Tuesday 6 December 2016

Water in Canada:A Resource in Crisis by Hanneke Brooymans



This 2011 book published by Canadian Currents is written with that same sort of Alberta-grown call-to-action tone backed up by solid data that made Alberta journalist Andrew Nikiforuk reknown for his exposure of the oil sands industry. Water in Canada begins with a foreword by Dr. David Schindler, Killam Memorial Professor of Ecology at the University of Alberta and an expert in water-related issues.As Schindler remarks in the forward, Canadians are surrounded by freshwater, making it easy for us to take freshwater for granted. However, this view is "at variance with what freshwater experts deal with and read about every day.” Describing his own experience, Schindler quotes, "it is like the view from the locomotive 10 seconds before the train wreck."As Schindler promises, Brooymans compiles all the expert data, (and insider facts) and writes the story of Water in Canada as an excellent read. She is a real life Edmonton Journal writer with that Albertan drive to speak the truth, and the book is a summary of years of research by herself and others committed to studying detailed measurements now exposed to the public eye. In her challenging introduction she muses, how would humans "handle environmental issues if they lived to be 200 years old? How cavalier would people be about their tinkering with the atmosphere's carbon dioxide concentration, for example, if they knew they were the guinea pigs?" It is an interesting philosophical approach, and it sets the tone for an examination of ways we have allowed industry to destroy the nature to the enrichment of a few and the detriment of many, based on a shared cultural assumption of infinite water resources. Brooyman remarks, “ Canadians are not water rich- we only think we are." She adds, “can we snap out of our collective delusion in time? Maybe. But that would require a significant boost in the country's collective water literacy, which is currently as shallow and murky as a mud puddle." Expect plenty of water-related expressions in the book, the book is rife with them, but then tend to be placed at just the right moment, and so work to give punch to the writing rather than to detract. The book, written like all good journalism, delivers regarding water politics, economic issues, sustainability and other concerns. Brooyman also ventures from the philosophical to the psychological, describing a mental condition called “environmental generational amnesia” as a driving concern of hers throughout the book."Yes, humans are adaptable...but do we want our grandchildren drawing on shrunken, polluted streams and rivers and frolicking in filthy puddles that used to be crystal-clear lakes and thinking this is normal? It could easily happen. Peter Kahn, a human development psychologist, calls this environmental generational amnesia. With each generation the amount of environmental degradation increases, but each generation in its youth takes that degraded condition as the non-degraded condition-as the normal experience."In exploring the quantification and health of our water supply describes the mechanics of the hydrologic cycle in an intriguing way. It is hard to write science for lay-people, but Brooyman does an exceptional job. Lake volume data in Canada is not generally available, as "while volume is measured for larger lakes (80 to be exact), the 2 million smaller lakes are relatively shallow." Brooyman explains that there are “645 lakes larger than 100 square kilometres, and Statistics Canada estimates they hold 17, 398 cubic kilometres of water. River length and outflow is also measured, as well as maximum discharge. Water assets based on a region depend on many factors, including precipitation and other features.” Brooyman also explains mapping groundwater (I wondered how they did that) and uneven distribution, which is fascinating, adding something I mused upon, Ontario has the most people and the least lakes.Each chapter in the book is well-sequenced, moving quickly to a study of the business of bottled water. Part Two, (the book is divided in three parts) water governance, including fair-handed information on governance of the Great Lakes and other international waters. The final part of the book, Part Three, is called “ the future of water” and includes a chapter on changing attitudes, another on changing climate, and a discussion of future care-taking, clean up and research. Finally, she includes an examination of the potential for business to exploit opportunities in ensuring clean-water technologies meet their mark. Or market. A tight, optimistic conclusion includes inspirational words from Maude Barlow and the extensive bibliography and index. Highly useful, a recommended read.

Brooymans, H. (2011). Water in Canada: A resource in crisis. Canadian Currents.

Thursday 17 November 2016

Climate Capitalism

Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen
Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change

