[Mill Bay BC 11-22-09] Yesterday I took a plane ride from Calgary to Victoria. Actually it was divided up into two flights, Calgary to Vancouver and Vancouver to Victoria. When I fly a rule of thumb for me is if the person next to me is open to chat and interesting I will engage as it makes the flight way pass more quickly and I definitely enjoy dialog. This was the case on Sat afternoon for both flights.

YYC - YVR (First Leg)
I discover I am sitting next to a brilliant engineer from Toronto. He just sold his company and was disappearing for a while. He was on his way to New Zealand and Australia. We talked about a myriad of subjects and what intrigued me is that he really knew things beyond the technical details to the historical events that led to discoveries or court decisions. He talked about his home as a child in India and some of the projects he worked on over their as an adult. And he talked about his experiences on the ground in Northern Alberta working the oil patch as well as his special with Ontario Hydro in nuclear energy.

So here are a few of the things I caught… the whole corn starch plastic is not the answer, in fact, it is a problem. In Canmore it has become a huge thing at all our events that corn plastic plates and cutlery are used because “it is far more environmentally friendly” (the reason: it will breakdown as opposed to the other plastic that never will.) I discovered it is not friendly because it is still plastic. The corn starch is used as a binding agent to keep the plastic together and ‘if’ this plastic is continually exposed to sunlight it will break down in the sense that it is no longer a recognizable piece of something like a mug, fork or whatever… BUT the plastic still is plastic just in small pieces that can possibly float and be breathed in and cause horrific things like cancer!

The other thing I learned was that synthetic oil that you buy at a typical retail automotive shop is not really synthetic in the full sense of the word. My engineer friend gave me the history of synthetic oils through WWI and WWII re airplanes and how conventional oil wasn’t holding up and the engines were breaking down. So they discovered that sap down in the Brazilian rainforest that was not burning up with the trees and took the properties of this sap to create a synthetic lubricant. Long and short of this is that the current ’synthetic’ oil out there made by a couple of the BIG oil companies actually has mineral oil in it with some synthetic content. He told me the year and location of the court case where one of the big oil companies won the case to use ’synthetic’even though it wasn’t. I actually looked this all up online after the conversation and he nailed it. I am very disappointed as my TDI Jetta has been on a steady diet of ’synthetic’ oil. All that money…

YVR - YYJ (second leg)
On my short haul flight, like 15 min in the air and 15 min taxiing I sat next to a bona fide horticulturist who has retired from his government job. He now chairs different national boards like the farmers’ market board and agricultural tourism board. It was great to hear his journey from Trenton to Victoria when he was a young man in the 70s, a Neil Young-type. He discovered Vancouver Island and could not get it out of his mind’s eye. For eight years after his first visit he looked for the opportunity to find work to justify the move from Ontario. In 1980 he made that move and became a true Islander. He wore a little wool cap/toque, grey hair resting on his neck with a gotee on his face. He told me stories of the first test vineyard on Vancouver Island just a few kilometres from where I am sitting right now. I loved the brief visit hearing his passion for caring for the earth and the need to grow our food from untainted soil… very cool!

It was a very educational journey to say the least. I am looking forward to my time here in Mill Bay and to the flight home. Who will I sit with next time?

[Canmore, AB 08-06-09] One of the most difficult challenges that children of the third world face is bad water. This bad water is full of viruses and diseases that often leads to diarrhea and death. According to UINCEF over 4000 children die daily from water-related diseases and over 1.8 million people (mainly children) die annually. That is difficult for many including myself to process and fathom.

I often go to TED.com to be inspired and encouraged by thinkers and innovators. Today as I watched the video below with an engineer Michael Pritchard from the UK I was stirred with hope. Please take 10 minutes to watch the video below regarding Lifesaver, an incredible water bottle or a jerry can with an water filter system, that can take the worst sewer-infested water and in seconds make it safe, sterile drink water!

It is clearly time to “think differently” and consider the possibilities of changing the world…

[Canmore, AB 04-22-09] Today is Earth Day 2009. It is an opportunity for people across the nations to show our gratitude for this planet and humongous ecosystem that we share every day of our lives and even after. Please take some time today to act kindly towards the beautiful world you live in. Here are some websites to check out for events and opportunities to participate in: earth day canada earth day usa earth day network

Below is some information about Earth Day Canada. encounter earth is hoping to partner with this organization in the future to demonstrate our value of the earth and the ecosystems we share.

