Earth Day 2012

So it's Earth Day again.  Today is a day when it's probably a good idea to reflect on the fact that we only have one earth (unless this is true) and no place to go if we mess up the place. I hate to admit it, but my ethusiasm for encouraging people to change their ways has died down a bit in recent years.  It's been difficult to get into good habits when you're constantly moving around.  Many times I've had to sacrifice good choices with cheaper and easier ones.  However, maybe today is a good day to get back on track.

Way back (5 years ago, I think) I did do a post about Earth Day.  I'm not going to link to it because there wasn't much.  However, I did find another post I made describing 50 things you could do (I probably lifted that from somewhere) and there were some comments adding to it.  I thought I'd go through and describe which ones I've done in the past few years (and which ones I could have done but failed - i.e. the ones I should be focusing on).

A small caveat before I begin: I read the book No Impact Man a while back and, while it was encouraging to see what changes could be made, it was no way a realistic way of living in today's society.  The author, Colin Beavan, did some incredible things, but made it clear that the way our society is set up makes it impossible to actually have no impact.  So I guess the biggest thing you could do is vote for people who will put us in the right direction (good job Canada, on giving Steve-o that majority... note: that was sarcasm) so that it is possible for more people to make better choices.

Another caveat: I really don't like it when people (usually children) say "We need to save the environment."  Huh? That just shows that the person doesn't quite understand the issue. If you said: "we need to preserve the environment" you'd be a bit closer, but still off.  We are part of the environment and that environment is changing all the time.  The problem is that we are causing massive amounts of change to a very complex system.  Every small change affects the whole and if we make too many changes, our ability to survive in our surroundings will suffer greatly.  Anyway.... I digress.

Things I've done in recent months (from my previous list and comments):

1. Compost Food Scraps (Though sadly, not in NZ, all in the UK, Canada and Korea.  I was most saddened in Tanzania where they burned them instead).
2. Turning off lights when I'm not using them (they're off now).
3. Taking the bus, walking and running (every day).
4. Turning off the tap when I brush my teeth (this one should be automatic for most people).
5.  Don't have a shower unless you need to (yeah, might be gross, but some days I don't need one).
6. Use biodegradable soaps, especially laundry soap (this one is much easier these days, most stores sell them, and they're not too expensive).
7. Recycle (another one that should be automatic by now, though it isn't always).
8. Unplug appliances when not in use (this is a big one and most people waste a lot of electricity by keeping tvs plugged in).
9. Put on warm clothes instead of using the heat (um... in England they don't really use the heat that much, so I guess this counts).
10. Open the window instead of using A/C (no A/C in England, haven't seen it here yet).
11. Grow your own food (I ate fejoas off of a tree the other day, does that count? The house I lived in in the UK did grow some food, but I was never there in the summer to eat it).
12. Don't drink bottled water (who does this anymore? You should be shaken until some sense comes into you - unless of course you live in Seoul or Africa, but then you should buy bigger and refillable containers of water, which are cheaper anyway.  And, when I was in Tanzania, the family I was staying with reused the big bottles I had afterwards so they weren't a complete waste).
13.  Don't use paper unless you need to (my grocery lists are on the back of old reciepts, and other similar things).
14. Reuse plastic containers instead of buying new ones (in England I had so many old yogurt and hummous containers full of seeds and nuts and other things).
15. Don't put fruit/veggies into plastic bags.
16. Use cloth bags when grocery shopping (failing marks for both the UK and NZ on this.  Plastic bags galore with no incentive to not use them.  I can understand the UK, but a bit shocked here).
17. Use energy efficient light bulbs (I haven't bought many recently, but when I do, I buy those... can you buy others these days?)
18. Submit assignments (job applications) electronically (yes, but some schools are demanding paper copies only, and I suspect the ones I send in electronically get printed out anyway).
19. Use the library (when living in Seoul this was difficult, though I did buy a lot of second hand books, but in the UK and NZ a library card was one of the first things I got).
20. Wash clothes with cold water (and it's probably better for the colours anyway).
21. Air dry clothes instead of using a dryer (haven't had a dryer in a while so that hasn't been a problem, though with the humidity here, it may become necessary).
22. Use cloth napkins instead of paper (and I save the extra one sthey give me from restaurants).
23. Read newspapers online (cheaper too!).
24. Buy local produce and from local shops/farmers markets (getting into that here, and it is cheaper).
25. Donate old clothing instead of throwing it out (when I left the UK I dropped off a lot of stuff in a Traid bin, after a very well timed school assembly in my final weeks in London).

