Heather Conn Blogs

  

                                                                                                                                                                                                 — visual by Avril Orloff  

This week, the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) asked 75 green-minded people their view of what’s critical to launching a successful community sustainability program. In a four-hour interactive session, held at the Cedars Inn motel in Gibsons, British Columbia, Canada, here’s how some people responded:

 

Have a sense of urgency. Be bold. Acknowledge risk.
Have strong leadership. Take action and do it with enthusiasm.
Make it personal and engaging.
Understand people’s motivations and value. Recognize their differences.
Demonstrate concrete examples of sustainability and their benefits.
Involve youth and multi-generations.
Reassure people.

 

The SCRD, the local governing body for about 30,000 people who live along the coast northwest of Vancouver, hosted the fun event, which included a free vegetarian dinner and live music by local band Sweet Cascadia. Facilitator Julie Clark, the education and outreach coordinator for the SCRD waste management program, invited participants to respond to three questions:

 

1.  Thinking like the whole coast (region), what do you believe should be the goals of a sustainability education and outreach program?

2.  Think about a time when you experienced fabulous community engagement in action. What were the important elements?

3.  Think about a friend or neighbour who is not involved in the sustainability movement. What suggestions do you have to engage this person in sustainable behaviour?

 

As participants, we discussed responses with three different sets of people, rotating to a new table for each question. We summarized our answers as individual groups, then shared them with the whole group. A wonderfully creative artist, Avril Orloff, wrote our responses on a series of wallboards, using eye-catching imagery and lettering with a variety of coloured felt markers.

 

This process invited maximum participation and allowed us to meet three times as many new people than we would have if we had stayed at our respective tables. Although I was skeptical at first about how effective this method would be in producing practical and meaningful answers, I enjoyed the interaction and brainstorming and found it valuable. I discovered later that we were following World Cafe Guidelines, which I had never known about. The World Cafe Community website defines its approach as ”a natural & effective way to host meaningful conversations that awaken collective wisdom & engage collaborative action.”

 

I enjoyed hearing the suggestions from each group; some sought immediate, localized changes, others took a broader outlook, emphasizing life philosophy and motivation more than specific actions. In my first group, I thought that defining sustainability would be a good place to start, since it has become such a buzz word and means different things to many people. Some people prefer the term “stewardship.”

 

A woman in my group recommended the definition offered by Jennifer Sumner, author of the book Sustainability and the Civil Commons: Rural Communities in the Age of Globalization, published by University of Toronto Press in 2005. Sumner thinks that since sustainability is such a vague concept, the forces of corporate globalization can co-opt it. She recommends a new understanding of the term, seeing sustainability as ”a set of structures and processes that help build the civil commons.” Sumner defines the latter as ”any co-operative human construction that protects/or enables the universal access to life goods” as distinct from market relations. She suggests a new term of “sustainable globalization.”

 

Julie Clark cited the 1987 Brundtland Report , also known as Our Common Future, published by an international group of politicians, civil servants and experts on the environment and development. This report defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The report highlighted three key aspects of sustainable development: environmental protection, economic growth, and social equity

 

The SCRD is putting its sustainability focus on three main areas: water conservation; solid waste (e.g. using it as a resource), and energy and emissions. As if to emphasize how our choices now will affect the next generation, participant Georgina Brandon gave the children who attended an eco-minded art project. She had them draw and paint signs that they paraded through the meeting area: giant vertical footprint outlines that cautioned us to limit our contribution to carbon emissions; a long, horizontal shelf of plastic water bottles, reminding us of landfill clutter and nonrecyclables, and outlines of chickens that encouraged food security and control over one’s own food supply.

                                                                                                                    — visual by Avril Orloff

 

Although this event didn’t result in any earthshaking revolution or instant change, it did provide inspiration, validation, and options for initiating change at a local level. Regardless of what definitions we use for sustainability, only actions will make the difference. I think that concrete goals, such as setting dates for achieving specific reductions of  greenhouse gas emissions, make a good rallying point. Make any efforts solution-oriented rather than harping on problems. The overriding question that Julie Clark posed was the perennial challenge: How do you engage the silent majority?

                                                                                                                  — photo by The Blackbird

I was delighted to come across the above photo at an exhibition at W2 Community Media Arts Centre at 112 West Hastings in Vancouver, BC. A photographer and poet in the city, known as The Blackbird, created this image as an example of subvertising. (Wikipedia defines this practice as “making spoofs or parodies of corporate and political advertisements to make a statement.”)

In his accompanying artist’s statement, The Blackbird said that he was wondering: “How do I combine the cute and mascot dolls with the harsh socioeconomic and political realities of playing host to the [Olympic] Games while 1) not diminishing the mascots’ accessibility as products of popular culture intended for mass consumption and 2) not making light of serious problems such as Vancouver’s homelessness crisis, the drafting of bylaws that restrict guaranteed Constitutional freedoms in the interests of a corporate elite, and the complete militarization of a peaceful democratic metropolis?”

I had just created a sillier, more whimsical version of subvertising with a similar Olympic theme (see my post below called “Introducing Quarotchety . . .”). It was a wonderful moment of synchronicity to discover this image taken on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It depicts beautifully the startling difference between the cutesie, moneyed version of life, as per Olympics advertising, and the reality of a dumpster diver in Canada’s showcase coastal city. What better way to convey that than use a primary Olympic icon? Well done.

