Shifting Sands

Last week the Globe and Mail ran an excellent eight-part series of in-depth articles about the Canadian oil patch - the oil sands of Alberta - under the title "Shifting Sands":
Part 1: An empire from a tub of goo
Part 2: The kinder, gentler energy superpower
Part 3: Why Cape Breton shakes in the echo of this distant boom
Part 4: Life on the cold side of the country's hottest economy
Part 5: Frugal Norway saves for life after the boom
Part 6: The climatic costs of rapid growth
Part 7: Looking for solutions to the carbon conundrum
Part 8: Canada, the world and the oil sands
I thought Part 5 in particular was very interesting. I had read before about Norway's ultra-sensible treatment of their significant oil revenues, but this was a good summary, and the comparisons with Alberta and Canada were very telling, I thought.

A black and white issue

During this last week, the Toronto District School Board trustees have narrowly but definitively passed a contentious motion to open the door to what it's proponents are calling "Afro-centric schools".
It has generated no end of acrimonious discussion on local talk radio, and a fair amount of bad feeling, as much in Toronto's black community as anywhere else.
The final vote was a narrow 11-9, which maybe indicates just how contentious it really is, and was essentially just a vote on the broad principle (as opposed to principal) involved, especially as it seems far from clear just what "Afro-centric" means, and no locations or grades or firm budgets or even firm timing have been finalized (although, timing-wise, September 2009 has been put forward, and cost-wise we seem to be looking at almost $1 million).
The province of Ontario has been unequivocal in asserting that no new provincial money will be available for it, so any investment in such a project will have to come out of current capital and operating budgets, and the Board is notoriously underfunded already.
So it seems to me that worsening the underfunding of the rest of the school system on a point of principle is wrong-headed. But maybe that point of principle is sufficiently important and sufficiently "right" for us to overlook this? Unfortunately, no.
Undoubtedly the proposal is well-intentioned, but in my opinion and, that of many other commentators both, black and white, misguided.
The intention and primum mobile of the proposal is to address the school dropout rate for English-speaking students of Caribbean descent, which is up to 40% and clearly unacceptable. This proposed solution - which as far as I can tell involves attempting to integrate the history, culture and experiences of blacks in society into the regular curriculum (sort of a Black History Month all year round) - is supposed to miraculously fix that. As though learning about Marcus Garvey and Granville T. Woods is going to encourage these kids to merrily skip along to their schools in the mornings, and leave behind their gangs and street crime in preference for homework and exam revision!
Possibly more worrying is the movement towards segregation and marginalization it would represent. Angela Wilson, the who put forward the motion, claims "It's not about segregation, it's about self-determination" but, whether it is "about" segregation or not, that would be the end the result, and personally I don't want to go there.
I have heard too many black teachers and black mothers from risky areas argue against the proposal to be persuaded by it, and it seems like a dangerous first step down a slippery slope in the wrong direction.
By all means pump more public money into public education and into the most troubled parts of our community (whether they be predominantly Caribbean or not), but this is not the way to go.

Are there limits to growth?

An article by Doug Saunders in this weekend's Globe and Mail touches on something I have always wondered about, and now has me wondering all over again: Do we always have to relentlessly pursue economic growth? Will the world necessarily grind to a halt without it?
The conventional wisdom has always been that constant economic growth, as opposed to economic stasis, is necessary, and that without it endemic poverty and mass unemployment would result.
The article mentions the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" report back in the 70's and Herman Daly's theory of steady-state economics. In the current climate of increased environmental awareness and increased worldwide democracy and health improvements, is it time to re-visit these concepts?
I am no economist, but I have always, since back in the 80's, questioned the assumption that economic growth (and as much of it as possible) is a given, mainly with the intention of encouraging equality in an ever-polarizing world, and to alleviate the environmental pressures which growth inevitably brings.
I know it is all tied up with increasing and ageing populations, free trade vs. managed economies, etc, etc, and I don't profess to have all the solutions. And neither do The Club of Rome or Herman Daly for that matter.
But I can't help but wonder if, in a changing world, we shouldn't be letting go of some of these perennial underlying assumptions, in much the same way as the once sacrosanct theory of monetarism had it's day and then was all but abandoned when it's drastic side-effects became too severe and untenable.
I will do some homework on steady-state and zero-gowth economics, for my own edification, but unfortunately I am not the one running the world.

Dear Diary...

The worst possible reason for a blog entry is to assure people that I am still alive.
Clearly, given that my last entry was a full month ago, very little recently has caught my notice and/or exercised my imagination enough to galvanize me into putting index finger to keyboard.
I have absolutely no interest in the US primaries, no comment on the high-profile trials of Lord Black and the pig farmer from B.C., and the campaign to rescue Christmas from the grips of politically correct bureaucrats leaves me cold. Benazir Bhutto assassinated? Chaos and rioting in Kenya? Lamentable, but hardly surprising.
I think I have been a bit discouraged by the complete lack of interest in my blog. I wasn't exactly expecting a deluge of correspondence and a flaming, dong-dong, online discussion or anything of that sort. But I thought that maybe the odd indication that someone somewhere is actually reading these pieces might not be too much to expect. As it is, I have absolutely no evidence that anyone apart from me has ever come across these pages, which is a bit depressing. Does that sound pathetic?
Maybe I should just call it Dear Diary...

We used to be better than this

Ho hum. Another major climate change summit, more prevaricating, and more embarrassing Canadian inaction (or, worse, negative action).
At the Bali conference, long-term US foot-dragging has dragged down Canada and Japan, which seem to have joined together in an unholy trinity of nay-sayers, arguing that local economics takes precedence over international ecology. If it is going to cost us money then, sorry, we can't do it.
I have this nasty suspicion that the rest of the world probably thinks that this is representative of the views of the general population. Certainly, any kudos Canada might have had as a force for good in the field of the environment (although in reality it is some years now since we have deserved any such kudos) is now well and truly shot.
As usual, the main excuse for inaction is the old one of "Well, if China and India are not committed to anything, then why should we? So nyer!" Is there then no place any more for principle, for doing the right thing, for leading by example? If we don't sign on, how can we expect China and India to? If we wait until everyone is on board, the ship will be long sunk.
I am no great fan of Kyoto, but for now it's all we have, a symbolic first step in the right direction. No-one, including me, will believe us if we say that we will break our commitment to Kyoto, but then do more later, and why should they?
Neither can we wait until some miraculous deal is struck which meets all the Tories' conditions (if that will ever happen) before starting to think about what needs to be done to achieve it. By then, still more time will have passed, and the task will be all the more difficult.
It's long past time for some serious action on the issue, whatever protocols are signed or not signed by whoever. If necessary (and it would be), we pay for the carbon credits we need to get through Kyoto, and let that be a lesson to us.
But enough already of this whining and foot-dragging. We used to be better than this.

You too can make a microloan with Kiva

A friend alerted me to an interesting website www.kiva.org, which is a microfinancing/microplan operation designed to facilitate the bringing together of concerned citizens from the developed world and individual entrepreneurs in the developing world in need of funds for their small businesses.
It seemed like such a simple and worthy idea, I thought I would share it with the world (not that anyone actually reads this blog...)

A tour of the world we need

As an antidote to the depressing reading in the national newspapers where Our Glorious Leader can be seen flexing his muscles on the international scene refusing to take any action on climate change until India does (so nyah!), I have been reading Chris Turner’s “The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need”.
In his easy-going and refreshing style, Turner tries to focus on the positive (a focus in very short supply) by looking at renewable energy and sustainability projects around the world in an attempt to show that we have the technology to combat global warming right here and now, we just need the will, the vision and the leadership (also in very sort supply).
Among many other inspiring developments (and his trademark digressions into world economics, local politics and popular culture) he visits:

• the Danish islands of Samsø and Aerø, where the local council and activists have developed an almost completely grid-free, sustainable energy regime based mainly on wind turbines;


• forward-thinking public transit systems in Portland, Oregon and Copenhagen;


• Rolf Disch’s remarkable Plusenergiehaus (which uses almost every energy-generating device known) and the surrounding solar powered district of Vauban in Freiberg, Germany (not a location normally associated with a surfeit of sunshine);


• Dr. Soontorn’s net energy-generating Bio-Solar Home in Bangkok, Thailand;


• Mike Reynolds’ hobbit-like but incredibly efficient and energy-saving Greater World Earthship Community in New Mexico;


• Sohrabji Godrej’s LEED-certified Green Business Centre in Hyderabad, India;


• John Bradford’s Interface Flooring Systems, a huge industrial carpet tile business which goes as close as is humanly possible to reusing and recycling everything without the usual degradation and “downcycling”;


• the industrial city of Kalundborg in Denmark, which has linked together its massive coal-burning power plant, Denmark’s largest oil refinery, a giant pharmaceutical plant and a plasterboard factory in a very complex but very efficient network of symbiotic relationships, resulting in a much reduced carbon footstep and very little pollution of any kind;


• Amory Lovins’ venerable Rocky Mountains Institute, after thirty years still at the cutting edge of sustainability;


• a community-built sustainable energy project in the jungles of northern Vietnam.

He also has lots of interesting things to say about the legacy of Le Corbusier and the ubiquitous square-box, brutalist architecture he heralded; mixed use developments, New Urbanism and community-supported agriculture; the concept of natural capital, “Small is Beautiful” and “Small is Profitable”; the Lorax and the Once-ler and what we can learn from Dr. Seuss; green advertising; and much more.
It is a well-researched, thought-provoking and at times surprising read, and a highly recommended Christmas present.

To fluoridate or not to fluoridate

It seems like there's no such thing as a sacred cow these days.
Fluoridation of tap water has always been up there with vaccinations as one of health research's great success stories since the initial science was done way back in the 1940's.
Now, though, significant doubt is being placed on its efficacy and even on its safety.
It turns out that, while childhood cavities have been significantly reduced in countries using fluoridation, they have also been equally reduced in countries like the U.K. and most of Europe which don't fluoridate their water. This suggests that improved dental education and fluoridated toothpastes are likely more to thank, especially as the fluoride is directly applied to the teeth rather than the more hit-or-miss method of swallowing fluoridated water. Which sort of makes sense to me.
More worrying, but also more disputed, is new research which purports to show that our excessive fluoride intake may be linked to a bone disease called childhood oteosarcoma, reduced IQ levels and hypothyroidism.
Interestingly, Canada is almost evenly split between provinces like B.C. and Quebec which generally don't add fluoride to their tap water, and others like Ontario, Manitoba and Albert which fluoridates the vast majority of their water.
Even more interestingly, Toronto has recently (unbeknown to most people) halved the amount of fluoride is puts in the water, as has the province of Quebec.
Health Canada is, for now at least, sticking to its guns:

"The fluoridation of drinking water supplies is a well-accepted measure to
protect public health that is strongly supported by scientific evidence."

The Canadian Dental Association concurs.
Where does that leave me, the average Joe on the street? Do I have now have a choice between drinking water or brushing my teeth (but not both)?