A busy year

Good morning everyone,

I hope you are all well. Well in whatever meaning of the word comes first, next and next again to your minds.

It's obvious by the date that it is the last day of 2011. Bloggers everywhere are writing their year-end posts. I'm feeling the pressure to do the same; I know I've been posting less and borrowing more. Borrowing from great people, whose ideas I'm grateful for, but borrowing.

I've never been through a year as busy as this one has been. Over-busy. Feeling that I'm leaking around the edges ... missing things ... not following up adequately with people. It's the sort of busy-ness that takes away from positivity, and with that comes a perceived loss of productivity.

Looking back, however, I recognize that I've done more than I have ever done in a year.

I'm going to make an effort to remember that I - like most people - do rise to meet the demands that come.

The other thing I want to remember, be grateful for, and use even more next year is that I get things done because of other people. Other people step in and help with things. Other people step in and help when I ask them (and I need to do that more).

A lot of activists aren't good at asking for help, at least not on the personal/emotional stuff. We can whip together a film series somewhere, but don't admit that cumulative loss of sleep is making us grumpy with ourselves and others. Or is adding to a tendency to depression. We all need to look out for ourselves and the others we "activate" with. This advice has been given by many others before me and is worth saying again and acknowledging.

Thanks Chris, for morning cups of coffee and boundless love.
Thanks Dylan, for the assortment of "sometime today could you" chores you do.

Thanks everyone in all the groups and at all the meetings, for all the ideas and support.

Thanks Marietta, Louise Ann and Beth ... who gave us home-backed cookies in this Christmas season where I had no time to bake (or knit, or shop, or houseclean).

Much love to all of you today and for 2012.

Why's Woman

Christmas message from Elizabeth May

Hello,

I hope this day finds you well, and not too hurried as we go into Christmas. I've got one more workday, then three days off. The best post I can offer is to let you read Elizabeth May's Christmas post.

Best wishes,

Why's Woman

19 December 2011 - 9:29am

By. Elizabeth May

As we all prepare for the holidays, it is customary to look back at the year that was. I am not able to do that (even though that’s what the newsletter editor wanted.) I cannot pretend the events of the last two weeks – first Canada’s sabotage at COP17 in Durban and then the breath-taking duplicity of filing notice to legally withdraw from Kyoto scarcely 24 hours after the close of the COP – belong in another part of my brain. The enormity of it demands that I not write about how great it is that I was elected and that we made a breakthrough. (For the moment, I assume that you know that and that you know how grateful I am for your support in making it happen).

This Christmas season I find myself thinking about Christmas of 1972. It was our last Christmas before moving to Cape Breton. I remember trying to sing Christmas carols in our church, standing with my mum, and both of us choking on tears and unable to sing. It was the year Nixon ordered the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam. Carpet bombing from December 18-30th. The theory was the godless North Vietnamese would not expect bombing from a Christian nation on Christmas. The element of surprise.

What triggered the recollection was nothing cerebral. I tried to sing and the physical sensation opened the portal of memory. The way the smell of rain on warm soil of a summer evening is evocative, I was transported back to that church, standing next to my mother and choking on tears. Once again I have a Christmas when I cannot sing. This time it is Stephen Harper’s surprise strategy. Wait til Canada’s negotiators are back from Durban, wait til Canadians are distracted by Christmas and then bomb the bridges to global climate action.

The climate crisis is not a war and the brutality is at a distance. But brutality it is.

Can we be Conscientious Objectors to the war on our children’s future? As Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote in a poem of that name, “I shall die, but that is all I shall do for Death. I am not on his payroll.” We need to resolve – heart, body and soul – to reverse over the next year the damage done in these last few weeks. We need to be grounded in the ways and strengths of every hero we can name – Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama – and yes, for me, the Prince of Peace whose birthday we celebrate.

We will not allow climate deniers and duplicitous politicians, oil lobbyists and fossil-fuel funded front groups to prevent action in the tiny bit of time remaining.

We have accomplished much in 2011. We must collectively accomplish more in 2012.

Elizabeth May on Canada's Withdrawal from Kyoto

Hello everyone,

I'm working on a project. Here is Elizabeth May's comment on Canada's withdrawal from the international process to save the world.

Best regards, Why's Woman

OTTAWA - The Green Party of Canada is appalled by the Harper government’s decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. “It is extremely shocking that Canada has chosen to withdraw just days after the conclusion of the Durban negotiations,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, who was in Durban for COP17. “It is simply outrageous disinformation that there is a $14 billion cost to staying in Kyoto. Staying in the Kyoto Protocol will not cost us a cent. What will cost billions is if we do nothing to address climate change.”

