What's Your Definition of Poverty?

 Living on Salt Spring Island has given me some minor insight into how it might feel to live in a developing country, always being judged or being felt sorry for by citizens of financially wealthier countries.

We feel sorry for them, peering in as outsiders and yet, perhaps, their lives are rich with family connections we've long ago lost and gratitude in simplicity that so many can’t find.

I'm not saying that being financially poor is all that desirable, but we so often forget how many other forms of poverty exist when our metering stick is only related to bank accounts.

I've been thinking about living here lately and not having much money and how that leads, by sheer necessity, to living a more environmentally-conscious existence.

You can't afford to buy new clothes so you shop at thrift stores and in that way you're recycling perfectly good items/clothing anyway. Your wardrobe can be small here so you need fewer items. Thrift stores have cool stuff.

Aware of how much gas is costing, I try to limit my visits to town re-arranging my visits to coincide with other activities or ensuring I do everything I need to do at once, as much as possible 

The market on Saturday's provides immense opportunities for socializing with other islanders and with visitors.

Creative pursuits require a turning inward and my mind is alive with the content and possibilities.

It's so easy to get to where I need to go not having to worry about traffic, parking, getting on the freeway to get downtown and therefore, I partake in as many, if not more, activities.

It’s true, I won’t be jetting off to Hawaii or Mexico or Tahita (because I can’t afford a plane ticket) but I won’t be contributing to global warming in that way either.

I can go to the library for books and videos or when I drop off my recycling, I can pop into the little hut where everyone drops off books and magazines and get some for free.

This week I spent a lot of time writing queries, completing two articles for a magazine and because I get up so early, usually around 6:30 am, and I’m almost always at my computer by 7:00 am, by 2:00 pm, I’ve put in a 7 hour day. If there’s work that needs to be done, I can usually focus on it.

In the afternoon on two of those days, I went for a walk and spotted four eagles on the beach at low tide and watched them in awe for quite a while. I lucked out and managed to get a decent shot of the one above as it flew off the tree right above me. While there, I had an enlightening conversation with a man I’d never met, also an islander, named John. We talked about the election and what’s been going on in the U.S. and there was no ranting to be heard.  On a second afternoon, I went to a favourite barn and ran into a friend, also taking photographs and managed to get into the zone, that place where you’re not longer getting in your own way and immersed in the moment. 

I was invited to dinner by two different friends. I took in a jazz concert at ArtSpring, sold some photographs at the Saturday Market and now will get to hear Alexandra Morton speak about salmon in a talk she's giving tonight at Fulford Hall.

If I had a garden, I’m not sure where that would fit into my dailiness.  If I really want a garden, it’s possible to have one. Other islanders offer their land in an exchange for some labour.

It’s true, my financial resources are extremely limited, and yet, I am busy and engaged and like most people on the island that I know, can barely keep up with everything they are working on.
 
Is that poverty? I don’t think so.

Carbon Tax Reality Check

- foot power or what the world needs now; the newest version of Birkenstocks

If you live in Beautiful British Columbia or "The Best Place on Earth" as the Liberal government has embarrassingly branded our fair province, you have probably received your $100 carbon tax credit cheque in the mail.

There's a lot of complaining, at least in the media, about that tax not being a carbon tax but a gas tax.

Actually, it's a tax on all fossil fuels (well, except for those from livestock). It's hard to tax anything, especially cows or pigs or other livestock, for farting into the atmosphere.

You might want to read this PDF Carbon Tax Reality Check from The David Suzuki Foundation to make sure you understand the true intent of the carbon tax.

Ideas coming faster than Hamsters can eat

As I go about my day, I always have ideas (don't you?) and yet, I don't act on them because I can`t make things. I can barely draw a straight line. Honestly, sometimes I have trouble getting out of a room if the door handle is ultra modern or unusual. Designing anything practical just isn't high on my list of aptitudes. I'm not likely to become an inventor. If only I could find a partner, business or otherwise, who could translate my ideas into tangible forms.

Idea number 1. You know how so many people don't have a will (including me) so when they kick the curb nobody will know what they want. Now, if you could create a will that was on a Blog, that detailed what you wanted to have happen to you, then it wouldn't matter when you bit the dust because all anyone would have to do is Google you and your wishes would be right there for the whole world to see. No confusion. It could even detail whether you wanted to donate any organs (yours, not someone elses). Morbid but efficient. It could be called Blog-Gone. Bye, bye.

