As you all know I am very passionate about protecting our environment and have been blogging about various ways in which we can reduce our footprint. Infact I’m not sure I like the term footprint, as it seems a little disparaging. I would maybe use the term devastation. Continue reading
Today is Earth Day, which should, in my opinion be everyday! Our Earth provides for us, without fail despite the abuse we give her. Like any mother would, she will provide unfalteringly to her children, no matter what it takes, until she is drained of all her energy and collapses.
Today, is a day designed to acknowledge all the Earth provides and to recognize this by giving back. Continue reading
Each month in Tofino, a group of people meet for a ‘Green Breakfast’. During the breakfast a discussion takes place concerning environmental issues and how to address them, whilst laying out a plan to better the communities green initiatives.
Being new to the community I have only just discovered this group and upon finding out that today’s meeting would cover composting, I decided to attend.
I am a very keen recycler and following my discovery of the clean bin project, have been very keen to reduce waste in all areas. Composting in Tofino has its challenges, the main one being, at least for me, the potential attraction of bears.
The meeting was extremely beneficial and it was inspiring to see so many important community figures in attendance, such as Chris Bird from Sonbird Recycling, council members, sustainability gurus and team leaders in the field of composting.
With limited landfill for Tofino, the aim of the meeting was to discuss the potential for a community composting procedure. We covered logistics such as individual composting, street pick up, voluntary drop off, types of composting and use and demand of the end soil product.
A local resident Louise Rodgers has been running a composting test over on Industrial Way since November, using food scraps from local restaurant Shelter and Tofino Brew Co. with success. She wants to push this project a little further and extend it to a potential twenty families and is in need of volunteers, support and funding.
Tofino isnt as good at recycling as we might think, with Uclulet being a stronger candidate for recycling prowess, at least according to Sonbirds pick-up statistics. Therefore I feel the same could be true for composting. This is why we need to make it as easy as possible for the community to compost.
I would be very interested to hear from people in the community, in the below comments section, as to their composting practices, or lack thereof. Also if you have any thoughts on what could work here in Tofino then let me know, let’s start a discussion ball rolling.
Next month Elizabeth May, Green Party leader will be in attendance at the green breakfast, which will be taking place at Darwin’s Cafe at the Botanical Gardens. I am very excited about this and encourage anyone that is interested to attend.
I spent time with some good people today. I leave Canada for 3 weeks in order to visit my parents and friends. Before leaving I met up with some awesome people from my old workplace aswell as housemates and other friends. I look forward to seeing even more amazing souls when in England.
Today is a day I acknowledge the importance of good people and close friendships. These people all make a difference and a valuable contribution to my life.
Thank you.
This is an older post from Tiny Buddha, yet a post worthy of sharing. (click the link at the bottom for the full article)
In everything we do, we seek happiness. Or at least what we think will bring happiness.
But this goal can often get us into trouble. It’s how you find yourself in a career that doesn’t represent you, consuming things lacking real value, and living a life that misses its impact on the world.
I have recently discovered that I have been causing myself undue stress by being concerned about what another person thinks, moreso, about how a person will react to something I am about to do or say.
I seem to be over analysing their potential response, which therefore causes me to think too much about how to say or position something. This intern pushes me into the future, not yet existent conversation, throwing up all manner of potential pitfalls, creating fear through my perceived inability to deal with the not yet created conflict. This can force me to actually say or do nothing, based on this mind made role play.
Although I never want to upset or offend anyone, I need to understand that I am not responsible for the feelings I stir in another. So long as my intention is good, their reaction, is their stuff and it is not my responsibility. I also need to remember that I am equipped to deal with any response that comes my way and to remain present and confident in myself.
Introspection is valuable.
If I don’t mention it, I am sure no one would have noticed; but I did not post my positive change yesterday!!! Shock horror! Last night, just before bed, I was aware that I hadn’t posted it. As I began to assume guilt from not posting, my attention shifted to any positive outlook that could come from not posting. I thought about using the perception of ‘taking a break’, but that is not the full true reason as to why I didn’t post.
Lunar Eclipse from Canada December 10th 2011
As I gave it a little more thought, I realized that I had completed some very positive things yesterday. I had risen from bed at 5.30am to witness a rare occurrence of the Earth casting a shadow over the moon, followed by a spur of the moment trip to see the sunrise. This was accompanied by a sea lion popping its head out the water next to me and four Eagles flying over head. And this was all before breakfast!
Later in the day, I became aware of the final moments of the Global Climate Conference in Durban and began to tweet the final countries summings up of the proposed text, spreading awareness of important global matters. I accompanied these tweets with a brief write up of my own.
The conclusion I have reached for not posting is simply that “We are all Human.” We are not machines and can not be expected to be on form 100% of the time. I am allowing myself flexibility and freedom to express what and when I feel appropriate, happy in the knowledge that the positive change blog is still as strong as ever.