Very well-written and represents a peek into the strategy of some major power interests dedicated to rescuing our little blue ball. It's also a bit of a user-friendly wake-up book, and I liked it. “People raised on images of limitless possibilities, muscle cars, Western superiority in world markets, and a rising standard of living watched in shock as General Motors, the iconic American business, melted in bankruptcy in 2008. For many the magnitude of that collapse has yet to sink in. Nor has the recognition that Toyota became the world's largest car company-riding to prominence on the success of fuel-efficient vehicles that seem an affront to everything that made America great. GM's emergence from bankruptcy is similarly based on a small electric hybrid.” 
The book does amply demonstrates how intelligent use of market mechanisms can solve the climate crisis not at a cost but as an investment, delivering enhanced profitability and a stronger economy as well as a better future for the planet. While “the best and fastest way to protect the climate is to reduce the unnecessary use of fossil energy. It is also the fastest way to an immediate return investment.Cutting waste saves money, whether you are a business leader or a head of a household.”
Citing unemployment, (25 % in Detroit,) and citing Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth as a must-read, the books describes climate change as a “ a moral issue,” and asserts that solving climate change is “THE WAY OUT of the economic crisis.” It also asserts that disasters are “not only a humanitarian disaster but a business risk.” The author then outlines the inside story of capitalism's response to climate change, in what turns out to be, regardless of your degree of reverence for market forces, a very entertaining series of case studies. 
The book also introduces the not-a-commonly-use-household word “The Investor Network on Climate Risk,” a consortium of sorts which comprises over 80 institutional investors collectively managing more than 480 trillion in assets and launched in 2003. This group  introduced a 10 point plan for leading financial investors to address climate risk and seize investment opportunity. But wait, before you think it's exclusively disaster capitalism, the key point became disclosure, as well as laws requiring a company to disclose any environmental liabilities that could affect an investor's  “view” of an organization. Sounds so stuffy and papery, but not really when we are talking about the influence of trillions of dollars. Since 2002, the UK's Carbon Disclosure Project has surveyed the 500 biggest companies in the world. Instead of the CDP being an annoying gadfly, the results were embraced by some pretty big players as extremely useful stuff. By 2006, 60 percent of the companies surveyed had actively replied, realizing the value in making public commitments to support limits on greenhouse gases, other emissions and to disclose climate risk information to investors. The CPD now represents over $64 Trillion in assets, almost a third of all global institutional investor assets. Just to give you a sneak view into some of her generously sprinkled case studies, the author describes the odyssey of Walmart, their commitment of 417 million in new lighting systems. In 2005 Walmart pledged to be supplied by 100 renewable energy, to create zero waste and to sell products that sustain resources and the environment. Ambitious but doable, and it paid off. In 2008, while the rest of the stock market was experiencing a crash, Walmart's stocks rose. As well, Walmart called a meeting that year in China of its 1000 largest suppliers, Chinese government representatives and the CDP among other attendees with the intention of aggressively building a more environmentally and socially responsible supply chain. Walmart began phasing in the plan by 2009 and expanding to suppliers around the world by 2011. Companies that met the criteria most stringently would be chosen as sources for products and materials, the others Walmart rejected for the big blue trash bin of corporate failure.
Another case example which I liked in the book is in Florida, where the Florida Governor wanted to implement aggressive efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, and was willing make great expenses to do it. Instead Florida found doing so would add $28 billion by 2025 and is enjoying the boom. Thanks to such examples, it is now well-established that protecting the environment creates, rather than costs jobs.  “The United States is losing global leadership by lagging in the new green gold rush.”
There are other fascinating examples, especially in her The World Without Oil chapter, and if you read it, you will these include Richard Branson of Virgin Air's progress with biofuels and airline emission reductions, which Monbriot sees an one of the most major polluters left to tackle. There is also discussions of the use of algae to create biofuel, and much more!  Hunter Lovins in her ever-present black cowboy hat is the President and Founder of Natural Capital Solutions, Professor of Sustainable Management at BARD, and celebrated co-creator of the “Natural Capitalism” concept, as well as being a sought speaker and mentor named Millennium TIME Magazine Hero of the Planet. Her co-author, Boyd Cohen, Ph.D., is a climate strategist focused on urban environments, and a sustainable development leader.

A highly indexed book, extensively footnoted, I quite enjoyed it. Recommended read.

Lovins, L. H., & Cohen, B. (2011). Climate capitalism: Capitalism in the age of climate change. Hill and Wang.

Saturday 15 October 2016

On Fracking

On Fracking by C. Alexia Lane
2013, Rocky Mountain Books, 127 pages.


This is a helpful little hardcover written not in a biased way but with an examining look at the issues. Although it is just a tiny book, one you could slip into your pocket and bring along to the office or the next commute, it looks at “the potential contamination of groundwater source; the potential ecotoxicological effects from fracking, climate change and water management initiatives; and the bioengineering of organisms to enhance shale gas extraction.” Opening with a little history of the story of oil in North America, C. Alexia Lane does a commendable job of discussing the development of this industry, new drilling technologies, and the arrival of Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring 1962 in a section usefully called, “That Was Then.” “Section “This Is Now,” leads into industry interest in the highly controversial method called fracking,“multi-stage hydraulic fracturing of underground rock strata in conjunction with direct drilling- downward, then horizontally or at an angle into the desired formation” using high-pressure chemically-mixed water, involving flow back fluid that slowly returns the chemical cocktail of contaminants and water to the surface, over the course of months. Because it involves what some might call the environmentally suicidal mixing of chemicals into our precious groundwater, industry and everyday citizen alike acknowledge that “fracking threatens the integrity of both our surface water and our groundwater sources.” An industry with a massive lack of regulatory policies regarding contamination, the fracking industry suffers from a lack of understanding about our groundwater, and our species in general suffers from a lack of understanding regarding the future impact of this somewhat experimental new method. Not one to present the reader with recent images of chemically-mixed water issuing from kitchen taps that is actually flammable, C. Alexia Lane focuses on discussing the huge amount of ground water used in this process in an era when all clean water requires protection. Water management is made complicated by the way it is governed, because it is not “based on hydrological connectivity” but is governed at thew moment by piecemeal legislation and regulation. Conflicts occur most frequently when it flows across man-made boundaries, something both surface and groundwater inevitably does. Lane examines some of the better and most intelligent policies and proposals never put in place, and informs us that Canada requires strong new laws protecting water governance that are similar in design to American laws if we are not to risk the wholesale destruction of our water table. Not only laws, cautions Lane, but a need for a national framework, is extremely pressing. While in the United States there are laws overseen and enforced by federal bodies, Canada is beginning to appear to the U.S. as if it is relying upon industry to self-regulate, an absurd situation. Lane examines a case study in Alberta and one in Texas: places where fracking because there is already a water scarcity is creating havoc. In Texas, freshwater resources are dwindling, making drought a new issue in which fracking contamination now plays a role. Interestingly, “acute and chronic components of many individual fracking fluid components have been documented” but not the cocktail of fluid in combination with local geology. With no long term data, stringent measures are needed fast, and, because of the soluble nature of fracking chemicals, it is considered technically not possible to clean this water, and impossible to consider with any advance in future technology the remediating of our precious and ancient groundwater to anything like its original state. As well, groundwater becomes vitally important to our survival as secure clean surface water harder dwindle and change. While proponents of fracking argue that the drilling process goes past groundwater to deeper sites, the book explains that while much fracking goes to depths that pass through potable groundwater, (and some fracking even occurs on the same depth as groundwater) that deep drilling only causes the contaminant cocktail to rise back to the surface after passing up through the pristine groundwater table from below. Lane refers to the issue of water management as “time-sensitive”and states that citizens must participate in encouraging the appropriate implementation of legislation to protect our freshwater. Vermont has banned fracking, North Carolina is “demonstrating the precautionary principle” and other places are well-advised to follow this example. British Columbia and Alberta require enforcement of public disclosure of chemical ingredients in fracking fluid, there is a moratorium of fracking in Quebec, and a full ban on fracking in Nova Scotia until 2014 is being challenges by industry now. Because of the vital and ancient nature of groundwater, Lane states, “we all have stake in protecting its integrity.” However, “in the face of extensive fracking operations across the continent,” this will require considerable focus and Lane directs that “we must be steadfast and vigilant to achieve our water preservation objectives.” Closing with extensive notes and references, the book is optimistic about the urgent need for legislation, transparency and the outright banning of certain procedures in order to defend ancient underground water, as well as massive amount of surface water, from industrial contamination. Remarks Lane, “the power resides within each of us and all of us together.”
Lane, C. A. (2013). On fracking. RMB Rocky Mountain Books.

