Columnists

To celebrate International Walk to School Month, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario and Green Communities Canada will launch a campaign called “iCANwalk to school… can you?”

The goals of International Walk to School Month are to:
- Encourage physical activity by teaching children the skills to walk safely, to identify safe routes to school, and the benefits of walking
- Raise awareness of how walkable a community is and where improvements can be made
- Raise concern for the environment
- Reduce crime and take back neighborhoods for people on foot
- Reduce traffic congestion, pollution, and speed near schools
- Share valuable time with local community leaders, parents, and children

According to a release, the one-year iCANwalk to school campaign: “…asks schools to pledge to increase walking and encourage kids to walk to school and in school.” The schools can register online here to log their progress through the year. Apparently over 250 Ontario schools are participating in this year’s International Walk to School Day and 95 have taken the pledge to continue walking throughout the year. Registered schools will be eligible for prizes from the Jump Rope for Heart HeartSmart Points program.

Kids are change-makers: Not only could a program that encourages students to think critically about the walkability of their neighbourhood put some helpful ideas into tomorrow’s leaders, parents are likely to advocate for change today, too.

Beyond programs for kids, I’d love a way for those who walk or bike to work to report on best walking routes through their community — and note the worst areas to trek through, such as those cut off by highways, poor street planning and train tracks. City planners might be encouraged to find space for boulevards and walking paths to improve the health and of area citizens (and ease wildlife migration as well). I live near a network of walking paths, but the 401 highway cuts off my route, so I would have to take my bike on a busy four-lane road to get to work.

Do you have a green way to get your kids to school, or to find your way to work? Has your community played a role in making walking easy?

Now that air traffic has been suspended for several days, eco weenies like me will start talking about the benefits to the planet because the Icelandic volcano is emitting only about 1/23rd the amount of CO2 of the European aviation industry would (if it were running at capacity), according to Gizmodo. I say this while one of my best friends is stuck thousands of kilometres away from home! I don’t deny that, in our modern world, people need to travel, and more relevantly, we can so we do (some of us buying our carbon offsets in hope).

I do wonder, however, if the short-term shortages on store shelves across Canada could help us all see what we really shouldn’t have. I’m talking about super-perishable foreign goods, such as exotic flowers, tender fruits and vegetables and other goods that can’t be brought in from across the globe any other way but by (temperature-controlled) air (then trucks), because of their short lifespan. These are the goods many of us avoid buying already. But considering the environmental cost of bringing in perishables on a daily basis, should we as a nation stop buying them? And if so, how would that be possible on the large scale – through laws, or taxes, or what? What do you think?

Canadian figure skating champion Josée Chouinard has a mission to for kids: green your school! Canada’s Greenest School Contest, an initiative of IC Bus, is a fabulous opportunity for the winning student’s (or classroom’s) school to win a hybrid school bus (value: $200,000; fuel efficiency improvement over a conventional bus: 65 per cent), a LEED building audit to evaluate the school, $3,000 for the student who entered the contest (or to be shared among the class) and $500 in classroom supplies for the winning student’s teacher.

Why is Chouinard involved? “When I grew up, we were not really concerned about the environment and being careful of the earth and making sure that we were giving a future for the next generation,” says Chouinard. That’s changed, however: “Nowadays, the awareness is there. We’re making sure that things aren’t going to waste and we’re preserving the environment. Especially now that I have children, I think the best way to educate them is through school – [my children] started school in September.”

I asked Chouinard if she felt that the Vancouver 2010 Olympics brought across a sense of eco awareness that would help kids embrace the Canada’s Greenest Schools Contest. “When you have such a big event like the Olympics promoting environmentalism, I think the best way to then reach out and train and educate the new generation is through schools,” she said. “Every aspect of the Olympics was about being green.”

Why does this contest matter to the big picture? According to IC Bus, one school bus has the capacity to take 36 passenger cars off the road, and thanks to the kids who are riding busses (instead of being dropped off by car) 1.3 billion litres of gas are saved in Canada every year. I’m sure those number will be even more impressive as more schools use hybrid busses!