Stay positive, positive peeps.
Al.
Over the last year or so, I have become more involved in searching; searching out news. With the advent of Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds we all have much more access to news we want to find and even some we don’t. This influx of information can be hard to control sometimes, but the benefits of it is that we all get to find out things that we may not normally find by listening to main stream media.
A few years back I was happy to move away from a place where daily news was pushed on you and to limit my exposure to the bad news at the time I thought this was great and still do feel it is a great thing to not surround yourself with bad news. However, I have now taken the stance that, escaping the news completely, although very calming, breeds ignorance and causes us to be a byproduct of society. I have realized that if I can take the negative news and do something positive with it, then I am giving back to society and no longer become a byproduct, but an active participant in societies creation. And what else are we all here for, if not to contribute to society?
Being in a position where I am unable to vote, may have increased my desires for actively involving myself in a means to change, but either way, I am confident that any change, no matter how small, will make a difference. It’s like an ingredient in a tasty dish, that pinch of salt might just make all the difference!
I recently sent the following words directly to the Keystone Pipeline Project, the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the White House (there is a little submission page on the White House Site)
I hope this post inspires you to stand up for what you believe in.
Dear Keystone Project and Mr Harper, ( I have also submitted this online to the White House)
I am sure I am not the first to write to you about this shameful project.
I am aware that Obama has postponed a decision on this, but I am also aware of the pipeline being snuck in via the backdoor using some employment bill.
I wanted to express my fears with regards to this Earth shattering possibility of ruining the beautiful world we live in, by exploiting land and people for filthy oil. I understand the ‘urgency’ to use this dirty oil to raise money and to feed the worlds dependance on oil, but surely we can use this as a turning point in history, so just say NO. Let’s not use the oil, lets not extract anything from the tar sands and lets not sell it to Asia either. Let’s just leave it where it is and move to a renewable free energy. It is possible to cleanly and freely power all homes and businesses with out risk to animal or human life. It will not line the pockets of big corporations or increase our return on investments for our future pensions or generations, but surely the opportunity of free energy will reduce the dependancy on money and the dependancy on the government, reducing the need for pensions and the need for war. We are all currently fighting for Oil, if we don’t need it anymore, then we would reduce costs for war also. If everybody has ‘the power’ then no one needs to fight for the power! Maybe this is not the ultimate goal of our world leaders but the people have the right to choose their future, not big banks, or corporations.
In a world with free power and healthy soil, we won’t need as much money. In a world with no natural resources left, we will have nothing to spend money on and therefore will be useless anyway. In the direction this Pipeline takes us, we will arrive at a power hungry desolate world, let’s turn this around into a clean and responsible planet. Instead of spending your money on building a pipeline let’s re-invent the world. Lets put money into clean energy. Do something for other instead of for yourself. Let’s re-invent the combustion engine, lets redesign transport, lets re-design buildings, lets redesign packaging, lets revert back to arable farming. No more oil, please!
A concerned Human Being.
Thank you for taking the time to read my views.
Alan Churchill
On day 17 of the positive project, my positive action for that day was to join the Movember craze to raise money for mens health awareness and prostate cancer. It has been much fun and so far I have raised $120.
With only 5 days left, I am left with the question, could I have done better and how could I have done better?
Some people raise a great deal of money for the cause, my friend last year raised $645, which is amazing and makes my $120 look terrible, but the thing is $120 is $120. That’s $120 of other peoples money. People that have encouraged me and given something to me in return for the time & effort one puts in to raising the money. So to those people I thank you.
This brings me to the question of, “What about those people that didn’t give?” When fund raising; it can be so hard to ask people for money, but in this day and age when so many people are raising money, it can also be hard to give. I know when I am on the receiving end of the question, “Can you donate to me for this?” I do seem to weigh up the reasons for and against donating and assess whether the cause is something I feel passionate about or not and choose to donate based on that. Looking at it from this perspective makes me less concerned about those not donating and even more grateful for those that do. The buzz one gets when your efforts are recognized adds to the collective goodness.
In the interests of increasing this positive energy, I will now donate money to those that ask. It can be hard to part with your money for something you have never given a thought to before, but it’s much harder raising money. Taking this into consideration, supporting someone for doing something positive, is a step in the right direction, even if it is just $1. It is not necessarily the ’cause’ that you are supporting, it’s the person that is raising the money. They have chosen to raise money for something they believe in, when donating money, you are giving it to them, you are supporting them and this generosity supports and encourages their actions.
So on this International Day of Buying Nothing, lets raise my water filled glass (see related post), to donating.
Cheers.
I have made the move from using the clothes dryer, to a simple hanging solution. This will not only be saving energy, but will also allow my clothes to last longer.