Thursday 15 September 2016

Saris on Scooters: How Microcredit is Changing Village India by Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos

Read this book! The women described within these pages demonstrate an extraordinary courage and determination to not only survive, but to thrive. One of the ways they shift oppression into small industry supporting struggling communities is through the action of microcredit, a concept made famous by Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus. Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos, who has won the GG literary award and is a former journalism professor, based on trips between 2001 and 2008, spent 21 months in India meeting the grassroots women who put their communities on the map with their brilliant use of the microcredit system. She dedicates the book to the Dalits who showed her such trailblazing courage. The book is organized into 26 chapters, each with several charming photos telling the story of women facing extraordinary adversity. Opening with the story of a young woman who drove the bootlegger out of her rural community, (where moneylenders were charging as much as 120% on interest) she and her collegues established self-help groups to escape loan-sharking, enslavement and dowry deaths, and accessing life-changing microcredit for their projects. Enslavement, generally to the high-pesticide cotton crop-picking industry, is extremely common for girls, as child labour is poorly protected, (according to the 2001 census, there were 65 million child slaves across India). Rural women activists fought back with a cotton seed collective, forming a federation of 35 villages and determining there were at least 800 girls enslaved in their region, many of them sick from pesticide-related illnesses. The group is slowly making headway, producing profitable pesticide-free cotton and prohibiting child labour on their crops. The book continues with stories of literacy campaigns, including education for girls forced to drop out in order to work in cotton. In each case, they directly challenge tradition and unite to make a better future for themselves in the process. In chapter 10, McLeod Arnopoulos visits the Navdanya farm, and interviews the women in 2004 who are maintaining the seedbank that grew into the familiar name and made Navdanya the world-famous story of inspiration it is today. Also of note in the book are the various examples of Muslim and Hindu women working side-by-side, during an era of deadly conflict and strife. The author comments that the streets of Amedebad reminded her of the October crisis, with tanks in the streets because of sectarian violence. Despite his, she locates SEWA, the Self-employed Women's Association, who had organized themselves into cooperatives and unions, and then started their own bank after existing banks refused to help them. Through the bank, which allowed the members to pay off debts and take out loans under very reasonable conditions, the women also accessed accident and health insurance coverage for their members. The membership was a mix of Muslim, Hindu and other groups, and offered literacy programs and leadership programs. Arnopoulos writes, “consisting of a blend of gutsy young college-educated women organizers along with steadfast grassroots women leaders from slums and villages, SEWA was responsible for the formation of a range of unions covering incense stick-rollers, street vendors, home garment workers, headlong workers, construction workers, paper-pickers, bidi-rollers, and more. In addition, over 85 autonomous cooperatives had been created for several occupational groups.” By reading of these success stories, we can imagine the hope microcredit offers for women in Canada, where many ghettos exist, such as those experienced by women who may have trained for a speciality such as nontraditional trades but have no support, no possible way to transport their equipment to work, no way to demonstrate their skills to their market and are overlooked for jobs younger applicants consistently fill. The microloan system gives hope to those who have lived below the poverty line their entire lives in so-called developing and first world nations alike. Microcredit and the spirit behind microcredit systems suggests a world where the poor may use their own volition to better themselves, something that is surely a human right. To use our own strengths to build a future based on our own basic skills, driven by our own healthy human ambition and industriousness is a right we find frequently an issue even in Canada, while in places such as India where microcredit is used brilliantly by the women in this book, a future hope in this life-and-death struggle is made a little more fathomable to millions.

