored.
Whenever I hear of any institution, whether it be governmental or education, mention reducing carbon emissions, going grid neutral, buying carbon offsets, I always chuckle to myself.
One my favourite T.V shows is “King of The Hill”. The character of Dale Gribble is a conspiracy theorist. In one particular episode, a local propane company was planning to help the environment by purchasing carbon offsets. Dale Gribble mentioned that carbon offsets “are all the rage in Hollywood”. He goes on to say “They’re like a get-out-of-fail-free card for people concerned about the environment, but not concerned enough to actually do anything.” That basically sums up my feelings on the matter.
Our first guest speaker regarding the sustainability of the RRU campus was Dr. Steve Grundy. He is on the campus sustainability committee. I liked him. He was realistic about the sustainability of the campus and the goals that were set forth in the sustainability plan.
The major components of the sustainability plan are as follows
• Greenhouse gas management will result in a 50-per-cent net reduction of emissions from 2007 levels by 2020.
• Going grid-positive will see Royal Roads adopt alternate energy sources not only sustainable but also able to provide surplus electricity and heat that will be made available to local purchasers.
• Campus transportation options include reducing the number of commuters driving alone to the university; re-routing traffic circulation; consolidating parking lots; and implementing a shuttle service.
• Building and heritage conservation projects include re-development of existing buildings and construction of new facilities while maintaining the unique attributes of the campus.
• University stewardship plans include the creation of a Green Purchasing and Product Stewardship Policy and the expansion of Campus Green, university-wide stewardship initiatives led by employee and student advocates who will encourage manageable grassroots projects that minimize waste streams and conserve natural resources.
Dr. Grundy had said some goals had been met in reducing emissions, but the goal of going grid positive by 2010 will not happen. I’ll paraphrase here, but he basically said that the goals have no real meaning, and its just something set forward for good public relations. I applaud his honesty in the whole matter. I find that too often people are unrealistic when it comes to environmental issues. There are lots of goals, but no action on how to attain them.
The next guest was Darren Gardham. He is the supervisor for the custodial and housekeeping services. He had a profound impact on the sustainability of Royal Roads. He told our class that when he first started at the school, the effects of the chemicals were quite harmful. He had to take time off because they were so severe. He took it upon himself to find a better way of cleaning, without the use of strong chemicals.
One of the solutions he came up with is the use of a microfiber cloth to clean surfaces. The product was demonstrated to him by the manufacturing company of the cloths, and after seeing the results under a black light of a washroom that was cleaned, he was convinced. The microfiber cloths cleaned just as well as the chemicals, of course without the harmful odors and other by products associated with strong chemicals.
Another item Darren initiated was the composting of paper towels on campus. I forget the numbers he gave us, but there was a substantial savings from paper towels being diverted from landfills which now go for composting.
After Darren we had the manager from the Habitat café, and her name escapes me at the moment. She said that the café uses corn starch based cutlery, and puts all food waste from plates into an organic garbage bin for composting. Im glad to see the school is taking composting seriously. In my house, a few km away from the school, there is no composting available. A lot of food gets thrown out when it should be composted.
The last two guests of the day were Nancy Wilkin and Keri Laughlin who are part of Royal Roads’ sustainability plan. They didn’t tell us anything we hadn’t already heard, but I found it quite amusing to hear the positive spin a politician (Nancy Wilkin is former deputy Minister of the Environment for B.C) puts on the schools sustainability plan. This was in stark contrast to the grim picture that the first guest. Steve Grundy had presented us with.
I applaud Nancy and Keri for being part of the sustainability plan, but I don’t think the school can be sustainable. Its my personal opinion that the school doesn’t have its priorities in order. The main priority seems to be that they must pat themselves on the back at every moment possible while praising that bloody castle. The gardens and peacocks come 2nd and 3rd, while students and sustainability are way down at the bottom.
I believe the school could become more sustainable, if the effort was put into it, and the bottom line was ignored.
Blog 3 How can I tell what is sustainable.
