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2006 11 27
Fish Food At The TD Centre
 As I hurried to the Design Exchange last Thursday for the annual design awards, I passed through the lobby of the Mies van der Rohe designed TD Centre. Along the north wall were sculptures made from thousands of cans - food cans destined for Toronto’s Daily Bread food bank. I did not have enough time to stop for details although I think an engineering society created this installation. Does anyone have the story behind the can-based sculptures? They are worth looking at and remember, donations to the food bank are an effective way to contribute to the health of our community. Update: Here is a link to more information on the event. Last year’s winners were Diamond and Schmidt Architects. The sculptures will be on display at the TD Centre until December 1.
2006 11 24
Child Labourers Experience Systemic Violence
 Think back to being eight years old. No, really. Think back. Close your eyes, shut your ears and travel into a memory: you and your best friend toboggoning down a snow-covered hill; you, seated in your desk at school, sharpening your HB to a point so you could poke the kid beside you; the smell of rain on hot concrete; what it feels like to nail a cannonball; the taste of cookie batter, licked straight off a wooden spoon; tears, excitement, sheer joy, fear. What would we be like without those memories? Modern childhood in the developed world is a time of carefree discovery for most. Children feel safe and loved, so they're free to explore the world around them with an innocence and wonder that can never be recaptured. My memories give me a safe place to retreat to when I'm sad, scared, frustrated or hurt. I can recapture that feeling of safety, and it grounds me. This past Monday, the United Nations International Labour Organization published a report that outlined the systemic violence committed against child labourers. Many of the world's 218 million child labourers are physically, verbally and emotionally abused every day. Children who work to help feed their family, because they have no family, or are forced to as part of their family's debt bondage are not innocent, but helpless. What will happen to them when they grow up? Where will they go to escape? Without those memories of innocence, discovery and excitement, what will they think of this world? A child without a childhood has nothing to strive for, because they don't know how good life can be. What is there for them to hope for and work towards? Developing countries need their children to grow up into healthy, productive, passionate people--they represent hope for the future. Child labour doesn't only jeopardize the lives of the milllions of children involved, but the lives of whole communities, and the future of countries.
Does Frank Herbert’s “Dune” Predict Today’s Geopolitical Environment?
Dr. Power is a portfolio manager and equity strategist at Investec Asset Management. Working in South Africa, Dr. Power is a long time specialist in the African resource market. His talk Wednesday night explored how the 19th Century geopolitical struggle named, “The Great Game,“ has returned to today’s Asia. The difference today is rather than China and India being subjects of colonial powers, they are emerging super powers—the so-called Chinese Dragon and Indian Tiger. And they are beginning to flex their muscles. Dr. Power predicts that in less than ten years these countries will rival western economic performance. To support their exponential growth, both have engaged in a strategic pursuit of natural resources. That search has come to Africa and that continent is about to emerge as a resource powerhouse. Is Canada next? Power draws some parallels to Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel, “Dune.” If you haven’t read it, well, now is the time to pick up the trilogy. Herbert’s forty year old description of a universe driven by the dominance of one scarce resource, “spice,” predicts many of the geopolitical dynamics now facing the western world. Think O-I-L in the place of spice here, but also steel, copper, gold . . . For commodity market managers these predictions suggest that the current downswing in the resource market is a minor retreat in what will be a prolonged and sustained bull market. Don’t forget politics though. WiIl the US stand by as the world’s resources are locked up by its economic partners? That is unlikely and recent activities in Iraq and Afghanistan may well have more to do with the “new” great game than with the defeat of global terrorism.
