Nestlé Chair Brabeck-Letmathe doesn’t deserve an honorary degree

Another email I received that makes me shake my head as usual at the stupidity shown. You wonder who comes up with this BS. What does this man get a degree for? For setting bad examples!! Once a water market anywhere in Canada is privatised it will set the path for more of such privatisations and soon we compete with big, rich (because they don't pay taxes) corporations over our daily water! Once water prices explode it will surely stop people from wasting water but it will also cut us off from one of our most basic needs - no water, no life.  But hey, I just had an idea: If you work for one of those corporations who want to buy water rights and profit big from what comes out of your tap, go to work with as many barrels as you can fit into your car (for once it will come in handy if you still drive a big one) and fill them up with water at work and then distribute in your neighbourhood. Want to see the look in your employer's face. 

There's a link, it's in your hand too:
            

Dear supporters of Our Water Is Not For Sale,

Please take a few minutes for this important action alert from the Council of Canadians: “Tell the U of A that Nestlé Chair Peter Brabeck-Letmathe doesn’t deserve an honorary degree.”
The University  of Alberta has announced that on March 1, 2012 it will award an honouary degree to Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the Chair of Nestle, the world’s largest multinational food and water corporation and the largest bottled water corporation in the world.
Nestle has been a leading force in pushing the privatization and commodification of water globally. They have also been pushing water markets in Alberta. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has bragged that Nestle is “actively dealing with the government of Alberta to think about a water exchange.” His comments come at a time when our network and many Albertans have been raising concerns about the serious problems with water markets and pushing for the government to consult with Albertans.
Please click here for the full action alert with more information. Or use the Council’s online form to email the University.

Re-occupy your body or accept the 3 reasons to die for

Veggies on Wheels is the newsletter that comes with Pfenning's organic box and this time it reports on Pfenning's participation at the Guelph Organic Conference (which I did not go to because it's in Guelp and I don't have a car to get there). One of the biggest issues were GMO, courtesy of Monsanto. Apparently the majority of Canadians still don't know anything about GMO (which box do they live in?). The reader is then referred to the article Re-occupy your body and a pamphlet has been enclosed from Cban.ca (Canadian Biotechnology Action Network) with info on GMO but I talk about that in another post.   


I have not read the whole article yet because it's long but I'm sure it's good. The three reasons that are most threatening to our health, and according to the newsletter make up the primary causes of disease and death nowadays, are: 
- bad food 
- most prescription drugs
- a poisoned environment

Which one disturbs you most and which one can you influence the best? Go figure. 
I am not concerned with the second point (yet) as I don't take any drugs. The first one is half-concerning to me. I know we still do not eat completely organic.  I am not feeling great about our daughter drinking non-organic milk but she drinks lots and the non-organic costs enough. Also, I am sure we'd eat a bit more meat if the organic stuff did not cost a fortune. But it's not actually that difficult to eat healthy and decent food. You do the shopping, you decide what's in your cart, it's in your hands. And by the way, buying non-organic produce and peeling it in the hope to get rid of the bad stuff does not seem the best idea. You are still supporting the farmers who contaminate our environment and the bad stuff will go through the skin of some fruits and vegetables. 

The poisoned environment is a huge concern, especially with this government that's big on setting up environmental disasters. You can't really "un-poison" the environment and get rid of all the harm that has been done but we can slow down the add-on of chemicals and toxic substances to our air, water and soil. Looking around me it still doesn't happen enough. For example, when I cycle or walk I probably breathe in more greenhouse gases than the car drivers. That's nuts! I'm the victim of other people's polluting habits. I noticed that most people are happy to give me a ride (if I ask) but carpooling is still not very common. That's nuts too! Driving is just one issue, but you scan make up the list yourself of activities that harm our environment. And then start ticking off the bad habits you give up. This should become a mandatory, annual exercise for everyone. I wonder how slowly or quickly things would change and how big the procrastination rate is.  

Redecorating and other bits and pieces

How is the New Year been so far for you? As crazy as here? My daughter lost my wallet yesterday, just to name one issue.

We had the Law Enforcement Agent from the city of Kitchener in yesterday to look at our windows. We heat very little (20 C is all we need) and the winter has been mild so far but with these windows we'd be heating the outdoors too. And they are wet and we get mould that I am sure was here before they painted the walls before our move in. The management sees nothing wrong in the windows because they are cheap and don't care but hopefully the agent can help us sort the issue.           
Today we finally got our organic box back. I'm so glad because our fridge and obviously we have been starved of organic produce during most of the holidays. Eating has just gotten better again. For Christmas I got a small food processor and now we even make our own sugar and salt-free organic peanut butter. Yum!