Arnopoulos, S. M. L. (2017). Saris on scooters: How microcredit is Changing Village India. Read How You Want.

Monday 1 August 2016

Soil Not Oil

Environmental Book Review 
Soil Not Oil 
Vandana Shiva
South End Press, 2008

Truly essential reading, Soil Not Oil is a slender, inviting book that generates several lasting impressions. First of all, within a few paragraphs, it becomes evident that environmental activist author Vandana Shiva is in the fields, talking to the people who work the land, talking to the people who dwell by motorways and suffer exposure to pollutants, talking in person to a collection of everyday heroes presented throughout the book. On July, 8, 2008, the government of India looked at the dire situation Shiva describes throughout the book, (still an on-going environmental catastrophe) and found it to be of such concern to India that a policy was established “which prioritizes food crops over biofuel crops” and resulting in a public declaration that industrial biofuels lead to ecological and economic impoverishment. Shiva, an able essayist, shares in this book a love of India and her deep empathy for her life-threatened subjects, followed up by hard-ass fact and well-researched references. Articulate and clear, it represents a highly-readable crash course in a number of topics, but in particular, readers can expect to emerge with a thorough understanding of several noteworthy environmental discussions. You may have heard that since 1995, more than 270,000 farmers have committed suicide in India, an absolutely chilling figure which begs an individual like Vandana Shiva to speak up. In her elegant voice, rising above the efforts by PR spin doctors from Monsanto and other corporations (corporations the rest of the world holds responsible for the tragedy), Shiva begins the discussion in a refreshingly open style- “at the beginning” with the story of the automobile in India. A charming description of the traditional modes of travel there, the story of “modernizing” a way of life built upon foot and animal paths soon reveals untold damage to remote places where a culturally-rich infrastructure has for thousands of years delivered commendable, healthy and sustainable communities. The removal of quotas from the automobile sector, political corruption, and the banning of the rickshaw, “fossil-free, climate-friendly transportation” in Kolkata and Delhi, quickly resulted in disaster. Compared to other writers explaining the impact of globalization and agriculture, (such as the essays in Hungry for Profit by John Bellamy Foster, or Marie-Monique Robin's The World according to Monsanto, positively reviewed by Shiva) Shiva sets the standard in her genre. This is not only through the warmth conveyed in her writing style, but for her scientific reliability when using facts to support solutions. Casting light upon India’s shining modernization process, “the superhighway and automobile are the ultimate cultural symbols of non-sustainability and ecological exclusion,” Shiva even unearths an eerie historic parallel in Hitler’s highway propaganda of an earlier era. Here the volume is also praiseworthy in detailing the extent to which deliberate misinterpretation of carbon trading and the Kyoto Accord’s now infamous Clean Air Mechanism have (as mirrored in other parts of the world) served a destructive purpose in India.

Soil Not Oil then turns its attention to the fiasco of the biofuel sector globally, and in particular, the Biofuel and Jatropha industry in India. Now we are moving into the territory of Shiva’s favorite discussion, sustainable agriculture, but not before a detailed and enlightening exploration of the Biofuel sector as creating an agricultural crisis. Biofuels, for anyone who may not be up on such things, have for some time now been understood as destructively negative net, (it takes more petrol to produce ethanol than ethanol produced). Shiva expertly articulates Biofuel’s role as “non-sustainable monocultures that serve to increase greenhouse gas emissions” and “a major cause of hunger and landlessness” as an assault on “the livelihood security of the poor.” It is important to understand the reality of negative net, because while governments all over the world have been promoting the Biofuel industry, Biofuel has also become a basis for legitimizing the spread of genetically modified (GM) Soy, which has decimated the rainforests of the Amazon for soy, (22.2 million hectares) at the time of writing (2008). Shiva notes that since January 2003, nearly 70,000 kilometres of Amazon rainforest have been cleared for Biofuel production.

While not exploring the details behind the governmental decision-making that is responding to these horrors such as the 2008 policy placing India's food production ahead of other agriculture, in this book Shiva takes a stance that criticizes the Indian government for failing to protect their wheat surplus in 2006. A failure to fight for a fair price for their surplus resulted in India actually importing inferior, pesticide-laden wheat back in to their nation, causing Indian food security to suffer.

Emphasizing India’s ability to heal, Shiva explores a brief but fascinating history of India’s (and largely Indian women’s) impressive protest movement regarding GE. In particular, she praises resistance against recent attempts to replace traditional mustard seed oil with GM soy oil. India’s proud history of Satygraha, or non-cooperation with destructive policy, is a current of hope running throughout the book. “In biology, the term development refers to self-directed, self-regulated, self-organized evolution from within.”

A no-bullshit, elegant piece of writing, it's a book rich with solutions contrasting present-day crisis.

Expanding our understanding of the life-destroying effects of agribusiness and monoculture, the last third opens with a comparison pitting ancient knowledge against the spin doctors of cash and land grab. Ancient knowledge wins hands down. Describing soil fertility, (her favorite realm) as something that has never been generated by chemical fertilizers, “the Green Revolution has resulted in soil toxicity by introducing excess quantities of trace elements into the ecosystem,” she helpfully reminds us that “micronutrient deficiency leads to metabolic disorders” emphasizing that to destroy the soil is to destroy human health.

