Finally!

When credit is due, I am not one to withhold it. Today marks what might possibly the beginning of a huge change. For those of you who haven't heard yet, the Liberals (keep in mind, they have no opposition parties from the right, so they are decidedly more right-leaning than most provincial Liberal parties) in my former province of residence - British Columbia - have done what no other political leaders have had the courage to do: they have imposed a carbon tax.

The tax will initially work out to 2.4 cents per litre - starting July 1st - but will increase each year until 2012 when it will be almost 10 cents per litre. Though the amount seems pretty small right now, perhaps this will start to encourage drivers to get off the road and get on a bus, or walk, or bike. And certainly 10 cents extra per litre (when gas is already pretty expensive in B.C.) will make some sort of difference.

Check out the coverage from CBC, Globe and Mail, and The Times Colonist (Victoria).

So Kudos to Gordon Campbell and Finance Minister Carole Taylor. I certainly didn't support you in the last election, but I applaud your efforts today. Let's see who follows suit now that the first step has been taken.

Wake Up Please...

About 10 months ago, a roommate of mine sent me an article and I finally got around to reading it. The article, title "A Terrifying Truth" and written by Dave Lindorff, discusses the current situation that we are dealing with on this planet. Though the content is not anything that is new to me, it may be new to anyone out there reading my blog and I thought it was worth sharing as Lindorff writes much clearer than I do.

Read the Article Here

I should note that while he may come across as a crackpot in some of the things he says, we are quickly approaching a point where we will have no choice and some of these things that we deem so important to our lives (such as that thing called the economy which is apparently more important that anything else) will collapse on their own and we'll be faced with even larger problems.

As Lindorff writes,

[i]nstead of thinking of ourselves as consumers and competitive free agents, we need to start thinking of ourselves as passengers on a boat that is sinking. If we all run for the lifeboats and life preservers and fight to see who can be saved, the life vests will be torn and ruined and the lifeboats will fall into the sea and sink. In the end, we’ll all go down. If, on the other hand, we change tack, recognize that we’re all in this together, and make orderly plans to save ourselves collectively, we may all be able to get away.

Lately it has been very troublesome for me to listen to people spout off how An Inconvenient Truth has opened their eyes and then watch them do all sorts of things that contribute to the problems Mr. Gore was describing. Often they will justify it somehow. The economy has always been a reason not to change our way of life. But the logic behind inaction and half measures may turn out to be human kinds biggest blunder. For starters, the economy is worthless without the life systems that support it. A 1997 study (which has been mentioned over and over recently) found that the earth's ecosystem did approximately $33 trillion worth of work (including but not limited to purifying water, providing energy to grow plants, and pollination). At that time, the global GNP was $18 trillion - just more than half of what the ecosystem provided. Without this ecosystem, we would have a much harder time sustaining our economy.

A second argument against the economy excuse is very simple and straightforward. If we destroy our ecosystem we are potentially destroying our ability to live in it. What use is money to a species which does not exist? Many people do not believe this is possible. To them, the problems are with the polar bears and the frogs. How can that possibly affect us? And even if it does we have technology. Right? Though I am no expert, I do not believe that a mass migration to Mars or beyond will be possible in a way that maintains any semblance of our way of life.

Some may also point to the market to solve our problems. In theory, the market could solve a lot of these problems (with proper government control). But we don't have a free market. What we have are large monopolies that spend most of their profits convincing us that we need things we don't need so that their profits remain high. My question is: why is money so important that we have to work ourselves so hard? Sure, money pays for food, clothing and shelter, but do we really need those other things? Are we better off spending our time on more fulfilling things (like spending time with family and friends)?

The article hits one point on the nose as well: we are only taking half measures to try to solve these problems. As if a switch to cloth bags will somehow take carbon dioxide from the air. We do these little things to assuage ourselves of the guilt we have when we fill up our gas tanks.

Lindorff is right, we need to rethink our society. A band-aid solution won't save you when air pollution is lethal (which some would argue it already is in many parts of the world).

The bottom line is that we've all contributed to the problems humanity is now facing. But we are all part of the solution. We have let consumerism get the better of us for some time now. We have become disconnected with the world and the people around us. With creative and inspired leadership (and there is some hope for this) we may find a way. We need to stop thinking about what is best for "me" and start thinking about what is best for "us."

The old adage goes: "There's no I in team," and right about now, our species needs to take that advice to heart, or like Lindorff says, we could rip apart the life jackets.

Why Is English Important?

Note: This Post was taken from my Korean Blog.