2006 11 23
Laneway Homes To Save Energy
When architects Bridgette Shim and Howard Sutcliffe decided that Toronto’s back lanes were a design opportunity, they had to spend years convincing the city that laneway homes should be part of our urban fabric. After all, Toronto decided it had to intensify its core. Laneway homes offered one way to do that. At the time, our city’s moribund regulatory environment stifled innovative architecture. Toronto’s planners and politicians received a gentle nudge from the two local architects, changed and the city is better for it. Skip ahead a decade or so. Laneway housing is an entrenched part of our city. It works well. However, as Shim and Sutcliffe can confirm, changing the city’s policies did not come easily. Today, we need innovative land use policies more than ever. Look, for example, at the Ontario Liberal government’s decision to build a gas-fired power plant downtown. Instead of using energy wisely, it promotes more consumption. And, according to some critics, it creates a tipping point. They argue the plant’s additional contribution to airborne pollutants will increase the rate of illnesses and cause deaths. In 2005, Toronto suffered through about 50 smog days. Get ready for more. What can government regulations do to make the city healthier to live in? Encouraging energy-efficient buildings is an important step, but the lead time on new office complexes is long and it appears this generation’s condominium tower buildup is just about over. Toronto will just have to live with the big buildings and work to retroactively make them more energy efficient. Fortunately, there is an option that is energy efficient—and we can start implementing it today. Sustain Design Studios’s miniHome is CSA-approved, and production can accommodate 1,000 families in a year. That is, if our regulators are forward-thinking enough to allow it. Architects Andy Thompson and Lloyd Alter of Sustain Design are dedicated to creating and selling well-designed, energy-efficient housing. How efficient? A family of two adults with two small kids can live a year in one of their miniHomes and consume the total energy equivalent of about $200 in propane. Theirs may be the world’s “greenest” mass-produced dwelling. With built-in solar panels and a small wind turbine to generate electricity, the miniHome does not require hookups to the electrical grid. It also has tanks for fresh water and waste water so it can, if needed, be independent of the city’s water and sewer system. Other refinements include a “green” roof that reduces the need for air conditioning. The one problem: Where do we put them? This takes us back to Toronto’s laneways. In many neighbourhoods, long lots back on to viable laneway streets. Shim and Sutcliffe proved that those lots can be subdivided to make room for new housing. Imagine if the city were to decree that miniHome-like solutions could use those lots. In one step, we would create communities of sustainable housing on otherwise underperforming land. Right now, the city and province have regulations that will not allow this type of low-energy home. There are a number of reasons why. Some have to do with building codes and others are planning related. Given an increasingly fragile environment, all cities will sooner or later have to change their building policies. We can plan for that change or react to it. The choice is ours. This story also published in today’s National Post
2006 11 22
World Biospher Reserves: The Niagara Escarpment
 Posted by Cathy Schaffter Did you know that the UNESCO World Biosphere Reserves include: the Ayers Rock region, the Central Amazon, the Mojave & Colorado Deserts --- and the Niagara Escarpment. There is more—Great trails of the world include: the Appalachian Trail, Santiago de Compostela, Hadrian’s Wall, the West Coast Trail --- and one lying an hour west of Toronto along the Escarpment from Niagara to Tobermory: The Bruce Trail. Yet, incredibly, most Torontonians aren’t aware of these genuinely `world class’ attractions in the city’s backyard! Maybe an experiment that happened this fall in the heart of downtown condo developments --- on Spadina Avenue by Clarence Square at Wellington Street --- will finally waken Toronto to some true bragging rights. On Sept. 17, Sept. 24 and Oct. 29, and at 9 am on Nov. 19, 25, and 26, this year, volunteers of the Toronto Bruce Trail Club ran a day-trip bus hikes to the wilderness. For years, the 4,000+ Toronto members of the environmentalist Bruce Trail Association have been working to link Torontonians with the beauties of the Trail --- and to gain new members for the cause of preserving the Escarpment from development and rampant quarrying. Bus hikes leaving from the York Mills and Islington subway stations have long allowed carless Torontonians to enjoy easy walks (Level 1 hikes) or four-hour workouts (Level II hikes) in the country. The club is now hoping that the convenience of hikes originating from within walking distance or short streetcar rides of the burgeoning population of the deep downtown will attract many more hikers and environmentalists. (Note for fashionistas: With skinny jeans and leggings making toned legs and butts critical, there’s nothing like a Level II hike to noticeably tighten every relevant muscle! And the view from a hiking trail is infinitely better than from a Stairmaster.) Sarah Harmer (named in Newsweek’s July 17 issue as the natural successor to Joni Mitchell) is a superb articulator of what the BTA is fighting for. On April 13, she inspired the Los Angeles Times to note the Trail and Escarpment from afar: Canada’s rugged and rocky Bruce Trail is reputed to have inflicted more blisters and aching feet than any other hiking path in North America, but for Sarah Harmer the physical challenge of the hike was secondary to its symbolism. The 35-year-old singer-songwriter used it to prepare for the recording of her third and most recent solo album, “I’m a Mountain,” which is themed around a threatened portion of the land upon which the trail sits. `"I spend so much time driving and going to shows and being in a van and not seeing enough details in those places, and I thought, I can do a walking tour on the Niagara Escarpment,” said Harmer, who spent two weeks last summer hiking a portion of the Escarpment’s 480-mile Bruce Trail with her band, performing the folk and bluegrass songs that would eventually become “I’m a Mountain.” “Escarpment Blue”. tells the true story of a quarry’s recent bid to expandits operations into Escarpment farmlands - farms that border the land Harmer grew up on and on which her parents still live."Salamandre," a children’s folk song Harmer sings Edith Piaf style.involved research to show that the land the quarry is seeking is also the habitat of the federally endangered Jefferson salamander.’ Looking forward to posts from people trying out the first Clarence Square hike.’
2006 11 21
Carbon Payback’s A Bitch - Or Is it?
Buying carbon offsets sounds suspiciously like something futures traders indulge in, and indeed it is, but it may just be the way consumers can lessen their impact on the environment.
