We shall never surrender!

We shall never surrender!

I’ve always liked Churchill’s famous war speech (We shall fight on the beaches) to reflect the modern parallel of a dire threat (like the Nazi war machine) being waged against humanity. Killing or being killed is heady stuff, especially when it’s your family and the soldiers are running amok and day to day survival is on the line.

 

Although the dire consequences of a full out invasion or worse is palpable compared to the boring slow creep of something equally dire to humanity as something like climate change; this is my modest attempt at adapting Churchill’s words to suit another real threat based on humanity’s unsustainable and greedy practices. Of course this time, some 80 years after the second great war to end all wars, our military industrial growth is like a gun pointed at ourselves…

The following speech that Churchill gave that rainy morning in Parliament back in 1940 was hugely successful in uniting and galvanizing the people of the fading British Empire against what seemed like an inevitable invasion and tyranny. The closet Deep Ecologist in me thinks that the world needs a similarly worded “war cry” for the environment. We - the people, need a call to arms for a peaceful revolution to give back to the land. Where is Winston Churchill when you need him.

“Even though large tracts of the (natural) world (and biodiversity and cultural loss) have fallen or may fall into the grip of (mega corporations) and all the odious apparatus of (banking and Big Government), we can not afford to flag. We (the people) shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of this unholy war (on nature), and to outlive the menace of (economic tyranny). At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do.

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in (Kiribati – ocean rise), we shall fight on the (polluted) seas and (the depleted) oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in (restoring) the air (and water), we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the (oil soaked) beaches, we shall fight for (wildlife breeding) grounds, we shall fight in the (overgrazed) fields and in the (toxic ponds and streams), we shall fight in the (deforested) hills, we shall never surrender!

This is the will of  (Mankind) linked together in their cause and in their need, who will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength and ability. Even if we’re subjugated and starving, we would carry on the struggle alone if necessary, until, in good time, the New World (Order), with all its (virtue and) power and (creative technologies), steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old (in a spirit of reconciliation not recrimination)”

I think I like Airbnb!!

I finally got the nerve up to build a dream bedroom dormer on my second floor overlooking the river. People have always told me, don't spend money on your place because whoever ends up buying this gem on the Gatineau will tear it all out and build a new house. It was the phenomenon called Airbnb that gave me the courage and opportunity to turn my place into a short term rental and create a revenue stream. I'm told that half of Wakefield is doing this and I think that's great. Similar to the Uber taxi service, this internet wonder allows people like me to reach a much wider audience to rent my place out on a short term basis. Last summer, desperate for cash, I rented my place out for 5 months and though I was lucky with house-sitting and journeys here and there, it was quite distressing to be out of my home for so long. So now I can make the same amount of money, go on fun trips and still get to be here in between rentals. Airbnb has given me a chance to do something bold and quite possibly, save me from financial ruin. It also feels good to share my Riverside paradise out to city people who get to experience the beauty and serenity that is the Gatineau river. If its win-win then I love Airbnb but rarely are these money making schemes what they seem!Time will tell.

Mother Earth Day in Wakefield

A friend was complaining the other day that celebrating the Earth only gets one day's notice. I said it was a lot like Mother's Day...

So another Mother Earth Day in Wakefield was celebrated at our Community Center this past weekend and though it was a bit chilly in the morning, it was a glorious sunny day. Especially good for the SHE (Sustainable Home Environment) Team as we were outside and the only participant who could not afford a fancy tent. Our booth might have resembled a Kool Aid stand but we made it the best darn home made booth we could make! At one point we pulled a log over to help steady the wall in the high winds and we noticed what looked like a 4 inch long cicada had been making this log her home. We were like kids trying to protect this beautiful insect. We made a little home for her out of bark, even had a little door, but she was intent on finding something else. I finally got the cicada to climb up on a piece of bark and we moved her away from traffic so she wouldn't get stepped on. For some reason, this was a good symbolic way to start the event which had grown dramatically from our participation in last years event. Our display had become better, and we were feeling that progress had been made.

This year we made experimental "Whole Earth" Blocks out of construction wastes from a local waste facility in Cantley called Thibault;  along with two kinds of fiber blocks made with wood wastes from a local arborist company. These Whole Earth Blocks were something tangible to show what we were about, along with our improved brochure and graphics. Not bad for a minimal investment of time over money. We had the entire SHE team, Bradley, Myles, Perry and myself and later on, were joined by Andrew who is the unofficial 5th member of our team (Andrew is working on an ambitious multi-unit building in Wakefield using the SHE model).