Wow, I'm actually impressed I can list all of those things.  I guess they've all just become second nature to me by now.  But instead of me boasting about what I have been doing, perhaps I should focus more on what else I could be doing.  So here is a (shorter) list of what I'm going to work on:

1. Find a way to compost food.  The last few cities I've lived in have all had food waste collection. I guess it's not a priority here, but maybe I can find a way to do something.
2. Have shorter showers.  I think the lack of heating in England made it hard in the winter time when I was cold (also, less hot showers).  I should revert back to the bucket showers I had in Tanzania.  Very little water use and you could even heat it up.  We'll see though.
3. Plant a tree.  Hmmm.  Sounds like a good idea.  I'll have to look into it though.
4.  Fly less.  Ok, going from London to Auckland isn't exactly the best way to not add CO2 to the atmosphere.  To be fair, when I travelled around Europe, I took the train (fun times) instead of flying to Brussels, Prague and Copenhagen.  In fact, I really love the train.  But still, my miles in the air have probably been astronomical since my post 5 years ago.
5. Vote for Leaders who will do something.  Now here I have to hang my head in shame.  During the last election (Canadian) I registered to vote from overseas and got my voting card in the mail.  Even though I filled it out immediately and when to the post office as soon as I could (I just missed the closing time one day and had to go back the next) I was told that for a large sum of money (it was over 50 pounds) I could send it and it MIGHT get there the day after the election.  My vote was for the Green Party member in my riding.  So I bet you think it wouldn't have made a difference without that vote.  Well, it didn't.  She still won.  Sad that I couldn't be a part of history, but I won't let that happen next time. Sigh.

I could add a few more but I'll leave it at that.  What will you do for Earth Day?  I guess this will show who actually reads my blog and who actually read to the end of this post!  Haha!  Please tell me one thing (or more if you'd like) that you're going to try to change today.  Something small (or big, but it doesn't have to be).  Every little action (or inaction, I guess) helps.

I look forward to seing what you say.

This is Controversial

After a week of not blogging anything (I've been really busy, looking for a place to live, if you must know), I came across this article. For those of you too lazy to click on the link and read it, I'll summarize it very quickly: people all over the world are protesting, mostly because they have a very strong sense of entitlement.  Greece and Montreal (over tuition increases) were specifically mentioned.

Though I have always felt that I have fairly left-leaning political views, and I believe that a government's job is to take care of its people first and foremost.  Which means providing all sorts of things that the free market can't provide, such as police, health care, infrastructure (roads, rail, ports), and education. I know government isn't very efficient at a lot of the things it does, but the anger againts governments these days borders on the ridiculous. Though I expect to have all the conveniences of living in modern times (see my above list of what a government should provide, though it's not comprehensive), I'm not so deluded into thinking that I should get it for nothing or that it doesn't cost anything.  Yes, big business has its hands in government and yes that does influence some decisions it makes.  But unions influence them just as much, and it feels like once someone has something good, they'll do anything to protect that even at the detriment of others.

I'm not saying we should all just sit down and accept every government decision that comes about, especially when it means cutting services and rising taxes.  But governments must be run in a way that doesn't lose money. Someone loses out when that happens.  Who are we to say we should get all the good things and someone else should pay the price.

In my field, I've had to witness hundreds and thousands of people who have it way better than me (and many others) complain about small concession they are being asked to make.  They just don't seem to get that there are hundreds and thousands of willing people who would kill (well, maybe not kill) to have the opportunity to work at their jobs. It makes me want to shake each and every one of them and shout: "DO YOU NOT REALIZE HOW GOOD YOU HAVE IT!?!?!" Which would (in my fantasy) be followed by a lot of swearing and more shaking - though, this being reality, I'd never do that.

In the past, unions and protest movements (ok, even some today) have been helpful in advancing many worthy causes, but in many places those times have passed. At some point it switches from ensuring fairness in society to taking more than what you've earned.

So yes, I've also noticed this sense of entitlement, or "entitlement addiction" as the article calls it.  It is very frustrating for me to see since I'd love to have it as good as some of these people.

Making a Difference in Africa: Part I

A few weeks ago I shared a blog with you about a trip to Central America. I thought today I would share a blog with you of a friend of mine who went to Africa (Tanzania to be precise) to do some voluteer work. She went there with YCI (Youth Challenge International).

Read her blog if you want to hear more about her trip (I believe she's already back in Canada).

More on YCI and trips to Africa will appear in future posts.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mothers, Grandmothers, Great-Grandmothers, Aunts and everyone else.

Enjoy your day and make sure someone else does all the work for you (easy for me to say living out here).

Some Mother's Day Facts (from Wikipedia):

• Has several origins
• The US origin came about after the Civil war with the Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870 by Julia Ward Howe.
• It took 38 years for the first Mother's Day to be officially celebrated in 1908 in Grafton, West Virginia.
• First (American) National Mother's day was in 1914.

More on Mother's Day later...