Mission: To improve the state of the environment by empowering and helping Canadians to take positive environmental action.

Vision: Earth Day will remain Canada’s strongest positive voice in promoting constructive and sustainable environmental values, actions and solutions.

Goals:
* CREATE positive public awareness for existing and developing environmental solutions.
* EMPOWER and ENCOURAGE Canadians to take environmental action in their communities.
* ADDRESS the challenges to Canada’s environment by working in partnership to create programs that can be delivered by communities, organizations and individuals.
* FOSTER and MAINTAIN the positive celebration of Earth Day annually.

Celebrated every April 22, Earth Day is the largest, most celebrated environmental event worldwide.

More than 6 million Canadians join 1 billion people in over 170 countries in staging events and projects to address local environmental issues. Nearly every school child in Canada takes part in an Earth Day activity.

Environmental challenges abound as our daily actions pollute and degrade the fragile environment that humans and wildlife depend on to survive.

What can we do?

Earth Day provides the opportunity for positive actions and results.

First launched as an environmental awareness event in the United States in 1970, Earth Day (April 22) is celebrated as the birth of the environmental movement.

Earth Day is a powerful catalyst for change. The first Earth Day, spearheaded by Wisconsin Governor Gaylord Nelson and Harvard University student Denis Hayes, involved 20 million participants in teach-ins that addressed decades of environmental pollution. The event inspired the US Congress to pass clean air and water acts, and establish the Environmental Protection Agency to research and monitor environmental issues and enforce environmental laws.

In 1990, two million Canadians joined 200 million people in 141 nations in celebrating the first International Earth Day. In many countries, the global event brought pressure on heads of state to take part in the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to address issues such as climate change and the world wide loss of species.

In Canada, Earth Day has grown into Earth Week and even Earth Month to accommodate the profusion of events and projects. They range from large public events, such as Victoria’s Earth Walk (5,000 participants), Edmonton’s Earth Day Festival at Hawrelak Park (30,000 participants), and Oakville, Ontario’s Waterways Clean-up (2,000 participants) to the thousands of small, private events staged by schools, employee groups and community groups.

[Canmore, AB 03-12-09] Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the author of bestseller books “End of Poverty” and “Common Wealth,” believes that GM/North American auto industry is vital for the future of the planet as we transition from the combustion engine for vehicles to battery/fuel cell. He refers to this transition as the “sustainability transformation.”

We are certainly in the midst of a critical shift in so many sectors - financial, transportation, marketplace, etc. This is a global shake up that allows for radical and creative change… an opportunity to change mindsets and patterns that under normal circumstances would have taken years, and more likely, decades.

[Canmore, AB 03-05-09] Back on May 19, 2008 I posted an entry “Beware of the Gyres.” Gyres are really scary huge patches out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. All of our plastic that is thrown away and caught up in our rivers (on the western side of the Great Divide in North America as well as Eastern Asia) make it out to the ocean and eventually settle to float in these gyres endlessly. It is literally a soup of small bits of plastic from bags as well as caps from water bottles, lighters, etc. Really awful… take a look at this 7 min video to understand the impact of our “throw away” society: “…only we humans make waste that nature cannot digest.”

[Canmore AB 10-31-08] So I was at this fair trade/environment sustainability conference this past weekend trying to process what it really all means. I realized again that there are many choices and very little education out in the marketplace. On Thursday night one of the keynote speakers spoke on the global trade injustices in third world which has resulted in a book that she wrote. I chatted with her after the session to discover that she has moved on to another topic that has resulted in writing another book that is focused on food and sustainability. Seemingly, she has moved on to the next big thing… turn the page. I was hoping to have a more in depth conversation regarding the injustices she spoke about but she did not seem that interested as people were lined up for her to sign her books.

What I found at the booths along the hallways of the college the next two days were people who have huge hearts and huge ideals. I guess the struggle I had was how to walk the tension between heart/desire and ideals. Now I have to admit that I have been in the high ideals side of the spectrum… just ask many of my friends along the journey and they would tell you how sometimes I drove them mad with my standing firm and not giving in. So I understand when people are laying out their, no holds barred, ideals around environment and labour, I understand the passion, the high standards, the incredible drivenness… a mountain to die on attitude. I appreciate that so-o-o much as I spent a lot of my life around far too many that were content with the status quo.

