Community Cafe Update

Our third Community Cafe event, on Friday evening, was a great success! Despite last minute menu changes, and lots of behind-the-scenes stress, we pulled it off. The space at the Wellesley Community  Centre was full of people from all ages and backgrounds. We were entertained by local musicians, and fed by local farmers. Even in the midst of kitchen busyness, I was conscious of the relaxed and friendly vibe throughout the event. Pictures to come soon.
The Community Cafe in St James Town is an emerging project I'm involved in that aims to build inclusive participatory community through healthy food. A food buying club, ethical food sourcing policy, and pay what you can system are all parts of what will make - and are already making - this a unique, dynamic space for people from all backgrounds to be part of a community of change and equity (like Occupy but different). Now that this event is over, our focus returns to fundraising, business development, and seeking a permanent space.

All Party Climate Caucus

Small steps, small changes, new hope. Launched by Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan, and with representatives from all the parties, including Conservative MP Michael Chong, we now have a federal Climate Caucus. Read more here!

Some are guilty, but all are responsible. Be responsible.

I have been preoccupied, as an environmentalist, with the Tar Sands and climate change. I know, however, that climate change, and Canada’s failure to act responsibly on climate change is just part of a bigger picture of a relationship – between people, governments, corporations, and the natural world – that isn’t working, and that needs realigning. There are so many of us keen to realign, and the message is getting out. I truly believe that change is on the way.

Tuesday evening, I ended up going to the Occupy Toronto evening general assembly. I hadn’t been to Occupy TO in a couple of days, and with the rain, I might not have gone if it hadn’t been for meeting that didn’t happen. But I was glad that I went. The rain had pushed the general assembly inside the gazebo where there was a sense of comfort – essential as the participants and facilitators negotiated processes for training and for relating with each other. As an outsider who is inside enough to know that the act of occupying has been a struggle of ideals, personalities, and gender balances, I was impressed with the commitment and patience with which participants worked to build respectful relationships. This is important because I believe that if we want to recover a healthy relationship with the environment and the economy, we need to start with ourselves.

Near the end, from the speakers’ list were a couple of people from Anakbayan Youth, asking for our solidarity in the Occupy movement in the Philippines, especially amid changing laws (“Charter Change”) in the Philippines that further open up land to being sold off to large multinationals. As Canadians, the speakers pointed out, we have a uniquely destructive relationship with the Philippines. Mining companies – mostly Canadian – continue to wreak environmental and political havoc on mostly indigenous lands and communities in the Philippines. Look up the Philippines on Mining Watch for the gory details. At the same time, indigenous and subsistence farmers are at risk of further food insecurity as land continues to be taken under control of mining companies and biofuel growers. Meanwhile, the temporary workers programme takes advantage of Filipina workers, bringing them to Canada to work on temporary visas – taking them away from their families and communities with no hope of permanent Canadian citizenship, and undercutting Filipino-Canadian permanent residents and citizens as job seekers.  

A quote I’ve seen recently and like, is ‘Some are guilty, but all are responsible’. I object to any claims to make me feel personally guilty for historical or far-away tragedies like the colonization of First Nations peoples, or the ongoing destruction of land and life in Canada or in the Philippines or around the world. I am not personally guilty for those events; I, and many other dissenters are as personally powerless as the victims of these crimes. But with the power of cooperation and education, and especially as Canadian citizens and taxpayers, we do have the opportunity – and therefore the responsibility – to stand against the crimes of Canadian mining companies in the Philippines and around the world, to stand against the destruction of the local and global environment perpetrated by the oil companies and the Canadian government in Alberta, and to stand for environmental and social justice. As we restore relationships with each other and with the natural world, we need to restore our sense not of guilt, but of responsible action and voice. Just as so many people are standing up against the megaquarry in Melancthon county around the corner, I hope we can show the same respect and love for people and planet further away.

Small (and inspiring) Planet

When I was growing up, meat played a pretty prominent role in our diet, but occasionally, my mom would go through surges of vegetarianism, in which Lentils Monastery Style, from Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé, played a starring role. And now, while the majority of my parents’ meals, and mine, are vegetarian, Diet for a Small Planet-inspired lentil soup is still my mom’s top go-to recipe.  

