Earth Day started on this continent and North Americans make the April 22nd celebration one to remember. Even before the words, ‘climate change’ or ‘biodiversity’ were household terms, most people in the 1970’s realized humans were creating ecological damage on a wide scale. Earth Day was born because people like Rachel Carson eloquently explained that the planet’s integrity was not for sale. The countless scientific reports on the Earth’s health, including the latest one by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, adds to the urgency to live lives as if Earth Day was every day. As our federal government’s stewardship of Nature has tragically giving way to a destructive and irrational focus on supporting the fossil fuels industries, various organisations in Canada such as EcoJustice and the Pembina Institute make headway in the protection of fundamental ecological rights for all living beings.

Transition Collingwood will present on Thursday, April 24 at 7pm, the film, “Revolution” by Canadian Rob Stewart, award winning biologist, photographer, conservationist and film-maker at Collingwood’s Gayety Theatre located on Hurontario Street. The film’s stunningly beautiful images of Nature is given more appeal by the people interviewed in the documentary who make a direct plea to us to save our Earth. Most importantly, the proceeds from the screening of “Revolution” will go to the Community Seed Library located in the Collingwood Public Library. As access to vast numbers of seed types continues to plummet, seed banks around the world have blossomed and seed exchanges and libraries carry on the vital business of making available open pollinated seeds.The seeds library will allow any member of the community to access organic heirloom seeds, educational materials and participate in free workshops.
The movie is available for all to see regardless of the ability to pay for a ticket. Please write to transitioncollingwood@gmail.com for more details regarding the film or how to obtain a ticket. You can call 445-2766.

On Tuesday, April 22nd, there will be an Earth Day Watershed Cleanup at 1pm at the amphitheatre at the end of North Maple Street in Collingwood. Visit transitioncollingwood.com for details.

Beaver Valley Community Garden Launch will plant a tree at 3:30pm on April 23rd at the Beaver Valley Community school. Call Ivan at 444-2684 for details on how you can become involved in this year’s activities.

Transition Meaford will have a park clean up, seed library workshop, household cleaners and more. For details, visit facebook.com/EarthWeekMeaford

“If you are happy at the expense of another man’s happiness, you are forever bound.” The sayings of the Buddha

This has been a year of excess. 2012 has also been a time of revelation. The scientific community, world governments, conservation organizations as well as groups such as Oxfam are in Qatar these two weeks to visit once more the often contentious subject called climate change. This is the eighteenth summit sponsored by the U.N.. Each year there are many meetings that create the framework for the December summit. You may remember the great expectations surrounding the 2009 Copenhagen summit and the consequent betrayal many of the poorer nations experienced with the final declaration despatched to the world by a few wealthy countries. Subsequent gatherings of the parties have yielded a few crumbs to placate international communities. Notably the $100 billion Green Fund that was ‘engineered’ to give those countries a chance to adapt to worsening weather still has an empty bowl.

Regardless of one more pie-in-the-sky back room agreement to volunteer endless pledges at Doha’s COP18, 2012 is the year when a plethora of events came together to literally create the perfect storm that has sent climate deniers running for cover. It is not only the severe droughts and hurricanes that have contributed to the demise of any kind of legitimacy for these oil apologists. The vast majority of Canadians, Americans and Europeans no longer take notice of these unethical sceptics’ prance around the truth: climate change is affecting our daily weather and destroying our ability to feed billions of people within a few decades. Our cities’ infrastructure is now acknowledged to be incredibly fragile. Hurricane Sandy’s legacy of destruction is also a tipping point for the majority of citizens to act on behalf of climate justice advocates’ plea for action, although don’t expect any response from our government as their heads are stuck in the tar sands slush funds.

During the last month an astonishing array of scientific studies have been made accessible to the public. The World Bank’s report, entitled “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4 degree Celsius world must be avoided” details the catastrophic repercussions of such an increase in temperature commencing from a pre-industrial base level. The World Bank’s political stance can hardly be called socialist, and for such a conservative pro-growth group to commission an in-depth report outlining the potential for a near collapse of civilization must be seen as the end of any attempt to continue the charade of the status quo. However, this month’s release by the United Nations Environmental Program’s scientific study on permafrost for policy makers is just as frightening to read: rising arctic temperatures has the capacity to release almost twice the greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere by activating the decay of organic material in permafrost. Since it is around 24 percent of the Northern Hemisphere’s land mass, permafrost is the sleeping giant of climate change.