My most recent project was to sand off and paint the sturdiest chair in out apartment. It's a zebra now! Beautiful!! It's a unique chair now more than ever, we never had a match to it any way since it was given to us by family together with a dinner table and three chairs (they had broken one). But we don't need four ordinary chairs at the table because we have a high chair too so this fourth one adorns our living room. And it goes well with the rest of our black, white and dark green furniture. I also repainted the top of our coffee table that my husband redid over a year ago. He never sealed the top though so the paint kept chipping off. I put glaze on top, all good. I am still working on our former TV stand that has been turned into a play counter for our daughter. It's got a white base so far and large farm animal stickers around the side but I want to paint geometrical shapes still on top. Why buy new furniture if redecorating is so much more fun. 

Makes me think about a change in career considering the slow job market for office admin/ tourism jobs here in KW.  I have also taken up tutoring German and showing Cutco knives to whoever is interested. If you have read the article of David Suzuki that probably appeared in almost every paper in Canada on Christmas you know that these aren't the worst jobs and products. Services, contrary to manufacturing and mining, often do not harm the environment. Services generally do not produce (as much) carbon emissions, destroy landscapes and forests, pollute air & water. The article was great and I am sure I read something similar from him the year before - it needs constant reminders that we should not be so materialistic and wasteful. Did I mention that Cutco has a forever guanrantee? Cutco knives need very little resharpening (every 10 years or so) and the company does this for free for you forever. Cutco also takes back and recycles your old knives and therefore reduces a lot of waste. I could not sell anything I don't personally like but Cutco I do like not only from the environmental perspective.  

Did you read the article of the UN advising people all over the world to stop consuming so many dairy and meat products in order to stop climate change? Super interesting too. Producing food for cows and Co. produces as much carbon emissions as burning fossil fuels for cars, industry and households. And it takes good food, grains etc. away from our tables. You know we already don't each much meat but still have quite a number of dairy products in our household such as milk for the child, yoghurt for mum & daughter, cheese for all. Not sure if our dairy consumption is below, above or at average with the rest of the population in Canada, Germany and elsewhere. Something would be missing without these dairy products in our household. Especially since we can't grow tropical fruits here which would be a nice replacement but other than that I can't even think of one. Maybe that's how lots of people think about replacing meat. Although I find lentils, grains, greens, vegetables, beans are around in such a variety that I have certainly as many options there as there is different cuts of meat.         
Does any of your new year's resolutions help the environment?

How safe is your water?

Quick, look at the Essentials of Waterproof which will tell you what Canada's Federal government and the provinces do (or not do and should be doing) to protect our drinking water. Thankfully, we live in Ontario now which has the highest standards in the country! If you don't have the time to read 4 very interesting pages look at least at Canada's drinking water report card by Ecojustice.
Click on this Link to get more information, access to the full report and to sign the petition to support safer water for all Canadians.  At least, I don't want to end up having to buy bottled water for my every day needs like drinking and cooking!

Once more yes, I found it shocking, disappointing but not surprising to find out the government does not do anything to protect our drinking water sources!

When it comes to the environment Alberta more than sucks - yet another proof

I copied below the header of a recent email I received and a link to the article in the Edmonton Journal. In Alberta they just don't get it that it is not of public interest to have water issues dealt with by energy industry leaders! Environmental matters  are getting neglected more and more every time there's change in who gets to deal with it. How dare they? 

Dear supporters of Our Water Is Not For Sale,
Research into water is critically important to our collective future, yet this research is being compromised and controlled by corporate interests.
The article below, printed in the Edmonton Journal last week, addresses the changes with the Alberta Water Research Institute, whose work will now be directed by a board with energy industry priorities. The board is chaired by a former Syncrude CEO, and includes a former vice president for Petro-Canada, a senior director with Agrium, a former CEO for Nexen, and a senior vice president for Capital Power.
This move further indicates the corporate hold on water and the steps the corporate sector is taking to control a substance that is vital to all life. We continue to be concerned by the push towards water markets in our province, and protecting the public interest requires research that is not dominated by corporate interests.

Please help us spread the word! Share this article with anyone who might share your concern. Thank you for your continued support to Our Water Is Not For Sale!

Read the full article below, or click here to read it on the Edmonton Journal website.

Canada's biggest parties and their goals for the environment

.. if they get elected that is. CPAWS together with a bunch of other environmental organisations went to ask the 5 major parties to answer a few questions about greenhouse gas emissions, protecting public water sources, public transit, oil sands, chemicals in every day products and more. Follow the link to read the answers. Guess what, the blue party (Conservatives, for all Non- Canadians) did not reply at all! Do I dare to say it?: Don't you dare voting for them! 