 October 30, 2009

Roberts Creek, BC: The chum are running

It’s a delight to watch chum salmon running at the mouth of Roberts Creek, which empties into the Pacific Ocean near my home in Canada. Some have swum for thousands of miles to get to this spot on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast. Some look hardy and dark, ready to forge through the rapids, while others are white and weak with shredded skin, barely flicking their fins.

Two or three will hover in the shallows below the bridge at the centre of the mouth of the creek, while some linger close to shore. Sometimes they’ll splash and surge over each other and skitter off as if they’ve lost their starting position and need to regroup. (Sure, I know that’s anthropomorphism.)

It’s amazing to consider the endurance of these fish and their ability to battle against fierce currents to spawn. Farther up the creek,  on Lower Road about 75 metres from our home, my husband and I will look over the wooden railing of the bridge and watch the chum waiting to go upstream. It often takes a few seconds to spot their usually dark shapes  among the shadows and underwater rocks. It’s fun to see them; I feel like a silent sports fan urging them on.

But overall, the numbers of sockeye salmon in the Pacific ocean and rivers of British Columbia have dropped dramatically. Some blame overfishing, poor regulation of the commercial industry by federal fisheries, salmon farms, and resulting lice and disease in wild salmon spread from farmed salmon. B.C. resident and whale researcher Alexandra Morton has led a fight to stop salmon farming in B.C. and prevent salmon populations from disappearing in the Pacific Northwest. Find out more about her activities in this New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/science/04prof.html?_r=1

 For a more whimsical, humorous take on a spawning salmon, see my “Sam Mandala” blog post under Creativity.

I’m pleased that this year, pink salmon have returned to nearby Gibsons and Langdale creeks for the first time in many years. A Squamish Nation biologist has said that they likely came from thousands of fry (baby salmon) dumped into Gibsons harbour two years ago. Chapman Creek, part of our watershed, has had the biggest pink salmon run since 1993.

 

 

 

October 24, 2009: International Day of Climate Change

                                                                                                                      – Heather Conn photos

Create a 350 world: Reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to safe levels

 

I joined hundreds of others in Gibsons, BC to create a 350 world aerial photo. This was part of a same-day movement around the world, from Nepal to Hungary to the Maldives Islands, where people posed in the formation of “350″ for a group photo and pledged their commitment to a “350 lifestyle.” (See www.350.org for great global photos and messages shared from mountaintops, underwater, Antarctica, desert plains, urban rooftops, in front of the White House . . .everywhere!)

The 350 refers to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for humanity. However, we are already at 388 ppm and rising. As pledge cards stated at the event: “What will it take to turn this lethal trend around and move as quickly as possible to a 350 world?”

 

 

At the event, participants signed pledge cards that indicated what actions they would take, and how often (from daily to once a month) to reduce their carbon footprint and move towards a 350 lifestyle. This included eight choices from enjoying a Buy Nothing Day to not eating meat and refusing to buy or drink bottled water.

We each signed a pledge card, which read: “I am ready for ambitious, fair and binding global climate policies. I call on world leaders to ensure these are grounded in the latest science and strong enough to get us back to 350.” We chose who we wanted to send this pledge card to: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, or our local Tory MP, John Weston. I opted to send mine to Harper, who needs to take climate change far more seriously.

The global day of action was a powerful visual gesture to reinforce that we need to lower carbon emissions and make world leaders accountable for the decisions they make, or fail to, regarding climate change.

As an aside, the United Nations recently voted Gibsons, B.C. the most liveable city (with a population of 20,000 or under) in the world due to its policies of sustainability and commitment to green thinking and living.

 

Gibsons, BC waterfront at Winegarden Park

Sunshine Coast resident Chris Yeske took the 350 Gibsons photos with a remote-controlled camera mounted on a 40-foot mast. To see what his final photos look like, check out these web links:

I took the photos above while visiting Sea to Sky Outdoor School for Sustainability Education on Gambier Island near Vancouver on the Pacific northwest coast in British Columbia, Canada. What a fantastic learning environment, full of inspiration, passion and holistic thought. Founder Tim Turner has a wonderfully creative and provocative approach, nudging people out of their familiar mindsets and enthusiastically inviting them to re-examine their relationship to the planet and their community. While listening to his energetic summaries of the school’s work and goals, I kept thinking: Gee, I wish all educational environments were this fun and forward-thinking.

The school caters to elementary and high-school students, mostly from urban environments. Some who visit Sea to Sky have never even been in a rural setting before. The school’s location and backdrop are stunning: the Pacific Ocean, forests of Douglas fir and cedar, and a skyline of mountains. I would love to have attended such a place when I was a student. I hope that it changes the minds and lives of thousands of students who will make life choices as thoughtful guardians of the planet and caring members of their community.

I was visiting the school as part of a team from Sustainability Television (STV), an environmental web portal in Vancouver.  You can watch a short video about the Sea to Sky School on STV’s home page. When you get there, just click “Sea to Sky” in the left-hand column.

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Raccoons are not rats

A few weeks ago (Aug. 13, 2009), I wrote a tongue-in-cheek piece about raccoons in The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. Here’s the link to the piece (once you’ve opened the link, you have to scroll down until you see the graphic of the raccoon with a rose in its mouth):

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/raccoons-this-is-your-warning/article1249899/

After the article appeared, I was surprised at the vehemence of many readers who posted online comments on The Globe’s website. They either described tales of violence against raccoons, or else advocated violence towards these critters, likening them to rats. I was horrified. I don’t see raccoons that way at all. Are people that eager to eliminate something that interferes with their life in a small way? Perhaps my piece gave the wrong impression, but I had hoped that people would realize I was just kidding.

 

To read some of my published writing on the environment, please check out my website link.