One day last week I went into Book City, looking for the perfect book to convince a friend that if he changed his diet he would solve his sinus problems. I didn’t find it, but instead found EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want, by Frances Moore Lappé. I bought the book (a big deal for me - I usually borrow a book from the library before taking the plunge) and took it home, and have since been enraptured by how Moore Lappé turns around so many of my environmentalist assumptions. She presents a more hopeful way of looking at both the problems and the solutions - of not just climate change, but our overall relationship with each other and the natural world.

As I left the book store that day, my mom phoned me. I mentioned to her Occupy Toronto’s need for cooked food, soup, and other things. And an hour later, she called to say that Frances Moore Lappé’s classic lentil soup was simmering on the stove, and ask where to deliver it. Now, a weekly Occupy hot food donation seems to be in the works.

And this, engaging people in the capacity that works for them, and inspiring their own spirit of resistance, is what the Occupy movement is about to me. Even more, as I and others at Occupy TO talked about last week as we worked on a food sourcing policy, it has the potential to do what Moore Lappé (and others like Rob Hopkins of the Transition Handbook and Transition movement) say we need: on the ground actions that represent real change.

That’s why it is so important that the Occupy movement be its own change – that it fully supports local, sustainable, healthy food systems; and a sustainable economy generally (e.g., no more handing out dollar-store umbrellas); that it facilitates healthy, equitable relationships among all participants. And that it supports real growth in the things that matter.

While I have been using the language of the end of growth, and I still think this is valuable, as I read Moore Lappé’s thoughtful discussion of growth, I just shifted my image of growth a few degrees - for Moore Lappé questions whether what we’ve been experiencing in the past fifty years or so has been growth at all, or rather an economy of waste and inequity – what if, as the Occupy movement calls for, we can restore genuine growth in quality of life for the 99%? What if?   

More on Frances Moore Lappé’s EcoMind coming soon – if there’s one book you read, I hope it will be this one.  

Occupy Movement

This first week of the Occupy movement, I've gone back and forth from inspiration to frustration, like many of the occupyers.

The time lag between idea and action scares me - even as I find hope in it. The visible dynamic of gender difference (so many white men at the front) both worries and confuses me - why is this happening? is it a reflection of natural style differences, or a harbinger of greater inequality? what should we do about it? Yesterday, watching the General Assembly after the big march to Nathan Phillips Square (2000+ people!), I couldn't help recall fictionalized accounts of the Russian Revolution - and not so much in a good way.

But talk about being the movement - solar panels, local purchasing policies, supporting local farmers, and teach-ins on climate and economy - inspire me.
Planning a climate conversation cafe, I felt excitement and passion, and relief in knowing that there are so many others who also believe that our relationships with each other and with the natural world need to be at the centre of this movement.
Helping to develop a food sourcing policy, I felt the hope of knowing there are so many others who also believe in the importance of living our values at every level of this movement.
Seeing the shifts in the movement over the past week, as more and more women, men, white, brown, First Nations, and people of various ethnic shades and political and economic stripes work together, I have felt my uncertainty give way, again and again to reassurance and hope.
Reading, writing, talking with others who believe that the Occupy movement is not one thing but a dynamic and active space for real change excites me!
A few pictures:

Occupy, Day 4

From Rabble, Michael Kaufman expresses beautifully what is my dream for the Occupy movement. Read Occupy the Future: Eight Steps to Being the 99%.

What do Canadians have to protest? We don't have it that bad.

This question seemed to be a recurring theme on websites about the Occupy Toronto movement. And to me the answer is, We are that bad, and we can be a lot better. In Canada, as around the world, we support an economic system that is unsustainable and ultimately self-destructive. The effects of this economic system are felt on the planet and on the world's poorest people.

As I logged onto the Occupy website, I encountered a fundraising ad for the starving children of Somalia. What better juxtaposition, for Canadians do feel for the people of Somalia. Yes the famine is related to decades of severe political instability, but - like many crises in the developing world now - it's also related to unjust food and trade policies, and to desertification related to climate change.