Oxfam’s study, “Extreme weather, extreme prices” links weather to food price increases for this century. Lastly, a peer-reviewed assessment by NASA and the European Space Agency disclosed its findings this week showing definitive proof that our oceans are rising and will cause irreparable damage to such areas as Vancouver and Nova Scotia.

The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition is present at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change summit. Each day they give us an date of the happenings there. The urgency with which this engaged group informs youth is both timely as it is inspiring. It is also time for the rest of Canada’s population to act responsibly and drastically reduce our carbon footprint. By not going on a cruise or taking a plane for a week’s vacation to Cuba this winter you’ll begin to earn some credibility in the eyes and hearts of youth. Want to do more? Become a vegetarian or better, go vegan and drastically reduce your carbon footprint.

Two days before my good friend, Mac Kirk, died in late September I visited him at his home in Thornbury. He was not well but he joined in the conversation. How could he not? The subject was ancient trees. Trees were Malcolm’s great passion only superseded by an all pervasive commitment to be an advocate for Nature. This he did with consummate skill throughout our region. We have public access to many of the woodlands and even waterfalls due to this humble man’s vision to create protected landscapes. Malcolm, in my opinion, followed in the steps of John Muir, who also lived for a year in Meaford.

Malcolm did not like to speak about conservation; he lived conservation to the tune of protecting 27,000 acres for all species to call home and flourish. One day in September I had tea with my forester friend and his wife, Joan. He listened intently to my recent accounts of discovering trees with diameters of eight feet, of sacred Beech groves and of Yew trees purported to be thousands of years old. These tales were what made dear Mac happy: Nature had somehow outwitted the coarse non-seeing blade of a sometimes stupid and violent humanity and had managed to send down roots lasting millennia.  Mac, also with gusto, sent down lasting roots for our area.

On November 14, 2008 just before Stephen Lewis spoke at a sustainability conference at Blue Mountain Resort, Mr. Kirk was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Conservancy by Bayshore Broadcasting Corporation. It should be noted that Mac is the first person to ever receive this award. This is only one of many awards he was given, including one from Ontario’s government. The introductory accolades before he spoke set the tone and the history of Malcolm’s stewardship activities. True to form, I remember Mac spoke more about the work that was being done by a younger generation than about his successful career. Here is a man who almost single handedly protected many thousands of acres of endangered land by working with local landowners and then bought land for Ontario. As the Resources Manager for the former North Grey Region and Sauble Valley Conservation Authorities between 1957 and 1973, Mac worked tirelessly to buy pieces of land that were treasures of biodiversity. Skinner’s Bluff, Rocklyn Creek, Indian Falls, Old Baldy (The Rock) Sky Lake, Bruce Cave and Bognor Marsh are just a start of the list of his achievements. Mr. Kirk moved on to induce the Ontario Federation of Naturalists to start a land conservation program. He and Fred Bodsworth began a program that now includes nature reserves such as Petrel Point, Long Swamp, and the Malcolm Kirk Nature Reserve. His book, “Islands of Green”, written with S. Hitts and R. Reid, lays out protection strategies for Ontario’s landscapes.

Those of us fortunate enough to have walked in the woods with Mac have been inspired by his profound knowledge and his effervescent passion for Nature. Typically, he would phone and suggest a stroll to some glade to see a tree that I hadn’t had the good fortune to discover yet. His trusty binoculars in tow, we’d set out on one more adventure. This summer we did the same when he promised me a meeting with a great specimen of an Oak living near the Beaver River. Mac was right as usual. Some farmer years ago had the foresight to plant an English Oak; its circumference was mighty to behold. Its craggy branches lifted up with such unremitting stubbornness for life that it reminded me of my friend’s same lifelong goal. We went back to his house to see his garden and discuss conservation matters, and how he’d like us to roam the countryside and document all of his haunts. (At the age of ninety-two he still rode a bicycle!)

Malcolm embodied the true spirit of the naturalist. He has profoundly influenced all his friends and colleagues as well as the public to strive for a conservationist’s sense of justice for this planet. Mac remains my greatest mentor. Many will sorely miss rambles with him across this countryside. I know I’ll always hear his voice in the woods exclaiming his joy on seeing a rare flower. Malcolm Kirk was Nature’s warrior.

“Connect the Dots is a project of 350.org and our partner organizations, to shine a spotlight on the connections between extreme weather and climate change…We’ll kick off the project with Climate Impacts Day on 5/5/12, when thousands of communities around the world come together to take action to Connect the Dots and call for urgent action to stop the climate crisis” Bill McKibbon

 

”There is a spiritual corollary to the way we are currently deforesting and denaturing our planet. In the end what we must most defoliate and deprive is ourselves.” John Fowles’ “The Tree”

On May 5th Georgian Triangle Earth Day Celebration and 350.org will be joining Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority to plant trees. Many of you may remember the work that 350.org does to bring the world’s communities together to combat the  spectre of climate change that confronts our communities, by creating actions that are meant to mitigate the impact of climate destabilization.  In the past there have been several protests with hundreds of people in the Collingwood area on International Day for Climate Action and over 50 slide presentations at the schools that vividly showed the social justice and ecological impacts of accelerating climate change.

Although our area has so far been spared extreme weather such as flooding or drought it is certainly possible for that to happen. (The Great Lakes have lost 71 percent of their ice cover since 1971. The consequences of this loss are great.)  Planting trees is always an important part of risk management for drought and flooding as well as capturing greenhouse gases. The May 5th tree planting will take place at Black Ash Creek. We will meet at 9AM in the parking lot of Wal-Mart in Collingwood on Mountain Road. Please bring comfortable clothing, closed-toe shoes/rubber boots, rain gear, bug spray, sunscreen, hat, gloves, shovel (if possible). We’ll be planting white cedar, white spruce and tamarack till noon.  If you wish to have information sent directly to you and your family, please write to celebrateearth@yahoo.ca  Please sign up your organization and the number of participants who will be showing up on the 5th.

The huge conference, ‘Planet Under Pressure’, has just ended in London.  It coincides with the highest temperatures for March ever recorded across the globe.  ‘Planet Under Pressure’ brought thousands of scientists together including many young professionals.  The final declaration, entitled “State of the Planet” leaves no doubt that we must make immediate transformative changes to how we interact with Earth if we are to overcome the many crises that are upon us. “Research now demonstrates that the continued functioning of the Earth system as it has supported the well-being of human civilization in recent centuries is at risk. Without urgent action, we could face threats to water, food, biodiversity and other critical resources: these threats risk intensifying economic, ecological and social crises, creating the potential for a humanitarian emergency on a global scale.” Please read the rest of declaration at: http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/pdf/state_of_planet_declaration.pdf

Connecting the dots between climate and severe weather has been established.  Just this last week Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a long awaited report entitled, “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance climate Change Adaptation”. It speaks about the urgent need to understand the emerging risks brought on by climate change and manifested in extreme weather events that are now accelerating and reduce the vulnerability and exposure of people throughout the world.  Another scientific report from the University of Exeter links the tremendous loss of sea ice since 2007 in the Arctic with a tipping point for an ice free Arctic Ocean.

Our May 5th tree planting will be one of several Earth Month events in our area to celebrate our green planet.  The March 31st climate change awareness campaign, strikingly demonstrated in Earth Hour, was a global success.

“Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a means of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.” Josh Fox, Film maker of the documentary, Gasland www.gaslandthemovie.com/

Hydraulic Fracturing of shale, or ‘fracking’ as it is more often called, is posed to create havoc around the world. The citizenry of Delaware and Pennsylvania are not the only ones that have grave concerns regarding the drilling and retrieval process of methane gas. From Bulgaria to New Brunswick people are horrified to learn that their water, land and atmosphere are under siege. Not only is fracking a new and unconventional technology fraught with many unknowns related to various types of contamination, but the whole package right through to gas distribution poses many dangers to humanity and all species.

The gas industry loves to tell us that fracking has been around for sixty years, but they forget to tell us that different technologies only became integrated in the last 10 years, enabling industry to extract gas thousands of feet below the surface. The ability to turn drills laterally, use of a toxic brew of chemicals and water called slickwater under intense pressure and to refrack the natural joints in shale to open them for methane extraction at the surface, is decade old technology.

The gas companies and university scientists have data that shows how potent the release of methane is for upping the stakes towards catastrophic climate destabilization. Natural gas is mostly methane and until recently scientists thought methane is around 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of creating the greenhouse effect that traps heat in our atmosphere. Recent science from 2009 puts that number much higher; in fact it can be 105 times more potent than C02. Yes, weighing an equivalent energy output for coal, oil and natural gas shows natural gas to produce less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than the other two but that’s where ‘clean’ ends and filthy begins. Once you evaluate all aspects of unconventional gas fracking including production, compressing equipment, storage, habitat loss, transportation, voluntary and involuntary release of methane in production and water usage, world renowned scientists such as Anthony Ingraffea of Cornell University now inform us through peer-reviewed studies, that fracking is anything but clean. It is more polluting than oil or coal.

The gas industry wants us to believe that wells are safe, but 5 percent fail immediately and those over thirty years have a fifty percent chance that they will leak. The area called a pad is where the heavy machinery is set up, and gas companies tell us that it won’t take a lot of industrial space but see what has already happened in British Columbia to know that up to sixteen wells can be at one site. Each well uses up to five million gallons of water and a cocktail of chemicals that is only now coming to public scrutiny. These multi-well pads then create a pattern that runs along the joints in the shale. If a company owns the rights to drill, as it does at the Dallas/Forth Worth Airport, the entire airport becomes an industrial zone. That can happen in the most bucolic setting as well.

The methane industry claims to take part of the waste water from fracking sites and filter out the contaminants, but the water filtration plants are not equipped to process many of the chemicals such as volatile organic compounds and heavy metals. As a result, many of these chemicals are released into the river systems. Duke University researchers have found that many water wells for houses show pronounced methane contamination in ground water within one kilometer of a drilling site. The industry shouts out that fluid migration from faulty wells is “rare”, but rare turns out to be at an unacceptable level.

The fixation on extracting every fossil fuel from the Earth only delays the urgent need to move towards renewable energy. If we are to make the transition to renewable energy, keep the high potency GHG methane in the ground.

Come out to “Be the Change Film Series” this January 18th, at the Gayety Theatre at 7:30 PM in Collingwood to see Josh Fox’s “Gasland”. Take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfBinck5tSY&feature=related to give yourself some background into the controversy.

“We know that the Canadian Government’s domestic and international climate policy has been bought by the fossil fuel regime. Our leaders have refused to show any kind of leadership at the international level and have chosen, instead, to become the lobby arm of the oil industry, putting short-term economic interests ahead of the rights and lives of millions today and all subsequent generations” Cameron Fenton, Director of Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, writing from Durban, South Africa’s U.N. Climate Summit

The 1999 movie, “The Matrix”, starts off with it coming to light that humans have trashed the planet and the computers, who now run Earth, believe the planet is better off with the subjugation of humans. The computers run the planet like our corporations do now: heartlessly and with greed. The first “Matrix” film ends with the words ‘system failure’. Humans want to take back the planet; they want to Occupy Earth again. In 2011, the world’s Occupy movement ignited in getting our Earth back.

Occupy Wall Street is only the beginning, of hopefully, a non-violent response to inertia, gross inequality, (Take a look at those shacks and tents up in Attawapiskat near a diamond mine.) and ecological catastrophe that overweening corporate/bank power has strewn throughout the world. As the “Le Monde diplomatique” puts it in its November article, the Occupy Wall Street represents the “coalition of the disenchanted”. By mid-October the movement ‘occupied’ 950 cities around the world and it’s now getting ready for the spring. It is quite amazing to hear adults speak of the occupy movement as just a ragtag group of homeless, unemployed or just crazy disgruntled youth, It’s that and so much more. In fact, this is the first time in a very long time that the under 30 crowd is showing their potential to be what that age group is historically known to be: creative, irreverent and full of Joie de Vivre. Photos from around the world and visits to Occupy Montreal’s Victoria Square made me believe that there are some very passionate and well read youth-an outdoor library at each encampment- who make up a large proportion of Occupy. Just taking a look at upcoming events planned in Vancouver will make you realize that the autumn occupations were just a prelude to where youth and people of all ages are going. For example, throughout the world there are rallies to support Global Day of Action on Climate Change on December 3rd. Some websites to view: www.occupytogether.org,  www.350.org

As usual, Canada has been branded a climate miscreant at the U.N. climate summit in Durban, South Africa, and has been censured by Brazil and China, most developing countries and even Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu for its stubborn refusal to acknowledge the perils of climate destabilization and its steadfast lobbying for inaction. Perhaps the Government of Canada’s extreme corporate bias can be summed up in the way they have refused to accept the fact that polar bears are in dire need of protection. After repeatedly missing deadlines to commit to scientifically based actions that will alleviate the bears’ slide towards extinction, it was forced by default to accept “Species for special concern” status for polar bears. This is the lowest designation under Canada’s Species at Risk Act and gives the bear no substantive protection to stop them from losing habitat or being killed. Even the U.S., under its Endangered Species Act, calls the bear ‘threatened’. Why would Canada’s corporate regime refuse what is clear to all scientists? Accepting the plight of polar bears means the government would have to reign in its corporate oil bosses and do something to stop climate change in the arctic. Rising temperatures are a direct consequence of fossil fuel emissions. They won’t do this and so the demise of the bear may be guaranteed. The Center for Biological Diversity is taking Canada to court under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. See www.biologicaldiversity.org

What does the International Energy Agency, Canada’s National Round Table for the Environment and the Economy, World Metrological Organization, David Suzuki Foundation, Nobel Laureates, Council of Canadians, Climate Action Network, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and 97% of all scientists have in common? They all say we’re losing the little time we have left to stop catastrophic climate destabilization. As seen in Durban this last week, youth has had enough.

 

“It is true that responding to the climate threat requires strong government action at all levels. But real climate solutions are ones that steer these interventions to systematically disperse and devolve power and control to the community level, whether through community-controlled renewable energy, local organic agriculture or transit systems genuinely accountable to their users.” Naomi Klein

“System change not climate change” was a compelling cry for the tens of thousands of people who marched in Copenhagen in 2009 protesting the lack of positive actions then taking place by governments at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. (For those who are still skeptical about human induced rising temperatures see http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Z0nKdo4b1os from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study.)

Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act is meant to bring about a ‘system change’ and lower Ontario’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Canada’s per capita consumption of electricity is one of the highest in the world, and although it has only .5 percent of the world’s population its emissions account for 2 percent of the world’s GHG emissions. We can do much better than this and Ontario’s Feed-in-Tariff program (FIT) allows our community along Georgian Bay to become leaders in taking a real stand for a healthier planet by embracing the FIT’s program for renewable energy.

I went to Montreal to attend Climate Action Network’s workshops to learn more about the FIT program and other initiatives that take action on climate change. Ontario’s program is one of the best in the world. FIT allows our community to have locally led renewable energy programs that we can be in control of and therefore are designed to be the right fit for this community.

Community power is what this is all about in an age where it is essential to drastically lower our dependence on non-renewable sources of energy. Recently it was announced by the International Energy Agency that world GHG emissions rose in 2010 by 6 percent over 2009. This is at least double the rise in emissions previously recorded. Whether it is biomass, biogas, landfill gas, on-shore wind, solar photovoltaic or water power, the FIT program guarantees a pricing structure for renewable electricity production. The price is set for the different kinds of renewable energy and reflects the projects’ installation costs as well. The prices paid are meant to give a reasonable return on investment to individuals or community groups. Please see  http://fit.powerauthority.on.ca/ (We all wish to find a definitive comparison of costs for all types of energy production but this is not easy to do. A good example is to read the nuclear industry’s take on their costs which they say is much lower than other types of energy and then research the rebuttal of that industry’s claims on costs.)

How can our area get started? Here is an example. A Waterloo/Wellington community (Local Initiative for Future Energy or L.I.F.E) decided to engage its citizens in a positive and planet supporting action. They applied for a grant to kick start two renewable initiatives: wind power and bio-gas.  LIFE invites members to share in the profits (6 percent return is forecast) of the ventures and become involved in community energy ownership through the co-op. The Co-op received $160,000 to be used to fund the development and regulatory approvals phases from the Community Energy Partnerships Program  (www.communityenergyprogram.ca). The money helped set up the St Agatha Wind Project that will give electricity to over 400 homes. The one turbine is capable of producing 2 mega watts of power.  See http://www.lifecoop.ca/

There are many excellent reasons why our Georgian Bay communities should embrace the FIT programs that are geared for large projects and very small ones (micro FIT) that a group such as Georgian Triangle Transition might want to pursue. The program brings a host of local innovations, manufacturing and entrepreneurial skills to partner with various projects that could link many groups and provide essential resiliency to our community’s energy independence and to our economy. Yes, there are challenges that must be overcome such as the waiting time imposed on new ventures.  Grid capacity can be a frustrating experience if it’s a long wait to be hooked up to the provincial electric grid.  Financing even one wind turbine can cost millions of dollars but there are new possibilities opening to normalize investments by creating green energy bonds and being able to make RRSP contributions towards renewable energy community actions.

“There is no such thing as a green pepper… All peppers start out some shade of green (either dark, light or yellowish) and gradually turn red, yellow, orange or even purple as they mature and sweeten. A green pepper, like a green tomato, is simply unripe.” Patrick Lima and John Scanlan’s “The Organic Home Gardener”

“Nature loves man, beetles, and birds with the same love.” John Muir

“We have done deeds of charity, made peace of enmity, fair love of hate, between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.” Shakespeare’s Richard the Third

Patrick Lima and John Scanlan’s just released second printing of “The Organic Home Garden” is joyously required reading for anyone who loves to garden. These Bruce Peninsula heroes of soil, seeds and thirty plus years of creative sweat have toiled to create the perfect book for both beginners and callused-handed inveterate gardeners. “The Organic Home Garden” is far more than a ’how to’ book. Yes, we learn about the proper care of raising many vegetables but also find inspiration in the photos and finely crafted words of these two men. The authors’ passion can not but strike a chord of reverence for the Earth. Patrick Lima’s quiet prose conjures up all that is beautiful in the garden. “…it is a pleasure to potter in the tomato bed, pushing in stakes, plucking suckers, tying the hairy stems with strips of old bed sheets, watching the fruit swell from week to week, then blush pink and finally redden.” And the many subject headings draw in the reader: “Of Suckers and Stakes”, Bugs, Cracks and Cat-facing”, “In the Trenches”, “Of Mulch, Maggots and Mold” and “Midsummer Miscellany” are just a few intriguing titles that make us want to read more. From the care of herbs to the potato and great cooking recipes, there is cause to celebrate the new edition of this Canadian classic. Without a doubt, a summer visit to ‘Larkwhistle’ will inspire you to be a better gardener and cherish these organic gardeners’ wisdom. Don’t wait till you are reading their book in bed on a cold winter’s night dreaming of new sowings of shallots and spinach; visit ‘Larkwhistle now and buy it there. Call 519 795-7763 for directions and hours to visit.

When is the last time you read Shakespeare’s “Richard the Third”? Although Stratford is a two hour journey, every year I find myself dusting off a play of Shakespeare’s and recall the prose and poetry of Elizabethan England’s fantastic vistas of the sublime and the treacherous: “Richard the Third” offers us both. Although we may wish to see Richard’s demise, what brought him to such murderous actions reverberates in today’s political theatres. Civil wars, greed, loyalty and love for ones kin can’t help making this play a ‘hit’ with audiences since 1593. I have never seen a play at Stratford with a stronger cast. It’s not only Seana McKenna, who brilliantly shines as the female- playing Richard but every actor is powerfully played. The stage craft is superb. Miles Potter’s direction of the play is creative and sensitive.

Donald Worster’s “A Passion for Nature: the Life of John Muir” should be on every nature lovers book shelf. Many of us know that the Sierra Club’s first president was John Muir and indeed a resident of Meaford for a year and a half, but few of us know how John’s religious upbringing was transformed into a powerful voice for Nature. Throughout this 466 page biography John Muir, the man, is portrayed first and foremost as a quiet advocate of people’s right to experience nature but never to overrule or abuse her. Muir’s adventures in the Sierra Mountains or in Alaska can be found here and in his short essays and articles. .Although he was a very reluctant spokesperson for conservation, his powerful and unadorned authentic passion for wilderness won over all segments of society, leading to the establishment of the world’s first national parks. Just as importantly, we learn about those people who shared his conservation goals, including the wonderful women in his life. Worster sums up John’s contributions this way: “The ultimate destination of the conservation …movement that Muir helped found is to transform the United States and other nations into “green” societies where pollution and waste of natural resources will have diminished significantly, where nature will become more than a ruthlessly exploited or even prudently managed “economic resource”. Nature will be granted a higher emotional, spiritual, and aesthetic value- a value in itself. No one in the nineteenth century America was more important than Muir in persuading people to move toward such a vision.”

“As things are today, even without any further increases in world population, if every person in the world were to start consuming as Americans {Canadians} do, humanity would require the resources of at least two additional planet Earths to support it.” Paul and Anne Ehrlich

World Population Day (July 11), created after the world had 5 billion people in 1987, and integrated with other world initiatives, celebrates, educates and finds solutions for a growing population and our planet’s health. World Population Day 2011’s theme is Calling Attention to Urgent Global Issues: young people, women and girls, poverty reduction, reproductive health, environment, ageing populations and urbanization. Consider: the planet had a billion people around the time of industrialization and rose to 2 billion by 1930 and then tripled to six billion in 2000. In a recent June article called “Climate, Food and Population”, I mentioned the U.N’s estimate of 10.1 billion people living at the beginning of the 22nd century. This number may be quite charitable, as the population may rise to thirteen billion people. Regardless of these numbers, scientists have clearly linked the extreme risks of a rising population, an increasingly unstable climate with food affordability and availability. We have become so inventive that our cultures can be seen from space, and most vividly at night!

Please take a look at these recent photos from the International Space Station showing how the web of night lighting is indicative of an increasing population pushing its way into every part of the globe. We see in the first photo how the entire length of Earth’s longest river, the Nile, is lit up. Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s book “One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future” has a composite photo of the world at night. It is ablaze with lights. Seven years after these scientists’ book was published, the world’s population has gone from 6.3 billion people to seven billion by October, 2011. When Professor Ehrlich wrote his controversial book, “The Population Bomb” in the 1968, governments thought the present day inheritor of Malthus’18th century theory of human population growth had really made a massive mistake. Malthus said,” “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man”. Tragically, the Ehrlich’s predictions for human survival are now repeatedly confirmed. The ‘Malthusian Catastrophe’ is fueled by super-exponential growth, and greed I might add.

Although the question of ‘population’ is politically taboo, both ‘left’ and ‘right’ journalism have recognized the urgency to address the ‘population question’. For example, The Economist has run a series of in-depth articles on the “The Anthropocene”.  (Most scientists now have concluded that we have changed the Earth to such a degree, it’s necessary to call the epoch for the 21st century and beyond, the Age of Humans: the Anthropocene. Bill McKibbon’s 2010 book is called “Eaarth”, signaling that the Earth needs a new name in light of human made changes.). A New York Times article by Justin Gillis starts:” The great agricultural system that feeds the human race is in trouble.” The title for the article is “Food for a Warming Planet: scientists raise alarm at prices, population and heat”

Compassion for the great suffering of a billion people should hold no political stripes, but too often it does. In 2009 the G20 group of nations, at a gathering in Pittsburgh, set up the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) to allow poor nations to regain stability, access to markets and perhaps most importantly, local resilience in the face of soaring prices for food. By far, Canada has given more money -$224 million- than any other nation towards this program. And as this article is being read, Somali climate refugees are pouring into Dadaab camp in Kenya, with now 354,921 plus people, to escape drought-stricken areas.

Since Canadians, Australians and Americans ‘lead’ the world in the rapacious destruction of the planet, vast relief would come with a one child policy for these nations to help curtail the world’s misery. As well, compassionate adults should create the means for the stricken children of other nations to thrive by drastically lowering their consumption and becoming vegans (a vegan’s food/ecological footprint is so much lower than a meat/dairy eater’s). Grandparents and parents might also sing the praises for adoption of the malnourished living rather than pushing 20th century models of ‘family’. Vast revenues can be found as well by stopping medical research that only benefits the rich few (us), and channeling that money into disbursing known medical successes to the three billion humans who, for example, lack the simple remedies for water born diseases. Doing more and taking less can revitalize our society and the Eaarth.