Shiva explains that “fluorine toxicity from irrigation has developed in various regions of India. 26 million hectares of India’s land are affected by aluminum toxicity” also commenting upon boron, iron, molybdenum, selenium toxicity, all wrought through Green Revolution practices. Examining the impact of long-distance globalized food systems and their disastrous toll in greenhouse gas emissions, the book actually specifies just how much food miles have increased due to globalization. While we all know that 1 k of food can generate 10 k of CO2 emissions, Shiva also reminds us of a famous 2003 study in Toronto which demonstrated that our food travels an average of 3,333 miles, while a Swedish study recently determined that a typical breakfast has traveled the circumference of the earth in food miles.

Here Shiva’s solutions-driven writing again takes charge. Emphasize sustainable agriculture, based upon the sustainable use of natural resources, land, water and agricultural biodiversity directs the author. Great news for India, Shiva’s preoccupation with creating a comparable agricultural model have resulted in some interesting business statistics as, “conservation of native seeds and biodiverse ecological farming have yielded incomes two to three times higher than monoculture farming.” “Seeds of hope instead of seeds of hopelessness and despair” are how Shiva terms her solution for India’s future. She comments, “humanity has eaten over 80,000 edible plants over the course of its evolution. More than 3,000 have been used consistently. However, we now rely on just eight crops to provided 75 per cent of the world’s food.” She recalls for us that Cargill and ADM, Monsanto, and others are the same companies that destroy the Amazon while attempting to make protesting Indians switch over to their GM soy. Quoting Michael Pollan, the book asks, “how do they match the stories told about them?”

Not a naiive writer accepting any gesture towards organic agriculture, Shiva rejects the idea of pseudo-organic agriculture that substitutes chemical input with organic input, “this is not agroecology” and explains that pseudo-organic agriculture have created “large export-oriented industrial farms in which farmers are viewed as labourers and serfs, instead of sovereign producers,” a system “built on the destruction of the self-organizing capacity of human communities and agro-ecosystems.”

To close, Vandana Shiva perceives opportunity in what she terms the “emergent option.” This option does not destroy the planet but diverts away from entropic laws through the evolution of a living system that are bio-diverse, ecological, and places value on local food systems. By bringing people back to the reality behind agriculture, the energy of compassion takes the place of destruction and greed. Ecology and sharing, counter to the present system of scarcity producing market demand, inevitably win over what she describes as a “scarcity of work, scarcity of happiness, a scarcity of security, scarcity of freedom” and (finally) “a scarcity of the future.”

Rallying us all to cease “sleepwalking to extinction” the book accomplishes an inspiring call for humanity to “unleash our creative energy” and “make systemic change and reclaim our future as a species, as part of the earth family.” 
A writer with a flair for relevant and even entertaining political and historical facts, Shiva neatly combines with an ecological viewpoint reinforced as only a scientist can, making Soil not Oil an essential choice for any progressive-minded reader wishing to engage even a basic discussion of India's current environmental state of affairs.
Shiva, V. (2016). Soil, not oil: Climate change, peak oil and food insecurity. Zed Books.