Canadians waste water, flush garbage down toilet

This is a recent article in the Epoch Times and well, you may guess my reaction. Here are the facts from the 4th annual Canadian Water Attitudes Study:


- almost 3 out of 4 Canadians admit to flushing leftover food, hair, bugs, cigarettes and other items that could be disposed of elsewhere down the toilet, wasting 6 to 20 litres of clean water per flush; Albertans (83%) are most likely, Quebecois (65%) least likely do flush the wrong things down the toilet - do they not realise it's wrong?
- 55% Canadians believe water is Canada's most important natural resource
- 78% say they try reasonable hard to conserve water - how do you define reasonably hard????
- 80% know the water in the toilet has drink water quality - which does not stop them from wasting it.
- 76% are aware that almost half of the water used in a home is flushed down the toilet
- people between 18 and 35 (84%) waste more water than those over 55 (63%)
- Canadians use on average 327 litres per day - 67% underestimate this amount
- 46% leave the water running while doing the dishes
- the study assumes that Canadians waste water because they (61%) don't know what they pay for it, 70% thinks though it costs enough to be treated as a valuable resource - really? so why don't they behave accordingly?  
-  Canadians pay less for water than other developed nations, e.g. 4 times less than the French, 7 times less than Germans - water use there is much lower!- time to put water meters into every Canadian household and charge per unit!


Water expert Bob Sandford (remember him?) says: "They claim to care about conserving it, yet knowingly engage in water wasting activities, including using fresh, clean water to dispose of garbage." and "Canadians need to understand that water is a finite resource and there are significant social and economic implications related to wasting it." and "This data highlights, once again, that Canadians are not making the connection between their personal water use and the true value of water." and until this changes "our water wasting habits will continue." 


I think lots of Sandford and I wonder if he's ashamed of being a Canadian sometimes for all he knows about water and how Canadians treat it. Some of those percentages are definitely too high. I also wonder why Canadians don't get the message. If at least the governments at federal, provincial and/ or municipal level would get it they could surely crank up the price of water. That will not get them reelected but it will save the future of this country somewhat, and protect the environment.  Now pull yourselves together, Canadians!

Tapped

is a US American documentary from 2009 about bottled water and you can find out more at: www.tappedthemovie.com

The film is split into the issue of where the water comes from and then the bottles. Communities in water-rich states of the US are rallying against Nestle (a Swiss corporation), Pepsi & CocaCola who steal their drinking water. In some states, according to the legislation, water is practically free for anyone and so these companies come and pump as much as they can to later sell it at a huge profit. These companies even kept operating the year (2007?) that over 30 states were facing dorught conditions and municipalities restriced water usage. I understood their rage but I also kept thinking: don't buy bottled water! It's such a logical consequence that will put the corporations out of that business! It still leaves them in the need for water to produce coke and other pop drinks/ sodas but it would help a lot.


Don't buy bottled water.

Why is bottled water so big? - In 1989 it became possible to put water into lightweight, cheap, clear PET bottles. Bottled water became a huge commodity and private corporations have not stopped making their profit of it. 

Don't buy bottled water.   
 

One of my favourite quotes in the film goes something like this: We have all become like big toddlers .. that need to know constantly that there's something there; we want it individualized, personalized, we don't want to have take care of it, just throw it away. We want it immediately available and convenient otherwise we'll have a fit. -- It explains why most of us do not reuse a (BPA-free!) bottle that can be simply refilled from the tap. I do of course. 


Don't buy bottled water. 

Advertisement makes us believe that bottled water is purer & healthier than tap water. 40% of all bottled water in the US is simply filtered tap water and due to "processing" and packaging not better than tap water. Different tests have found bacterial contaminants, arsenic, benzene, vinyl chloride, styrene, phthalate, and other carcinogenic substances. Why is this?  Municipalities have to test their water several times per day to insure its safety - Pepsi & Co. don't have to do this. Even when these companies do their own tests on water sources and products they don't have to make them public. The government does not help either. In all of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) there's only one person looking after bottled water regulations, and she has other responsibilities too. The FDA only regulates products that move between states, so if water is bottled and sold in the same state the FDA does not care about it. Unfortunately consumers have too much faith in a self-regulated industry!
 
Don't buy bottled water.  
 

Now the bottles are usually made of PET or PETE which requires a substances that derives from the refining process of crude oil which tends to come with cancer-causing "by-products". The production of plastic bottles contaminates water!!! & air. Big sturdy bottles often contain Bisphenol A (BPA). The review of 700 studies concluded though that BPA is related to diabetes, breast & prostate cancers, obesity,  liver diseases, diseases of the uterus, brain disorders (hyperactivity), low sperm count and more. 

Don't buy bottled water. 


Once the bottle's been used it needs to go somewhere preferably into recycling. While worldwide 50% of all beverage containers get recycled it's only 20% in the US. And who pays for it? Often the municipality that provides safe tap water. In some states there's a deposit. It's proven that deposits ensure bottles are returned for recycling. The bottled water industry prefers curbside recycling though and ignores the fact that 50% of Americans don't have access to curb side recycling. Consequently millions of bottles each year are incinerated releasing dioxin, or end up in landfills and in the ocean! Another great quote: The beach of the future does not have shells, corals and sand - it has a plastic cover! 
In the Pacific two garbage patches have been located, one in the East, one in the West. That's where due to currents plastics have accumulated from Asia and America. The same applies to other oceans!  In 2008 researchers found 48 times as much plastics as planktons in these garbage patches. A researcher resumed: Bottled water might be good in disaster relief but is a disaster in every day use.