The Federal Government Ought To Pick It's Battles

I'm sure I'm not the only person baffled by the Shane Doan controversy that has heated up in the last week. For those of you who have managed to avoid this waste of government and media time, Shane Doan is a hockey player who has been appointed captain of Canada's team at the World Hockey Championships in Russia. The controversy stems from alleged racials slurs (directed towards our Francophone countrymen) in a game in 2005. Doan was cleared by the NHL and the issue was dead... until recently when some politicians decided to make a big fuss over it and bring Hockey Canada members before the government to explain their choice of Doan as captain of this years team.

Besides the obvious waste of time (I think the issue of Afghanistan and the new information about the Air India incident might be a more pressing need right now), this makes absolutely no sense. Did the politicians make this much stink when they named Doan to the 2006 Olympic team? And what about Todd Bertuzzi (there, I did it, I mentioned the name of two people who shouldn't get attention today) being named to the Olympic squad? Did he not maliciously attack someone on the ice, in front of cameras? Surely the government would not want 'Bert' to represent our country...

I'm at a loss at this point. I, like many others, think that this whole dialogue has been an exercise just to get votes. I'm not sure if anything has been accomplished...

Paris Hilton Headed To Jail

Normally I would not draw attention to someone who seemingly lives for it, but this news is just too funny not to mention. It appears that Paris Hilton is headed to Jail for 45 days and will not have any other options. Too bad that they said she would not be kept with other inmates... still a funny bit of news that I thought I would share (just in case you didn't hear it already).

Globe and Mail

CBC

Yahoo!

Alright, that's enough gossip for one day. Sorry to give more attention to someone who has done absolutely nothing to deserve it.

I Refuse to Play the Blame Game

After a brief mention of the horrible events of last Monday, I wanted to share some thoughts about this tragedy.

I was unsure of what I was going to write and thought I should talk about how this came to be. Then my sister sent me this link. For those of you who are too lazy to check it out (hey, I know how it is, I don't always have the time to follow up on every suggestion I get), it lists all the different articles on the internet which suggest who is to blame for the events of last Monday. I read through some of them and changed (slightly) what I wanted to say.

Everyone seems to be blaming someone else. Some do it to further their own agenda while others just want to be able to point the finger at someone so that they can make sense of the situation. Some want to label the perpetrator of those horrbile things as insane, crazy, or disturbed. Perhaps this gets off the hook for any blame that we as individuals might have coming our way.

It is very obvious that for these events to occur, many things had to happen. There is no one person who can be put at fault, if anyone can be put at fault. In times like these many of us are just trying to figure out why and how someone could be driven to commit such heinous acts on other human beings. We need reasons, we need people to blame.

This whole thing is a mess. Let's move forward in a positive direction and rebuild what we can. Focus on yourself and what you can do for yourself and others. There is no need to point fingers in this terrible time for all of us.

Today is Earth Day!

I thought I would mention that today is Earth Day. If you want to, today would be a good day to change something about the way you live. Check out the list I gave to you (and that YOU added to) for ideas.


Yesterday, while waiting for the bus, I saw a garbage can that was overflowing with garbage. I did not have my camera to take a picture, but I will describe it for you. I saw the following: a plastic bottle, newspaper, a timbits box, a banana peel, and many more things. What saddened me (and annoyed me) was that many of the things in the garbage did not need to be there. The banana peel could have been composted (or simply thrown into a bush) and the plastics and paper products could all have been recycled. I urge you today to make a difference so that we don't have to look at the unneccessarily overflowing garbage cans in the future.

More to come today...

Microfinancing and Loaning Money to Third World Countries

Some of my readers may have heard about Muhammed Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. An economics professor, Yunnas won for being the founder of the Grameen Bank. Why is this bank so great? What their bank provides is microfinancing. What is microfinancing? It is simply loaning money to people who wouldn't be able to qualify for loans from a regular bank. The money is usually loaned in small amounts from individual donors. These small loans are consolodated by banks like the Grameen Bank and then given to the people who need the money.

Why do this? The reason for doing this is to help those who have not been given the opportunities that we in the Western world have been given. The money goes to people who have a plan or a business and need some money to get it off the ground. The expectation is that the money is paid back. Some organizations that lend money this way have had a 100% repayment rate (according to one agency the worldwide repayment rate for these types of loans is 97%).

One of the organizations which has a 100% repayment rate is Kiva.org. According to their homepage they have over 43,000 people loaning over $4 million. I am one of those people and 50 of those dollars. Kiva is a really easy way to participate in microfinancing. They loan to many different areas of the world and you can choose who you loan to. You can loan as little as $25 and you get updates on your loan as it gets repaid. With Kiva, you don't get any interest, but they do charge interest so that they can pay their operating costs. You get your money back and can reloan it or withdraw it as you please.

Though it seems very much like a charity, it is not. It is a way of giving a helping hand to someone who needs it. You are not giving anyone money, you are loaning them money so they can work for themselves. It is not surprising that this idea led to a Nobel Prize.

I urge you to read up on this and if you have money to spare, you could loan some of it to someone who needs it.

Adopting/Supporting A Child

Many months ago (this must have been almost a year ago now), I saw the movie, About Schmidt. Besides being a good movie, it featured the main character (Jack Nicholson), supporting a child through some agency. The movie centered a lot around his letters to Ndugu and how he descibed the events that transpired to the young boy a world away.

This movie got me thinking about adopting/supporting a child who needed it. Of course I realize that this is something of a cop out in that I'm throwing my money at a problem to take the guilt away, but I think I am learning something from this. And I fully intend to do other good things so that I don't have to feel guilty.

Anyway, I went through a long process of trying to figure out which agency I would go through. I ended up deciding on Plan Canada (formely Foster Parents Plan), mostly because they were non-political and non-religious – in short, they were just there for the communities and their well being. They have no hidden agenda. Their website also claims that roughly 80% of the money they get goes to “programs benefitting children and families”, 11% goes to “public education and fundraising” and 9% goes to administration.

So I sent my application in over the internet. Plan allows you to choose which region of the world your child comes from, but I let that open because I thought that it wouldn't be fair to support a child based on their geography – something that they don't have a choice over. A few weeks later I got the information in the mail, including a picture of my boy. His name is Phichit and he lives in Thailand. We have exchanged a couple of letters back and forth and I have several pictures of him (and I sent him a picture of me). One day I hope to visit Thailand and to meet him in person. Perhaps I will get money one day to do this. I certainly hope so because it would be nice to actually make a personal connection instead of just sending the money. But if you're unable to go somewhere to help people, something like this would be a small step towards making the world a better place.

A Compromise?

I thought I should write about this subject since it came up on Saturday. I think we can justify it by saying it's Social Commentary on Sunday.

I get the Globe and Mail six days a week and the following headline appeared on the front page: "Lift face veils or don't vote, Quebec tells Muslims." I read the article and had several conflicting thoughts about what went on. Until recently I did not know the purpose of any coverings (whether it be a burqa or a niqab). I was given a great article (whose name I cannot remember, but maybe one of my readers could post the name or a link to it online) in a class of mine explaining the reasons (mainly so that woman are judged on what they say and do and not by how they look - it was described as an empowering thing to wear) why women cover themselves up.

After some thought I came to the following conclusion: Why can't they (all the people in Quebec) just compromise. In summary, this is what the two arguments are (at least the rational people in this debate):

1. The Chief Electoral Officer is trying to avoid voter fraud. Due to what seems like many angry responses, there is a fear that the original agreement would be used to the advantage of some people in protest of the decision.
2. The women who are wearing the veils are doing so for a religious reason (I'm not here to debate whether they are right or wrong, but it's important to realize they have a strong belief in something), and it would violate their beliefs to provide the requested proof of identification. They are stuck with a choice between not voting or going against what they believe in.

Clearly, there are two very good arguments for either of the two proposed outcomes. I decided to do some research to see if I could make sense of it. The first thing I did was look up "niqab" on wikipedia. The entry did not tell me much, but it did send me to this article about a similar situation that occured with regards to wearing a veil for the picture on a driver's license. I discovered there that many muslim nations require muslim women to have their pictures taken without their veil.

I then wanted to find out WHO a muslim woman is "allowed" to uncover herself for (I use the word allow because I'm under the impression that it is different for each individual. I do not think that anyone forces muslim women into this). After much searching I found this quote which came from a much bigger web page:

A Muslimah should not uncover her adornment in front of any non-Mahrahm male. Muslimahs should especially be careful and remain covered, modest, and quiet around in-laws.

If a gay male is aware of female body parts, he should not be allowed to view a woman uncovered. And, of course, a bi-sexual male should not be allowed to view a woman without proper covering.

In addition, a Muslimah should not uncover that which she normally uncovers, in front of any non-Muslim female whom she fears may describe her to others. She may also choose to remain covered around any Muslim female whom she fears may describe her physical attributes to their husband or others.

I also looked up who qualifies as Mahrahm and non-Mahrahm males and found the answers here.

So where am I going with this?

My proposed compromise is for the Chief Electoral Officer to provide a way for women to prove their identiy which does not require them to show themselves to people they do not want to show themselves to. Perhaps arrangements could be made in each riding so that a trusted muslim woman was available to check ID's for the people running the election. One representative for each riding would probably be sufficient if it were advertised which polling station this representaive would be at. To me it is common sense, but perhaps this is just a small part of a larger problem...

I wonder if this message will find it's way to Quebec.

I bet someone has something to say about this... let's hear what you think! I may be wrong about everything and I'm open to other viewpoints (keep it nice though).

For more information, check out this blog which talks briefly about the same article and situation: http://hogtownfront.blogspot.com/