In all of my waiting (see the post in my Korean Blog), I've been trying to broaded the news I read (online). In one of my attempts to get caught up on news in Korea, I found an interesting article about the need for English in South Korea.

To sum up the article (for those of you who are too lazy to click on the link and read it):

- many Koreans are not as fluent as they would like to be in English (as evidenced by many Koreans who work abroad and work with foreigners)

- some are worried about a focus on English (which takes away from the rest of the curriculum and could potentially lead to the eventual demise of the Korean language)

- foreign languages (more than English, though it is certainly one of the more useful ones) are helpful in a world in which barriers to communiction and trade are frequently being broken down.

For my part, I look at my teaching job not as colonialism (which I'm sure is what some people see it as), but as helping the Koreans gain a valuable tool. If Koreans can speak English and Korean, they have tools to deal with more people. If they learn other languages (French, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic), they are even more equipped than the monoliguists who need phrasebooks to have the most trivial of conversations.

The irony is, of course, that while the west supports this teaching of English, we do not teach our children other languages to the degree that the Koreans do (by mass hiring native speakers of a language to teach it). In a world that is largely anglocentric we have not had to do this. One day we may have to learn other languages (my guess would be Mandarin) to communicate with the rest of the world.

Didn't we give them the games so this wouldn't happen?

Several years ago I remember watching the IOC give their decision on the 2008 Summer games and like many Canadians I was rather upset that Toronto lost the games to Beijing - a country that had only years earlier murdered several protesters (exact numbers are not known, but estimates range in the thousands) at a site we were told would be the venue for Beach Volleyball (I couldn't confirm this, and I think the location has since been switched).

We were told that part of the reason for giving the games to China was that there was hope that Human Rights abuses would decline (I can't give facts either way, but I am sure there is evidence here) in the communist (only by name) country. Perhaps progress is being made, and in that case I can fully accept the loss of the Olympics (ironically, I will be living closer to Beijing that to Toronto during the games) - especially when Toronto has its own problems to worry about.

What is troubling for me today is a recent news article I read about the UK Olympic team on the CNN website (and a similar article I found on the BBC website). The article states (not very clearly) that athletes are being pursuaded to sign a contract forbidding them to speak out on human rights abuses - though I believe they are allowed to answer questions on the issue.

This baffles my mind. We give China the games in hope that they improve their human rights, and then we silence some of the most visible people at the games when it comes to that very subject. I realize there are many athletes there who will censor themselves without any contract because they either a) don't realize the extent of the issue or b) don't care enough to speak out even for their fellow athletes who are living and training in China. I do know there are likely some who will speak out (and even the BBC article stated that Canada, the U.S. and Australia are allowed to speak freely) and perhaps even make progress.

Despite this small setback, I think there are many people (hey, I may even be one of them) who are in Beijing during those two weeks in August specifically highlighting human rights abuses. China's reactions will surely be muted on this grand stage during these two weeks. They definitely do not want to be embarrased when the whole world is watching.

Plastic Bags Revisited

Several months ago, I wrote about plastic bags. Recently, they have made the news again, but not because a new city has banned them.

The news I am referring to is from Ireland. The government has done something novel: they have taxed bags but they did not ban them (Read articles from the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune). Not only did they tax them, but they taxed them quite a bit: 33 cents. And the effects have been quite remarkable with over a 90% drop in bag use.

There are several reasons why this approach may be more effective. For starters, it does not lower consumer choice, but makes the bags reflect the true costs (beyond just the money required to produce them, the tax tries to add in the cost of disposal, or rather the space given in a landfill). There may be something to the argument that the tax is too high. I am not able to give estimates of how much a bag will cost to dispose of, but keep in mind most of these plastic bags will not decompose and will thus be present in landfills for thousands of years (perhaps longer).

A second advantage (related to the price), is that the cost of bags is clearly noticeable. When I worked at a grocery store, we would refund 3 cents everytime a customer used their own bags. The idea is similar, but very different. First of all, 3 cents is not a lot of money. Most people didn't care at all, and it did not stop people from asking for double bags (because if they chose not to double bag it was the same price). The monetary impact is also diminished because the 3 cent refund is for cloth bags used - which often hold at least twice as much as plastic bags because they are both bigger and stronger.

The third advantage is for grocery stores who will obviously save a lot of money buying bags and storing them.

A fourth advantage is that they do not rely on stores to buy biodegradable bags. These bags are not all they are cracked up to be. Not only do they contribute to global warming, they do not degrade as fast (if at all) when placed in landfills (which often do not have enough of the necessary oxygen). Unfortunately, many workers at grocery stores do not realize these facts and often tell people that they don't have to feel guilty about using bags anymore (and apparently corporate headquarters was contradicting the scientific evidence out there on the landfill issue). They will break down in composts however.