In this country, we have a terrible track record on climate change. Our politicians often stand up to impede agreements that would help to lower emissions. It is most likely that we will not make our (drastically inadequate) Kyoto commitments. White Water, Black Gold is one recent film that shows the impacts of climate change in our country (unreliable waterways, melting glaciers, unpredictable weather). In Africa, the South Pacific, parts of the Indian subcontinent, China, and Australia, the effects are already much more dramatic - flooding, drought, and heat waves, and costing uncountable lives. Yet the federal government continues to invest $1.5 billion of our tax money every year in the Alberta tar sands. Do you really want your tax dollars going to the tar sands?!

While some scientists fear that it is too late to preserve the climate we depend on, it is only going to get later. The Occupy movement is the opportunity to act now.

I am hopeful that Canadians will call for change, and will keep calling until we are heard. I am hopeful that we will care enough not only for our own children and grandchildren, but for our neighbours around the world, and for the planet we depend on. I am hopeful that we can change from a growth economy to an enough economy - based on justice, life and wellbeing for all, for the 100%.

FoodStock

28000 people standing up for the land our food comes from!

Food cooked over fire
the forest of food
shelter from the wind

28000 people
all brought our own plates
it isn't that hard

Poetic surprises
Music
Fingers too cold to take many pictures

28,000 people

For some it was really about food from a fancy chef, and for most it was to stop the megaquarry, but really I hope that it doesn't stop with the megaquarry, that FoodStock helps crystallize the broader movement for environmental and social justice. The speaker from the David Suzuki Foundation spoke more about the economy than the environment, and the Occupy movement - because only if we reorient the growth economy will we have sustainable change, and sustainable life, for Canadians, and for people around the world.

Occupy Toronto, Reclaim our Power, Revive the Planet

What an inspiring few days! It was wonderful to be part of the crowd at St. James Park on Saturday, for Occupy Toronto. The occupation is calm, organized, and strong, and committed to peaceful action. the feeling at the park was one of welcomed diversity, with a feeling of cohesion among the people representing many pieces of the grand cause of living well on the earth. I am so hopeful that our time has come, that the 99% has finally woken up. I plan to go down later this afternoon, and hopefully have more to report.

 

The people united!...

Monday afternoon, thousands of people rallied at Nathan Phillips Square to preserve city services like childcare, transit, and environmental programmes. The community mobilisation that has been building all summer is making a difference. By making our voices heard - calling our councillors, writing to the media, making deputations, and setting up all sorts of networks, we are making a difference. It speaks to the power of the people, and the importance of taking a stand for justice.

See more great pictures on Rabble here.

I have one caveat: Many proposed cuts are being deferred to November, and some are simply being pushed down to be decided by city agencies that are already charged with lowering costs by 10%.  Stay vigilant!

And I have one wish: If our country took the same stand, in the same numbers, against the Tar Sands and our national failure to act on climate change, we would be in a much more environmentally and economically progressive position now. See updates from the inspiring Ottawa sit-in, also on Sept. 26th, here.

Fiscal Responsibility

Last night I volunteered at Toronto Environmental Alliance's phone bank to encourage people to contact their councillor if they oppose cuts to environmental programmes. The majority of people I spoke to were opposed to cuts to programmes that sustain our environment, economy and health! I wasn't sure if I would get through my whole list, but everytime I reached someone who offered to phone their councillor before I even finished my pitch, I felt re-energized.

But I also encountered a few people who insisted that cuts are necessary, and while sad to see them happen, were resigned to it. And this morning, I listened to executive committee member councillor Jaye Robinson on CBC talking of fiscal responsibility. (But she also spoke against the new plan for the waterfront! Hooray!) The more I read and think about the systems that connect the local and national economy with the local and national environments, the more I wonder whether calling for cuts to city services reflects an understanding of true fiscal responsibility.

As much as we like to imagine otherwise, everything, including all things fiscal, depends on the environment. To make this connection obvious to people, sometimes environmental economists look at ecosystem services - a way of quantifying the economic benefit (to say nothing of more ephemeral benefits) of the environment.

