Tools for change

I found this Canadian website (you can tell by the maple leave) that focuses on Tools for Change. I looked particularly at the Topic Resources and there at the first column called Environment. http://www.toolsofchange.com/en/topic-resources/
Seems like there's a lot of initiative out there to reduce waste, improve public transit, remove mercury from old cars, stop the use of pesticides on public land, electric vehicles ...   I have not found an initiative happening especially in Edmonton but I got a story to share. 


Edmonton actually tried to reduce the use of chemicals on parkland. They figured that to apply alternative ways to deal with weeds and insect pests they would have to spend double the current amount on park land maintenance. It has not been said if the city will go ahead with this. Obviously, this money has to come from tax payers but there are always lots of other issues that require this money and Canadians are paranoid about taxes too. Maybe municipal park land one day is handled like provincial and national parks - with user fees. You use it, you pay. You don't use it, you don't pay. Funny enough people complain about the user fees here too. There's a fee for entrance, for camping, for making a fire, for parking ... well, the money to run the parks does not rain from the sky. It's either taxes or user fees. In Germany we have a tax based system more so than user fees. People get used to taxes, the complaints don't last long. I bet almost nobody remembers the time when GST was 16% (now it's 19% - yes, they did that in one raise and it did not kill anybody!)           


Cars - recently I read an article about Manitoba's car insurer. It's a monopoly and the plan is to force people to recycle their old car with legislation. The article pointed out the impact on poorer people who depend on old cheap cars to keep or get a job. It also pointed out that lots of cars build before 1995 were more fuel efficient than new ones and therefore should not be replaced. Last but not least the retired cars need to be recycled and new ones are needed as replacement which puts unnecessary strain on resources, material. The Canadian government, though not forcing it, also advertises their retire your ride campaign where you can trade your pre-1996 car in for money or transit passes. Deadline is March 31, 2011. European countries have done similar things. I believe Germany requires car manufacturers to take their old vehicles back for recycling. Generally, there's nothing wrong with these retire-your-rides initiatives but it would be better if their were more selective - get the polluters off the road independent from the age of the car.