Have you seen The Story of Stuff?

You really must. Truly. Tomorrow is the final last-gasp shopping day before Christmas, and so you might think that you don't have time to watch this 20 minute movie... but do it. Cuz after you watch it, you won't need to Christmas shop anymore. Or at least, you'll be able to re-frame your approach to it, and that might be a good thing.

I think that on some level, we all know that the whole consumer treadmill isn't really all it's cracked up to be... but this little flash movie does a fantastic job of explaining why. From production to landfill, the stuff that we consume has a dirty secret life. 

I really like the way that Free Range Graphics (Web of Changers!) did this film – the graphics that accompany the monologue are really clever and helpful. All in all, highly recommended, especially in this time of gratuitious consumption.

Make some presents, spend some quality time with the ones you love, and enjoy the holidays. But think twice about the obligatory gifts that are likely to end up in landfills within a few months. Why bother?

Happy Holidays to everyone!

The air in this city is bad. Truly, it is. And it's not hard to understand why, once you know just how many people live out in the suburbs, and drive into town every day. And once you know that lots of the pollution from south of the border blows up this way (Ohio coal plants, apparently). All it takes is one good smog day, and you get it. Ew.

At the same time, as I blogged recently, cycling is pretty much the best way to get around. It's cheap, it's fast, and you get to know that you aren't part of the air pollution problem. However, it's also a great way to increase your suffering because of it.

I didn't want to be one of those people riding around with a filter mask on, but after less than a month here, I broke down and bought one today. It just seemed like the smart thing to do. I came down with some sort of cold last week, and the irritation in my throat just made me all the more aware of how yucky the air is. And when I was walking up from the subway this afternoon, and wanted to take a deep breath to centre myself, and realized that I was *afraid* to breathe deeply... well, I headed on over to MEC and bought myself my very own black mask.

I'll report back on how it helps...

So this week on ChangeEverything we have the following survey question:

Would you support mandatory recycling in Vancouver?

It's an interesting question, and if you're Vancouver-based, I urge you to go and cast your vote. For me, the question brings up a few funny memories, and a couple of questions.

So when I lived in residence at the University of Western Ontario, every room was provided with a garbage can, and a blue box for recycling. Garbage was collected straight from our rooms, but recycling had to be carried down to the basement and sorted by the individual. You try and guess which option the lazy and usually hung-over dorm students usually chose?

And thus I became known as the Recycling Bitch, because I would come down the hall and pointedly ask people about the recyclables in their garbage cans. (This phase of my life was likely related to the times when I used to scrape extra butter off my dad's toast, to save him from the heart attack I was sure he was asking for.) Needless to say, I was in favour of mandatory recycling then. I was *extremely concerned* about everyone else's seeming lack of concern about our lovely fragile planet.

And now, ten years older and a wee bit wiser, I think I would still be in favour of compulsory recycling. HOWEVER, I also wonder how much good recycling actually does, and I have yet to hear a truly compelling argument to persuade me that it's really a solution.

I would rather see people recycle than not, but I am not really in favour of forcing recycling, if one of its main spin-offs would be to allow people to be complacent about their consumption habits. Let's face it, downgrading the masses of garbage we create is just not the final solution. Let's face it, we need to STOP USING SO MUCH!!!

And there endeth my rant. Go vote.

I should preface the following post with the warning that I'm not feeling terribly good about the state of the world, lately. I mean, I've been concerned about this planet and the creatures on it for quite some time, so this is kind of nothing new. But between Bioneers, and the good dose of reading I've been doing lately, I'm nearing overload. I mean, to the point where I've started thinking that I can't bring myself to have children, because I really don't think there's going to be a livable world for them to grow up in. I reserve the right to change my mind on that (since my biological mothering instinct runs pretty deep and it might win out in the end), but let's not kid ourselves: we are facing some serious challenges here on our precious planet, and there's reason to suspect that we might not get our shit together in time to turn things around.

So on that cheery note, may I invite you to check out Jim Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency and one of the foremost thinkers in the whole "Peak Oil" discussion. His blog is called "Clusterfuck Nation", and its full of thoughtful commentary on the pickle we're in. If you haven't started considering what happens when and while we run out of oil... go have a read. Be warned – it ain't cheery.

One good highlight below, from Winners and Losers:

We've done a lousy job of preparing ourselves to live differently. In fact, the whole thrust of American politics along the whole spectrum has been to keep the current racket going. This is why the only broad discussion now occurring over our energy problems is focused to the point of neurotic obsession with keeping the cars running by other means at all costs. This is true on left as well as the right. The left is lost in raptures of driving around in cars fueled by used french-fry oil. The right is lost in raptures of executive pay packages for retiring oil company executives. We are putting no thought, meanwhile, into how we will grow our food in an energy-scarce future, how we will conduct manufacturing and trade, or how we will heat all the McHouses.