Because this technology is new and innovative, getting to a take off point is slow and tentative. I was saying to a friend today that if our company does find traction in the near future, it will be a sweet success story given our modest beginnings. Earth Day in Wakefield attracted a lot of attention in our community and with local authorities. We have come to realize that success is not just dependent on proven technology and affordability, but is related to political and scientific awareness and acceptance. All great ideas and good companies must find a judicious balance for the acceptance of both the technology and the concept.

Our team is ideologically committed to doing something bold and good for the world and ourselves. We also strongly believe in our founder and good friend, Bradley Robinson. It is events like Earth Day that people like us get to show off our hard work and our dreams for a better world. Perhaps similar to children showing their love and support for their Moms on Mother's Day, the challenge for us will be to keep the love and support for the Earth going strong for the remaining 364 days of the year.

When I hear those cicadas finally coming out to cheer us on in summer, I will think of our friend that we inadvertently put out of its home and then took the time and effort to ensure she was safe. Earth day is all about showing that you care for what lives on into the future. Simply speaking, it is caring about our collective future.

David Suzuki talks Trudeau, aging and failed environmentalism as he turns 80

I like to write down my reactions and opinions on various news articles I find interesting or pertinent in the world today. By including only the title of today’s CBC article on Mr. Suzuki’s thoughts on turning 80, these words sound more like a rant than an analysis. To say I’m angry about how my career as an environmentalist has turned out is an understatement! I used to suspect I made a mistake choosing this soft path, upon hearing Suzuki’s frank comments, now I’m absolutely sure! This is why….

Like many, I was brought up on David Suzuki and saw him speak many times while at Trent and felt at times, our career was moving in parallel directions. Around the time I got involved in TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) issues, I felt that Suzuki was even following my career. Of course everything I did, he did 100 times bigger. Apart from feelings of grandeur, I felt that our similar pathways meant that maybe I was on the right path. I felt a kind of kinship with the man and I still do. To hear that he’s now become disillusioned about the environmental movement makes me feel once again, we’re moving in a coordinated manner. I too am very disappointed at how slow the movement has become and how co-opted it has become by big business interests or rich people trying to assuage their guilty conscience. Mostly I feel contempt for all those people who at most, pay lip service to the important fundamentals of environmentalism.

OK, maybe I feel guilty for not trying hard enough myself or squandering my opportunity to do more while I still had an outside chance while working on the inside. Maybe I feel bad for never learning French. Apart from failing as a career, being in financial straights, I wish I could have done more for the issues I still believe are the most important of our day. The movement on a pure and applied, mainstream way of doing business, has never gained legitimacy or traction as it competes with the “Trump” card, the almighty economy. There is no economy without the environment, and guess which came first and will go last?

To be painfully honest, I feel like a naïve fool for thinking the economy and environment could ever be considered equally important, two sides of the same coin. Besides poverty sucking, sustainability is just a catch phrase for business as usual. I had this talk with my mechanic the other day about my dead in the water career, and he said he didn’t have time for such serious issues. Life is too short and mostly, there’s nothing the average person can do to save the Earth anyway. He said his young son talks about doing something important in his life to help save the planet and my mechanic just says, be happy, live your short life and don’t worry about things you can’t change or fix. This was as much as a giving up as I’ve ever heard and although it deeply saddened me, deep down I couldn't really disagree with him.

I’ve spend a lifetime worrying about our sick planet, about all the cute and furry animals that are going extinct or trees being mowed down everywhere. My Dad tried to steer me towards the military or becoming an engineer like him, but NO... I had to go and try and save the planet!  A deep love for nature was instilled in me from a young age thanks to my Mom. This love for nature and ingrained responsibility to preserve and conserve it is also a weight or a curse that has led to my suffering. I guess its true that all great passions in life involve struggle and sacrifice. This is part of the human condition so get over it!

So for past lovers, who didn’t practice my brand of environmentalism 101 or instill this prerequisite to their kids, I forgive them for their meat eating, over car use, and leaving the lights on ways. To err is human. I admit that its been tough following my lonely path as a vegetarian do gooder and that I have made mistakes. But if I had the chance to live my life all over again, I’d do it the same way because when and if I turn 86 as my Dad is now, I would not want to look back at my life and regret that I didn’t try to do something noble and good for the planet and all it's trees and furry cute animals that I still love. This beautiful blue world is all we have and we are fools to pollute and spoil it. Why would I write such utterly confusing and mixed up words? Because like Mr. Suzuki, I'm human and I don’t have to kiss anyone’s ass!

