In particular, I’ve been noticing the behaviour of people, and how that behaviour relates to sustainability and what I view to be sustainable behaviour.

Most modern humans in developed countries are wasteful by nature.  We buy things, we use things, and we throw them away.  Some things we use for years before disposing of them.  Some things we use for months.  Some things we use for mere minutes, and some things we use for only a few seconds.

What got me going today was one of these “few seconds” items – The paper towel.  While at the gym, I noticed a woman take five paper towels to dry her hands in the washroom.  FIVE PAPER TOWELS!  She pulled them from the dispenser one by one, crumpled them a little between her hands, and tossed them into the garbage bin almost as dry as she found them. The mere sight of this had me outraged! What would posess a person to do such a wasteful thing? How does she sleep at night? Does she hug her mother with those hands?

Now that I was all worked up, I had a point to make.  As I went to dry my own hands, I purposefully took a single towel and briskly dried my hands to bone dry perfection. I don’t need no five paper towels!  Nope!  Not me! Had it been appropriate, and had she not left the washroom minutes ago, I would have done a little jig to show how superior I was.

Okay, so what’s the point of all this, aside from illustrating that I’m a bit of an oddball?

The point is this:  Every day, all over the world, people are engaging in wasteful behaviour that doesn’t actually do them any good.  Why use five towels when one will do?  And yet, there must be some reason for waste, because almose everyone does it (next time you’re in a public washroom, do some peeking at the paper picking!). I think it might be as simple as the fact that wasteful behaviour is still culturally acceptable. In fact, I would go so far as to say that on the other side of the coin, actively pointing out and disapproving of wasteful behaviour (like showing my disgust for five paper towel woman) is culturally UNacceptable. What reaction would I have likely received for voicing my dissapproval to that woman? I’ll give you a hint, one of us would look crazy, and it wouldn’t be the paper waster. If only we could find a way to reverse the norm -  to make waste socially unacceptable, we’d be on the right track!

Just think – maybe one day we will live in a world where EVERYONE takes just one paper towel… Sigh… That’s the kind of world I want to live in.

Speaking to the Vancouver Board of Trade, Mr. Robertson outlined a program that was short on financial or regulatory details but long on ambitions to make Vancouver the “greenest city in the world” by 2020.

“Let’s own green. Enough of the modesty,” Mr. Robertson said in his address, adding that Vancouver is too quiet when it comes to promoting homegrown companies and innovations in areas such as renewable energy and transportation.

It appears that the strategy is still very much in the planning phase, but the hope is that through a mixture of incentives, Vancouver will develop an industry cluster centred around green and sustainable industry.

Fortunately, Vancouver and the West Coast of Canada in general are already somewhat known for being Green friendly. The question will be whether Vancouver will be able to attract the top companies and talent necessary to bring the idea to fruition.  With a very high cost of living relative to other North American Cities, and with many other municipalities across the world fighting for a piece of the green pie, can Vancouver come out on top?

Only time will tell, but I must commend Mr. Robertson for taking the first steps.

Solar, wind, water, biomass, biogas and landfill gas producers, including individual homeowners, will all be eligible to sell their power to the provincial grid under the program, one of the four final components of the Ontario Green Energy Act announced by Premier Dalton McGuinty Thursday.

“The tariff will make it easier to get financing and access to the energy grid,” McGuinty said at a new conference in Toronto Thursday. “These rules will give investors the confidence they need to help build tomorrow’s green economy.

Already, two new major wind projects are in the works.

Some critics are unhappy about the decision, afraid that the wind farms will create a myriad of problems in their rural communities.   Surprisingly, one of the main concerns is the impact that wind farms will have on the health of those living within close proximity.

Certainly, there will be many a wrinkle to iron out along the way, but I think that this is a good step towards creating a green economy in Canada.

I had always been the kind of person to think that writing letters to politicians was an exercise in futility.  I thought it would be best to leave it to the eccentric and opinionated people.  You know the type – the people who call into talk radio shows, write letters to the editor and walk down the streets wearing sandwich boards. What’s the point of writing a letter if the only other people who write letters are, well, best described as “kooks”?

Today I realized that this was a silly way of looking at it.  If I don’t write a letter, how will my elected representatives know how I feel?  If people like you and me don’t write letters, our views may not be heard, and decisions may be made based on the minority,  just because they have a louder voice (and write more letters).

If it’s true that the squeakiest wheel gets the grease, shouldn’t we be trying to be squeakier?

So what can you do?

Luckily, there are a lot of organizations out there who want to help you write letters about environmental issues, so there is a lot of information available:

The Sierra Club has good information on how to write letters, and to whom. Check out your local chapter for specifics

Sierra Club Canada

Sierra Club U.S.

There will also be information on the website of your local, provincial/state, and national governments.

When writing a letter to your representative, think about these pointers:

1) Be polite!  Address representatives by their formal names and don’t take this as an opportunity to attack them.  After all, you’re trying to get them to agree with you.

2) Be clear and concise.  This isn’t a time to ramble.  Try to address one issue per letter by:

• Briefly outlining your concern (e.g. I am concerned about declining sockeye populations in the Fraser river)
• Requesting specific action (e.g. we should close salmon farms and barn commercial fishing in troubled areas)
• Asking for a response regarding what they plan to do about the problem.