(Note: Now that I'm hooked up with NetNewsWire, I think my stalking of RSS feeds is going to increase dramatically – for better or for worse! – and probably my blog posting frequency along with it. I've spent a good chunk of this cross country flight (thankfully on a much roomier plane than last time) reading through feeds that I have been subscribed to for ages in Bloglines, but *never* got around to reading online.)

Read this if you care about your health and the planet you live on (remembering of course that they are inseparable). But be prepared to be scared.

Gawd, some days I think that getting cancer is pretty much inevitable. How depressing. :( Today I feel like walking around shaking people, screaming "WAKE UP!"

I'm especially stoked to learn that my new(ish) mattress is probably still off-gassing flame retardants that I'm absorbing into my blood. Sweet. :(

(Thanks to Christopher Haase for the link.)

I'll be up at Web of Change and therefore unable to attend, but if I wasn't there, I'd definitely check out this book launch event.

The Wilderness Committee are some of the hardest working and most dedicated environmental activists I know of. Paul George is one of the originals, and he has recently released a book called Big Trees, Not Big Stumps: 25 years of campaigning to save wilderness with the Wilderness Committee. I'm sure it'll be an incredible read – it always makes me shivery to hear stories from seasoned forest activists. (Seriously. I sometimes wonder whether I'll really have lived if I die without ever having chained myself to a logging truck.)

In the words of Guy Dauncey... "This is a fabulous book. More than that: it’s a phenomenon. It’s the War and Peace of BC’s environmental movement. Packed with insights, history, and personal tales, it reveals the dreams, the skills, the conflicts, and the amazing persistence of those whose passion for life led to the preservation of some of BC’s most important wilderness areas."

"Big Trees" will be released at the "Big Party" on September 20th,
2006, 7 to 10 pm, at the Roundhouse Community Centre in Vancouver.

Advance tickets are $15 each or 2 of $25, and include a free drink, $10 off a signed “Big Trees” book, hors d’oeuvres, First Nations dance and welcome, no-host bar, personal tales from Paul, stunning images, out-takes, music, lots of laughter, and the occasional tear.

To get your tickets Call the Wilderness Committee at 604.683.8220 or 1-800-661-9453, or email bigtrees@wildernesscommittee.org

Last weekend I went up to the very last Witness weekend ever. The Utsam-Witness program has been a joint program by the Squamish Nation and the Roundhouse Community Centre, and has been running for 10 years. I had a special request for my reflections, and since I like it when people leave comments on my blog...

The tradition at Witness is that everyone shows up at the Roundhouse on Saturday morning, and then drive together in a convoy up to the Elaho. That way, no one gets lost, and people can stay safer, since the front car has a radio on the same channel as the logging trucks and the cars are connected via a couple of walkie-talkies. Now, it's one thing to go in a convoy of 5 or even 10 cars, which is what I guess is typical. But this being the last weekend, there were some ten times more people than usual in attendance. We travelled in a 24-car convoy, up to mile 54 in the Elaho (that's 34 km of rough dusty logging roads), in 35 degree heat. Every car full to capacity. It took *hours*.

So we arrived much later than anticipated, and that kind of set the flavour for the whole weekend. With that many people up there, nothing moved quickly. Well, except getting ourselves into the glacial river quickly and then at regular intervals. That part seemed to happen organically.

Despite the chaos and heat, it was a great experience. The opening and closing ceremonies with the Squamish nation cheifs were powerful, and it's actually hard for me to describe the feeling of being up in such a beautiful place, with such a diverse group, welcomed by the people who have lived on that land for so long. There was a very timeless quality about sitting around the campfire on Saturday night, as well. Kind of like I had been there before, and would be there again, and like it was just the right place to be. Listening to stories and songs and watching children play and roast marshmallows.

They are stopping the program now in part because the Squamish Nation now owns the Tree Farm Liscence, giving them control over how resources are extracted from their traditional lands. Originally, a big intention of the Witness program was to raise awareness about that land, and the devastation that Interfor was wreaking on it with their logging. It was interesting as well to talk to people who have been involved with Witness for many years, and to people who were involved in the logging protests in the Elaho back in the late 90s. I'm very glad that the logging has slowed, but sad that it took so long. The clearcuts are everywhere up there.

Despite the history of logging, the Elaho really is spectacularly beautiful. We were told that we were welcome to come back and use the land again in future, now that we know something of the traditions and share a respect for the land and its power.

There was much more in the brief 36 hours we were gone, but this is already a long blog post, so I'll leave it there. Thank you to the wonderful people who I shared the experience with, and to all the many many volunteers who have made the Witness program happen over the past ten years.