I guess as I get older, and hopefully a bit more wiser, I have had to learn, the hard way, to be a bit, no, a lot more patient and try to take a more people in the new direction. First, this may sound like I am taking the easy way out but really this path causes much more tension, particularly inside me. Encounter Earth is existing real-time in this tension. We purchased an existing store, Canoe, that sold traditionally made and traded product and are taking the time to transition the clothing lines over 18 months so that we can say unequivocally that the people who made this t-shirt or those pants earned a living wage. Second, that tension between heart and ideals has caused me to take notice of others around me, like many of our current customers, who do not necessarily see life from my perspective. I have realized that tasteful awareness and kind dialog can bring change. The other path is often fraught with pushing and shoving, trying to convince people that they are wrong and that there is a right way. I am not discounting the activism-style way because the shock and awe is often needed to wake people up. This philosophy often gets the pendulum swinging the other way but it struggles with winning more than a small minority of people over to change their choices.

As I stated at the top I was at this conference that was about economic and environmental sustainability which is at the foundation of encounter earth. So I laud the efforts of the host college and all those in attendance. I realize again that as encounter earth is built upon that foundation the next phase needs to be heart. We are framing a big heart to share the stories of the friends that we are beginning to make in the third world who are needing a living wage to support their family in the most base of needs as well as a safe and healthy environment to live in. encounter earth mission is to connect hearts between the consumers, like you and me in the most wealthiest nations in the world, and the poor in the broken parts of the world. This is a difficult journey to make happen because there is no certified path but just plain old hard, grind-it-out work both at the storefront end as well as the manufacturing end… no shortcuts, just one nail at a time.

[Canmore AB 09-17-08] On Sunday August 24th I landed in Las Vegas, Nevada. The city is surrounded by desolate mountains and in the middle of these mountains is a city full of lights, money and lots of noise. When I first walked the strip my senses were overwhelmed and a headache was trying to lock in on my brain. I had to remind myself that being in the middle of this craziness was for more than the experience of being in Vegas it was about development and discovery.

The development of relationships with owners of small businesses that we had already established a formal business to business connection through ordering product. And also the hope of discovering more quality companies out there who lined up with the encounter earth values of economic and environmental sustainability for our third world partners, workers and artisans.

On the development front we met with three principles of three companies that we do business with. On Monday morning we met Shannon and wow, it did not take long for Bernie and I to look at each other and smile. She is for real… she lives in Thailand 5 months of the year and works alongside the people. She talked about projects that they are involved in that deal with education and health. She talked about living wages for her workers and participating at their parties where they karaoke late into the night.

Next we met with Matt, founder/president of a company that has over 250 collectives of 6 to 60 women in South and Central America. Matt and Scotty, co-founders, hiked the Andes in the late 90’s to find women in small villages who were willing to sew. They took 7 years to just find and develop these collectives. They have been living the justice thing in business for over 13 years. Matt sat with Bernie and I and was so encouraging about his take on encounter earth. Another meeting, another confirmation that we are partnering with the right people.

Our third meeting took place in the corner of the trade show that was for the more up and coming companies. It was kinda the shantytown section… low budget, small booths and smaller displays. We sat down with Aiden and talked about jeans and India. This young man with a few friends dreamt about fairness and fashion only a few years ago and before they knew it had created an incredible product that is moving like crazy. Yet as we sat with this guy he was as humble as could be. But there was a brilliance as well around viral marketing and so many crazy ideas in how to make a difference. Wow, again, another confirmation!

We came out of the three meetings flying, just saying ‘YES!” We were so impressed by the integrity and passion to bring change in a huge, very intimidating industry. We then spent the rest of Monday and Tuesday walking through various parts of the trade show trying to find other companies that would carry the same dna as the ones we already visited. At this show there was a newly formed section called ECOllection and as you guessed it this section is all about environment and sustainability in fashion. We thought out of the 80 exhibitors we would find at least 1 or 2 other companies that we could work with.

We had lots of conversations but the theme that came out over and over again was that we care about the environment so this detail and that detail was given about the process regarding making the garment. When we would ask about the workers and fair or living wages the person would rattle off SA8000 or FLA which means they never met a third world worker in the factories where the clothes are made but apparently the factory complies to a basic standard set out in these agreements. Then we would share about our desire to see the workers paid a living wage and that the basics of food, shelter, health and education need to be addressed we would either be given blank stares or just a repeat of SA8000/FLA or greater detail about the quality of their eco-friendly product. Now I will write an aside: there were a few local American-made product companies that were at this ECOllection show as well. Most of them know their workers and pay them fair wages. Encounter Earth’s main priority is to partner with companies that employ third world workers.

So, as Bernie and I prepared to leave Vegas on Tuesday afternoon after being just a bit overwhelmed by an industry that in America alone is worth hundreds of billions annually, we felt a little intimidated, a tiny bit disappointed, but very encouraged in that we saw rays of hope through our new friends, Shannon, Matt, and Aiden. We had this sense of confirmation that even though we are so-o-o tiny a market offering we are on the right track and it made complete sense that we could only find less than 1%, more likely .01% at the trade show that we could connect with. We are so thankful to find the few and hope that in the coming years many more in the fashion industry will step onto the path of awareness and social justice as a fundamental way of doing business.

(Canmore // 06-13-2008) So I am googling away on a friday morning looking for what is currently available on the internet regarding the whole sweatshop dialog and came across a very intriguing website. The UK and Europe, have been dealing with the fair trade conversation for a lot of years so I was not surprised to find that the BBC has a website called Thread: Fashion Without Victim.

Thread is an online fashion magazine dedicated to bringing the latest in eco-fabulous style. The Thread team is committed to these three principles regarding clothing:
1. Made and traded sustainably - where suppliers of raw materials receive a fair price and workers get a fair wage, with guaranteed rights.
2. Made of sustainable materials - minimising the impact of fashion on the environment. Material made from organic cotton that is safer for farmers, garment workers and the environment, as they’re free from chemical pesticides and fertilisers.
3. Recycled or vintage - keeping clothes out of landfill and cutting fabric waste in factories.

So this is what BBC/Thread did… they developed this reality show called “Blood, Sweat & T-shirts” (four one-hour episodes.) The producers picked out six fashionistas from around London and sent them to India to discover how their clothes are made. These six young adults are absolutely shocked as they walk into factories, slums, cotton mills and fields not only to see the injustice but to experience it, they have to work and live off the wages they are paid… talk about harsh reality!

Below is the first of 3 or 4 short clips I will be showing on this blog over the next week or so. I invite you to respond as you view these videos… we need to grapple with the realities of how and in what conditions that many of the clothes in our closets have been made.

(NY Times - BRIAN STELTER) On Wednesday, Discovery will introduce Planet Green, a new cable brand promoted as the first 24-hour channel dedicated to eco-friendly living. It is the highest-profile cable channel introduction of the year, and an equally risky one. By wrapping itself in the planet, Discovery is betting that “eco-tainment” will appeal to viewers.

Planet Green will replace the Discovery Home Channel in more than 50 million homes. Eyeing the public’s increased interest in environmental issues, Discovery is confident that it can attract more viewers with green-themed programming.

“This is an eco-tainment channel,” said Eileen O’Neill, the general manager of Planet Green. “It’s a lifestyle and entertainment channel that’s designed to activate people in the green space.” It is also intended to engage advertisers, many of whom have green-themed marketing messages to share with viewers. “Green is a category companies want to be in,” said Gary Lico, the chief executive of CableU, an online service that analyzes cable networks. “Whether you’re an automaker or a bank or a petroleum company, somewhere in your marketing plan is something referring to the environment.”

But some of Planet Green’s advertisers could raise eyebrows. General Motors, maker of the Hummer, is the “exclusive automobile sponsor” of the channel, Discovery announced last month. G.M.’s Chevrolet brand is a “premier sponsor” of “Greensburg,” a documentary series about a tornado-damaged town that is rebuilding with an eye to the environment. As part of the deal, G.M. vehicles will be integrated into some programs, and Discovery will produce short-form videos about the company.