Your voice does matter!  Let’s become a squeaky wheel!

Not only is it fabulous in a salad dressing, but it also makes an indispensable cleaning agent.

Who knew that fermented alcohol could be so useful? White table vinegar is effective at killing bacteria and mold, and it cleans to a streak free shine!

There are hundreds upon hundreds of uses for vinegar.  Just ask Heloise!

Okay, so it won’t have the authentic “lemon” or “pine” scent of other household cleaners, but it also won’t eat through your hands, and it doesn’t require a child-proof cap.  To me, that is a good thing.

If you are not already cleaning your windows and mirrors with white vinegar, get rid of that blue stuff, and start today! Use it on your countertops! Use for for everything!

Do yourself a favour and buy a big bottle of the stuff.  You won’t go back. And heck, what other cleaning product is also an ingredient in to die for chicken wings?

Yet another example of how simple is often best…

How much would you pay for the warm and fuzzy feeling of doing the right thing?

According to a new report from the Network for Business Sustainability, Consumers are likely willing to pay a 10% premium for green products. This report was based on 30 years of previous research, some of it gathered from surveys about sustainable purchasing behaviour.  This raises the question:  Do the people who say they are willing to pay a premium actually pony up the extra 20 cents for green dish detergent? What’s the connection between intention and action?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately as I attempt to live a mother nature friendlier life.  People who know me would agree that I am very careful about money.  Until recently, I wouldn’t think twice about buying the bargain brand of dish detergent to save a few cents.

The other day, I ventured out to buy a few household items, and was faced with a dish detergent conundrum.  Do I buy the “normal” detergent for the “regular” price, or pay a 40 cent premium for the biodegradable detergent made with natural ingredients and free of Sodium Laureth Sulphate?

Well, it turns out I did neither.  The whole ordeal gave me such a headache that I went home without it.

The next day, I quickly realized that I still needed the detergent, so I again ventured out to face my challenge

As I walked through the store to the cleaning products, I gave myself a pep-talk.  “You WILL buy green detergent today!”  “Mother Nature needs you!” and  “I thought you said you were a Green Crusader!”

Luckily, as I strode purposely to my fate, I spied out of the corner of my eye a gleaming bottle of enviro-friendly dish detergent.  It was stting atop the reduced bin. Half priced green detergent.

So I got lucky this time. The problem solved for now – But what will I do the next time I run out?

“Your decisions will have momentous consequences,” he told the assembled leaders. “The fate of future generations, and the hopes and livelihoods of billions today, rest, literally, with you,” he added.

The article in the BBC also discusses predictions about Chinese and American commitment.  With each of these countries contributing 20%  of the world’s greenhouse gasses, committment from them would be great news for the rest of us!

Salmon aren’t returning to the mighty Fraser river.  What are the bears going to eat?

Are sunspots connected to Climate Change?

Greenpeace protests at at the Oilsands

And it’s not just Greenpeace – The rest of the world is speaking their mind about the nasty Oilsands

Net-metering legislation – the next big bureaucratic mess we don’t need

Environmentalists have halted a huge solar project?

Plugging into the sun

The short answer is that we are driven by societal and cultural norms.  If I wore the same shirt to work everyday, people would start to talk.  This is linked to the ingrained idea that the more we have, the happier we are.  After all, the success and happiness of our countries are often measure based on a single economic measure – GDP.

Turns ouf that rejigging our idea of what happiness is may actually be the key to building a sustainable world.

An interesting article in The Economist discusses just that.

Imagine what kind of world we would live in if we broadened our horizons and took other aspects than GDP into consideration when measuring how well off a country is?

I have a dream!

From the Globe and Mail:

A full-scale tidal energy project, if viable, would involve hundreds of turbines and could produce about 100 megawatts from the bay’s huge tides. That would be 10 per cent of the province’s energy needs, but such a system is years away.

The demonstration phase of the project, involving three turbines, is expected to cost $60-million to 70-million. Each of the three companies involved – which will co-operate on environmental monitoring and onshore development – intends to test a different type of turbine.

10%?  Doesn’t that seem like a small dent for a full scale project?

And what of the environmental impact of helping the environment?  Well, I guess that’s why this is a trial run:

Mr. Belliveau stressed that, under the terms of the environmental assessment approval, the companies must establish a monitoring body that includes stakeholders and keep close watch on the effects of the project.

“There’s a number of questions, anywhere from salmon to plankton to herring and migrating whales, all [these] questions will be addressed,” Mr. Belliveau said, emphasizing that he would revoke the project’s approval if significant environmental damage is found.

“I have the authority to stop [it] as simply as walking over and turning off that light switch,” he said. “And I would not hesitate if the science and adverse effects was there. I know that body of water and I understand the importance of getting this right.”

Our friends across the pond are also getting a boost – the UK’s Carbon Trust has committed to helping accelerate commercial applications of wave and tidal funding.

According to the article:

The Carbon Trust estimates that wave and tidal power could meet 20% of the UK’s electricity demand and is the ‘natural owner’ of the global wave power market. According to recent analysis, the UK is developing 25% of the world’s wave technologies.