By David Suzuki — Sustainable development means different things to different people. The concept was popularized in 1987 by the groundbreaking Brundtland Commission report to the United Nations, “Our Common Future.” Over the past three decades it has entered conversations around global poverty, health, environmental quality, and social justice. It’s even been used to rationalize the ongoing extraction of globally significant natural resources, and some people think it means sustainable growth. (Some cynics said environmentalists got the sustainable part while corporations got the development.) It’s possible to extract resources with attention to environmental consequences, but unless it’s done in ways that…
Author: thegreengazette
By Brianna van de Wijngaard — Food Action Coordinator Williams Lake Food Policy Just about every year for the last decade or two, we have been encouraged to shop local for the holidays. And most of those reading this editorial likely already do: you’re reading TheGreenGazette, and you’re awesome! But, as the holidays approach yet again, we want to take a look at where that trend has taken us since the local shopping shift made its return. Is the trend still on the rise? What have we seen in the way of advantages, both to consumers, businesses, and the environment? And…
By Terri Smith — As we come back around towards winter, Amadeus is becoming fluffier by the day. I love sinking my fingers into his warm, soft coat of cashmere. He loves it, too. Of all the goats, he is obviously the most interested in human attention and companionship. He comes over to be scratched whenever anyone walks outside, and just like our dogs, his favourite place to be scratched is on the top of his back at the base of his tail. Also just like our dogs, he wags his tail whenever he gets a good back scratch. He also…
By LeRae Haynes – Kane Fraser is partner and team member at FBB Chartered Professional Accountants LLP. He also competes in extreme off-road racing events in Canada, the US, and Mexico, recently attended an Association of Research and Enlightenment conference to be certified in hypnosis and past-life regression, and regularly commits random acts of profound kindness. He’s also a paraplegic, and when he’s not driving a high-octane racing vehicle, he’s in a wheelchair. FBB has been open less than two years and has up to 20 employees. Passionate about investing in the community, the company supports a wide range of…
By Sage Birchwater — For many of us, the October 19 Canadian federal election was all about voting for change—to get rid of Stephen Harper. We took a lot of flak for this because our critics felt our stance was too negative. They argued we should be voting FOR something, not against someone. That may be true, but first and foremost, Harper had to go. We had our reasons. Under Harper’s regime Canada’s international reputation had sunk to an all time low, and our self-image as Canadians was hurting. Harper’s politics of pitting one group of Canadians against another was…
By Oliver Berger — Earlier this summer I was heading home when I noticed stuffed garbage bags on the side of the road. One after the other, on the left side, then on the right side, then on the left side again. All of a sudden, there was some movement bobbing around in the ditch. It was a man I recognized and had spotted on my way home many times. He wore a reflective vest, handled a picker in one hand, and carried a garbage bag in the other. He was picking up garbage. This time, however, I couldn’t just keep…
By Julia Kilpatrick, Clean Energy Canada — With revisions by TheGreenGazette Economic analysis finds steady GDP growth and 900,000 new jobs by 2050 as British Columbia cuts carbon pollution Renewing British Columbia’s commitment to climate leadership would create jobs and bolster the province’s economy, new analysis from Clean Energy Canada shows. A Clean Economy and Jobs Plan for British Columbia would deliver increased economic activity, create new jobs, reduce household energy costs, and better position BC businesses to compete, while also cutting carbon pollution. British Columbians would have 270,000 more job prospects in 2025 than today, and easily triple that by 2050, with…
By Ronald M. Powell, Ph.D — If wireless devices, such as WiFi, are used in your schools, then the health of your staff, your teachers, and your students can be at risk. But this problem can be successfully addressed, and with benefit to all. Background: Wireless devices transmit information using radiofrequency/microwave radiation. The international biomedical research community has been studying the impact of such radiation on biological entities for decades, but more intensely in recent years. Thousands of studies have been published in peerreviewed biomedical journals. And so many of these studies are finding biological effects of concern that immediate…
By Jessica Kirby – If you happen to be on Vancouver Island this winter and bump into a friendly, economically fiscal ten year old at one of the local craft fairs, don’t worry: he isn’t lost or abandoned. That’s my son, Kaeden, possibly the most spend conscious and simultaneously generous kid on the planet, who has learned to shop local. It all started back in 2010 when he was five years old and excited to find a Christmas gift for his six-month-old sister, Kea. He headed to the Vancouver Canucks jar on the treasure shelf in his room and carefully…