There are likely more advantages to this approach as well though they may not be measureable (perhaps lineups will move quicker as people pack their own bags (which is a lot more common when they have their own bags as opposed to using the store-provided bags).

For someone who doesn't need an incentive to use their own bags (I've been doing it for almost as long as I've been grocery shopping), I think ideas like this one from Ireland will lead to reduced plastic bag use. It's good to see some governments taking some leadership on the issue (beyond just a blanket ban).

If you think this is a good idea, you could always contact your local representatives and suggest this idea. The more they hear this, the more likely they are to repeat it here.

Or if you don't need to economic incentive, you could just get cloth bags and use them instead.

Spread the Net (No, Not the Internet)

Some of you may have heard of this iniative as I am writing about this a while after the ball has gotten rolling.

Spreadthenet.org is dedicated to providing mosquito nets to children in sub saharan Africa who are at risk of getting malaria. Why is malaria such a problem? Here are some stats from the CDC website:

• Forty-one percent of the world's population live in areas where malaria is transmitted (e.g., parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, Hispaniola, and Oceania).
• Each year 350–500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and over one million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
• In areas of Africa with high malaria transmission, an estimated 990,000 people died of malaria in 1995 – over 2700 deaths per day, or 2 deaths per minute.
• In 2002, malaria was the fourth cause of death in children in developing countries, after perinatal conditions (conditions occurring around the time of birth), lower respiratory infections (pneumonias), and diarrheal diseases. Malaria caused 10.7% of all children's deaths in developing countries.
• In Malawi in 2001, malaria accounted for 22% of all hospital admissions, 26% of all outpatient visits, and 28% of all hospital deaths. Not all people go to hospitals when sick or having a baby, and many die at home. Thus the true numbers of death and disease caused by malaria are likely much higher.

Though there are several ways in which malaria can be combatted, many of them have proved inneffective in poorer countries. I could go on talking about how malaria been killing off humans for thousands of years, or many other aspects of the disease, but I'm not going to.

The tragedy is that prevention is fairly cheap (for us) and nets reduce malaria transmission and deaths by a good proportion (according to Spread the net, the transmission rate drops by 50% and the under-5 mortality rate drops 25%).

A small $10 donation will buy one (treated) net that 2 or 3 children can sleep under (most of the malaria transmitting mosquitoes only come out at night to feed). If you're looking for somewhere to donate money, this is definitely a worthy cause. With AIDS and malaria ravaging Africa, it's hard for the people who live there to get their feet on the ground economically. This is definitely something that will help.

For more information on malaria (including a nice long list of external links), check out wikipedia.

Here's a quick video of everyone's favourite Canadian celebrity:



And on a closing note: big props to Belinda Stronach who has shown a great deal of involvement with Spread the Net. It's nice to see our politians doing some good in the world.

Stuff, Stuff and More Stuff

Recently (in the last week), I moved from Victoria to Hamilton. This proved a significant challenge for me and my way of life. In the almost four and a half years I was living in Victoria, I accumulated a great deal of items and have had to deal with this stuff in the last few weeks.

It really did amaze (scare) me that I had so much stuff to call my own. Most of it was worthless to me, but I still hung onto it for the possibility that one day it might become useful. For example: in our townhouse, we had two couches (as well as many chairs). One of those couches was rarely used (and in fact a whole section of the living room was left untouched for weeks or months at a time). Yet I still kept this couch.

When moving time came many decisions were made that I am not necessarily happy I had to make. Since I did get most of the furniture and other items for free, I didn't really have a problem giving them away (and in some cases I made a bit of money to help with the costs of moving). What really got to me was the widespread use of the dumpster. So much of this stuff (which was probably useful to someone) was left in the dumpster (legally) in my townhouse complex. We managed to get a good deal to Big Brothers and the Salvation Army, but too much was wasted.

I guess I write this not to express my guilt (for I surely am guilty) but to urge the rest of you not to accumulate so much. If this process of having to decide what is important has taught me anything, it's that most of the stuff around us is irrelevant. Sure, some of it is necessary (a bed, clothes, and some other items), but most of it is only a burden and will eventually turn into a big task.

I suppose I should have started sorting through things earlier and perhaps less would be wasted and end up in a landfill, but even if that happens, most stuff will end up in a landfill when we're done with it. With the exception of my compost (let's just say it went back to nature) everything I threw out will likely be rotting away for years to come, to be useless to pretty much everything around us.

So don't buy stuff you don't need. You'll save money, clutter and future stress.