I first wrote this for Care2 Causes but wanted to share it here as well. I remember years ago hearing Wayne Roberts give a talk on his efforts to green Toronto’s roofs. He approached the city and corporations in a way that worked: He talked money. A green roof can actually cut a building’s...
My command of Dutch is pretty rudimentary, but I get the drift of this site and think it’s absolutely fabulous. The Repair Café is where you take those small appliances, old chairs, ripped trousers or anything else that needs repair and get them fixed by volunteers. Imagine! Usually we end up throwing something away...
Most of my life I have lived within walking distance of at least some amenities. As a child I could walk to Dornell’s grocery store. To my child eyes the Dornells were beyond old, though they were likely younger than I am now. My mother found useful things there, such as bread and milk....
I grew up in a farming area, where the labour of Mexican migrants was essential and taken for granted. It never occurred to me to wonder why so many skilled farmers had to leave their own country in order to make a living. It was many years before I understood the long history of...
During my years in community development, I rarely found a catering company that had any commitment to sustainability. They would serve us melons and pineapple in winter, eggs from chickens that had never scratched up a bug, and dishes created by some factory far away. They offered water in little plastic bottles and paper...
Still foggy from a 48-hour journey between Australia and my British Columbia home, I set out for a walk along Kelowna’s waterfront and downtown. Even though I was not revving on all cylinders, I had enough energy to return smiles. Everywhere I walked, people seemed ready to smile—in shops, the bank, along the sidewalk....
The effect is eerie. Thin, twisted trunks form a waving thicket where sun barely finds holes through which to dapple the landscape. On bright days the trunks are a weave of greyish brown, topped by a canopy of green leaves. When the sun disappears behind dark clouds, they become mysterious, impenetrable. Before Europeans settled...
When Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davis, Switzerland, on January 27, 2012, the best ideas he could offer were major cuts to social problems and significant investments in economic growth. That’s old-style thinking: People last, money first. Endless economic growth at any cost. A growing...
Until I traveled by ship across the Pacific Ocean and then spent six months in Australia, I had never seen frangipani, never stood entranced by the flowers nor breathed the heady fragrance. They are one of the glories of the flower world. Like all life, the stunning flowers unfurl, glow, then fade and die....
Irvine, California, had a 7-acre vacant lot that cost the city more than $4,000 a year to maintain. So the city met with Southern California Edison and the Second Harvest Food Bank and came up with a plan: the Incredible Edible Park. Instead of killing weeds, the city of Irvine grows vegetables. According to...
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