“Canada should be continuing in Kyoto and negotiating the targets that would be palatable for this government. By withdrawing, we become a pariah on the world stage,” said May.

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, in its report “Paying the Price: The Economic Impacts of Climate Change for Canada”, estimates that the cost of Canada’s failure to act on climate change will range from $5 billion per year by 2020 to as high as $91 billion per year by 2050. Impacts on forests and coastal areas will be particularly felt in terms of hits to the Canadian economy. An increase in flooding, wildfires, heat waves, and poor air quality has already resulted in increased death and destruction of property. Canada's insurance sector is seeing costs from storms and wildfire escalating rapidly.

“Refusing to be a part of the global effort to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate will put Canada behind economically as other countries make investments in efficiencies and renewable energy. Canada has an opportunity to capitalize on a green economy and instead we are clinging to fossil fuels,” said May. “Withdrawing from Kyoto is an appalling decision. It will only hurt us—economically and environmentally.”

The Urban Food Revolution by Peter Ladner

Here I am again!

"the struggle for individual agency ... I find to be at the very center of urban life ... Both as workers and as consumers, we fieel we move in channels that have been projected from afar by vast impersonal forces. We worry tha we are becoming stupider, and begin to wonder if getting an adequate grasp on the world, intellectually, depends on getting a handle on it in some literal and active sense. Some people respond by learning to grow their own vegetables. " from Matthew Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft

With a quotation like the above, right in the introduction, are you surprised that I really want to get hold of Peter Ladner's book? Ladner is Canadian, has been involved with urban agriculture in British Columbia.

The Urban Food Revolution: Changing the Way We Feed Cities. Peter Ladner. New Society Publishers, 2011. paperback
You can look over the Table of Contents and read the Preface from the website of New Society Publishers: http://www.newsociety.com/Books/U/The-Urban-Food-Revolution

Book blurb from the New Society Publishers website:

Our reliance on industrial agriculture has resulted in a food supply riddled with hidden environmental, economic and health care costs and beset by rising food prices. With only a handful of corporations responsible for the lion’s share of the food on our supermarket shelves, we are incredibly vulnerable to supply chain disruption.

The Urban Food Revolution provides a recipe for community food security based on leading innovations across North America. The author draws on his political and business experience to show that we have all the necessary ingredients to ensure that local, fresh sustainable food is affordable and widely available. He describes how cities are bringing food production home by:

ü Growing community through neighborhood gardening, cooking and composting programs

ü Rebuilding local food processing, storage and distribution systems

ü Investing in farmers markets and community supported agriculture

ü Reducing obesity through local fresh food initiatives in schools, colleges and universities.

ü Ending inner-city food deserts

Producing food locally makes people healthier, alleviates poverty, creates jobs, and makes cities safer and more beautiful. The Urban Food Revolution is an essential resource for anyone who has lost confidence in the global industrial food system and wants practical advice on how to join the local food revolution.

shopping trip .... glitter and plastic

Hello everyone,

I made a rare trip to Masonville Mall area today. There were a whole bunch of items I wanted to locate ... things not sold where I work, but for which I get asked. I did find most of them, so will know where to suggest people shop.

The main thing I found though was piles and mounds and shelves and shelves and shelves full of STUFF. One store had pillars 10 or 12 feet high with things hung up that high - surely an inconvenient storage system for the staff! How many lint-brush-roller thingies would have been on the one section of pillar - 8 across the row, with a couple on each peg, and 14 or 16 rows high? Pillows and furniture on shelves too high for people to reach.

I went into a popular home furnishing store - and I admit I love looking at Christmas decorations and furnishings - but there's so much of it that I find myself wondering what value any of it will have for anyone. Glitter and plastic, glitter and tin, glitter and paper, glitter and more plastic. So much merchandise stacked - in multiples - that I cannot focus on the attributes of any one object before it melds into the identical one atop it ... or competes visually with items on either side.

I went into a major bookstore, admittedly indulging my fondness for journals, and just because I could I looked up one book. The store didn't have it. It's an urban agriculture book that I'll order where I work, tomorrow and will tell about in a separate post. The major bookstore did, however, have a cube of some dragon book or other, discounted. And the major bookstore's smaller bookstore (in Masonville Mall itself) was its own surprise. There was a whole section of children's books that were stacked spine out so customers have to shelf read to find a book; how does that sell anything?