Idea number 2. Maybe you can relate to this one. My apartment is pretty small but not as small as the 450 sq. ft. bachelor suite I managed to live in for almost four years without committing any homocidal acts. Therefore, in order to accommodate the sorting of mixed paper, newsprint, plastic, tin, and glass that I must in order to be a good green citizen, it's as if I need a recycling station built into my apartment. But, let`s get real, there`s barely room, in my apartment, for the stuff I`m not intending to get rid of. Like, my couch. My bed. I`m only into wabi sabi to a certain degree.

So, I was thinking, if someone could design a sorting station for recyclables and incorporate that into the design of all new houses/apartments then they'd be doing the occupants a big favour in terms of time efficiency and usefulness. It could be a new type of closet organizer. Maybe such a thing already exists. If so, let me know.

All I know is that I need to find a better way to organize my recyclables than the little piles I've created around my apartment. They're like little communities unto themselves. It's like the Capulets and the Montagues in Romeo and Juliet have moved in but in garbage form. Don't let the mixed paper mingle with the tin or there will be hell to pay.

When I talked to Stacy Toews of Level Ground Trading one of the things that amazed me the most is that his company boasts only 1 grocery bag size of landfill waste per week. They manage this because they have 13 streams of recycling. Think about that.

I was driving back from Lighthouse park on garbage day in West Vancouver and I couldn't believe how many people have two garbage cans at the curb waiting to be picked up. That shouldn`t even be allowed. What have they got in there? Manolo Blahniks that have only been worn once? Bandages from their most recent plastic surgery? The remnants of King crab legs? Bags full of doggy doo from their 7 Shitsus? Honestly!

Green Entrepreneurs

In early March I began to write some very short little pieces for Shared Vision Magazine talking to "green" entrepreneurs.

I've talked to an aromatherapist with a company called SmellThis!,a young mother who has a small baby products line made out of bamboo called Bamboobino, and Stacey Toews, a guy who owns a direct fair trade coffee company in Saanich called Level Ground Trading.

I don't know about you but it's not all that often that I meet people who really blow me away in terms of how they have crafted a life that has stayed true to their personal values and, most significantly, are doing something that has made a positive impact on quite a few other people. Their life is their example.

Stacey Toews would seem to be that kind of guy. After speaking with him, I would have no qualms recommending his product because I have no doubt that how Level Ground Trading interacts with the farmers and the cooperatives in the five countries where they work (Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ethiopia, Tanzania) is above board.

His definition of direct fair trade means he has met the people in person, it's not a one-sided definition of the word "fair", it ensures the farming practices being used are sustainable, and he cares about how being in the community can impact the community positively through other projects.

When he and his wife met, about 16 years ago, they both agreed that they wanted to create a family through adoption. They had volunteered when they were in their 20's in South East Asia. He worked with street youth in a remote part of the Phillipines. So, they adopted three kids from Haiti with the help of an organization called The Foundation for Children of Haiti. As life would have it, just 6 months ago, they had a baby they made together, biologically. (I wanted to avoid saying they had their own baby because of course their adopted children are their own, as much as children are anyone's.)

When I talked to him it was really clear to me that we all need to become a lot more educated about the terms that are floating around now because even though I've heard the terms fair trade and direct fair trade, I didn't really know what the difference was. And, just because someone is using them, doesn't mean their business practices are following the spirit of the original intent.

So, the next time you go to buy coffee beans, buy direct fair trade and buy his. He sells at more than 300 locations in Canada and the US.

There's a big sustainable living Expo this weekend starting on Friday called EPIC. If you're interested, it runs until the 20th from 10:00 am - 5:00 pm at the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre.

Coronation Street Meets David Suzuki

-Herald's Park, Salmon Arm, 1992
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I'm sure you've heard that adage. I'm going to tell you a little story that illustrates why that can be.

Today, after a long walk with my friend Colleen through the trails in Pacific Spirit Park we decided to have lunch. We were aiming for the Chinese restaurant Ginger and Chilli. It was closed. So, then, we came across a fish and chip place. It's been there forever. I've never eaten there. We know nothing about it. We go in. We sit down. It's like being on the set of Coronation Street. Even the server, a 60-70 year old woman dressed in too much polyester, looking harried and definitely having a bad hair day seems like an extra on the Coronation Street set.