Don't buy bottled water. 

It's Water (& Oil) Week!

Yes, it's time to celebrate that we still have some reasonably clean water, at least in this part of the world. Of course, a range of presentations and talks is held this week at the University of Alberta and unfortunately I have not been to any yet thanks to a 24-hour-flu spread over 2 days. Never mind, tomorrow is my turn. Yes, the film screening is about the oil sands, what else should it be about in Alberta! Here is the trailer to White Water, Black Gold so you don't forget how much beauty and ugliness co-exist - and you can make a bet on which side will win, probably still in your lifetime.

At this point I would like to make a comment about a comment posted on CPAWS Northern Alberta's Facebook page. Last week CPAWS posted a link  to an article in the Globe and Mail titled U.S. think tank urges preservation of Canada's boreal forest  It fits in here because the oil sands are not only wasting and spoiling Canada's water they also destroy lots of boreal forests. So here's the comment of a reader:  "If Canadiens at large were aware of how significantly the boreal forest has shrunk over the last, say thirty years, they would freak. They really would. Ignorance from the part of the population has allowed the industry to clear cut their way across the continent. For humans to come to their senses there is nothing like being confronted to irreparable dammage ..." 

Optimist! I'm disillusioned. No, Canadians would not freak, ignorance makes life much easier than freaking over something. How many Canadians know about the oil sands? I hope it's part of their school curriculum, so all of them. And how many freak about it? A minority!? Shrugging shoulders, saying it's bad and then forget about it (that's the usual reaction I see), does not do anything. Some bold people will admit to being oil addicted, as individual and as nation. My husband complains that the accounting systems used in Edmonton have long been thrown out in the UK and NZ as obsolete; well, environmental behaviour here is just as behind. I can't believe it's the US that comes up with the recommendation of protecting the boreal forest. Sure, if the US does not buy the oil than somebody else does. Alberta is working hard to expand into the Asian market, planning pipelines across the Alberta and B.C. to the Pacific. Enbridge is packing "the Northern Gateway Project" up as a fantastic project that will bring so much prosperity. Oh, and they plan to import condensate (something 'harvested' from natural gas) which is odd but I have not found out the reason yet (not yet read their complete brochure).  I'm looking forward to tomorrow's film.
           

We are in the Water for Life Decade

Yes, that came to me as a surprise as well. I had not noticed although it started already back in 2005! That means we are more than half way through this decade. I found out thanks to a talk that will be held at the Royal Alberta Museum by Robert Sandford. He has written several books on water issues and is considered a Canadian water issues expert. All of the following links are from organisations or projects that he is somehow involved in. And as great as all these initiatives are I am somewhat disappointed that I had not heard of any of them before. So how successful will they be, I wonder? 


The water for life decade is a program of the United Nations and deals with lots of water related issues such as scarcity, financing, quality, access, water in cities .... http://un.org/waterforlifedecade/background.html   In 2010 the UN also started a Decade for deserts and the fight against desertification. 2011 is the year of forests and March 22 is World Water Day.


These websites are especially for Canadians with information on the fresh water situation in Canada, how they are approached by politicians and how we can change our own behaviour to save water.  
http://www.flowcanada.org/

http://www.goblue.org 


One or the other corporation has set up a grant program and support network for community initiatives and organisations like Evergreen and Tide. Some aim specifically at water related issues, others help with the protection of our environment in general:
http://www.unilever.ca/sustainability/Environmental_sustainability/Community_partnerships/

http://bluewater.rbc.com/index.php


Then there's the scientific side to the issues: 

http://www.wwcrc.ca/  
The Western Watersheds Climate Research Collaborative is a non-profit organization established in association with the University of Lethbridge. The mission of this collaborative is to establish a broad scientific basis for understanding and
responding to climate related impacts in the Canadian West.

http://www.waterinstitute.ca/ The Alberta water institute has to deal with some oil sands related water issues of course: http://www.waterinstitute.ca/accelerating_dewatering_of_oil_fine_tailing.htm

That's a paragrpah that caught my attention on Flow:

"The Federal government has responsibility over various aspects of water including navigable waters and inland fisheries, interjurisdictional waters and federal lands and waters - such as military bases and First Nations reserves. At one time, the Federal government was keen to address fresh water concerns. They created institutions with a specific water focus (i.e., the Inland Waters Directorate and the Canada Centre for Inland Waters); passed legislation (i.e., Canada Water Act, 1970) and signed international agreements (i.e., Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, 1972). Notably, the Government outlined its commitment to water through the Federal Water Policy, tabled in 1987.
Federal interest in water, however, has declined over the last couple of decades. The Inland Waters Directorate, for instance was disbanded in the early 1990s and despite the significant amount of resources dedicated to developing the Federal Water Policy, few if any of the recommendations were ever implemented in a meaningful way." 

Big SIGH! Canada, you will have big problems one day if your resources keep being used so recklessly and without consequences. Generally, I would not want to burden the government with regulating every aspect of our life, including all natural resources. But as we know all too well industry does not take care of the resources they use as much as they should and not even the little man in the street does. But if the little man in the street does care he has still limited power. E.g., I can't go and buy a river and dictate that nobody uses the water, or determine how the water should be used and returned to the river. But the government can. I like to believe the government is not stupid enough that they don't realize the urgency of protecting our fresh water. Their ignorance is there for certain reasons. In Alberta the governent now is proud to have set up a committee to investigate the environmental impacts of the tar sands operations but it will take lots of time until first results come up and actions will be taken. I still doubt the indepence of that committee and I think they aren't in any rush because the province depends on the tar sands and does not want to hinder their development.  I think this country needs a massive natural catastrophe, like a big wake-up call, to realize things aren't right the way they are.

Pharmaceuticals, doctors and water

I mentioned before that pharmaceuticals can be found in treated waste water and cause havoc in nature. In fact, a recent article in the Epoch Times lists which type of pharmaceuticals (anti-depressants, antibiotics etc.) are dominant in certain US cities. Near animal feed lots concentration of growth hormones are way higher than in other water sources. The article also mentions the affected creatures such as fish, frogs, shrimp and how the pharmaceutical traces in the water change their behaviour or sexual organs. If it happens to them who says it will not happen to us? My husband told me today that the radio station he listens to asked why in recent years more girls are born than boys, even though boys have been the majority for a long time. How about BPA (bisphenol A, a toxin similar to oestrogen) and leftovers of the anti-baby-pill? They are in the water, no doubt. 
Obviously, there is enough reason not to tell the public about all that because you don't want to scare them about such simple things as drinking tap water. One major reason must be the pharma-industry that is keen on selling their products, which brings me to a different article on the same page. It states that aggressive marketing should make one very suspicious about a drug. But let's face it, doctors are only human beings too and just as susceptible to marketing as everyone else and it can be hard to say no. So doctors might happily prescribe a drug that is not very effective, is not approved because there has not been enough testing, not on the right test group anyway, is not as safe as the producer claims, but is marketed very well. In addition, the pharma-industry comes up with medication for conditions that do not even exist and did not used to be considered an illness, such as pre-diabetes or pre-hypertension. Voila, more and more pharmaceuticals make their way into our bodies, some of them needless and useless, get flushed out and cause further damage in fish, animals and us again as the water does its cycle and eventually comes through our tap again. 
I know we can't tell everybody to get off their medications but those who take them should question their purpose and usefulness and look into alternatives.                                  

Our health sector and the environment

No doubt about there's too much waste, too many materials used, too many chemicals used, too much of everything bad for the environment in the health sector. Think about packaging for pharmaceuticals, every item that any health professional uses wrapped separately, everything needs to be kept sterile, ... I don't want to know how many gallons of sanitizers a hospital goes through in a day, how many dozens of garbage bags it fills, how many pages of papers are printed, ... 

I read an article in the Epoch Times titled "Diabetes and the rise of the machines". I talks about kidney failure and the treatment that follows. There's two main options. One dialysis treatment takes place at home, during the night, where a machine takes on the job your kidney usually does. The patient in the article receives 17 boxes of liquids and tubing, each weighing 35 lbs, each week! The other treatment, called hemodialysis, happens at the hospital, three times per week for 5 hours each. The cost is $60,000 per year per patient. The number of patients has more than tripled in 20 years, from 11,000 in 1990 to 38,000 in 2010 in Canada. The increase is largest in persons above 75 years of age. Kidney transplants are much cheaper but there are not enough donors. 
 
Since I'm not a very empathetic person one of my first thoughts was, "OMG, all that waste". I must admit though that the fact that the couple in the article used to live in the US but returned to Canada because the treatment is here covered by the public health sector was one of the reasons why I did not feel for them. Anyway, the rise in life expectancy is again backfiring. In Africa they'd probably look at this issue in disbelief. With all the health systems in the highly developed countries being overburdened immigration to less developed countries might become a trend one day, as long as the immigrant is healthy obviously.  For the time being somebody has to deal with that overburden. 

Back to my waste issue though. It's going to get worse as our population gets older and seeks medical treatment more frequently. I hear it from my family and it's ridiculous, they are off to the doctor for every little cough. For reasons of sanitation not much is going to change about all the packaging, the sanitizers, the single-use utensils. If hospitals are as bad as schools in Edmonton there will not even be much recycling in place which is a shame. Thinking about right now, I wonder though why there's so much fuss about treating human beings in sterile, clean environments. Animals get treated in the field, on the ground, in the barn, somewhere not so 'clean'. I remember watching young stallions in Iceland being castrated in the backyard of the farmer. Once their best parts were cut off they were, still under sedatives, put back into the field. Done. No fuss, no problem, they all survived without infections. With animals there's also a more sane approach of live and let die which will unfortunately disappear as pets are more and more treated like humans (I doubt they like it) but that's again a different story.        
 

    

Our leisure and the environment

When it comes to the environment it's always the same things that are targeted by critics - it's the oil industry, greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels (cars, houses, industry), it's more and more what is in products and then the every day Joe has to reduce water, electricity use, waste ... It's all not wrong but a lot of things get left out: from Formula 1 to stock cars, monstrous trucks, motorcycles, any race of motorized vehicles should not be a sport but simply prohibited. Quads, snow mobiles and similar vehicles should only be used for working purposes not for fun rides. Then there are sightseeing flights, flights for sky divers and for stunts-shows in the air. Similarly this list can be done up for boats/ water traffic. So there are industries behind the use of motorized vehicles that make a lot of money and would not agree to any cut-downs for the environment's sake, namely the leisure, tourism and entertainment industries, as well as the manufacturers of the vehicles. It's all about fun and that's why it's probably not being attacked - don't we all earn that little bit of fun through the hard work we do and life's tough enough, bla bla bla? Maybe, maybe not. The terrible thing is that once you start you can go on and on about different leisure activities. Gyms for example is something I don't understand. All that equipment, the space, the air conditioning, TV screens .... a lot of material to help people work out because our modern jobs are not actually that physically challenging any more, unless you consider sitting on a desk for 8 hours or more per day a problem. I do. But sliding my butt back and forth across the chair and stomping my feet underneath the desk still does not give me the satisfaction of a physical work-out. Instead of a gym, I prefer to run outside, carry my shopping bags home and knead my bread dough ... it helps to stay fit. Oh, I just remember another one, pools! All that water in the pool, all that chlorine in the water, all that energy to heat the pool, all the substances & water needed to clean the facility. An aquatic centre is possibly an all-resources-consuming operation. But when the next ocean is 1000 of miles away and the river frozen and polluted anyway, no lake anywhere to see, where are we meant to swim? To lots of sport and leisure activities, I think, there is no good alternative. With regards to the pool, Edmonton has lots of them, they actually do a good deed to our society. As much as I don't understand why there is 99% seniors in the aquasize classes, as much I am glad to see them there. Water sports are good for the elderly and I wished they'd all be forced into it. I'm getting tired of all the studies that come up giving us the same advice over and over again: eat healthy food and exercise and you'll avoid cancers, obesity, diabetes, and so on. So here we go, let the old and young exercise, moderately of course, if it keeps them away from the doctor's office. The health sector is an environmental burden in itself that never gets attacked but more about that later. Still, 'sports' with motorized vehicles are not a work-out, not for the driver, not for the spectators. They should simply be abolished.          
                                     

The run off we cause ... - part 3

A few more facts from Crapshoot:

- Pharmaceutical compounds in Canadian effluent are among the highest in the modern industrialized world.

- 80 % of Canadian coastal cities dump their sewage untreated, raw, into the ocean where the waste piles up on the ocean’s ground – In St John’s, Newfoundland, the harbour is a huge bowl which is already covered 16 feet deep in waste from the sewage pumped into the harbour. 120 million litres of sewage every day!  120,000,000 litres every 24 hours!

- 80% of Canadian sewage goes through waste water treatment. Treated water is not necessarily safe! Treated but still contaminated water goes back in our water bodies inhabited by wildlife. Even small concentrations of something might cause huge damage in fish and other wildlife. Part of this wildlife and fish gets eaten by us. It does not hit us like a bang but it might come with long-term effects on us. Therefore it’s time to seriously consider the connection between our waste and how it - steps later - could affect us.   

Abby Rockefeller, President of the ReSource Institute for Low Entropy Systems (RILES), calls for a revolution of the system. To her the sewer system is the “peak of irrational”. She advocates a policy change that moves away from the mixing of wastes and using water as medium to carry waste towards on-site-waste-recycling and waterless meanings of dealing with waste. The main cost of the sewer is to connect the communities with pipes that transport the sewage away. On site systems do not require this infrastructure. Waste does not get spread out but is dealt with where it’s produced. If a company was unable to safely recycle its own waste or keep the material in the production loop it would not be operating. For the individual the composting toilet is an obvious solution. A composting toilet does not smell. While the solids, human excrements and kitchen waste, are composted by microbial and earth worms in a container in the basement of the building, any water goes through to a separate container for use as grey water. The compost from the solids is safe to handle, comes without health concern, smells and looks like soil.

I just found on the RILES website a post by Abby about the sewer, also under consideration of the septic system: http://www.riles.org/musings49.htm

The run off we cause ... - part 2

This is still referring to the things I learned from the documentary Crapshoot: 

 

We are looking now at sludge. Sludge is the solid waste after water is removed; it’s also called bio-solids even though that’s not quite right if you remember the list of substances going into sewage. As mentioned before, sewers were never meant to be clean and chemical-free. The use of sewers was not meant to result in safe and beneficial products that could be reintegrated into the nutrients cycle. In Canada half the sludge is still spread on farmland. Sludge is often free of charge to the farmer and even labelled as soil enhancer!

Example: In rural Ontario, where food is grown and cattle grazes, sludge is taken onto fields without notifying residents. The sludge gets dumped 1 to 5 times per day.  Afterwards plastics and waste products can be found on the fields. A resident started asking questions and got no proper answers from government authorities or the treatment plant. Instead she was threatened that she would have to shut up about the issue in order to not cause worries amongst other residents. Water tests come back with E-Coli contamination. Looking forward to your farm fresh produce now?

In Sweden and other European countries (Belgium, Netherlands) sludge spreading on farm land has been banned, not by government but by agricultural entities. One reason was that flame retardants in sewage were spread on fields and later found in food and breast milk – the concentration of flame retardants had doubled every 6 years in Sweden. These flame retardants are linked to causing cancers. In Sweden sludge has since been used as a land filling material in motorways and non-critical places.

The state-of-the-art waste management facility in Edmonton includes a huge composting hall. The resulting compost was initially sold as Nutri-Plus but not everything that goes into the composting hall is just organic waste. In the meantime it’s sold as compost enhanced top soil to residents and agriculture.

The run off we cause and its problems - part 1

The National Film Board of Canada made a film about sewage – S  E W A G E. I did not think there’s a film about this subject and I came across it accidentally but damn was that film interesting, an eye-opener you may say. It’s called Crapshoot: The gamble with our wastes. The films answers questions like: Where does the sewage go, what happens with it then, what does it do to us?

First it comes up with a list of what sewage involves: food leftovers, cleaning chemicals, detergents, toiletries, hair dye, paint thinners, pharmaceuticals, excrements, industrial solvents, paper mill residue, oil, cleansers, radioactive material, dental & hospital wastes, petroleum products, heavy metals … keep going, what else can you come up with? There’s almost nothing that’s not in sewage. Sewers have become super highways of toxic waste and hazardous components. Now think about what goes down your drain every day and what should not and why.   

    

The film points out that water is being used to transport a lot of waste somewhere else where we don’t see it any more and simply forget about it. But whatever gets mixed together in sewage can not be simply taken apart again! Sewers were never designed to treat the water to a stage where it becomes as clean as before. They were only designed to get rid of grey water. The most modern waste water treatment plants can not separate all the stuff that’s in our grey water so the water goes still contaminated back into water bodies, our rivers and lakes and oceans. Considering our dependence on water for drinking and food purposes alone it’s ridiculous how we waste water for purposes like sewage, as a medium to quicker transport waste “away” from us. Remember, our planet Earth is still roundish – it will all come back to us.    

Would you swim in the North Saskatchewan River?

At a meeting of my moms & tots group mum A said she’d take her child fishing because that’s what she used to do growing up in a small village in Alberta. Living in Edmonton now they fish in the North Saskatchewan River but they always release their catch and never eat the fish. They think the river is too polluted. Nobody swims in it either here. I mention this because living in Basel, Switzerland I noticed that residents swam in the Rhine that goes right through town. It’s legal and safe and fun. I tried it. There’s even an official river swim event once a year where hundreds of people take to the water and swim together through town. Since you usually do not return swimming to where you started you can buy a waterproof bag for your clothes that will float along with you.

Mom B then mentioned that her parents had a cottage at Wabamum Lake that used to be busy with fishing and recreational activities. But things have changed since the oil spill in August 2005 when a Canadian National Freight train derailed losing up to 1.3 million litres of heavy bunk oil. Over 700,000 litres are estimated to have flown into the lake. In addition, “hazardous chemicals” escaped as well but lake residents weren’t told until 4 days after the incident. Since the oil spill the consumption of fish has been limited; actually one should not consider eating the fish at all. CN was fined and ordered to clean up. That alone does not do the trick though! Money and more chemicals will certainly not “clean” the lake up to its previous beauty.

Talking with members of Edmonton’s Newcomers Club I hear again and again how dirty the lakes are in Alberta, unlike BC and Saskatchewan (and excluding the lakes in the national parks). Wonder why? I’m not 100% sure but I bet it’s got to do with oil drilling and coal mining and everything that comes with these dirty fossil fuels.  

persistence or perseverance ...

I don't know the difference but it pays out. I have tried to get a BecoPotty for Ruby for 3 months or so. It's a UK manufacturer, http://www.becothings.com/, but they changed their Canadian distributor recently and this one seems somewhat incompetent. They finally promised me my local baby store, http://www.birthsource.ca, will have them by the beginning of next week. PLEASE! BecoPotties are made of waste plant material and will biodegrade once you dig a hole for them in your garden. Great!  That's the only damn potty I want for my baby. This Birth Source store also has now disposable diapers in stock that will decompose. Since a box of 28 in Ruby's size costs $23 I opted for a Bummi diaper cover for $15 instead. The issue is that in the snuggly (carrier) Ruby's current diaper covers leak, Bummi does not, at least not today. If Bummi keeps it up I will not need any disposable diapers any more. Hurray! The diaper boxes are really sturdy though and come in handy now that we need to hide more and more things from Ruby. Oh well, I'll find some alternative that's not plastic or course. 
       I have recently also reused Ruby's bath water. She's got a little bath tub and in winter we bath her once a week or so. She does not really get dirty. Her bottom and face get washed several times a day, that's most important. So the bath water comes in handy too. I soak my jacket or one of her sleeping bags in it over night, with a little Borax added, scrub if in the morning and voila it's done. The other day I then used the water to wash the floor in the hallway. Perfect. 


   
                     

Oh, oceans ... and that fish that's left

Here are a few ocean-related facts that I found in the Epoch Times newspaper about 6 weeks ago:

-         About 80% of the world’s fish stocks are fully exploited or overexploited and thus require effective and precautionary management. 90% of all tuna and sword fish are already gone.--- If that's right I wonder why tuna & sword fish aren't a luxury yet. They should be dead expensive, or subsidised.      

-         Oceans absorb more carbon dioxide than the land. This absorption causes the ocean to become more acidic which leads to the dissolving of shell organisms that form the skeleton of coral reefs that will therefore die.

-         Higher biodiversity enhances the functioning of the deep-sea ecosystems which is vital for the sustainability of our biosphere. --- Having species die out never seemed a good thing but with the economic desire to uniform food so it looks and tastes the same no matter where and when you buy it biodiversity is on the losing end. It does not matter if that's the banana or beef burger or fish. Due to companies like Monsanto biodiversity will disappear ever so fast. I'll come back to that.    

-         By 2015 50% of the world’s population will live along coasts, adding pressure on coastal and marine biodiversity. --- This fact in in fact no surprise at all. Just as an example: With Canadian coastal cities happily dumping their waste raw (untreated) into the ocean, what do you think is happening in poor countries? Lots and lots of water pollution ...  

David Suzuki Foundation also had a lot of fish-related articles on the website recently:   

1. Did you know that Canada's Atlantic longline swordfish fishery kills tens of thousands of sharks each year? To find out more and take action got to http://www.friendsofhector.org/

2. Killer whale wins court case for Canada's marine species at risk! http://bit.ly/gVLaZh

 It's a good start but the article points out there's a BUT. It's nice to have laws but laws have to be enforced in order to make a difference and the Canadian government is not famous for enforcing laws that protect anything related to the environment.   

3. Saving Pacific salmon is possible and profitable! Profit is possible on all fronts with closed containment salmon farming

Again, it's a beginning but there's still a study in progress and change tends to happen slowly ... I hate to say it but "better late than never" has developed a sour taste for me. It might be too late for one or the other species at risk. Read also http://bit.ly/eYcWNU   

 

4. For the reading enthusiast a whole book's been written about fish: Four Fish: The future of the last wild food, describes our profoundly changing relationship with the world’s oceans. Learn about the fascinating lives of four fish - salmon, sea bass, cod and tuna – and why overfishing and biotechnology are serious threats to healthy marine ecosystems. http://bookclub.davidsuzuki.org/

 

       

It's sad

I started the continuation of yesterday's post but have not gotten it ready yet. Instead I fitted in a few pages of still the same book while watching baby. Vanessa meets a bloke, environmentalist of course, and at some point he says something like "what we really need is an apocalyptic environmental catastrophe to wipe out  a significant amount of the world's population and then finally people might be willing to stop driving SUVs and actually live responsibly." It sounds more than harsh I know but I agree. It's sad to see hundreds and thousands of animal and plant species die because human beings interfere with just about anything on the planet that's been here way before us. It's sad to see oceans and waterways collapse under the burden of pollution due to the waste dumped into them every day. It's sad to see forests chopped down for fields that will erode anyway, to see land depleted under ever-growing cities, to see soil suffocate under the chemicals of big-scale agriculture and the machinery used for mining. It's sad to see the Earth's resources exploited due to the greediness of industries, economies, consumers, and for the quick buck. Being the "smartest" creatures on Earth we have still no right to trash the planet - so the planet might as well pay us back one day. I hope it wipes out all the SUV drivers and those that live stubbornly in ignorance and denial about our environmental problems. I'm not trying to be overly pessimistic - it just happens to be, kind of looking out the window.  

On some other issue: I came across an interesting article in the Edmonton Journal about the low approval ratings of Alberta's Premier - http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Rising+from+deep+unpopularity/3930721/story.html. 
So when do we get rid of him?