What does it cost to offset an entire life’s worth of CO2? $4,000. Priceless.
2006 11 20
Enviro-Tower: Saving Water And Electricity
Problem There’s a high demand for A/C in large buildings. That requires cooling towers, which are severe water polluters and greedy energy users. • Cooling towers across North America use 230 billion kwh of energy • Cooling towers flush out 635 billion gallons of water per year Water cooling towers perched atop large buildings are the biggest sources of toxic discharges that end up in municipal sewer systems. This past summer, a small outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease was linked to emitted bacteria from cooling towers in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. Legionnaire’s disease is a potentially serious illness caused by airborne legionella bacteria, which are commonly found in cooling towers. Up until recently, a chemical cocktail that includes hydrazine, polyoxypropylene, specialty acids, and biocides was the only weapon that systematically combated microbiological contaminations like legionella bacteria. It was also the only defense against scaling, fouling and corrosion in cooling towers. Solution EnviroTowerTM uses electrostatic physical water conditioning technology to keep water cooling towers running smoothly without the use of chemicals. It also uses 25 per cent less energy than other systems and reduces operating costs by up to 30 per cent. The EnviroTowerTM system includes a physical water conditioner, which eliminates scale and inhibits fouling and corrosion, a separator that captures and discharges particles created by the conditioner, and a mineralator that adds suppressants to further control corrosion. The Embassy Suites Hotel overlooks on of the largest sources of hydro power on earth - Niagara Falls. EnviroTowerTM was installed in its cooling towers to eliminate the scale that had built up over just six months of use. After the first cooling season with EnviroTowerTM, there was no visible scale or fouling. The technology is sprouting on other rooftops in Canada, including the TSX building. The company recently added Zenon Environmental whiz Rafael Simon to its board. Potential If all cooling towers across North America were updated with EnviroTowerTM, it would save 160 billion gallons of water a year, and 57 billion kwh—roughly equivalent to the power used by all the homes in Ontario - would be returned to the grid.
2006 11 17
Earth Rangers
A friend invited me to attend a ROM “Behind the Scenes” evening this week. People who go to these evenings include some of the museum’s financial supporters (clearly, I am not one of them although if I had an extra million or two to spare this is a worthy cause). The approximately one hundred attendees get divided into smaller groups of ten. Those, in turn, are assigned members of the ROM’s curatorial team who take the guests to their research area of the museum. I ended up with the earth sciences team. They are the ones who look at rocks and, of course, crystals.
This is one of the ROM’s collection of crystals. If it were white . . . could it be the model for the new building? The staff giving the tour were, to say the least, knowledgeable and also charmingly awkward in their role as tour guides. They are the researchers who make this institution of the the world’s best so it was a privilege to be able to ask them questions. For example, did you know the ROM has Mars rocks? How do they know they are from Mars? No space craft has ever returned from that planet with a cargo of rocks. That was one of the questions. Know the answer? I didn’t.
This image was taken in the Earth Science’s research area. People who work at the highest levels of formal science tend to have an informal casualness that this image captures.
2006 11 16
A Green Power Corridor
by Toby A.A. Heaps (First published in the October edition of Corporate Knights Magazine) How we can quench our thirst for energy and break our addiction to fossil fuels. When Amory Lovins, the Colorado-based energy efficiency guru and chief executive of the Rocky Mountain Institute, learned that Ontario plans to plough $40 billion into nuclear power, he blew a gasket.
Download the pdf of the full article, which includes photos and charts.
Still, the Ontario government is moving full bore ahead with plans to build two new nuclear reactors and refurbish up to half a dozen others. What gives? Simple economics. Ontario is a power-hungry province and if nothing is done, demand will soon exceed supply. By 2025, the Ontario Power Authority estimates the province will need between 30,400 and 36,000 MW of power generation to meet peak demand times for a population projected to grow by 25 per cent, up from peak needs of 24,200 MW today. Ontario has a little over 34,000 MW at hand today, which seems enough to satisfy even the upper end of the OPA’s estimated demand in 2025. But the problem is, previous NDP and Conservative governments did almost nothing to address Ontario’s future electricity supply. As a result, most of Ontario’s current power base will be decommissioned by 2025 and only about 12,000 MW of today’s current generating capacity will be around by then (hydro, oil and gas, and one unit of Pickering A nuclear station). Interestingly, the renewables part of the provincial power portfolio seems to have the longest lasting power. Ontario already has procurement initiatives in place for 9,520 MW, mostly from natural gas. That leaves a power gap of more than 10,000 MW on the horizon. Critically important is the fact that most of this gap is for base-load [‘reliable power’] generation capacity, which the OPA says “... dictates the types of resources which must be used to meet this need.” ‘Dictates the types of resources’ is a euphemism for ‘pump up the nuclear.’ Notwithstanding some initial political enthusiasm for energy conservation and new hydro and wind resources, Queen’s Park’s confidence in these resources as base-load supply has wilted. No wonder, when you consider the heat wave in July that drove Ontario’s energy consumption (read ‘air conditioning affinity’) to a record 27,000 MW. Meanwhile, droughts reduced water flow to hydro facilities and—the straw that broke the camel’s back—any MPPs driving past Toronto’s landmark Wind Turbine at Exhibition Place could see the turbine blades hanging motionless, contributing absolutely no power to the grid. At the same time, the province was trying to woo businesses to relocate to Ontario and having a tough time answering questions like: “Where is my factory going to get MWs when you close the coal plants?” Energy-efficient light bulbs and wind turbines don’t cut it for these guys. The government’s answer: Natural gas-fired plants, and a promise not to get rid of coal until enough nuclear base-load capacity has been brought online. That answer seems to have worked for companies like Linamar Corporation and Toyota Canada, which recently announced investments in Ontario totalling $1.9 billion, which will create 4,300 high-quality jobs. When you adopt this mindset, a rational person might understand why the government decided to pump $40 billion down the old nuclear path. But when you consider that this nuclear path is littered with 300 (...read more...)