Now I've been educating myself about seafood and how I should be concerned about the types of fish I consume and where it comes from, and whether it is being harvested in a way that's sustainable or not. But, did I follow my advice to you to carry around the little seafood chart that you can print out from Seachoice.org. I got as far as printing it out. But, it wasn't in the wallet.

Why do this? Because it will prevent moments of hostility from people who think fish grow on trees or in a lab at the back of Safeway or those happy souls who subscribe to the belief that every living thing on the planet is doomed and there ain't nothing we can do about it anyway.

Meanwhile, back on the set of Coronation Street, we're looking at the menu and there's a couple of different types of fish to choose from. Cod. Halibut. Haddock. Sole. Had I had the little chart, I would not have even had to enter into the following conversation because I would have known which fish to choose. Voila! I guess I like to live dangerously. As Colleen joked, you had to swim into the murky waters and disturb the old Rock Cod.

So, I say, very politely, "Do you know where your fish comes from?" The waitress looks at me. I can see her eyes begin to narrow. "From the sea," she says, curtly. "Ya, I know it comes from the ocean but I'm just wondering if you know where the different types of fish were caught?" Silence. "We don't ask our wholesaler where he gets his fish," she spits out like a fishwife.

Not prepared for such hostility, I'm a bit speechless at this point wondering what my next very wrong question might be. I'm thinking, maybe I should just get the soup when Colleen pipes up, "Do you know what the difference is between Haddock and Sole? As soon as she opened her mouth I wondered how it was that she hadn't picked up on the woman's energy and therefore would know better than to ask anything at all let alone THAT type of question.

Clearly, it's dangerous to eat fish without being accompanied by a PhD biologist and then it's also helpful to have the captain of the debating team along when you run into the reaction you're sure to get.

Apparently Colleen's question posed right after mine is just too much for Ms. UK Congeniality 1921. "You can ask the chef," she spit out, turning abruptly, her apron strings practically flicking like the tail of an angry pony. That word - chef -brings a slight smile to my face. It's like when your mom used to say, Just wait 'til your father gets home. "We've been serving fish for 49 years," she adds as she walks away, muttering under her breath.

A few minutes pass and a man in a greasy white apron comes out from behind a swinging door. You just know what he's thinking because he meanders over our way, John Wayne-like, with a smirk on his face. He's thinking Jeezus, here we go, we got the god damned treehuggers wantin' to dissect my fish before they eat it.

"Why do you wanna know where the fish come from?" he asks. Well, I just want to know because I want to make sure that I'm not eating fish that's in danger of becoming extinct. He just stares at me. All fish are in danger of becoming extinct he says and then without taking a breath he says, Do you eat beef?

I didn't mean to offend your wife I say but I think it's a legitimate question. More and more people are going to be asking it. "She's not my wife," he says. "If you don't eat the fish someone else is going to eat it," he says.

I just care about not eating something that isn't being harvested sustainably I say. "The Japanese are killing whales," he says. "Well, I can't control what somebody else does" I say. "But, don't you think that if we all just paid a little more attention to what we were consuming that it could make a difference?"

Now, I can't tell you why we continued to even stay there and order the Haddock after being treated in this manner except it has something to do with a mutant gene in Canadians eh?

Anyway, as Colleen pointed out to me after we'd eaten maybe you didn't pose the question right, Gayle. Maybe, Colleen tells me, you should have asked, "Are you Ocean-wise compliant?" Maybe that would have gone over better she says, sarcastically. Maybe you should have asked, Are you Marine-environment friendly?

Now the backdrop to all this is that I've also been reading this excellent book called Radical Simplicity. Among many things, it refers to the various levels of consciousness around changing your lifestyle to reduce your footprint. He refers to four states.

There's unconsciously unsustainable. You're driving around in a Hummer, you're eating copious quantities of red meat, your computer and TV are on 24/7 and you aren't even aware that there's anything wrong with any of that. Whatever!