Thursday 19 May 2016

At The Cutting Edge

Environmental Book Review
Elizabeth May
At the Cutting Edge, Key Porter, 2005

Timeless and exacting, At the Cutting Edge is a fascinating investigation of Canadian forestry politics through the eyes of an exceptional Canadian parliamentarian and environmental leader. Farley Mowat comments in the introduction, “the forestry industry will hate this book. But it cannot pretend it is based on false premises...This book is thoroughly grounded on a mountain of government-generated -as well independent data- that inexorably demonstrates that, beyond all rhetoric, the forestry industry is committing an atrocity against this living earth.” Early in the book, May introduces a few very key ideas. Canada’s forests are a public resource. “Only 7 percent of Canada's forest is privately held, compared to roughly 70 percent in the United States and Sweden.” She explains, “the vast majority of Canadian forest is owned by the Crown. For the non-Canadian reader, this may sound perfectly delightful: visions of Her Majesty taking tea in the midst of the boreal come to mind. The term Crown land simply means that the land is owned by the people of Canada, with jurisdictions over forests vested in provinces. Thus, Canadians can exert a special interest, even a proprietary interest, over the management of their forests. The irony is that there has been virtually no public oversight of forest policy.” Written with May's good-humoured style, such an idea becomes an engaging challenge. “When you hear an industry spokesman talking about the threat a park represents or read about the compensation that industry demands if forest is set aside for a park, it is easy to forget that industry, for the most part, does not own the land it logs.” The book relates a perfectly cringe-making history of bargain basement leases with forest companies, disastrously combined with a lack of “accurate inventory information” and regulation. May warns that the Federal government, rather than producing useful forest science research “acts as a propaganda arm of Canada’s forestry industry,” and explains that by reading some of their documents, “a reasonable person might well be convinced of a deep and abiding commitment to ecological values across Canada. But the reality in the forest is far different.” Statistically, the felling of pristine and ancient forests has steadily increased, and - brace yourself - “approximately 80 per cent of everything that is logged in Canada is clear-cut, while 90 per cent of the cut comes from primary or old-growth forests.” May introduces a few more key concepts such as the term “NSR” lands, “not sufficiently restocked” remarking that “Canada is converting forest ecosystems to fibre farms...while there is no track record of healthy second and third growth forests following...clear-cutting,” something she calls “a vast and reckless experiment.” While the creatures and other species which form the intricate life of a forest are losing their habitat, fewer Canadians are employed per tree cut. Recent trends in mechanization, which she refers to as “disturbingly reminiscent of the cod fishery,” featuring machines capable of cutting down forests with the navigation of a single operator, are something May says is comparable to massive draggers which invisibly decimate the ocean floor. Not to ignore large projects such as the Tar Sands, May explains that industries such as oil and gas, are currently “destroying boreal forest with no thought of replanting or restoration.”
A forest a “rich myriad of species and their interrelationships...We can have a landscape of trees, but lose complexity of the original forest.” In her chapter “Myths and Propaganda,” May digs in, illuminating the reader in her energetic style about the number and variety of bullshit claims made by the forestry industry. An example of these offensive proposals include the myth that “clear-cutting increases biodiversity” when in fact, while demolished areas after a clear cut may proliferate with wild species in great numbers, the species have nothing to do with the original forest.” Because the new “biodiversity will not “serve to protect water systems, prevent landslide, mineral exposure, soil erosion and sediment run off into rivers and streams,” it is absurd for the forestry industry to claim clear-cutting has any positive spin-off. Such regrowth does not “protect the complex subterranean mycorrhizal fungi and the corresponding vast networks of this and other soil bacteria which provide a web of life to the forest.” In reality, erosion follows a clear-cut. Fire doesn't do this, but industry clear cutting, the impact of large equipment, and the invasion of roads making it no longer wilderness, does.
May, fond of the ideas of environmentalist Paul Hawkins, cites his words in the book, Ecology of Commerce. “CEO's of large corporations do not awaken each bright new day and ponder gleefully how they can rape and pillage the planet. Nor are they particularly venal and amoral. In fact, on an individual basis, many forest-industry executives share the concerns of expressed in this book. Why, then, does the environment suffer while jobs disappear? As Paul Hawkins brilliant insight has it, what we have here is a 'design problem.'” May makes it obvious in the rest of the book that the “design problem” involves a failure to protect and monitor the felling of our forests and an absence of appropriate legislation and enforced controls in a situation that clearly begs for it.
In her chapter titled “Voodoo Forestry” May sheds light on ridiculous and corrupt methods designed to work tricks with the annual Allowable Cut, or AAC. One of these is to reduce harvest age to allow more logging now. “Through this device, over-cutting is accelerated: a Douglas fir, for example, which can live 750 years, is declared ready for logging at sixty to eighty years old.” Like many of us, May is concerned about pollution and the role forests play in processing CO2. In her chapter “The Lungs of the Planet,” she reminds us that “the planet's boreal region is estimated to hold 65 million tons of carbon in its trunks, branches and leaves, and a further 270 billion tons in its soil and decaying matter. Every single year, the boreal region absorbs roughly 0.4 to 0.6 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere. “ Present environmentally stressors on trees cause enormous impact, including UV-B exposure in Canada’s boreal, with biomass loss ranging from 25 percent for jack pine to 50 percent biomass loss for white and black spruce.” Climate changes, fire, and “Climate modelling by the federal government's forest service and Enviro-Canada has attempted to predict the impact on Canadian forests of the anticipated atmospheric doubling of carbon dioxide. The results are sobering. The climatic zone appropriate for boreal forests would be reduced to areas of Northern Quebec and Labrador, with a small section of the Yukon and Northwest Territories.” May also reminds us that extreme weather has played a role in damaging millions of trees, as have increased fires and assault by insects such as the mountain pine beetle, susceptible only to severe cold and hopefully intervention by pheremone-based science. May offers here a very concise analysis of carbon sequestration, establishing that any forestry claim suggesting that plantations can accelerate carbon absorption are bad science, as young forest will not have anything remotely close to the biomass approaching “old-growth storage capacity for at least 200 years.” She also discusses corruption involved in greenhouse gas “carbon credit” trading, and the offensive first world scams behind Kyoto's Clean Air Development mechanism.