Wakefield Spring

Some Wakefielders may know of my involvement with the Wakefield Spring over the years. On January 19 the Spring was closed by the Municipality of La Peche who have responsibility of this spring and its testing. I took some time to call the municipality to understand the reasons for this, and no one in authority would speak to me. I managed to get some information from the receptionist who was kind enough to give me some background on the closure, of which I subsequently shared with my community via the Wakefield News as per the following:


Some of us heard about the Spring closure via the CBC a few days ago and has been closed since
Jan. 19 following a bad or inconsistent water test result. I understand from talking to our Council and from their website that further analysis is being carried out as a precaution measure and that it is Not related to a coliform or Ecoli problem. More testing is currently being done and results will be known on Jan. 27 which will determine next steps. The spigots have been removed which looks kind of ominous but its too early
to speculate about the long term health of the aquifer or the Spring. This is why our local SOS group pushed for a source protection strategy for the Spring and it's aquifer watershed. While this is an inconvenience to the upwards of 5,000 people who rely on this drinking water source, I think we can rest assured that our
municipality is doing it's job to ensure this water is safe to drink. I hope its back soon so I won't need to resort to melting snow for my drinking water.

A friend of mine advised me against melting snow for drinking water as snow contains a witches brew of chemicals that it picks up in the air thanks to air pollution we receive from the Ohio Valley. Of course I knew this but wanted to make a point concerning how much I and others rely on the Spring for our drinking water. I also heard from other people in the community that the problem Was related to the presence of coliforms, so now I felt like I had been misinformed, and I was determine to not get fooled again...

On Feb. 2, the pipes were reconnected and water was available again for thirsty residents of Wakefield and the Gatineau Hills (not to mention many people from Ottawa and Gatineau who enjoy chemical free water for drinking or making wine and beer!). 

I wanted to follow up on my earlier investigation and provide insightful feedback to anyone who might ask me, so I called my municipality to ask what the problem was. No one could take my call so I left a message and patiently waited for a return call. None came over a few days, so I called and left another polite message. By the time I gave up two weeks later, I had left 4 messages with the Public Works department, even our Mayor wouldn't speak with me. I guess as a taxpayer, my questions don't carry weight. I did get a call back from a municipal employee who suggested I would have to request an access to information which I replied "that's ridiculous! I just want to know what happened to warrant the closing of the Spring for two weeks".  When I asked to speak with our Mayor for the second time, I was told he was unavailable and his assistant would call me back. She did finally call me back but her response did not contain any information as to the source of the problem or the reason for closing the Spring. I asked what her position was, and she told me she was a lawyer. Now I understood why she couldn't or wouldn't give me a simple direct answer, so I finally gave up. 

I bought the Low Down newspaper (Feb. 3-9) and this is what I learned:

The municipality is calling it "User Error". "The problem is not the water", La Peche mayor Robert Bussiere told the Low Down. "The water quality is great". The mayor said contamination (came) from people hooking pipes to the spring. Following a positive test result on Feb. 1, which ordinarily would have seen the spring remain closed, council members made a private, unanimous decision to reopen the spring on Feb. 2. Our Councillor is reported to have said the type of coliform bacteria found was "so benign it's ridiculous". "Because we added the (extra) test, the stringency of what we are doing... has increased our vigilance, adding "there's no danger: the water is absolutely fine". The municipality is planning to install a sign to educate people about the importance of not touching the spring's pipes to avoid contamination. 

For what my university water quality training is worth, coliform readings are an indicator species for fecal contamination. Not only does the municipality not bother to provide transparency about the actual numbers, but they assume that the source of the coliform readings are coming from people hooking up dirty pipes or hoses to the spigots from the spring. In over 25 years of collecting water at the spring and undertaking water surveys, I've never seen or heard of anyone hooking up hoses or pipes to fill up their containers!  This just doesn't  make sense to me and even if they did, I find it hard to believe that this could cause a water sample in the winter, to test positive for the presence of coliforms. I'm sorry, I'm just not buying it and I don't like the way this problem was handled from the beginning. (not withstanding the stonewalling I got when I tried to get some basic information). Something is fishy with our Council I'm sorry to say, after this latest episode, I'm not sure if I trust anything they say about the spring. Maybe I'll look into obtaining my water from the river in the future....