Sustainability can come in many forms, but always results in something positive occurring. Using feedback loops as an example, the positive feedback loop is a win win for everyone in that loop. The example presented in class was wages and goods. The cost of living will increase, so wages must go up to match the cost of living, increased wages leads to an increased demand for goods, which means more goods must be produced, creating more jobs in all sectors involved with that, prices will rise as demand goes up, which then starts back as wages increasing again.
Its easy to tell what is not sustainable. A basic example of this is spending more then you earn, you put more into the system then what you get out of it. Along the sustainability lines of that, is the extraction of oil for consumption / processing. With oil reserves in depletion (which is still up for debate) all over the world, new methods of extraction are emerging, but at a cost.
A place not too far from my education home is called Fort McMurray Alberta. It seems to be the center hub of the Alberta oil sands boom. The oil is located within the sand and oil, and the extraction of it is very costly. It requires a lot more energy to extract, then is given from that oil, so it is very unsustainable.
I believe an example of sustainability in the energy sector is nuclear power. Its clean, produces ample power and provides lots of jobs to people. This ties into the positive feedback loop also, where everyone benefits from wage increases.
A topic that was discussed in class was “what is unsustainable in my neighbourhood”. The example I chose was unions, specifically the TTC, although the same can be said for any union. I know I’ll be making some sweeping generalizations here, but I’m a risk taker and a heart breaker, so I’ll continue on.
I believe that unions are just as detrimental as they are needed. They allow lazy workers to hide and get lost in the cracks of the system. I know that from my days of working in a unionized shop, I was amazing at how little work was done at a job. I don’t want to bash unions too much, but I believe that they hinder progress and I believe that to be unsustainable.
Blog 2 the cost of inaction
At first glance, the title “the cost of inaction” in terms of sustainability and the environment sounds like an inevitable doomsday 2012 end of the world scenario. However, after reading the Stern Report, well not all 700 pages, just the executive summary, I am happy to report the world will not end on December 21, 2012.
The economic and social impacts of the cost of inaction will be the focus of my blog entry.
As discussed in our lecture, the gap between the rich and poor will increase. It goes back to the catchphrase “The rich get richer the poor get poorer”. Data obtained from the UNU-Wider World Distribution of Household Wealth Report (http://www.wider.unu.edu/events/past-events/2006-events/en_GB/05-12-2006/) reveals that North America, which contains 5% of the worlds population, accounts for 33% of the world GDP. A similar trend can be seen within the United States. In 2004, the wealthiest 25% of US households owned 87% ($43.6 trillion) of the country’s wealth, while the bottom quartile held no net wealth at all. The middle 50% of the country held 13% or $6.5 trillion of the total household net wealth (Growing Wealth, Inequality, and Housing in the United States. Zhu Xiao Di. Feb. 2007. Joint Center for Housing Studies).
Countries with the highest GDP should use a small percentage of it and put it towards fighting climate change and GHG emissions; however, developing countries cannot afford to provide such funding. According to the Stern Report “The incremental costs of low-carbon investments in developing countries are likely to be at least $20-30 billion per year”.
A slide shown during the class lecture showed the spending on various products throughout in the world, in billions of 1998 dollars. Leading the spending was of course military, followed by narcotics, and alcohol in Europe. I always knew my Polish ancestors loved their Vodka, now I have the proof.
Basic elements of life, such as clean water, food, education, cost up to thirteen billion dollars to provide. To put that into context, that’s how much Americans (damn them and their ways) spend on cosmetics every year.
Due to the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, things will only get worse. The rich are the ones who can afford private health insurance, have food and water every day, and receive the benefits of an education. This will lead to more poverty and more desperation. Crime could be a result of the desperation, furthering the gap between rich and poor.
The Stern Report deals with the economics of climate change. I am not an economist by any means, but I do have a somewhat basic understanding of it. One of the points I took out of the Stern report is that a little money initially spent (relatively speaking) will save a lot of money in the end. That is when the cost of inaction will become very evident.
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