So how can students win the contest? Kids all the way from Kindergarten to Grade 12 can enter a photo collection, a piece of music, a video, an essay, or photos of a diorama, collage or piece of artwork. Whatever form the message takes, it has to say how the student or class would like to make their school a more green, eco-friendly place. Entries are due April 5, so click here to find out how to enter!

Driving home with my partner last night, we briefly got stuck behind a van that was running rich. Barely able to stand the smell of partially burned gas, we finally made it to another lane. Will gassers become a distant memory? I hope so. The sooner the better!

A few months ago I wrote about the Tesla S (shown above). This car will be available next year at a base price of US$49,900. It has a 480 kilometre range, making it a standout. Its super-fast cousin, the Tesla Roadster, is already available to Canadians for $125,000; it has about a 390-kilometre range. It hits 100 km/hr from a standstill in only 3.9 seconds. That’d be something to try!

I’m also getting really excited about the electric Smart car, the Smart fortwo electric drive. They should be hitting Canadian roads by the end of this year, although, at least to begin with, they’ll only be available to businesses and fleets in some sort of a long-term rental arrangement. I don’t have a price yet, but the electric Smart has a 135 kilometre range, making it a great car for commuting and other shorter-haul driving. I had a chance to try a Smart car earlier this year, and loved it.

The Nissan Leaf is coming to Canada in 2012, although I’d heard that it’s coming to Vancouver earlier. It has a 160-kilometre range. The Nissan site says that the car will be affordable, but doesn’t offer a price.

If I lived in Quebec (or the southern US), I would be able to buy the ZENN car. It looks like they’re about US$20,000. A city car, the ZENN has a maximum speed of 40 km/hr. Apparently it takes about four hours to charge the ZENN to 80% capacity from “empty.”

The bottom line: it’s going to be a little while before I can buy an electric car (unless I win the lottery, of course). We’ll see who brings an affordable all-electric car to the Canadian market first!

To compare the fuel consumption of any model of vehicle currently on the road, click here.

On Friday I took in a presentation by someone from the National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations. The Center is trying to promote geotourism, which they define as “tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of place.” They see geotourism as having benefit to the environment, heritage, culture, aesthetics and the well-being of local residents. This is in contrast to increasing pressure on popular destinations — the deluge of people can degrade the very places people seek to see.

The representative from National Geographic noted that cruise ship travellers have a major impact on destinations, because they tend to require a lot of resources while putting very little back into the local economy, primarily because they don’t spend a lot of time on land. In contrast, geotourism is low-impact, sustainable travel that involves enjoying a landscape without using undue resources, and contributing to local elements of the economy, such as small-scale adventure travel companies, food producers, artisans and more.

I enjoy sailing in the Thousand Islands, and I’d say that’s a geotourim activity. My annual week-long voyage involves buying provisions from local food producers (as well as some at the regular grocery store), visiting local restaurants, and using very few resources in general since my partner and I rely mainly on wind power to go tack to and fro.

However I think I can do better. Whether I’m traveling for business or pleasure, I’m going to try to stay at small inns and B&Bs instead of big hotels, seek out restaurants that serve local food, look for artisan markets to visit, and try to take in a cultural event, whether it’s live music or theatre. After all, I can see a Hollywood movie anywhere — I have to learn to track down and enjoy the things that makes communities unique.

What’s important to you when you travel?

With 105 world leaders coming in for the UN Climate Change Summit, which runs from today to Dec. 17 in Denmark, it’d be easy for the conference to have a hefty carbon footprint. It seems those running the COP15 conference are keen to avoid the irony of a global conference, which is aiming to save the earth from catastrophic effects of climate change, producing undue carbon in the process.

Perhaps there’s something to learn from their strategies for running your own green meeting, trade or consumer show or a conference.