Then there's consciously unsustainable. You're beginning to be aware of what you should be doing to lower your ecological footprint, to lower your greenhouse gas emissions but you're just beginning to make change so you're still unsustainable but at least you know it, dammit.

Then there's consciously sustainable in which you've made some real changes to your lifestyle and your footprint has been significantly reduced but every change is a measured one.

And, finally there's unconscious sustainability in which you have changed your habits so significantly that you don't even have to think about living in a way that's sustainable because every habit you have reinforces your sustainable lifestyle.

Now, imagine what it's like when those who live in a way that's unconsciously unsustainable meet unconsciously sustainable. Let the games begin.

It's truly something like Coronation Street meets David Suzuki. And, as we learned today, it's not pretty.

Smart Seafood Consumption

-Discovery Islands Group, 2005

About to gobble down a tuna sandwich? Hold on there. Do you know where that tuna came from? Yes. It makes a difference. If it came from a destination other than the Canadian Pacific, American Pacific, or Hawaii, an organization called Seachoice recommends you avoid eating it.

I’m staring at a can of Gold Seal Albacore Flaked Tuna product of Thailand. I just removed it from my cupboard and it fits in the avoid category. Check your tuna before you buy it. You probably already do. But, perhaps you were looking for the friendly dolphin and weren’t paying all that much attention to the location on the planet where it came from.

Every time I go to buy fish, I feel confused and guilty. I feel like I never know exactly what I should be avoiding. I know enough to never buy farmed fish, especially not salmon. But, I always wonder about the wild salmon. What types? When is it okay to buy which type? I’m in the store and I see the little stickers that say previously frozen. So this fish is cryogenically sealed I think wondering for exactly how long? Isn’t it a contradiction to believe it’s healthy to eat fish to get more omega-3 fatty acids when we’re polluting our oceans and therefore why would it be a good thing to eat toxic fish? I almost never eat shellfish because making intelligent decisions around that seems even more complicated. Red Tide. Mercury. PCBs?

I’m glad that restaurants are beginning to provide what seem like exotic but sustainable seafood menu options but I just don’t see myself whipping up a little green sea urchin or a Geoduck clam at home.

Why am I telling you this? I’ve just spent time doing a crash course related to a job opportunity that has to do with fish, oceans and freshwater ecosystems and it made me realize that no matter how much I love the ocean and water in general, (hey, I am an Aquarian), I too often take fish and underwater ecosystems for granted. Given that oceans take up 40% of the surface area of Canada, it’s way past time to stop doing that. And, it’s not as if I’ve never experienced the wonder of underwater worlds.

I’ve been whale watching off Tofino to see the pacific grey whales on their annual migration. I’ve been on a week-long kayak trip through the Discovery Islands group. Our leader, Manuel, would reach down and remove a sea cucumber clinging to a rock just under the ocean’s suface. I’ve snorkelled off Kona in Hawaii and felt as if I’d immersed my head in a tropical fish tank at an aquarium. I’ve stood on the shore at the lighthouse on Mayne Island when an entire pod of orcas came swimming by, faster than a speeding train, and in spite of the awe that all those experiences inspired, I still find myself forgetting, too often, about the mystical underwater worlds.

I think it’s easy to do because like most people, I spend way too much time detached from the natural world. But, it’s clear that what’s underwater is just as much responsible for the “supernatural” in the Supernatural BC tagline as the forests and the mountains. It’s not just “purdy”. It’s our history. It’s inextricably linked to native cultures. It's a million dollar industry. It intersects with so many other industries and it’s the future. Or not. We decide every time we buy, every time we eat.

So, the next time you’re thinking of buying fish, or eating out at a seafood restaurant, take a second to find out whether you are contributing to the problem? What about all that sushi? Are you eating seafood that has been managed in a sustainable way or is in danger of becoming extinct. Where did it come from? Is it wild or farmed? Should you be eating there at all?

So how will you know this? You will ask. And, you will print out the guide from seachoice.org, fold it up, put it in your wallet, and carry it with you to make your fish and seafood consumption as informed and as guilt-free as possible. Piece of cake, or maybe geoduck!

For more information:

David Suzuki Foundation
Seachoice
Sign a petition against tankers

Corporate Strategy and Sustainability

When you work in Corporate Communications a good part of the year is spent one way or another being involved in, or at the very least thinking about, strategic planning.