In Toronto, our green canopy of trees, managed by Parks and Recreation with specific support and planning from Toronto Environment Office, provides ecosystem services that keep our air clean and that sequester carbon. Without continued planting, pruning, and monitoring of pests, the green canopy is at risk. Toronto Parks and Recreation's goal is to double the green cover from 17% to at least 30% in the coming years. This is a significantly investment in climate change mitigation, reduction of water runoff, and promotion of health.

The GTA's Green Belt provides tremendous ecosystem services through its undeveloped wetlands and forests and agricultural lands. In fact, just the agricultural lands, mainly family owned farms, contribute $326 million per year in climate regulation through carbon storage, habitat for pollinators, control of soil erosion, etc. These family farms depend on a local market, and that means that city programmes like Live Green that promote local food consumption, and affordable farmers' market fees, are essential to maintaining these farms.

Although it might not be immediately visible, spending money on City programmes and services that support ecosystem services is part of fiscal responsibility.

Is this Prosperity?

CBC Radio has been doing a special series this week to honour 40 years of Conservative government in Alberta. I was struck by one of their speakers who said that Albertans are not Conservative because they’re prosperous, rather they’re prosperous because they’re Conservative.

NO! Alberta’s government deserves no credit for the province’s prosperity, except to the extent that they’ve ignored environmental and national well-being to invest in the tar sands. The tar sands, not the Conservative government, are the source of Alberta’s short term prosperity.

Meanwhile, the rest of Canada’s economy has been hollowed out by the high Petro dollar; our opportunity to develop economically and environmentally sustainable infrastructure and a national energy policy has been all but lost; the local environment, forests, and water systems, and the health of many citizens, have been severely damaged; … tons of carbon have been pumped into the atmosphere – just in extracting the oil, that figure says nothing about the carbon emissions when the oil is used for energy, whether in Canada, the U.S., or China. For more on the devastation the tar sands have wrought on our ECONOMY as well as the environment, see James Laxer’s article, as well as the most current issue of Alternatives Journal, "The Power and the Glory", and Oil Sands Truth.

An oil industry executive spoke on CBC about how the industry is working to reduce the local environmental impact. To the extent that this is even possible, it has nothing to do with the real problem – nationally and globally we cannot afford to burn fossil fuels and emit carbon into the atmosphere. As long as we continue to do so, one province’s so-called prosperity comes at the extent of everyone else’s wellbeing, including the next generations of Albertans. 

If you oppose the continued tar sands development, and subsidies and tax breaks for the tar sands, let your MP know, and join with activists and citizens on September 24 in Toronto (and around the world), on September 26 in Ottawa (if you're not busy at the Stop the Cuts rally in Toronto)!

And to see what fossil fuel prosperity is really costing the world, tune in to 24 Hours of Reality on September 14th and 15th - starts tonight!

Quality of Life - Stop the Cuts!

On Saturday I participated in the Stop the Cuts meeting at Dufferin Grove. About 600 people from many ridings, cultures, and income groups participated in this meeting to develop a position statement on cuts to city services, and to plan actions to protect our services and our city. In itself, the meeting was impressive - 600 people actually meeting and participating in decisions over four hours, outside, in a friendly drop-in atmosphere - through a remarkably well-organized series of breakout sessions, musical interludes, and report backs. The declaration is available on Stop the Cuts' website.


The big day of action is on September 26, the first day of council meetings to decide on cuts (and unfortunately, the same day as the Tar Sands action in Ottawa). The most important thing we can do leading up to that day is build awareness of what these cuts mean for people - write letters to the Editor, do the social media thing, and talk to your friends. Some of us live in ridings where the councillor can be counted on to vote to preserve services, and others the opposite. Those who live in the many ridings with a mighty middle councillor have a lot of potential power - phone calls, emails, and visits to these councillors can really make a difference.


Although I sometimes find Now Magazine's Rob Ford-related coverage antagonistic to the extreme, Adam Giambrone's recent article is a well-balanced and clear explanation of the current fiscal and political situation in Toronto, and what the city needs - namely, increase property taxes as previous administrations have done every year: Ford's Fake Fiscal Crisis.


I have been reading Richard Heinberg's brilliant but heavy The End of Growth, which argues essentially that economists have ignored for generations the environmental limits to growth - that ultimately we will simply have exhausted most of the resources on which economic growth depends - in fact, many resources have already peaked, and others will soon. Yet he argues that if we plan carefully, the end of growth doesn't have to mean the end of improvements to quality of life.


In this context, it's especially important to look at how city services help to build a city that is resilient and that supports quality of life for everyone,  especially the most vulnerable - that means environment and food programmes that promote local, affordable food (LiveGreen and the Toronto Environment Office); libraries where people can meet, talk, and learn, without having to buy anything!; parks for enjoyment, sanity, air quality, and much more; grants for art and community programmes; adequate childcare; and affordable housing.


Let's look also to people who work for the city - more than 17,000 of whom may be laid off or forced to take an buyout package that is unfair to anyone who has worked for less than 35 years. The fact is that there is no gravy; the secretary's secretary's secretary is a myth! People who work for the city are doing jobs that need to be done. And adding to the ranks of the unemployed will do nothing to help our quality of life.


Let's look to the suburbs - not to find a place to lay blame, but to make sure that the majority of Toronto's population enjoys the same services and quality of life as people living in the city centre.


Let's look to the province (and vote wisely on October 6, please!) and the federal government, to make sure that they are providing adequate transfer payments to cities like Toronto.


Let's look to each other, to our neighbours and friends and family, and let's get creative. Quality of life in the coming years will have more to do with healthy food, healthy spaces, and healthy communities than with high-tech gadgets, conspicuous consumption, or waterfront ferris wheels.

Voices of Transformation

Well, it's day 3 of Not-Back to School, and I'm still happy!

I've had time to attend Food Forward's inspiring Sprouts to Shoots workshop on food advocacy on the beautiful Big Carrot roof. I'm much more aware of the voices of power and disempowerment around me, and of how ( I hope! ) to help reclaim our power and our rights to healthy local food that supports families, farmers, and the planet!

I've had time to start reading Richard Heinberg's The End of Growth, on economy, environment and peak everything. (Also the new Elizabeth Hay book, curiously called Alone in the Classroom, admittedly a much easier read.)

I've walked and walked in the suddenly fall weather. I've had time to bake deliciously seasonal apple peach muffins.

I've updated my calendar with lots of important events - people reclaiming our voices - here are just two:

Stop the Cuts! at Dufferin Grove Park, Saturday Sept. 10, 1-4 pm

Climate Reality Project online, Wed Sept. 14 to Thurs. Sept. 15

Environmental Economics

Reading responses to an article on the tar sands, I am surprised once again by the number of people who believe that our economy depends on the tar sands, and more broadly that economic wellbeing and environmental wellbeing are inherently at odds. I propose the opposite - that except for perhaps the very, very short term due to the costs of transitioning; or if you define the economy by how many bonuses Wall Street types receive, rather than by whether people have jobs, food, homes, health, and time to spend with their loved ones - what's good for the environment is good for the economy, and good for people.

Mark your calendars - September 26

Naomi Klein was arrested today in the peaceful Washington Keystone XL tarsands pipeline protests. See Toronto Star article! I am impressed by the tenacity and commitment of so many high-profile and low-profile Canadian and American citizens in Washington. Mark your calendars for September 26 in Ottawa - hopefully it won't be too late. A number of high-profile citizens and organizations including the Council of Canadians, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Greenpeace Canada, are calling on Canada and the U.S. to stop the tar sands - specifically, for Obama NOT to approve the Keystone XL pipeline - and keep the carbon in the ground! They are issuing a call for a peaceful, very well-behaved, all ages, sit-in on September 26 in Ottawa.
Council of Canadians invitation to Ottawa Sit-in

Protecting our Commons

Last weekend, I was at the Peoples Assembly for Climate Justice at Dufferin Grove park. The peoples’ assembly is an interesting group, with members who represent a wide range of views on the role of government – anarchists and socialists and people who vote Liberal. I probably have more faith in government than many. But it was a conversation with a man passing through that stuck with me, because I think his positions and values reflect those of many in the mainstream. He spoke of a move away from the tar sands and of initiatives like Ontario’s Green Energy Act and FIT programme as “government coercion”.

I take issue with the notion that green policies represent government coercion – or perhaps what I disagree with is the pejorative tone. I believe that there is an essential role for government regulation in the protection of our Commons. Why? In short, because the capitalist economic model is designed to consume, and if we don't have protections in place, it will consume us to death. For better arguments than I can give, read The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel, or see the brilliant and ever relevant film The Corporation.

Further, there are many ways through which governments coerce us to behave in ways that are not socially or environmentally sustainable. I think our planet and our people could use some righting of the scales. A big example of ungreen government coercion are tax breaks for oil companies and subsidies for the Alberta tar sands (See the counter at Climate Action Network).

As we look ahead to the Ontario election, I believe it's essential that we look beyond ourselves and our families to the wider community and environment - upon which we all depend. What party offers policies that will protect and enhance our commons? What parties offers policies that support renewable energy technologies? green jobs? protect our green spaces? promote sustainable agriculture and support farmers? support an education system, including post-secondary that's accessible to all? Do we want a government that coerces us into selfish, unsustainable consumption, or that supports us all in caring for each other? 

Tar Sands - Game Over for the Climate

Bill McKibben on why it's urgent that Obama not approve the Keystone XL Pipeline

A Lasting Legacy

For me, more powerful than Jack Layton’s death is the outpouring of love and hope that it has sparked. I believe we must celebrate Jack’s life – and the way he lived his values. We must ask ourselves how well aligned are our actions and values. Once the chalk and the flowers have returned to the earth, will there be a lasting legacy of action?

I believe that living in harmony with the environment must be the defining goal of our generation. This week I feel reinvigorated to ask myself how well my actions are aligned with my values. Everyday, am I doing everything I can?

Over the next few days and weeks, there will be a lot more on here about specific issues that I believe we need to take action on. 

Our Café in the Park

While I haven’t been writing, I haven’t given in to despair. I have been busy working on a project to engage people to enjoy and advocate for for healthy affordable food. Our plan is to establish a co-operative community café where people from many economic and cultural groups can talk, organize, eat, drink, cook, listen to music, and join in growing and preparing food and buying affordable organic food through a food buying club. Through the amazing connection-making powers of Nancy and Jo, and many others, we have built a strong network of people and organizations who are helping make this project happen (we’re still looking for more – if you’re interested!) On Friday August 19, we held the first trial run of the community café, and it was a fantastic success!

While we work now on securing funds and a permanent space, we're also looking forward to the next café in the park, on September 23!

Thank you to Jeffrey Chan for the fantastic photos! http://www.snapclickpixel.com/

 

Let us be loving, hopeful, and optimistic, and we'll change the world. - Jack Layton

Since starting this blog a month and a half ago, I guess I was hit with a sense of futility. I'm reminded this week of the need to act, and to put optimism ahead of fear. So I am continuing to take action in the world, and to post on this blog, starting with something I wrote on the Core Services Review, and never posted – it's not too late though, we’ll have an opportunity September 19 and on to continue to take action on preserving the city we love!

July 15, 2011

I spent most of last Thursday, one of the very hottest days our city has ever seen, in the air conditioned comfort of City Hall. The weather wasn’t the only reason I was there. I attended the Parks and Environment Committee’s meeting to consider KPMG’s proposed cuts to services, including parks and zoos, horticulture, urban forestry, and the Toronto Environment Office and Live Green Toronto. 339 citizens wrote letters in support of these programmes. Over 7000 citizens signed a petition in support of maintaining Riverdale Farm. And there were over 70 deputants who came downtown to speak to the committee on behalf of our city. The meeting began at 9:30, and it ended after 11 pm. It was a scary day, and ultimately a terribly disappointing one, but it was also exciting and inspiring.

Inspiring because this was where so many people came to speak so eloquently for our city. We (the broad we – because so many people spoke of so many important and interconnected issues) represented ourselves, our families, our neighbourhoods, and organizations like the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Toronto Environmental Alliance, LEAF, CityTV, CUPE, Food Forward, Food Share. We spoke of our pride in being a city that leads. We spoke of the power of the Live Green programme to help inspire, train, and organize citizens to develop community gardens; retrofit their condo buildings; establish green roofs; and develop programmes to promote access to locally grown, healthy food. We spoke of our love for our parks, and of the vast body of research that shows how important parks are for our physical and mental well-being. We spoke of the importance of maintaining and enhancing our urban tree canopy. We spoke of the economic value of ecological services. We spoke of the urgency of acting on climate change. A recent article in the July 2011 issue of Scientific American was highlighted, and so was the work of James Hansen. We spoke of the essential role of the Toronto Environment Office in coordinating environment-related programmes, in adopting and promoting energy conservation measures, and preparing for and mitigating the effects of climate change-related extreme weather events. We spoke of the failure to act on the part of our federal government, and the essential need for, and potential of, action by our municipal government. We spoke of how far our city has come already, and how much further we must go, if we are to achieve climate justice. And we spoke of the $6 annual tax increase it would take to maintain all the services KPMG is recommending we cut.

Scary because we knew how much there is to lose. And disappointing because we certainly did not win. The four members of the PEC who were present to the end did not make a decision this day, and neither did they defer the decision until September when the City Manager’s Report and other information would be available – as so many deputants requested. Instead they abdicated their responsibility for this essential decision and referred it to the right-leaning Executive Committee, to be considered in September. 

Yet exciting because there was an energy in the room – not only from the deputants, but also from the city councilors. Not so much from the members of the PEC – in fact of the six members, one (Raymond Cho) was absent for the entire day, and the other (James Pasternak) was present for the morning only – but it seems that only four of six are required even to make decisions that will affect so many for so long. No, the great energy came from the visiting councilors who joined the meeting, and asked the right questions. Shelley Carrroll, Janet Davis, Sarah Doucette, and Paula Fletcher were present for almost the whole day. They spoke of “our responsibilities to the planet” and of the need to address climate change as a core service. They wondered aloud how the city could eliminate the expertise and organization of the Toronto Environment Office while still needing the services the TEO provides. And they, along with others who smiled on the proceedings, reminded us that there is great energy in city hall, and great passion for our city, our citizens, and our planet.

With this energy, this excitement, this inspiration, and with this fear, we must now look ahead to the Executive Committee meetings in September. Now we know that we are not alone. We know that there are many, many citizens who want parks, trees, local food, and a commitment to the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of current and future generations. We have 2 months to organize, to talk, to volunteer, to share, so that in September we will be again ready to write, depute, sign petitions, and make our voices heard.

In the meantime, we must prepare for the July 28 Executive Committee meeting, at which decisions may be made to privatize our libraries and to cut transit. For all these issues, we must be ready to hold our councilors accountable to do their job – to make decisions based not on their own opinions or ideological positions, no matter how far to the right, or left, they may lie, but on the expressed wishes of their constituents. We must be ready – if we want to continue to live in a leading city, and a healthy planet.

Real Action

I’m not happy to see the never-ending bashing of mayor Rob Ford for attending or not attending Pride. If he were to attend what would happen? Like the drawn out saga of Now Magazine’s naked photos, Ford is in a lose-lose situation here. And those who are keeping this issue alive look a lot to me like bullies.

           

Most bullying is not a one-way street. Bullying is often the desperate attempt to exert power by a person who feels disempowered.

As a left-leaning person with a passion for both social and environmental responsibility, the municipal and federal election have left me feeling disempowered and afraid. In Toronto, we face a potential budget shortfall and a raft of short-sighted decisions, such as those on transit and on local food.

I am terrified by the federal government’s stand on carbon emissions and the tar sands.

I feel oppressed by water bottles, ads for new clothes, new cars, and video games. I feel oppressed by mindless entertainment and apathy. I feel oppressed by our culture of consumerism. I feel oppressed by the mainstream media that does little to question our choices.

I am disenfranchised by our electoral system.

For left-leaning people, I understand the feeling of oppression, of anger, the fear and the sense of powerlessness. There’s a temptation to give in to apathy, and bury our heads in the latest “reality” show. But I don’t believe bullying does anything to help our cause.

Between bullying on one side, and apathy on the other, there is a lot we can do. Let’s educate ourselves on the real issues. Let’s not attack Rob Ford on the basis of his personality or appearance (or lack thereof). Let’s take real action on the issues that matter to us. Write your MP. Write your city councilor. Phone them. Tell your friends and neighbours to do the same. And then do it again the next day on the next issue. Let’s get beyond bullying and apathy, and find assertive optimistic unceasing action.

True Patriot Love

This documentary piece shows how our country is viewed by the rest of the world, for our inaction on climate change, and our short-sighted intransigence in developing the Alberta tar sands.

It shows how Canada is treating the people of Fort Chipewan, how Canada is exposing people to proven carcinogens, with resulting high rates of cancer and premature death. To write it, to say that Canada’s policies are killing its own citizens, seems like some kind of blasphemy or extremism. It isn't. It's the reality - the extreme belief in the almighty dollar, and the terror of change, the inability to treat fellow citizens with love and respect - that's the blasphemy. 

The tar sands directly cost Canadians $1 billion in taxpayer subsidies every year. That in itself is unacceptable. Add the indirect costs to reputation, health, local and global environment and economy, the indirect costs to our future, and one must either cry, or act, or both.

What's your goal?

I have recently taken a leave of absence from a stable job. Confused, uncertain, guilty, and yet with a mysterious sense of peace, I sought out a life coach. “What’s your goal?” she asked after ten minutes of hearing my story fall out of me in ragged pieces.

Tempted at first to claim no goal at all, at least not one I could define, I took a moment, and what came out of that moment was not completely unexpected for me, but it also was not completely expected – as a life goal it seems a bit impersonal, yet what really could be more personal than my relationship to the planet that supports me and the people I love.

My goal is to see Carbon emissions reduced by 80% by 2020. My goal is to do everything I can to be part of making this happen.

When I realized what it was I wanted to be a part of, what I want to do and be, I felt relief. Relief, because I am finally accepting and taking on that which for some reason, I have struggled to accept for so long. Not the science of climate change – I’ve never seriously questioned that – but I have struggled to accept how much this path means to me.

For many years, climate change was there, as an extra for me, along with related issues like anti-war protests, and buying organic. I tried to satisfy it by going to a rallies, even to the Montreal talks in 2005, or an evening information session when I had time. Eventually, I set off as a teacher trainer for Ethiopia, excited and ambitious about working in a developing country for two years. As much as I tried to feel like I was doing my part for sustainable development, it wasn’t enough. I felt the inadequacy before I left; I felt the inadequacy as I saw my teaching in Ethiopia do nothing to thwart the encroachment of paved roads and processed food on a sustainable local economy and community; and I felt the inadequacy when I returned to Canada. I have struggled for the past two and a half years to reconcile what I believe with how I live and teach. For me, it was a lot easier to take on the defined task of living and working in another country, than it is to take on living differently, very differently, in my own country.

My journey matters because if it’s so difficult for me – 20 year vegetarian, environmental education Masters graduate, whose passion to Save the Earth is evident from as far back as my elementary school science projects about toxic household cleaners buried in my parents’ basement – to come to terms with the personal, local and global shifts needed, how much longer and more circuitous a path to change it must be for those who haven’t been living and breathing environmental sustainability issues for their whole lives, or who might see their current high standard of living as dependent on maintaining the status quo.

Change is hard.

Yet, I have hope. I must have hope. There’s no other choice.

Rob Hopkins, in the Transition Handbook (see http://transitionnetwork.org/), writes of energy descent – the process he believes we need to consciously undergo as we transition to the realities of both peak oil and climate change:

Energy descent is, ultimately, about energy ascent – the re-energising of communities and culture – and is the key to our realistically embracing the possibilities of our situation rather than being overwhelmed by their challenges.

This is my story of fully, intentionally, and consciously investing myself in a new way of life, in energy descent and ascent. It’s my commitment, my visible online contract with my readers to be accountable for putting my beliefs into action. And it’s part of the enactment of my commitment: I hope that my story will inspire other stories, as I have been inspired by so many. I hope that my passion will give strength to your passion.