- Conference delegates will get a free public transportation pass to use throughout the summit. Apparently the Copenhagen metro system was recently voted the best in the world, making it the most efficient way to travel in terms of both time and carbon. Armoured cars will still be used for world leaders, of course.
- Rather than giving gift bags at the summit, Denmark is using the money they would have spent (approx. $700,000) on a climate scholarship for 10-12 students around the world to complete a 2-year Masters program at a Danish university.
- Tap water will be distributed at the conference; plastic bottles won’t be provided. Sounds like BYORWB (bring your own reuseable water bottle) is the order of the day!
- Over 3,500 hotel rooms reserved for conference visitors have a certificate in sustainable hotel management.
- There is a 55-metre windmill right next to the conference centre for the ultimate in local renewable energy. For the rest of us, perhaps we could purchase power for our events from a renewable energy supplier.
- To top it off, COP15 will offset their C02 emissions from delegate visits, local transportation, the conference centre itself by creating 20 new brickworks facilities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. According to this site, the new technology used will “reduce coal consumption during brick production by 50 percent… and emit an annual 100,000 tonnes less CO2 into the atmosphere than the old kilns.”

To listen to Jan-Christoph Napierski, Head of Sustainability at the conference, describe the challenges in reducing the impact of the event, click here.

Have you taken steps to reduce waste in your meetings and events?

Congrats to Via Rail. Apparently VIA has cut fuel consumption by 25 per per passenger kilometre, and greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent since 1990. VIA is now working on equipment and operations upgrades in an effort to further reduce its ecological footprint. That’s good news! (OK, a high-speed electric rail line would be really good news!)

Too bad other train networks don’t have good news to share. Toronto’s new Go train network to Georgetown will likely be diesel instead of oh-so-21st century electric. (OK, many countries had electric trains well before the millennium.)  Actually, they’ll be a type of diesel that doesn’t even exist yet. For some reason it’s better to expect that new diesel technology (I know that’s not an oxymoron, but it sounds like it) to materialize than use tried-and-true electric trains. Don’t get me wrong. Metrolinx is going to study electric. Oh, and they’re going to monitor the air quality. Terrific! Or, they could just do the right thing in the first place, and bring in electrically powered trains with energy offset by Bullfrog power. That’d make a Go train that deserves to be painted green.

A lot of books come in for review here at Homemakers magazine. I recently received a copy of “Clean Breaks: 500 new ways to see the world.” Penned by Rough Guides Richard Hammond and Jeremy Smith, the travel book featuring international destinations promises to share “…unusual holidays and alternative ways to travel that make a real difference to the lives of local people and the planet.”

The book offers a nice mix of volunteer opportunities (help monitor whale and dolphin behaviour in the eastern Mediterranean), unusual accommodation (dome homes in Patagonia) and hundreds of ways to see interesting global communities (follow an arts and crafts route in South Africa) and natural spaces (the Tarkine region of Australia).

The first person to comment with an idea for traveling more sustainably wins the book!

We call solar and wind energy renewable energy, and sometimes clean energy. I’ve been out sailing for the past week, and it’s become clear to me that clean energy is a good name for it, and I’d go for considerate energy too.

While out moored in the beautiful Thousand Islands, I noted that boats of a size meant for sleeping in are equipped in one of two ways. They either have a mix of solar panels, high-efficiency solar lights, small wind generators and coolers with ice and dinghies with oars OR they have dinghies with outboard motors and they charge their batteries that power the lights, the fridge (and sometimes the stereo system) by running the boat’s engine. Some even have an extra generator on board for even more power. A few people have a mix of these accoutrements, but most seem to be of one school of thought or another.

Let me tell you, nothing shatters the peace of early morning in a beautifully natural island bay like someone’s outboard-powered dingy trip so rover can do his business on the island. Followed closely by the guttural sounds of a diesel engine kicking in, ready to power the coffee maker.       

I just hope that the next generation of boats are made with considerate power in mind. After all, hulls with built–in solar arrays would look neat, LED lighting is plenty bright for the cabin, and then there’s the freedom from the gas dock. For now, we outfit our boats ourselves. My partner has a relatively small but well-made solar panel that provides enough energy to power our phones and recharge our solar light. (We love the Sunnan lamp from IKEA – you take out the solar panel and leave it outdoors. At night its flexible arm provided all the light we needed inside the boat.) At night, conventional solar lights meant for the yard serve as mooring lights, emitting a soft glow from mid-mast and at the stern to ensure we’re visible – without blotting out the stars.

Have you seen clean energy replace an old way of powering things?