2006 11 14
Water & Pollution = Waterlution
 The U.S. had this water bottler remove its product from shelves due to choking hazard created by value-added cap design.
This months Corporate Knight magazine detailed the coming fresh-water crisis. Scientific American’s December issue offers similar warnings:
Given the general uncertainty about pure water’s future, is increasingly being packaged as a luxury consumer item. But does bottled water offer us any more than locally available tap water? Here is Corporate Knight’s view on bottled water.
2006 11 13
Traffic Without Control
There is a buzz in the environmental press that so-called “modern” traffic systems that rely on red, yellow, and green lights, are not as efficient as they seem. A small town in Holland, Drachten, removed most of its traffic signals replacing them with roundabouts and smaller intersections. That decision resulted in fewer dangerous crashes and more bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Anyone who has travelled to the world’s less developed nations knows that automobile traffic there, while chaotic by north american standards can, in fact, do a better job of moving millions while reducing all that wasted fuel consumed idling at stop lights. Don’t believe us? Here is proof. This video from India illustrates how traffic systems can be self-organizing and efficient even if the results look like an experiment in chaos theory. I doubt if Toronto’s modern traffic control system could manage the throughput that this “control-less” T intersection achieves:
2006 11 10
Streets Are For People, Cars Are For - Gardens?
Yvonne Bambrick of Toronto’s Streets Are For People emailed us with the news that the “Community Vehicle Reclamation Project” was moved from Augusta Avenue in Kensington Market, to its new home behind Segovia Meats.
Streets Are For People is the group behind the very popular Parking Meter Party held in September. This is the image from their web site:
For groups wanting to put on their own parking meter parties, here are SAFP’s tips:
The Politics Of Green: Canadians Want Change
Because of its size and northern climate, Canada’s consumption of energy trends above the world norms. However, we are also engaged in discretionary energy consumption like coal fired generators and tar sands processing that require burning vast amounts of fuel. The only way to reduce those emissions is through regulatory action by all levels of government. Yet, the public mood for conservation of our increasingly fragile environment is not registering on their political radars. That has to change. Now that the pollution denying neo-conservative ideologues south of the border have lost their grip on power, our own conservative party is quickly rethinking its environmental position. Meanwhile, all Canadians wait expectantly for the revised energy plan the minority government is promising.
2006 11 08
How Are The U.S. Green Funds Doing?
Outside magazine has this review of U.S. based green investment funds. The punch linne is that the funds have outperformed the S&P 500 Index over the last five years.
2006 11 07
Advances In Solar Power Technology Announced
The way Nanosolar Corporation explains it, the future of energy generation just may be clean and non-poluting after all. Nanosolar is at the leading edge of new generation solar cell technologies that do not rely on expensive silicon. In fact, their process is less than one-half the cost and only 1/100th the thickness of traditional solar cells. Even more remarkable is that Nanosolar power cells can be “printed” on flexible substrates allowing for rapid scale production.
The company’s mission?
Here is how they explain Nanosolar’s breakthrough technology:
In other words, nanotechnology allows them to dispense with expensive, difficult to manufacture elements of traditional solar cells. What remains is easy to produce using thin-film technology.
Even the normally staid Economist is excited by the news. “The technology exists to enable a radical overhaul of the way in which energy is generated, distributed and consumed – an overhaul whose impact on the energy industry could match the internet’s impact on communications.” Now that is a future we can aspire to.
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Image from 
One our our groups members included an older gentleman who while generally quiet and unobtrusive asked short but concise questions. He had an air about him. Turns out this man just donated $12 million to the ROM for a worthwhile project:
