But if you cannot imagine life without owning a car there are other environmental things you can do. If you commute to work or ever drive to other cities try posting at online carpool sites. The benefits of carpooling include reducing your costs by splitting the gas bill, helping someone out who is going in your direction and reducing your carbon footprint. Also, whenever possible consider alternative forms of transportation like the bus, train, walking and biking. I know its cheesy and we have all heard it before but every little bit does count!

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Spring is in the air and with it comes more time outdoors and fresh local produce. Many people may go to the local farmers market on Saturday mornings, which is great but what if you could get access to a guaranteed basket of locally grown food every week with the possibility of it being delivered to your house? Community shared agriculture (CSA) is a great program found at many farms in the Guelph Region. Making the decision to support local farmers is not only good for the local economy but provides the means to know how your food is being grown (organic, grain fed animals etc.) and has shown to be beneficial for your health. As well, the deeper connection and understanding of where your food comes from can be a great experience for families and individuals alike.

The way CSA works is that you get to purchase a “share” of the harvest from a farm at the beginning of the season and in return you get a portion of the harvest throughout the season. In general, most local CSA’s allow members to come once a week to pick up their produce for the span of 20 weeks, mid June to October. Different farms offer different sizes but most have a size suitable for one or two individuals (~$400) or a family (~$600). That might seem a lot for food but on average that is less than $20 per person per week for organic local produce. Guelph is very fortunate to have 7 official CSAs listed on the Ontario CSA directory. So check out some local farms soon and start eating some healthy local delicious food!

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What we experienced was an isolated weather system moving up from Colorado allowing temporary warm and wet conditions. For more information about that system you can check out the weather networks’ article. But individual weather systems do not necessarily reflect long term climate trends. Climate change, like that which is being predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global leader in climate change research, is the long term change in average global weather patterns over a time period of decades to millions of years. Basically this means that every time there is a strange weather event it may be contributing to the centuries of data points but it is probably not a direct result of climate change. I guess we won’t be having any tropical winters anytime soon!

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1) Industrial regulations for greenhouse gas emissions; the United States using its Environmental Protections Act has been able to recently pass strict new regulations for existing and new power plants and refineries. They have also notified other big polluting industries that new standards will be implemented by 2016. Canada has made it public that it will follow the lead of the United States, so where are our regulations to control big industrial emissions?

2) Mackenzie Valley Pipeline; this project was approved by the National Energy Board in December 2010 but now requires political approval.

3) Oilsands Monitoring; a document released by the Oilsands Advisory Committee late last year indicated a lack of documentation and enforcement of monitoring procedure due to cross jurisdiction between various political entities therefore allowing dangerous levels of pollution to be released into nearby waterways. In addition, the lack of ownership or responsibility for the planning of the various projects in the area by any one committee or group has resulted in disorganized expansions of projects and a lack of understanding of the ultimate impact on the environment.

So the real question is this; does the new environment minister have what it takes to make a decisive stand for the environment and follow through with strong policies? Only time will tell!

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(GUELPH, ON) December 16, 2010– Guelph Hydro Inc. has sent a message to the North Pole to advise Santa and his reindeer about the installation of solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of the Guelph Hydro facility at 395 Southgate Drive.

Once operational, these solar panels will generate 100 kilowatts of clean, renewable electricity that will be fed into the Ontario electricity grid. Guelph Hydro will receive payment for the electricity generated from the solar panels on a 20-year contract from the Ontario Power Authority under Ontario’s Green Energy Act Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program.

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Access to space, know how and tools have been a limitation for many who would be keen to explore creating and fixing things. That’s why Guelph is lucky to have Diyode at 71 Wyndham St South, Unit B. The plan is to give access to workshop space, tools and a connection to a great community. Workshops are given by experienced people in smoldering, electronics, woodworking and many other hands on events. This is a great way to learn once again how things work and how to fix and make things yourself. Society has become so dependent on cheap, temporary consumed goods and Diyode provides an opportunity to make good quality functional and artistic endeavors. Even if you don’t need to fix up a ton of things, just the ability to make something yourself and have these skills to share with family members and friends is a very empowering.

Get connected to this community, check out www.diyode.com

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The GEA provides incentives for large and small business to use and participate in clean green industries and power production.  So how does one take advantage of all this green hype? Well, one of the major components of the Act, and a huge incentive for Siliken, is the feed-in tariff (FIT) program. If you are a business or home owner who has, or is looking to install, solar panels, you can get paid for putting your clean energy back into the grid. Siliken plans on pumping a lot of juice into Ontario’s grid and getting paid handsomely for it.

Most solar installations won’t produce enough power to exceed the building’s usage, but even reducing your dependency on the public grid is a step in the right direction. For example, manufacturer Atlas Tube is developing North America’s largest roof-top solar panel installation on their Harrow, Ontario plant. The 650,000 square foot installation will produce enough power for 300 homes, but will still only supply 30% of the building’s electricity.

As developments in solar panels make the technology cheaper and more efficient, hopefully we will see more big businesses adopt this method of reducing their carbon footprint (and costs). Perhaps having solar panels on your roof could be a new point for our GreenGoat reward system?

Ontario ranked third in 2009 as a market for solar panel installations. It is predicted to surpass California and New Jersey soon too. I think it is great we are starting to lead the way in clean power and I hope more businesses like Siliken appreciate the strides being made.

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There are three ways to be considered; an open expressions of interest for technologies that are not currently used by the government but could be beneficial, targeted expressions of interest for improving current government operations and programs, and requests for proposals for specific government initiatives.  While it seems reasonable for the Ontario government to support green technology and development through their own purchasing power only time will tell if the program is effective at making this province a leader in environmental technology.

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for the FTC, which regulates environmental marketing claims, to consider a material worthy of being branded with those famous triple chasing arrows, the majority of the public has to actually have access to recycling facilities.

And after the cheer-leading in the first half of the article fades away:

Only 5% of Starbucks stores currently recycle cups, and that’s mainly in places like Seattle, San Francisco, and Ontario, where it’s required by law. Tim Hortons recycles paper packaging in 600 stores in Ontario due to legislation passed in 2002.

My favourite idea from the ensuing discussion here, was
ohyes:

I wonder why they don’t come up with a cheap, washable cup that the customers ‘borrow’ for the duration of drinking coffee. You buy a coffee for 3 bucks, you get the cup for a dollar, and you get a dollar back when you return the cup. They wash the cup and use it again. It would be like getting it ‘for here’, but you give some collateral against the price of the cup, and can leave.

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