A few nice things....

I've had a few neat experiences over the last week that made me smile:

• The lady I buy my honey-based face moisturizer from at the farmer's market said she would refill my plastic containers for me.
• I ran out of the dried sage leaves I picked over the summer for my tea, and I found a really good deal on a sage plant at a local nursery that should get me through the winter.
• One of the guards at work told me how he makes his own dry oatmeal raisin mixture to take to work for breakfast, and just adds boiling water to cook it when he gets to work. I'm going to copy him. Now I don't have to buy the pre-packaged (and sugar-filled) stuff anymore.
  
• My dad showed me how he's hooked up his furnace to deep cycle batteries and an inverter in case the power goes out. The same set up will be good to hook up to a solar panel.
• Gord and the 'bag girl' at the grocery store chatted about being vegetarian while packing our groceries into our cloth bags.
  

Just a few nice things to be grateful for....

Picture courtesy this website

Two more water stories....

I have two more water stories. The first one is mostly good, but with some frustrating elements. The second one I am fuming about. Chances are there will be some sarcasm and a lot of angry ranting ahead.

This morning I heard on the news that the city of London, Ontario, Canada had enacted a ban on bottled water! Hooray! I checked in with fellow blogger Gord Harrison from that fair city, and he confirmed that there had indeed been a partial ban passed. He then directed me to look at this article from the London Free Press. Effective September 1st, the city will restrict the availability of bottled water at many municipal and city sites, provided there are sufficient public water fountains. The city wants to take a leadership role, emphasizing that its water is safe and economical compared to bottled water, and that using tap water reduces the number of plastic bottles ending up in the land fill. These are admirable goals, and I'm glad the city of London has taken this step to reassert public control over water supplies.

The frustrating part came in the latter half of the article. The few city staff and councilors that were opposed to the move said that it was a move towards more of a "nanny state." Excuse me, but isn't the role of government to take care of its citizens? Sort of like how a nanny takes care of those in his/her charge? How and when did the government doing what it's supposed to do become a bad thing?

One of the councilors said that no Londoner parent would let their kids drink from something as disgusting as a public water fountain. And why, pray tell, are public water fountains disgusting? I drank from them as a kid, and I'm still alive. Heck, I still drink from them today and I haven't gotten any communicable diseases. Most people know to drink from the stream of water coming from the fountain, not by slobbering all over the fountain head itself, no?

Still another objection was that not having bottled water to drink would mean people would chose less healthy beverages, like pop or beer or something. This is also stupid. People drank those beverages before the onslaught of disposable water bottles and they will still drink them, along with coffee, tea and juice. Do these people actually listen to themselves when they talk outloud?

But mostly this is a good news story: the majority of the London city councilors stood up to industry, primarily Nestle Waters Canada, and said we like our clean tap water just fine thanks.
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My second water story is a follow up to my previous post on the topic a few weeks ago. I had come across a county worker extracting water from a local wetland area and, much to both of our surprise, I stopped to ask him why he was doing that. After that encounter I called the county office and expressed my concern that water was being extracted out of a wetland area for a construction project up the road.

It gets better: in a letter the County sent me in response to my letter earlier this summer, they told me that no development permits had been issued for the farmland surrounding my rural subdivision. But those earthmovers weren't in my imagination. So in my phone call to the County, I also expressed dismay that not only was there indeed construction going in on the surrounding farmland, but that water from a local wetland was apparently being used in the project. The person I spoke with said he would look into the matter and get back to me. Well, he never got back to me. But this morning on the way to work there was a sign posted right beside the wetland area. A nice ugly spray-painted-orange piece of plywood with two laminated sheets of paper on it, outlining the bylaw that allowed for 750 cubic meters of water to be extracted for purposes of construction from an unnamed body of water.

Now, this had my blood boiling. Why is water in an unnamed body of water open to theft from the environment and named water is not? And why would the bylaw allow for 750 cubic meters (over 198 000 US gallons or about 60 water tanker trucks) of water be removed from such a body of water, regardless of its size? What if taking that much water out of the wetland or lake completely drained it? What about the plants, trees, ducks, frogs, birds, fish, and beavers that live there? What about the flood control that a wetland provides when a bad summer storm comes along? The sheer human arrogance of this practice has me absolutely shaking with rage! How much longer will we rape and pillage the earth? How much longer!!