And the big craft store didn't sell Christmas letterhead paper ... anywhere in the aisles and aisles and aisles of duplicated plastic and glitter, glitter and paper, metal and glitter ....

It was a useful venture and traumatic all at the same time. Finding out that all that STUFF doesn't have any value to me ... priceless.

Best regards to all,

Why's Woman

WASTE LESS this Christmas

Good morning everyone,

I've mentioned before that I subscribe to the World Watch Institute's e-news ... see www.nourishingtheplanet.org

The latest mailing is a great guide to wasting less this coming Christmas season.

http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/reducing-food-waste-during-the-holiday-season/

My guess is, of course, that if you read my maunderings you already re-use, recycle, refashion, and re-generate anything and everything that crosses your path. You probably spend less on Christmas gifts than the $600+ dollars that some survey said Canadians expect to spend this season and less than the other $600+ that will be spent on Christmas preparations that aren't gifts. That detail made me want to cut down on my own total (somewhat under $150.00 last year including gifts) and get knitting.

The World Watch articles notes that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted each year (1.3 billion tons). It's a head-shaker of a percentage.

The article I've linked to above is talking about reducing waste of food in a North American household that has the more-than-enough-plus-extras-in-the-pantry-and-leftovers-in-the-back-of-the-fridge, which, I'm guessing is your own situation. It's mine ... and I'm so grateful for it. And I know I can do better on using up those leftovers before they become compost!

It talks about supporting an organization that second harvests restaurant food [food recovery] for community agency distribution, buying free trade food items as gifts.

I'm going to suggest supporting an organization that advocates for organic, low-input agriculture or permaculture, or has one of the gifts of animals or garden packages (World Vision or USC). Support or start such in your own community. I'll get the urls. I still can't figure out how to leave an in-progress post and search out something to put in here.

So, all for this morning.

Best regards,

Why's Woman

Not an ode to my new toothbrush

Good morning everyone,

I hope you are all well and happy.

Today I'm going to talk about a very small matter: my new toothbrush.

My new toothbrush has a curvy blue and white handle. Some parts of it are much thicker than others. One place has little bumps. The bristles are higher around the edges than in the middle; the outer central bristles are a different colour from the rest.

The curves are supposed to be ergonometrically correct, ie. they are supposed to fit my hand so I'm comfortable brushing my teeth and will do so longer than I used to. The place with the little bumps - I'm guessing - is to keep my fingers from slipping as I hold the toothbrush; this will prevent me from jamming the toothbrush into a tooth and breaking it, or stuffing it down my throat and choaking. By not doing these damaging things, I will not sue the maker of the toothbrush.

As it turns out ... the way I hold the toothbrush has the handle curve pressing into my palm, instead of my palm curving into it. So, that part doesn't work.

I've not had my hand slip yet, so maybe the bumpy part works. However, since I've never had a previous toothbrush escape my grasp, I cannot make a fair judgement.

As for the bristles, both lengths feel the same ... I'm guessing the coloured ones are a signal to me to use them to do the little gum-line wiggle that one is supposed to do while brushing ... they are sort of a target zone. I don't know if this makes a difference.

The thing that got me started on this is realizing that the handle of the toothbrush, with its two types of plastic, must surely use twice as much plastic as an old-fashioned, basically straight-handled toothbrush.

So, it's a good thing that before I toss out an old toothbrush, it goes through use as a cleaning tool.

And you know what? I just realized that the handle fits my hand better when it's turned over for use as a grout scrubber. So, next year I'll have a good cleaning tool.

Here I sit, shaking my head in wonder at it all. I make the wage I make. You make the wage you make. A designer making $40,000 - $60,000 a year designed this toothbrush and a major drug store chain paid for it to be made. If I had cable TV, I might even know if the company pays to advertise this minor hygiene tool.

Let's guess that my new toothbrush wasn't even made on the North American continent and certainly not by unionized workers. Were the resources used to make it taken from the country where it was made? Were the resources transported by fossil-fuel using ship to that country, then transported back to North America? I know the handle wasn't from a recycled plastic, because that information was not noted and promoted on the package ... and such recycling may not always use less resources overall anyway.

Did I mention that I hate shopping? Even for the little things like a toothbrush?

How does this relate to saving the world in my spare time? Good question. Maybe only insofar as if I keep my teeth in good shape and spare myself huge dental bills, I'll be able to make a few Christmas donations to environment groups.

Best regards to all, as always,

Why's Woman