Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category
A Sunrise Ceremony at the Scarborough Bluffs with David Grey Eagle and Toronto Wind Action
I was honoured to join with a number of Guildwood residents, the leaders of Toronto Wind Action and David Grey Eagle for a sunrise ceremony to honour the Scarborough Bluffs – a part of my community that Guildwood residents carry in our hearts, and will continue fighting to protect.
For those of us who got out of bed on a Sunday morning, and made our way to the Guild Inn for 5:30 am to be witness and participate it’s something we will surely never forget. As I waited for the group to arrive, I wandered around the Guild Inn park and saw two rabbits having breakfast, and was surrounded by the sounds of birds singing. There wasn’t any human generated noise to be heard.
David Grey Eagle shared an important message that day and in the video below, one about protecting nature, our drinking water and our rights – all things under siege by our government.
We must continue to stand together and stand up to protect all that we hold dear, and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. The impacted wildlife that live in the Scarborough Bluffs, the birds along our lakefront and the fish within it’s waters need voices and need to be protected from the irresponsible proposal Toronto Hydro has endorsed and the Provincial Government and our local representatives appear willing to accept.
Perhaps the most significant pledge I’ve made as the only Ward 43 resident running for Toronto City Council is my firm commitment to protect the Scarborough Bluffs, and the Lake from Toronto Hydro’s proposal and work with the Toronto Regional Conservation Authority to give Guildwood residents and wildlife restored access to natural beaches and a waterfront worthy of such a special place.
Below is a video that shows some of the most important messages David Grey Eagle shared with us that day.
Sprawl Wins: Markham Council Votes Against ‘Food Belt’
It amazes me that in 2010 that we’re still allowing low density urban sprawl to eat up the rich agricultural lands of Ontario. The soil around the GTA is some of the best, yet cookie cutter homes and the infrastructure needed to service these homes win time after time. There are a lot of problems with urban sprawl that demonstrate the incomplete thinking that goes into the approval process. As a general rule, where one is building housing, one ought to create jobs, local opportunities to shop, and develop the kinds of public infrastructure able to service the new community. The problem is they don’t and instead create massive, multi generational headaches and increased costs for all levels of government to deliver services.
As treeless communities pop up where food used to be grown, two cars appear in the driveway where trackers used to plow, to allow the new homeowners to get to work on low capacity roads built for their use. Effective public transit isn’t an option, fire, police and ambulance coverage becomes more stretched and demand for new schools and hospitals that is based on distance and geography and not capacity occurs.
For this reason, I was hopeful when Markham Councillors began discussing creating a ‘food belt’ to encourage intensification as part of new development proposals (more people living on a smaller footprint) and the preservation of local farm lands for future generations. This is visionary municipal leadership and sadly today it failed 7-6 in a tight, hard fought vote.
Opponents pointed out that food grown in Markham is rarely consumed by people in Markham. The solution isn’t to not grow food in Markham, but instead to find ways to better market this food to the local community through farmers markets, deals with local grocery stores and for use by local government agencies (daycares, schools and hospitals). I personally won’t buy in season non Ontario produce when I shop for my groceries, and with enough pressure large grocery stores could be encouraged to buy local first and import only when demand exceeds local supply.
Much of my beloved Scarborough was built on agricultural lands at a time when subdivisions were all the craze. I can attest as someone whose grown up and Scarborough, and loves my City that residents do suffer from a lack of service and infrastructure our population is worthy of and geography and population spread is part of that challenge even though we are home to 600,000 people. I do like to think however our leaders did a better job, with less expertise or experience to guide them over fifty years ago than the outer suburbs are doing today.
Scarborough may not have preserved farm land, but we have protected our green space and are by far the greenest part of Toronto. I must say as a resident, I am forever thankful to those leaders that sought to protect our ravines, and large swaths of urban forest for future generations, and feel for those in Markham who were hoping their Councillors would act to set their community apart from the rest, and develop a responsible, sustainable development policy that would ensure future generations food security.
Food security and local agriculture are both extremely important factors that have not been addressed head on for some time. There seems to be a view that someone else will grow the food to feed cities and the Canadian census data showing farming in decline is routinely ignored. The short term gains don’t even come close to the long term negative impacts here and seven Markham Councillors did their residents a real disservice with their opposition to preserving farm land within the GTA.
Comments OffThomsonReuters: Why subsidize the surfeit of wind turbines? By John Laforet
The second piece I wrote for ThomsonReuters on the economic realities of industrial wind subsidies was published today. It’s something I would strongly encourage my readers to check out if you’d like to connect the dots and see how the concept of so-called ‘green’ manufacturing is more of a shell game than a legitimate industry and the impact it’s having on the world.
It seems a reasonable question that with an over supply of wind turbines in the world, why is the government subsidizing the manufacturing of even more.
Here is the link: ‘Why subsidize the surfeit of wind turbines?’
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