May dedicates the next few chapters to a history of efforts to curb the release of organochlorides by pulp mills, and resistance by the industry. A history of the softwood lumber debate follows, as well as an interesting description of the battle to achieve valid certification for sustainable forestry practices.
While the CSA (Canadian Standards Association) came under fire as not knowing what they were certifying, and alienated “most of the environmental and aboriginal communities...the CSA process created considerable public debate about Eco-labelling” a new stamp of approval came into being, The Forest Stewardship Council. The FSC approach was started by the World Wildlife Fund in 1993. FSC standards are specific: “Logging operations must leave 10 to 50 per cent of the forest in conditions similar to those following a natural disturbance. Plans must be in place to maintain or restore large areas of wildlife habitat. Special management provisions within 65 metres of all permanent bodies of water, and applicants must take steps to reduce their use of chemical pesticides. If Aboriginal community is affected, companies must reach agreement with the community; that agreement must include the acceptance of the management plan, opportunities for the community to participate in long-term benefits, assessment of Native rights and traditional land use, measures to protect Native values, and a dispute resolution mechanism. No other certificate comes close to matching these rigorous standards.” The FSC process has taken off in Canada, however, Canadians should be cautious about a trend in which confidence in industry self-regulation justifies reduction of forest service staff, a dangerous budget-cutting choice to decrease provincial government deficits. The book continues with a description of other pressures on forests, including poor land-use planning, population pressures, and loss of important forest biodiversity through urban sprawl.“Urban sprawl has cleared remnant old-growth Acadian forest near Halifax, and Carolinian old-growth near London, Ontario. These small forests near urban areas need to be vigorously protected.” May also reminds us that “far north of agricultural and urban Canada are huge flooded reservoirs where once there were forests. Thousands of square kilometres of boreal forest have been drowned as a result of hydroelectric development in northern Quebec, Labrador, Manitoba, British Columbia and Ontario.” May also lays waste to the notion that Hydoelectricity is “clean” energy. “While hydroelectric developers attempt to promote electricity from the damming of wild rivers as environmentally acceptable, the reality is far different. Hydroelectricity can not truly be described as 'renewable.' Neither is it carbon neutral, the drowning of forests and other organic material has a significant impact on carbon, releasing vast amounts of methane. The environmental impact, besides loss of habitat, include the creation of methyl mercury and its uptake into the aquatic life of the reservoir. The Cree of Northern Quebec experienced mercury contamination as fish, a traditional part of their diet and culture, were poisoned by this 'clean' source of energy. The manipulation of water flow impacts entire water systems, changing hydrology with impacts on wetlands and habitats along the stream and river edges. These areas are among the most productive for a wide range of species.” the book also discusses mining. “There are over seven thousand abandoned mines in the boreal region, with sixty-nine operating mines and fifty-three that have recently closed. The legacy of poor past practices remains an environmental threat throughout the boreal region...Every year, 650 million tons of solid waste are generated by mining, of which at least one-fifth is assumed to be toxic. The abandoned mines pose a range of serious environmental risks, from pooled arsenic to acid mine drainage, cyanide and despoiled landscapes.” Consistent with the work of writers such as Tar Sands journalist Andrew Nikiforuk, May remarks, “the largest of the non-logging threats to Canada' forests is clearly that posed by petroleum development...From the devastated moonscapes of the Athabasca Tar Sands to the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline, the largest ecological footprint hovering over Canada’s boreal is the giant boot of the fossil fuel industry.”
The second part of the book is a cooling green forest one has been traveling toward. However, upon arrival, readers of May's work find they are newly-imbued with enormous concern for the forest, what May terms “engagement” with the issues, based upon the crash course offered in the first half. Part two, “Once a land of trees” opens with a chapter titled, “The Lost Forests,” and is an extremely well-composed description of forests in Canada. Opening with The Carolinian, which spans just 550 kilometres in Southern Ontario, May explains that, although tiny, this forest hold more tree species than any other forest in Canada, specifically, “seventy different species of native trees, over two thousand types of plants, four hundred bird species, and nearly fifty different species of reptiles and amphibians.” May describes the The Acadian. “Unlike the Carolinian, the ecosystem known as the Acadian is found only in Canada” with a “species assemblage that is unique in the world.” Says May, “it was a forest of massive hardwoods: Oaks, Maple, Birch, Beech, Butternut and Walnut. Conifers were also present, including the magnificent Hemlock, Pine and Spruce. Wildlife from lynx to caribou were indigenous in these forests. The caribou has been displaced by moose and deer; the lynx are rarely sighted and are listed as endangered. Fortunately, the raptors do well, with bald eagles abundant, scanning the river valleys and ocean waves for fish. Great blue herons stand stoically at the water's edge with Zen like patience. Herons are also forest-dwellers, nesting in treetop rookeries. Pine martins, river otter and other small mammals live in these forests, as do black bears, red foxes and snowshoe hares. Rare plants can be found below the branches, such as orchids, as well as witch hazel and staghorn sumac.” Because of logging and sprawl, “many of the hardwood species have been virtually eliminated and the softwoods, balsam, fir and spruce-now predominate.” Only approximately 5% of the Acadian is left. Fortunately, the Acadian is a major conservation priority. From here May details with equal beauty the ancient temperate rainforests, “once an abundant ecosystem, it has been reduced (globally) to less than half its range...While British Columbia has a full 205 of all the world's surviving temperate rainforests within its borders,” May cautions that, “more than half the original coastal rainforest has already been clear-cut.” The rest of the chapter is fabulously dedicated to other forests, The Montane, The Columbia, The Subalpine, The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Forest and the Boreal. May then shifts her attention to describing the forest situation from the basis of provincial legislation, beginning with the Atlantic Provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador, and moving on to a chapter describing conservation challenges in Quebec. This chapter is followed by Ontario, The Prairies, British Columbia and The Territories. Her final two chapters, “Signs of hope,” and “Where do we go from here?” are uplifting and feel a little bit like tips for reorganizing activist priorities after a long camping trip in one of Canada's national parks. Over 50 pages of notes follow, as May is never one to disregard science, and a helpful index of 15 pages round out this brilliant read. Highly recommended, indispensable and enobling reading for any Canadian wishing to grasp the urgent issues facing our nation.
May, E. (2005). At The Cutting Edge: The Crisis in Canada's forests. Key Porter Books.