You spend a lot of time trying to narrow down an organization's 3-5 year goals by engaging staff and stakeholders, narrowing down the focus, trying to figure out the best ways to communicate the vision to the entire organization in a way that they might actually buy in, and most significantly, aligning the messaging into the future so that your vision is reflected in key messages that are unified on the web, in annual reports, in e-mail, in essentially every communication that goes out to every medium.

I've honestly never seen it work all that well. Maybe I just haven't been in the right place.

Huge amounts of money can be spent on the process, taking significant amounts of time and in the end, the report gets written, the branding is completed (or not) and the messaging takes shape but no one is ever quite sure how that exercise really translates in any meaningful way into the daily reality and a change in behaviour of individual employees.

I've always thought that a key part of the process was missing and that part was the part that clearly iterated how the plan would impact an employee's way of being. For example, if the receptionist couldn't repeat the vision for the organization in the same way the president could but in a way that was meaningful to her/his work then the exercise hasn't succeeded.

So, it seems that the missing link is translating, for employees, what any new Strategic Plan means to them in terms of how it will impact their daily work, their interaction with clients (whether those "clients" are babies at a daycare, high school students, venture capitalists or artists).

At Globe 2008 yesterday, I came across a small consulting company called Visible Strategies. They've developed a new software package called "See-it" that supposedly enables an organization to strategize on issues of sustainability and social responsibility in a way that allows measurement and involves a lot of multi-media visualizations, instead of just words.

I think it's a good idea because it's not enough anymore to just be focused on the tasks associated directly with a business. It seems that now, and into the future, you will be expected to show the ways in which your business, whether that be a department at a university, an international corporation or a small mom and pop operation is aligning its purchasing choices, its recycling behaviour, and employee habits. You will be expected to show in a tangible way how you are using your collective power to impact both environmental and social change. And those two things have to be explicitly incorporated into the overall strategic plan.

Smart companies have already begun to do this it would seem.

The reason this is so important is because it begins to get people thinking, not just at work but in their own personal lives, about their interconnectedness. And, once they begin to think about that then they might begin to translate that through a change in behaviour.

If you are not in the habit of regularly donating your time or some amount of money to a cause other than to your own personal financial betterment, have you ever asked yourself why?

If you take away the excuse, which in my opinion is always an excuse, that you just don't have the money or the time, then what would the honest answer say about your real values?

Check out the desmogblog

Eco-Footprints and the Taxman

-Ghost Ranch, Abiqui, New Mexico, June 2007

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about sustainability, plastic bags, recycling, sea lice and fish farms, how to clean my oven non-toxically, and wasabi. (That last one –is an inside joke which if you’ve been reading my blog faithfully you would get). Aren't you glad you're not me?

Then, today I got my tax refund back and that got me to thinking about squeezing every last dime I can back from the government and I thought, hey, wait a minute here; shouldn’t those of us who have not procreated our crazy little selves into miniature, crazy little consumer-gobbling aficionados get some sort of tax break?

Shouldn’t I get a tax break because I have not contributed to the world’s population? I haven’t created another consumer-in-training and in Huggies. One less Elder in the making. One less pair of Depends needing to be manufactured and disposed. One less piece of techno hardware to be purchased and plugged in and then shipped back to India for dismantling, chip by chip.

Where’s the recognition, monetarily that is, for being childless? Where’s the tax break for never having contributed to child labour by purchasing outfit upon outfit of cute little Baby Gap clothing? Doesn’t it just seem so wrong that the government gives money to people who have kids just because they did. For what reason exactly? This isn’t 1945 anymore. They had sex. As a result, they spawned a sticky little rug rat or maybe they even spawned two or three little baby Whos all in one big push and shove thanks to the pharmaceutical companies remedy to the infertility epidemic and now these people get money too? That’s just so wrong. It's like the single supplement on travel in which you're penalized for travelling alone. It's just so wrong! What is the rationale behind those two things at this point in the earth’s history?

I did a little test off a website that helps you to determine what your Ecological Footprint is. You might want to get a prescription for an antidepressant before you go there.