By Chanti Holtl — This is an opportune time to create new norms, habits, and ways we show up in, and care for the natural world and our local community. It is time to re-evaluate how we engage in our spending. The fear of lack keeps us stuck in our patterns of scarcity and separation. When we choose to support our local businesses we keep abundance locally rolling in a circle of support. This allows access to a higher level of security, deeper relationships, and a more engaged community. Thus creating a local interdependence, where humans actually need each other…
By Margaret-Anne Enders — In our house, we recently celebrated a sunny fall Saturday with a garage sale. It felt so good to purge stuff from the house that I haven’t used in years. When I was doing the big clear-out, some items were easy to put into the get-rid-of pile, while others took a bit more deliberation. My grandmother’s linens and dishes fell into the latter category. While I haven’t used the delicate doilies, neatly pressed bridge cloths, and blue china soup tureens, they still provided a link to my history that was hard to sever. I have many…
By Adam McLeod, ND, BSc — There has been a recent surge of interest in immunotherapies and cancer care. These therapies are a major paradigm shift from conventional chemotherapy. In the past, cytotoxic chemotherapy was the only option available to many patients. This involves the use of compounds that are toxic to both cancerous cells and normal cells. In these cases it becomes a delicate balance between killing cancer and maintaining a functioning immune system. Immunotherapy focuses on stimulating the immune system and helping your own defences fight cancer rather than injecting a toxin that directly damages cancer cells. There are…
By Oliver Berger — It’s that time of year again, when we see the leaves turn to awesome golden-yellows and fiery reds, when we see the first frosts layering the Earth with crisp, sharp crystals, and when we see our first snowflakes of the season as Mother Nature blankets the land with a pure, white covering. All the garbage on the sides of the roads is no longer unsightly because it has disappeared under the fresh snow-blanket. All that built-up clutter in the backyard has now beautifully disappeared and needn’t be worried about until spring. With the shorter days and longer…
By Terri Smith — I have had the most difficult time getting started on this article. I know what I want to say, but delicate phrasing isn’t exactly one of my strengths and I don’t actually want to offend anyone. It doesn’t seem like I should have such a hard time being nice when the topic I am to write on is that of local economies, and the benefits of supporting our community through buying local and sharing with our friends and neighbours. This is actually one of my favourite topics. But sometimes, especially at the end of another summer…
By LeRae Haynes — People looking for outdoor, winter family fun in the Cariboo can find the perfect answer close to home at the Bull Mountain Ski area just 16 km north of Williams Lake. Cross country skiing, one of the fastest-growing sports in Canada, is not only a top-notch cardio workout, it’s accessible to all ages and is a great opportunity for a family to spend outdoor time together in a beautiful wilderness environment. The Williams Lake Cross Country Ski Club, a non-profit organization, runs the facility at Bull Mountain, according to member Kirsty Gartshore. “We have parking lots,…
By Mary Forbes — Williams Lake has a bike recycling program called Bikes for All provided by Waste Wise, a program of the Cariboo-Chilcotin Conservation Society. It started simply enough: in my role as Community Waste Educator, I spend a lot of time at the Share Sheds and Transfer Stations and was noticing there were a lot of bikes in all conditions. In one of my previous experiences I repaired bikes at a pedestrian festival and did shifts at Our Community Bikes on Main St. in Vancouver. I knew many of these bikes were just a little elbow grease away…
By LeRae Haynes – Improving and enriching the lives of women, their families, and their communities is at the heart of Worth Every Penny, a social enterprise created by Penny Hutchinson, the driving force and the caring heart behind this innovative, non-profit start-up organization. She describes herself as a lifetime social entrepreneur who has been helped and supported along the way and says that’s what she wants for others. “A social entrepreneur is someone with innovative solutions to society’ s most pressing social problems,” she explains. “It’ s someone who is ambitious and persistent in tackling societal issues and offering…
By Ciel Patenaude — It’ s not likely that many of us will escape the winter season without getting the cold and/or flu at some point. Maybe it hits us early (and hard, as it has been for some people locally already), or maybe we will make it almost to spring before getting knocked out, but it’s fairly inevitable that it will happen. Given this, and given the reality that this has been happening to us roughly once a year since we were children, you would think that more of us would be ‘better sick people’ by now, experienced as we are…
By Jessica Kirby — In the midst of “shop local” messages it can be easy to forget or overlook corporate efforts toward sustainability and responsible environmental practices. Corporations, big box stores, and global economic powers are curse words in crowds trying to pay homage to hometown communities and contribute positively to a greener future. It isn’t clear all of the time which companies really are making the world a better place and which are drowning us in page after page of inflated green-speak; in fact, responsible corporate shopping can be more work than feels right. But the truth is, there…