Tomorrow morning I will stop and take pictures of the sign, and the half-drained wetland and then call the County again, and write to them and send them pictures. I'm a citizen, and I'm going to hold my government accountable. Accountable to me, to the animals and plants in that wetland and for the water they are stealing.

Alberta town moves to ban styrofoam

I didn't do anything particularly special for Earth Day today, but the Alberta town of Turner Valley sure did -- their council members voted unanimously to ban the use of styrofoam in their town:

Garry Pollock, the councillor championing the ban, said Monday night's decision was historic.

"We're excited because oil and gas [in Alberta] is first recognized to be discovered here in Turner Valley," he said. "It's nice to be on board on Earth Day to be the first in Alberta and in Canada to look at the prohibition of Styrofoam."

It's great to see individuals, small groups and municipal governments leading the way with measures like these. Maybe one day the provincial and federal governments will also wake up and realize that things need to change. My cynical self says that they will somehow manage to take credit for all the work done so far, but I suppose I shouldn't let that bother me. It just matters that it gets done, not who gets the credit:

Tao Te Ching Chapter 77:

As it acts in the world, the Tao
is like the bending of a bow.
The top is bent downward;
the bottom is bent up.
It adjusts excess and deficiency
so that there is perfect balance.
It takes from what is too much
and gives to what isn't enough.

Those who try to control,
who use force to protect their power,
go against the direction of the Tao.
They take from those who don't have enough
and give to those who have far too much.

The Master can keep giving
because there is no end to her wealth.
She acts without expectation,
succeeds without taking credit,
and doesn't think that she is better
than anyone else.

Translation courtesy S. Mitchell

Mesh produce bags well received....so far

I was pleasantly surprised when I went to the grocery store today. First, the cashier and the guy doing the bagging both said they liked it when people used canvas bags for their groceries. Then, when the first of my net produce bags came up the conveyor belt, the cashier exclaimed that they were "neat" and the bagging guy said, "and you can wash them and use them over and over again!" I was just beaming at this point, and said that yes, I had felt strange putting plastic produce bags into my canvas grocery bags and that I had decided to "turn my eco-nerdity up a notch." The cashier giggled at this, and we all had a cheerful grocery-related interaction.

This was a happy turn of events, because earlier in the day I had had an eco-freak out when I saw all the cigarette butts and other garbage outside the restaurant where I had brunch with my parents. It's an unfortunate sign of Spring around here: all the Winter garbage is revealed from underneath the melting snow. I will never understand why people think the Earth is their garbage can. It infuriates me to no end. Gah!

My organic cotton net produce bags are here!

I was so excited (some may say unduly so) about the arrival of a package in the mail from reusablebags.com yesterday!

Since I've been using my canvas bags to go grocery shopping it has seemed strange to still put my fruit and veggies in plastic bags to take home. So now I have 15 of these neat net bags to use instead. This will reduce our plastic bag consumption by quite a bit, and significantly reduce the clutter in my pantry as well.

The cashiers at the grocery stores had mostly stopped looking at me funny when I dumped my batch of canvas bags on the checkout counter. Now they will have a new reason to look at me funny, but I don't mind too much. I'm getting used to it, and I guess I'm less afraid to look weird than I used to be.

What to do?

There are days when I get so confused and disheartened about the state of the planet. Then there are other days where I have hope and think, even believe, that humanity will get its act together and actually do something to stop us all from hurtling down this apocalyptic slope. On those kinds of days I think Al Gore is right, if we all just get together and change our light bulbs, turn down the furnace and stop using plastic bags, maybe we'll be ok. But then there are the other days, like today, where I can't help but think along the lines that this guy does, and that it's too late to do anything but brace ourselves for frying in the dark.

And no matter what kind of day it is for me on this front, I wonder what should I do about it? Should I talk to people about my concerns or shut up because they're getting tired of hearing it already? Should I worry about the privately-owned nuclear power plant they're probably going to build a couple hundred miles north of here, or be thankful it's not another coal mine? Should I keep trying to grow my own food or quit because there's not enough time for me to learn how to grow enough and preserve it properly anyway? Should I just keep politely telling people I've become vegetarian for health reasons or scream out loud that factory farming is one of the most horrific and cruel things we humans do to the species with whom we share this one planet?

Some days, like today, I just don't know what to do.

Image courtesy: www.masternewmedia.org