Ms. O’Neill said the company has “very thoughtful conversations” with any advertiser who shows an interest in the channel. “We’re thinking about everyone being better — not necessarily perfect,” Ms. O’Neill said, noting that G.M. sells a number of vehicles that address fuel efficiency or feature hybrid technology. David M. Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery Communications, added: “If the standard is perfection, we’ll all fail. The journey is to do a little bit better.”

That attitude is in line with the channel’s mission, which is to “take green to the mainstream,” said Tom Carr, the senior vice president for marketing of the channel. Discovery’s research, conducted last year, identified 40 percent to 50 percent of the United States population as “armchair environmentalists.” Mr. Carr calls the channel’s target audience “bright greens,” people who are motivated by the idea that they can help the planet.

“We’re pressing on the accelerator here,” he said. “We think it has a real chance to be a flagship brand for us.” But programs that are promoted as being good for you aren’t always good for ratings, Mr. Lico noted. Perhaps that’s why “Compost Tonight” didn’t find a spot on Planet Green.

The channel’s schedule is star-studded, with the celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse hosting a cooking show featuring organic and locally grown foods, and the “Entourage” star Adrian Grenier living a green life. “Hollywood Green,” a weekly entertainment magazine, will showcase earth-conscious celebrities. The other programs will show every shade of green, from “G Word,” a daily series hosted by two news correspondents, to “Wrecklamation,” billed as “recycling on steroids.”

The channel has almost all original programming — partly because there was not an available vault of entertaining environmental programming to tap into. “It’s been challenging at times,” Ms. O’Neill said, “in part because we’ve been educating the production community that may have had certain expectations of what green content is.” Namely, that it did not star Ludacris and Tommy Lee, at least not until now. On their new show, “Battleground Earth,” the celebrities participate in an eco-friendly reality competition. They were also the headliners of the channel’s premiere party in Los Angeles last week.

Timed to the switch from Discovery Home to Planet Green, Discovery marketers are conducting “Random Acts of Greenness.” At the Indianapolis 500 last month, they handed out T-shirts and beach balls to consumers who exemplified green living, and sponsored the cleanup day after the race. The giveaways will continue in New York this week. Similar promotions will occur at Major League Baseball games in Milwaukee; Washington; and San Diego, San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday. Mr. Zaslav will throw out the first pitch in Washington, and the stadium’s JumboTron will count down to the channel’s 6 p.m. debut. Also that day, all the Discovery cable networks will show green logos.

“This is a new genre,” Ms. O’Neill said. “People don’t have any set expectations of what green media is, and we’re defining it — as really funny, engaging, entertaining and definitely credible.”

I spent the first part of the morning today reading the Globe & Mail, a national Canadian newspaper. I came across this article titled ‘A Sea of Synthetic Trash’ and the accompanying video ‘Synthetic Sea: Plastic in the Open Ocean‘ regarding Charles Moore’s research. These are unsettling reports that reveal these two key dead zones in the Pacific Ocean where there are rarely any winds and currents and therefore avoided by ships. These “gyres” are where the ocean trash collects and floats.

Here is the map of the two major gyres in the Pacific:

So what basically has happened is plastic bags and other plastic waste end up being thrown off boats and ships as well as run off in streams and rivers from the land into the ocean. A high percentage of the plastics end up in these gyres but they also end up on remote, unpopulated island beaches. The lighter grade plastic gets broken up into plastic fragments and are consumed by smaller birds and small fish that feed on plankton. Ultimately plastics and a whole lot of chemical crap that adheres to the plastic fragments end up in the food chain and ultimately us, as humans.

Ok, so this whole thing about being responsible for the people and world around us can get overwhelming at times and this morning was one of those moments for me. It’s scary to think how we/I take so much for granted (packaging of products, shopping bags, etc.) without even thinking of the impact at our personal level, let alone the global. In the past 3-4 years we have chosen to recycle cardboard, all paper, metal, plastic as much as possible. Our town of Canmore is very progressive in recycling and I think we can recycle about 80% of plastic that we consume.

But after reading today’s news article and viewing the video I felt anger and the need to do more. I am starting by writing this blog entry and will try to personally discover how to be active re initiating change regarding the current crisis of plastic in our oceans as well as the current acceptance towards consuming plastic without a second thought in our every day lives. I hope everyone who reads this blog will rise up to the challenge as well.