Tuesday 12 April 2016

Generation Green: The Ultimate Guide to Living an Eco-Friendly Life



Generation Green: The Ultimate Guide to Living an Eco-Friendly Life

Linda Sivertsen and Tosh Sivertsen
Published by Simon Pulse, (NY, London, Sydney, Toronto), an imprint of Simon and Schuster, 2008
 

This nine chapter book is for the youth market and an excellent gift for your teen. Sporting a super-nice cover, it features an attractive beige and green paper-bag look and the responsible tone of friendly leafy green imagery. The table of contents uses a green design message and navigation is easy.

The intro is a (semi-hilarious) address from Tosh to teenagers everywhere. “A lot of people think teens are too self-involved to care about global issues. Sure, if your dad and mom are fighting or your ex-best friend is going out with your ex or your family cat has to be put to sleep or you flunked your last math test, okay, your going to worry more about that stuff than about a melting glacier thousands of miles away. A least for that day or week or month. But that doesn’t mean we don’t care. I’m convinced we do. We’re just not sure what to do next.” Tosh is addressing the "Green Generation," the youth who face global warming and climate change as they approach adulthood, questioning authority and wondering what to do next. It also immediately addresses a fairly unspoken issue: this is a generation that needs to feel empowered, not cynical and depressed!

“We’ll introduce you to teens and several celebrity friends who are doing some really great things for the environment, as well as people we just find inspiring. We’ll share our favourite tips for greener living, ideas that can change your family, your town, or even a law or two.” I like that, change a law or two! Smells like teen spirit!

Back cover: We all know about the earth’s environmental crisis, but there is someone who can truly make a difference: you.”

Linda and son, Tosh are on the back cover also. They both look great, and have a speaking circuit. Tosh seems to really have a knack at speaking to youth, while Linda seems to be excellent at organizing ideas and selecting useful, relevant, teen-inspiring information.

Chapter One, titled, “Green Machine” is direct. “Maybe your thinking, Hey that’s okay. I like warmer weather, so what’s the problem? Those higher temperatures are causing animal and plant extinctions; failed crops; lower water tables; drying wells; creeks, and rivers; disappearing lakes; a decrease in snowpack and glaciers worldwide; and longer, scarier fire seasons...Is it too late to fix it?” This is helpful, because teen rebellion inclines young people to either fully grasp the issues and then struggle with their role in working to fix it, or to become insensitive climate change deniers just for the temporary thrill of pissing off adults who care. Tosh clarifies this with direct talk, and makes the book an enjoyable read along the way. Tosh is really fond of the ocean, and seems well on his way to creating a whole generation of strong and enviro-educated surfer dudes with marine health at the fore.

“What few people realize is that the oxygen we breathe comes more from the ocean than from the world’s forests-as much as 70 to 80 percent! (Most of it comes from the atmosphere or is produced by phytoplankton.) There’s no way to underscore the importance of cleaning up our oceans and helping fish populations rebound.” Thanks, Tosh! I'm glad you said that. The oceans are so under-regulated it's mind-bending. And your generation is the one to push for the difference we need, to tip the scales in favour of realistic international laws and policy-making that protects our planet.

The book just gets sweeter. Chapter 2 is called Eating Green and it really clears up a lot of questions young people have about food choices, where to find healthy food, and why it's so important to use consumer power to move away from meat-centered factory farming. In a green border, there are a lot of Did You Know's: “Automobile emission is one of the biggest contributor to global warming, with an estimated 850 million vehicles on the road.” Each chapter has plenty of sweet pull quotes, and large print dash bordered remarks such as; “Did you know that shoes can be vegan?” followed by reference and an encouragement to “Google it!” Chapter 6, Green Wheels, explains some of the transport options now, and gives a good overview of where the future is heading. Chapter 7 is called Greener Schools and Careers, and that's exactly what it covers. Because it's written by Linda and Tosh, you don't feel like you are sitting in lecture hall or listening to a career advisor in a stuffy office, you feel like your future is within your control. Very important touch for youth in an era of climate change, because this tackles issues involving power, money and their impact on the world in a way they can actually relate to. Chapter 8 is called Step Up and Speak Out. I loved Chapter 8, because it carries on with the power theme by involving them in their community as a necessary element to their own social identity. It also includes an interview with Julia Butterfly. Chapter 9, A Day in a Green Life, “is your head exploding yet?” follows some of Tosh's favourite day-to-day activities in a way that shows it not only being done, but being fun. The book's acknowledgements include a thank you to Mother Earth, kind of an unusual touch and very sweet. Anyone considering getting this book for a young person will also be pleased to find that the resources page in the back include 27 websites listed under “Some of our Favourite Green Sites” and another listing called, “A Few of the Green Magazines We Love Reading,” which is kinda mainstream, but really solid. The list includes E/The Environmental Magazine, Kiwi, Mother Jones, National Geographic, onearth, Plenty, Sierra, Waterkeeper. The back pages also supply recommended earth-loving green charities, organizations, and potential employment/volunteership resources for the ambitious teenager at home. These 21 listings including Earth Action Network, Earth Island Institute, Environmental Defense, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Waterkeeper Alliance among others.

They also have a section called Some of Our Favorite Green Books (for further study) which include: Eating in the Raw, Feeling Healthier, and Looking Younger the Raw Food Way.

The complete list involves 14 selections, but among them is Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Lester Brown’s Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, and Julia Hill Butterfly's, One Makes The Difference. Ad on the back to join the Sierra student coalition. Great book, really densely packed and bursting with energy at the same time. With a green greener, greenest rating at each step, “better safe than sorry!” and loaded with questions people ask, if you are looking for some guidance and some excellent answers, or know a youth who is, grab this book and do what Tosh Sivertsen tells you to. You'll be glad you did.






Sivertsen, L., & Sivertsen, T. (2008). Generation green: The ultimate teen guide to living an eco-friendly life. Simon Pulse.