How can it be Identified?

This biennial plant starts out in its first year as a very tiny plant that eventually develops a rosette of kidney-shaped leaves. It sort of looks like a violet, except mainly for its long taproot. The plant remains green through the winter, allowing an early start in the spring (photo 1 below).

The mature second year plant can grow as much as 3 to 4 feet tall. It has triangular, alternate, sharply toothed leaves and produces masses of small white flowers with 4 petals followed by seed pods which are long, thin, and green, turning brown at maturity (photo 2 below).

Photo 1: First year Garlic Mustard plant. Photo courtesy of Christine Hanrahan and the Fletcher Wildlife Garden. Click photo to enlarge

Photo 2: Mature Garlic Mustard plant. Photo courtesy of Christine Hanrahan and the Fletcher Wildlife Garden. Click photo to enlarge

What is the Best Way of Removal?

Start by removing small satellite populations (i.e. with just a few plants) to help prevent the plant from spreading. Then tackle larger more established areas. Focus on the mature, second year plants, as the majority of first-year plants do not mature. For these more established areas, note that long-term commitment is necessary as the seed pods can last a long time (up to five years or more) in the soil!

Pulling by hand from the root is most effective since plants can sprout again from cut stems and even roots. Note that seeds may become dislodged from the plant and become established in the soil while pulling. Consequently, it is best for hand-pulling to be done prior to flowering.

For large plant populations where garlic mustard has completely choked out all native plants, you may alternatively wish to use a hand-held motorized trimmer to cut the plant. You should do this twice a year prior to flowering and repeat, or hand pull, until no new plants appear.

Be sure to remove any pulled-out stalks! These contain toxins and may already have seeds or enough food reserves in them to allow the seed pods to grow and ripen. When removing the plants, put them in Yard Waste Bags for pickup. The high temperature municipal compost system will ensure destruction of the seed pods.

Why is Garlic Mustard so Good at Spreading?

Garlic mustard is an extremely prolific plant that produces many seeds. The seeds can reside in the soil for at least five years if not longer. It also produces a chemical substance (called an “allelochemical”) that prevents the growth of plants and saplings, and stunts the growth of small trees and shrubs as well as even larger trees. What is more, garlic mustard has no significant natural enemies in North America.

Why Is There So Much Concern?

Photo 3: Established population of Garlic Mustard. Photo courtesy of Christine Hanrahan and the Fletcher Wildlife Garden. Click photo to enlarge

Because garlic mustard is so good at spreading, it is extremely efficient at pushing out other plant species (as shown in photo 3). For maintained property, this can be a particular concern in gardens, where the fact that the ground is not mowed means that garlic mustard can quickly overrun other plants.

In natural areas, the plant gets established more easily in disturbed areas like along trails, but can also invade largely pristine, undisturbed areas. This means not only a loss in the variety (or biodiversity) of other plant species, but drastic changes for other animals living there as well. For instance, garlic mustard appears to alter habitat quality for several species of salamanders through changes in forest litter layer depth and composition.

What Else Can I Do?

Garlic mustard does not know any boundaries and so spreads both on private and public property. There may be public spaces in your neighbourhood that you can get involved in garlic mustard removal. To find out more, contact the City of Waterloo at (519) 886-1550. Mention that you would like to get involved with the Partners in Park Program for the management of garlic mustard.

Further Resources

• Garlic Mustard Overtaking Our Natural Areas! – My original article on garlic mustard on EcoVoca.
• The Ontario Invasive Plant Council’s fact sheet.
• Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs problem weed of the month
• Garlic Mustard Identification and Control video by Barbara Lucas – Note that this video states first year garlic mustard does not develop rosette leaves, although other sources state that it does.

Have More Questions?

Feel free to email garlicmustardremoval@gmail.com. Volunteers working in the community will be happy to answer your questions.

Phto by Fred Hsu. From the Wikimedia Commons.

We face many environmental problems today. So many that the situation can appear overwhelming. For some, the tendency may be to act like an ostrich, by “burying one’s head in the sand”, and ignoring it. Others can choose to do the opposite, and rush around in a frenzied mayhem, attempting to address every single issue.

Those falling in the first camp may end up only further contributing to the situation. This is because they choose to block out their concerns by chasing consumerist rewards (i.e. a new car, big house) that further tax the planet. They may also choose careers that harm the planet, justifying their actions with the attitude that “If they don’t do it, somebody will.”

As for those in the second camp, while they may make some progress in the short-term, eventually they will likely become burnt out. In the process, they leave the strands of many unfinished projects in their wake. Which can leave those who were working with them feeling more discouraged than when they started. This is because all their efforts would seem for naught.

So where is the balance? How should we respond while avoiding the problems of both the “ostrich” and the frenzied project organizer? I cannot claim to have all the answers, but as a starting point I strongly recommend reading Stephanie Kaza’s inspiring book, Mindfully Green. In this book, she advocates following the “green practice path.” A Buddhist inspired text, undertaking this path is explained to basically involve 1) gaining a wider view of how our actions may be harming the planet and 2) finding ways to reduce this harm.

Kaza gives the example of how this relates to food. Eating food such as meat can cause water pollution, cause animals to suffer, harm the consumer through the causation of heart disease and cancer, and so on. However, it may be that for certain reasons (e.g. living in a colder climate, or I would add having a certain body type) you may find it necessary to consume at least some meat.

The key thing is to start asking the difficult questions about how much you can realistically do to lead a more ethical life. Embarking on this process is something that Kaza informs us is referred to as a “koan.” Based on Zen Buddhism, this is a continually unfolding puzzle that takes more than mental effort to answer. “You live with a koan,” she says, “you wrestle with it, you get stumped by it, you have sudden breakthroughs with it…”

Food as well as other basic daily activities, such as water consumption and waste production also cited by Kaza, can be a valuable starting point. After all, we all eat, drink, and make purchases.

However, I would suggest there are many other applications. For instance, how do the relationships that we form, and how we interact with others, affect a desire to not inflict harm? How do our choices about whether to have a family affect the planet? And one that I referred to earlier and that I often grapple with is, what impact does my chosen career have on the earth?

These are difficult questions and one cannot expect to come to answers immediately. “If you come to answers too quickly, you will have missed the deeper insight hidden in the questions,” she says. By the same token, do not expect to find absolute answers to all your questions. Instead, quoting poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Kaza reminds us that we must “learn to love the questions.”

There is much else I could say about Kaza’s book. Such as the need for self-care, to ensure that we have the energy to carry out our work (e.g. balancing the need to put bread on the table with a desire to help the planet). The helpfulness of considering joining a group, where others may have answers to the questions you are seeking. And, finally, the importance of commitment, or in other words taking a “vow”, to prevent harm to others and the planet. For, as Kaza states, “the pledge…helps to strengthen that intention.”

If you wish to learn more about the green practice path, I would strongly recommend reading Kaza’s book. However, for my purposes here,  I would like to end by saying I feel it is important that we consider taking up this path. We may not have all the answers or know where it will lead. But what can be more important than reducing harm to this planet and its inhabitants? It may be frightening, taking that first step. But once started, I believe many shall find that it is essential to finding a truly meaningful and rewarding life.

<< Previous Entry

Why do I think this book is so wonderful? Well, because this book seems to offer solutions to many of the environmental issues that we face. And despite the work of many committed individuals, the message about the seriousness of the environmental problems we’re facing does not seem to be getting through. At least in a manner that is mainstream and quick enough to be truly helpful. As testimony to this situation, the very book I am discussing does not pause even once to consider its application to environmental matters. Weight loss, worker productivity, disease control in Africa, and so on, sure. But not the environment.

To ensure this invaluable book does not escape the radar of those wishing to bring about environmental change, I would like to summarize its main points and recommendations.

1. Verbal persuasion alone rarely works. There are many reasons people resist change, and without addressing these reasons, any efforts to change people’s actions through the simple use of words will be unsuccessful.
2. Identify the behaviours in need of changing. To rephrase the authors’ words to an environmental issue, people need to know that they should drive less rather than just saying, “Global Climate Change is coming! Global Climate Change is coming!” Doing the latter will do nothing but create worry.
3. Inform people which behaviours are in greatest need of change. As an example, identify actions that can reduce the most garbage, whether that is through recycling or composting.
4. Change personal motivation. After all, people will not alter their actions unless they desire to do so. A person may ask, for instance, why should I stop driving my gas-powered car even if it contributes to acid rain?
5. Create opportunities for direct experience. For instance, provide people with the opportunity to participate in a community garden to learn as an aside about all the friends and acquaintances they can make. To encourage participation, why not make it a competition? As an example, see which city can reduce their per capita water consumption the most. In the process, it becomes fun to take a short shower, rather than being something that one deprives oneself of.
6. Generate vicarious experiences. As an example, if someone is nervous about cycling in the city, let them see someone who is doing it. Or tell a story that does so. Stories can also help people envision ‘what if’ scenarios. An example that comes to mind is the movie, The Day After Tomorrow, that made vivid the potential impacts of global climate change. Stories are helpful because they provide the concrete, vivid and often emotional detail necessary to get ideas across while still maintaining people’s attention.
7. Connect a desired behaviour to a person’s sense of self. Another way to influence personal motivation, an example would be to instill in children a love of nature. That way they will naturally want to protect it.
8. Make people feel like they can positively answer the question, “Can I do it?” Without feeling enabled, people will give up in despair. This is tough for big issues like global change. But organizations like 350.org and the Transition Town movement which provide people with something to organize around can really help. They instill in people a feeling of hope that they are not alone and will eventually succeed.
9. Harness the power of opinion leaders. The book cites how over 85 percent of people will not adopt a particular behaviour until leaders in their circle of peers do so. Clearly, environmentalists would do well to seek out opinion leaders in their community if they wish to effect change.
10. Enlist the power of social capital. This basically means working together in a group to tackle problems that can seem daunting when working individually. That’s because people in groups can come up with solutions, see ‘blind spots’, perform tasks, and achieve solidarity (see point #8) that individuals alone could not. For instance, why not form a co-op to purchase solar panels in bulk, thereby reducing the price?
11. Use incentives wisely. Provide rewards that come soon, are desirable, and clearly tied to desired behaviours. An example could be a company that pays its employees not to drive to work, and instead arrive through alternate means. Despite the seemingly insurmountable problems of air pollution and global climate change, employees are given an immediate reward for helping address the problem.
12. Employ punishments sparingly. Be careful when providing negative reinforcement. Although results may be achieved in the short term, eventually people may push back. Examples relating to the environment can include littering and car idling. People may become resentful for being reprimanded for such behaviours and just end up performing them still in secret.
13. Change the structural environment. Three pieces of advice here: i) simplify, simplify, simplify; ii) make the “invisible visible”; and iii) bring people together. For instance, make the recycle bin accessible. Report people’s monthly water usage and run newspaper articles on ignored environmental problems. And finally, run events where people can get together (a rare occurrence nowadays in our culture of ‘cocooning’) to start identifying and working on solutions to environmental issues!

There. Whew! That about sums it up. Excuse the length, but there was a lot of material to get through.

What’s the basic message? Well, there’s no ‘magic pill’ to getting people to take action to fix the environment. But don’t give up and meekly accept feelings of serenity. Rather, boldly and thoughtfully seek to bring about change. The methods at your disposal are many and the potential benefits are endless!

<< Previous Entry

Photo by Kelvin Kay. From the Wikimedia Commons.

Consumerism. Wish you could escape it? Particularly at this time of the year, when hopes of holiday cheer frequently seem to disappear in a frenzy of shopping madness? Well, already over a half a century ago, famous psychoanalyst Erich Fromm was laying the very foundation for how to do this in his most famous book, The Art of Loving.

How does he do this? Well, in a nutshell, he achieves this by wisely noting, consumerism has come to be used as a substitute for love.

Admittedly this is not the central point of the book. (And I would highly recommend a slow and thoughtful read over this wide-ranging but short and to-the-point work). Nonetheless I believe Fromm has a firm handle on this ill of society, that quite arguably has even a stronger hold on us today. For as he insightfully states, consumerism takes many forms including “sights, food, drinks, cigarettes, people, lectures, books, movies…”

What is more, the products that we consume have been standardized. This is because modern capitalism needs men “whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated.” Of course, there are some variations in the products that we consume, like different initials on a handbag or sweater; however, these serve only to create a feeling of difference “when in reality there is very little left.”

These circumstances become even more concerning when combined with the radical division of labour that has led to the routinized nature of work. Placing a greater value on the production of goods over human life, modern capitalism has required the expectation that “men” be willing to “fit into the social machine without friction.” As a result, “[h]uman relations are essentially those of alienated automatons, each basing his security on staying close to the herd, and not being different in thought, feeling, or action [emphasis added].”

(To drive home the point as to why this is so alarming, Fromm frighteningly reflects on how “modern man” closely reflects the picture that Huxley describes in “Brave New World.” In this book, physically well looked after, but emotionally bereft characters are bombarded with slogans like “‘When the individual feels, the community reels’” and “‘Everybody is happy nowadays.’”)

What is the alternative to all of this? Well, as Fromm repeatedly states, we can form truly loving relationships where we get to know the center of a person, or in other words achieve “central relatedness”.

By reviewing his exploration of the nature of love, one learns that achieving this will require:

1. careful attention to the needs of other individuals,
2. readiness to act to promote their welfare,
3. respect for their unique individuality, and
4. an effort to get to know them.

One also must be willing to grow in maturity to see others and oneself as we truly are (something which Fromm refers to as “objectivity”) as well as to have faith that humankind (or “mankind” as he states) including oneself can become better.

No small order of course. But Fromm at least provides us with something worthy to aim for. And in the process, maps out at least some of the course we need to follow to leave consumerism behind us.

<< Previous Entry

Photo by NASA. From the Wikimedia Commons.

I have been writing in the past several months about various different environmental issues and posing various practical and philosophical solutions. And while that is all fine and dandy as they say, today I had a realization.

What about the big picture?

I mean, great. All these ideas are fine. But what exactly are we supposed to do? And not just a few things. But the whole enchilada, as they say.

After all, we have been working since, quite arguably, the 1970s with the advent of Earth Day to bring about environmental change. And look where it has got us. We now have the BP oil spill, the threat of drilling in the Arctic, an ever increasing problem with global climate change, and more. Our efforts to use reusable mugs, programmable thermostats, and the odd carpool simply have not cut the mustard, so to speak.

In two words, I feel that what we need is extreme cooperation. I mean, seeing people seriously come together in new and innovative ways to solve these problems.

What form would this cooperation take? Well, to draw on planning theory (which I can’t help but do, given my background in urban planning), I think we need to take a long hard look at feminist planning theory. This facet of planning theory advocates the creation of things like

1) common play areas, gardens, and dining halls,
2) communal kitchens, and
3) cooperative garages.

Now my crunchy granola friends (yes, believe it or not, there are some who are even “greener” than me), inform me that this type of arrangement is called an “intentional community” (with other terms, like “cohousing” and “ecovillages” falling under this umbrella.)

When you think about it a little, this sort of thing really makes a lot of sense. By using communal kitchens for instance, food could be cooked more efficiently in larger batches (which is important given that home food preparation, according to Just Food by James E. McWilliams, uses 25% of the total energy required to produce food). Additionally, fewer rooms would need heating since not so many rooms would be in use.

By working together more, other efficiencies could be gained. For instance, people could make trips together to places like stores. What is more, we could implement these changes quickly, using existing infrastructure. For instance, a street in a typical suburb could designate one house to be the “hub” where people do things cooperatively.

Now you might think this idea sounds a bit idealistic and unrealistic. After all, people are notorious for not getting along with their neighbours. Which is why so many have taken to cocooning in their homes (with their home movie-theatres and work-out rooms no less). But I say, if getting along is all that’s required to get us out of this environmental quagmire that we’re in, it’s worth a try. Is it not?

<< Previous Entry

Thus speaks a fictional gorilla in the book, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, after which the book is named. He does not communicate in a conventional manner, however, speaking mysteriously to the author through his eyes.

As he goes on to say, ten thousand years ago, humanity embarked on a similar “civilizational flight.” But our craft wasn’t designed according to any theory at all. Like the imaginary airman, we “were totally unaware that there is a law that must be complied with in order to achieve civilizational flight. “

As for what that law is, Ishmael calls it the law of “limited competition”. This is the law whereby populations are kept in check by limited food supplies. We falsely assume that we’re exempt from this law and that we can continue expanding and growing our population forever.

When did we adopt this attitude? It was with the advent of the “agricultural revolution” by people whom Ishmael calls the “Takers”. These people embarked on the gradual task of destroying all competitors for their food. This included the “competitors twice removed” such as plants crowding out grasses that fed their “game”. To make things worse, we have a materialistic culture that is “[c]onsuming the world.” By contrast, Ishmael refers to the so-called primitive peoples that lived in greater harmony with nature the “Leavers”.

Our misinterpretation of the Biblical creation story supports this attitude, Ishmael says. This is the story whereby Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and are expelled from the Garden of Eden. From it, the Takers have derived the conclusion that humanity is meant to be agriculturalists and subdue or “rule” the earth.

However, as Ishmael intriguingly argues, the story was actually written by the ancestors of the Hebrews who were originally “Leavers” (i.e. pastoralists). This explains why the “gods” withheld the very knowledge humanity needed to fulfill our supposed “destiny”. It also explains why agriculture is not portrayed as a desirable choice, but rather a curse whereby food must now be wrested from the ground by our “sweat”.

Ishmael is not suggesting we go back to being hunter-gatherers. Even Leaver cultures, he says, sometimes practiced a degree of farming or animal husbandry. Rather, the point is about becoming stewards of the Earth and letting the other peoples (i.e. “Leavers”) and creatures of this world live.

There are two reasons we should do this, according to Ishmael. Firstly, biodiversity is valuable in how it greatly increases the likelihood of life surviving changing conditions (e.g. an evolving climate). Secondly, other species have the incredible potential of becoming capable of what we have become!

In this light, the importance of the gorilla to humanity becomes apparent. Without the gorilla (and other species), we lack a sense of purpose. And so we find ourselves just going through the motions when doing things like dealing with our waste and stopping pollution. With other species like the gorilla still in existence, we can completely rethink the role for ourselves and our vision for the world.

Thus, the book ends with the following words written on a poster of Ishmael’s:

WITH GORILLA GONE,
WILL THERE
BE HOPE
FOR MAN?

<< Previous Entry

Photo by R. K. Singam From the Wikimedia Commons.

It is a belief many of us hold dear. That is with respect to how the future is with our children. If we teach them about the importance of environmental protection, they will make the changes needed to ensure a sustainable future. Yes, we have made and continue to make many environmental blunders. And yes, without a doubt, there are many who do not care about these blunders. Or at least enough to do something about it. But the children will be able to fix all of this.

The Source of Frustration

Oh boy. Allow me to take a deep breath. Why, do you ask? Because I must admit this sort of thinking has been anathema to me for a long time. The environmental problems we are facing must be addressed now. If we wait for our children to become involved, it will likely be too late. Precious species and ecosystems will be permanently lost; people will suffer from often environmentally-linked health issues like cancer and asthma; and the climate may be irrevocably damaged as a result of global climate change.

Based on such thinking, surely the solution lies in targeting those who are making the critical decisions affecting our environment today. By that I mean the adults, or, from a child’s (by which I also mean a youth’s) perspective, the “grown ups.” Amongst them are the businesspeople, the politicians, the bureaucrats, the leaders, the volunteers, who carry much of the power to guide us towards making more environmentally-responsible choices.

But does focusing on such individuals really hold the solution? Should we really channel all of our efforts towards them, at the expense of children? Well, a few years later and hopefully somewhat wiser, I have rethought my position.

The Importance of Environmental Education

For one thing, children have tremendous power to affect change by their own actions. An example that comes to mind which is relevant to Ontario is “Reduce the Juice”, a youth-led climate change organization. In Waterloo, they held a number of great events aimed at educating the public and themselves on how to conserve and use renewable energy. Additionally, for Earth Day in Waterloo Region, students from both elementary and high schools have participated in a wide range of activities including garbage pick-up, planting and caring for trees, and conserving energy.

An additional matter is the ability of children to influence their parents. For this reason, David Suzuki regrets not focusing on educating children 20 years ago when he started his foundation. As he said recently on The Hour, “We still don’t have time for them [the children] to grow up. But [for] all of the young people, the two most important people on the planet are your moms and dads.” And they say to their moms, “I’m really worried” and to their dads, ”What are you doing for me?”

There is yet another reason why we should educate our children about the environment. That has to do with the resiliency of the earth. Yes, we may foolishly wreak environmental havoc, and yes we need to take steps to stop this, but the earth has shown that it can repair itself (at least to a certain extent) if given sufficient opportunity. Examples are the improvements to the ozone layer and the recovery of species like the Bald Eagle. Rather than throwing our hands up in despair, we need to look towards the future to find ways to mend it. And teaching our children to value the environment and how to care for it is an important part of the solution.

Putting these Ideas into Action

That just about summarizes my thoughts on environmental education. Except with regard to how exactly we can achieve this. Fortunately, a wealth of information exists on how to include the environment in a school curriculum. A brief exploration of my public library produced a number of reference books. (Some books I found that seemed particularly useful were True Green Kids by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin, and As If Earth Matters by Thom Henley and Kenny Peavy.) A search on the Internet with the terms “environmental education for kids” also yields a plethora of information (including Kids for Saving Earth and EcoKids, both of which provide resources for teachers).

Also, with many universities offering degrees in environmental studies and Queen’s even having an Outdoor and Experiential Education program, there should be no shortage of people able to teach children about the environment (although, sadly, environmental studies does not qualify as a ‘teachable’ in teacher’s college, a situation that administrators would be wise to reconsider.)

Of course, from personal experience, I would say that all the teaching in the world about the environment will do little without enabling children to come into contact with nature firsthand. Only then can they develop a true understanding of the importance of protecting our “wild” spaces. This will require protecting our greenspaces (particularly those in urban spaces where children have less access to such areas), funding outdoor education programs like those associated with the Laurel Creek Nature Centre, and providing them with opportunities to join groups like the Waterloo Scout Group (which, by the way, is open to both girls and boys).

***

So. Environmental education for children. Is it important? Most definitely. Do we have the resources to rise to the challenge? Absolutely. Should we rely solely on children to do all the work for us? Not at all. But that doesn’t mean they should be left out of the equation. As for the time to act, as they say, no time is like the present. So let’s get going!

<< Previous Entry

Photo by User Minesweeper From the Wikimedia Commons

I’m going to put myself on the line here. Today, I’m going to say something that strikes at the heart of many of the issues I’ve been talking about up until now (i.e. energy/offshore oil drilling, global climate change). What is that ‘something’ you may ask? Well, it is…the car is evil. There, I’ve said it. To repeat with even greater emphasis and for more cathartic effect: The Car Is Evil, THE CAR IS EVIL.

Why do I choose to bring the subject up now, after so many months of blogging? Well, let’s just say I had the opportunity to participate in a discussion recently about cars. The conversation, before I joined in (or you could say, before I decided to ‘rant’), focused mainly on the technical aspects of cars. That is, how we could make them better, such as by making them electrically-powered and so on.

Now I know that the individuals participating in this conversation had the best of intentions. They were concerned about the problems of global climate change and air pollution that accompany the use of the internal combustion engine. As you likely can guess, I do not disagree with either of these issues. In fact, I am very worried about the effects that a burgeoning demand for the automobile in places like China will have on the world’s climate and air quality.

However, solving the technical issues with the automobile will not be a sufficient antidote. The automobile is at the root of many additional woes that techno fixes to its build alone will not address. Some of you may be aware of what these are. Nevertheless, for the sake of argument, I will lay them out here.

To begin and of perhaps greatest concern, the automobile eats at the hearts of our communities. How does it do this? Well, by providing, or at least giving the impression of providing, a swift getaway from our neighbourhoods/ workplaces/etc. and by insulating drivers and passengers from those who pass them on the course of their travels. In doing so, the automobile effectively facilitates the creation of ‘islands of nowhere’. I say islands of nowhere, for what else could these places be, if we are so eager to get away from them?

There is a second point, closely related to the first one. Thanks to the automobile that enables long-distance travel, we have seen the proliferation of centralized, mega “Super” centres, schools, community centres, industrial parks, and such. This is concerning because they are, for the most part, not easily accessible except by automobile. I say not easily accessible because in some situations mass transit can be taken, albeit not without a considerable investment of time and effort.

What happens in the process? Well, customers are diverted away from local businesses (which add greatly to the soul of communities), children must travel miles away for their education (rather than take the far more healthy option of walking and cycling), parents (i.e. ‘soccer moms’) are forced to spend hours in the car to transport their children to activities, and workers often must travel great distances to their places of employment (with a resultant loss in productivity, due to fewer hours potentially worked and the toll that traveling places on worker health).

There are other problems as well. Consider the dangers of navigating, often at high speeds, busy streets and roads, with often equally frustrated and impatient drivers. There is also the sense of boredom and isolation that can occur for those that cannot drive the automobile, like children and certain portions of the elderly and the disabled.

Last but not least, many harmful environmental impacts are associated with the logistics of  making automobile travel feasible. This includes 1) the pollution from mining and processing of materials that go into the creation of the car (even if most of the material is reclaimed, there is still some that is typically not); 2) how the roads must be constructed with materials largely gathered from oil and aggregate (i.e. gravel) extraction, both of which being activities fraught with environmental problems; and 3) the detrimental effects to wildlife, as expressways cut through precious natural areas, parking lots cover more greenspace, and hazardous roadways prevent the safe crossing of many creatures.

There. Now, I’ve said my piece. And feel much the better for it. Now I know that I along with many who are like-minded will undoubtedly continue needing to use the automobile on occasion, until the proper infrastructure and support network is built up. However, as we are now in a situation when our addiction to oil and its use by the automobile is coming under increasing fire, the time for a thorough dialogue on these matters has come. Let us hope we make the right choices.

<< Previous Entry

Copyright Joi Ito. From flickr.

I’m sorry to report that leading climatologist Dr. Stephen H. Schneider has died yesterday. His death, reported by the New York Times, is tragic news for those concerned about global climate change. A long-time advocate on the need for action on climate change, his death is perhaps particularly saddening now, at a time when opposing camps on global climate change (as well as other problems associated with fossil fuel use) appear to be becoming increasingly polarized. (Only earlier this month, Schneider and other climate scientists reported receiving hate mail for their stance on the issue.)

Schneider was the editor of a journal called Climatic Change as well as author and co-author of numerous scientific papers. He was also the writer of several books including Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate. His work attests to his careful observation of the scientific basis for climate change, while at the same time relentless drive to raise the issue in the public sphere.

Schneider is reported to have died of a heart attack. He recently visited the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in May, and had been hoping to return in the fall. The torch now falls to other climatologists to continue the struggle that he undertook. Let us wish them the very best in their efforts.

<< Previous Entry

Copyright Pam Brophy.

Are you…Concerned about eating in a more environmentally sustainable fashion, but not sure how? Wanting to be a culinary adventurer, but feeling that one must search abroad for tasty delights? Wanting to read a funny, interesting read as well? If this is the case, I strongly recommend that you give Margaret Webb’s book, Apples to Oysters, a try.

Working a zigzagged trail from the east to west of Canada, Webb carefully selects eleven food or drink producers to teach us about how to be kind to our palette and/or health, and the earth all at the same time. What is perhaps even more fascinating is how we find out that producing food in an ecologically sound way often makes good business sense too.

Take as a case in point Johnny Flynn’s farmed Colville Bay oysters from Prince Edward Island (farming being a practice preferable to fishing which in the past has seriously threatened oyster populations in this bay). They are so delectable that at one point, Webb’s partner jokingly asks whether she would go straight, if only to get some more of his oysters. With most of his oysters being choice, he is able to command top price for his produce.

But wait. There’s more. Like the wildly popular, recently discovered Ambrosia apple from British Columbia, which just so happens to be organic. Or the “earthy and sensual” soft cheese from Quebec, produced by the milk of cattle that feed on marsh grass. And last but not least, a Niagara winery committed to minimizing pesticide use (a practice called integrated pest management) that is also the maker of a leading Riesling ice wine.

I could go on, but there are the health matters as well. One that may be of particular interest is the mainly grass-fed beef from Alberta, which has a lovely flavour and much less fat than grain-fed beef. Webb also introduces us to the roasted (and sometimes, due to customer demand, organic) flax seed that, as she phrases it, makes you go “ding ding”, as regular as a “church bell.”

While many food producers in this book seem to be struggling to keep up with customer demand, the author is careful not to paint an entirely rosy picture for farmers considering following a similar path. For instance, we learn about a couple with an organic farm in the Yukon who cannot make mortgage payments after a series of crop failures (they plan to start again, but this time on a smaller scale).

Another caveat provided to readers is to not be hasty when deciding what is “environmentally sustainable”. For example, we are told copper – classified as an organic spray used as a fungicide – is “deadly” poisonous and does not break down. Thus, the owners of the winery, I mentioned earlier, prefer not to use it on their grapes.

The author should be commended for providing an honest portrait of the trials and tribulations of  “ecologically-sensitive” food production, for she has a definite reason to be biased towards such efforts. As readers are told, the decline in health and eventual death of her father may have been caused by the pesticides used on the family farm.

All in all, Webb has written a very worthwhile book, providing valuable information for “foodies” and environmentally conscious consumers alike. However, rather than laying things out in black-and-white, she provides ample (excuse the pun) food-for-thought. So…get a copy of this book and enjoy. Who knows? You might be inspired to take a gastronomic trip of your own!

<< Previous Entry