The unfortunate part is that a lot of the questions use metric so I think, not exactly being a math person, I guessed at a lot of my answers. And, as a result, I think I answered in ways that would make it seem that I drive way farther than I really do. It makes it seem that I pack away red meat like a ravenous tiger in a National Geographic special, (absolutely not true)and I shower, well, yes, I like long hot showers. I admit it.

But, there’s only one of me so I just don’t get how it’s possible that according to this little test that if everyone lived like I did we’d need three earths, not just one.

Just call me Baby Sasquatch. My footprint is gonna kill you, me and the baby! (That’s my favourite line from the movie The Fly that has never left my consciousness, ever).

My advice to you? Don’t be lying down in the garden for a little afternoon siesta when I’m out for a little stroll. My huge planet-sized footprint is going to squish your little head.

But seriously, isn’t it about time that we stopped paying people because they had sex and they had a baby and give a tax break to those of us who haven’t? Had a baby that is, not sex.

What about re-examining that policy at this point in time in honour of sustainability?

Cloth versus Plastic

Do you ever get the feeling as you're standing in your up scale grocery store with food so perfect that you're afraid to buy it because it looks like it has been prepared by a food stylist and you've forgotten your little cloth bag for the 100th time that it's all just a conspiracy aimed at the wrong people: Us. Individuals. What if you have a family of five? How many cloth bags do you need then and how falsely smug can you feel as the guy behind you says, Plastic. I'll have plastic. So shoot me.

Now, I'm not saying that individuals - you, me and the baby - can't make a difference. I'm all for reduce, reuse, recycle. But, every time I hear something aimed at you and me, the individual, all I can see are corporate logos, the military industrial complex that still exists and lineups at the chocolate buffet on all those cruiseships. What happens to all that left over food on those floating palaces of gluttony anyway?

All I can hear is how much profit the banks made this year even though their earnings were down in the fourth quarter. All I can imagine are what the president's offices look like in all those head offices of all those oil companies in Calgary and Dubai and Saudi Arabia.

All I can see are planes taking off full of tourists and plastic cutlery, thousands of pieces, floating in space and how much we, whenever we get on a plane, end up consuming prior to our little vacation so we'll have the right stuff when we get to our destination. But, hey, we buy our groceries in cloth bags and we recycle and clean out the cans and shop at second hand stores and we ride our bike so like, we're even right? We're okay?

And, all I can see is beyond the packaging that's going into making so called green products, look green. Here's a tip: Baking soda. Vinegar. Borax. That's green. You don't need to buy anything that somebody else made and packaged in a way that fools you into believing that theirs is the purest, the cleanest, most environmentally friendly in the name of profit. And, then again, ever tried to clean your oven without using the most toxic shit on the planet because it seems to work? Fast! Yes, you could run out and buy ammonia and put some in a little glass and leave it in your oven overnight (but then you'd have ammonia in your house), and then use good old fashioned elbow grease to scrape away the blackened droppings but ammonia?

So, what's the ecological footprint of let's say Chevron compared to yours? Look down. You're wearing a pair of cute little Robeez booties and they're wearing Size "killing the planet and don't give a shit" shi shi $500 designer sneakers. What's Walmart's ecological footprint? They don't sell cheap sandals Made in China big enough for their ecological footprint. How about IKEA? Every time I ever go to IKEA, I look around and I start to get queasy and I wonder, how many times do you need to buy new dishes, again, anyway? Who are all these people that are just setting up house for the first time anyway? But, then I'm there too. Just lookin mind you!

Forgive me for being born I think as I tip toe around hoping my footprint isn't making too big an indentation, anywhere, because I'm trying to shrink into oblivion especially now that China is just coming into capitalism.

I was watching Oprah the other day and what about Oprah? What about that show she has where she gives away all that product? I digress. So, I saw, on Oprah, these people who are calling themselves "freegans". They go dumpster diving in New York city behind major restaurants or food stores and end up getting enough tossed food in perfectly good condition to feed a small village in Africa.

I don't know about you but I'm still trying to aim for just two days without buying nothing. And, I'm not even a major consumer type. I'm not exactly a high maintenance, high end, pick up the drycleaning and don't forget to drop by the doggy daycare after my manicure once I'm done with my personal coaching session and my personal trainer in my Mercedes kind a gal.

A few links:
Are you a closet Freegan?
Get Local
Cleaning Toxic free
Eat the Seasons
Carbon Neutral