A few weeks ago on a hot summer’s day a friend and I drove south out of Calgary to a natural oasis just beyond the city limits. The Ann and Sandy Cross Conservation Area is 4,800 acres of protected aspen forest, pastures of introduced grasslands, and native prairie. Sandy Cross, son of one of the Calgary Stampede’s “Big Four”, A.E. Cross, along with his wife Ann donated the land to the Province of Alberta in 1987 with the stipulation that the land never be developed.
The land is protected and carefully managed to allow native plant and animal species to flourish. As my friend and I hiked under the hot sun, up and down rolling hills and through stands of aspen we spotted dozens of wildflowers. While we didn’t see any deer we found lots of areas where they had obviously bedded down. We also didn’t see another living soul on our entire 3 to 4 hour hike. It was blissful.
I highly recommend you make the short trek out to the Ann and Sandy Cross Conservation Area. Bring a picnic lunch, and definitely bring your camera. Before setting out, make sure you register your visit online, as they request. They also have a variety of fall programs you can sign up for, which give you a guided look at the land, its history and its inhabitants. Check out Paradise preserved : the Ann and Sandy Cross Conservation Area by Bruce Masterman for some beautiful pictures and more information on this conservation success story.
Sometimes being environmentally aware can be depressing. At times one can be overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems the planet is facing. At times you may feel despair.
It is so important to stay positive. I'd like to share some of the "feel-good" environmental stories I have heard in the last few days.
While on vacation on Vancouver Island recently, I heard about how this year's salmon run was the largest in over fifty years. Apparently last year's salmon run was so poor that many feared that the survival of pacific salmon was in doubt. This year's rebound is certainly a cause for celebration and should be seen as vindication of the stricter management policies of the fishing sector.
A recent BBC story revisits the Galician coast eight years after the monumental oil spill that resulted from the break-up of the tanker Prestige. While the impact of the spill has been devastating, the recovery of much of the marine life has been much quicker than scientists had expected.
I am also quite excited that in the next few months, Nissan and GM will be introducing the first of their electric cars. While only a few will hit the streets in 2010 (don't expect to see a Volt or a Leaf in Calgary before next year) it is hard not to feel optimistic when major automakers are building zero-emission cars.
If you are lucky enough to have a vegetable garden, you are now enjoying the harvest. Even though the "great hail storm of twenty-ten" took out some vegetables, most recovered rather nicely. It is difficult to remain depressed about the state of the world when one is eating delicious, fresh vegetables you have grown yourself.
So while I know spring is supposed to be the season for re-birth, I just can't help feeling that there is a certain renewal in the air even as the leaves are starting to think about turning yellow. There has been a lot to feel good about lately.
We toured a couple of brand new inner city homes- one pretty glitzy, one not so much.
The high performance, energy efficient home in Altadore boasts a solar thermal hot water heating system; 95% efficient forced air furnace, 98% efficient tankless hot water boiler and remote opening skylights with automatic rain sensors. This home is nicely packaged and beautifully appointed.
The Brama Project home in Marda Loop boasts geothermal heating/cooling, earth tube ventilation, HRVs, ICF/SIP construction and passive rooftop PV solar as well as VOC-free finishes. Many salvaged and recycled materials are used throughout. This home is on track to achieve platinum LEED status.
The Altadore home has been privately sold, but the Marda Loop home may still be available for viewing. Check out Coley Homes.
As I mentioned recently, I tend towards being an environmental pessimist. I look around and realize how much more of a materialistic/throw-away culture I live in today—when compared to my youth—despite the tremendous increase in environmental awareness since then.
I often wonder what the world will be like when my children become adults. Will the production of plastic toys and other items have decreased? Will clothes be made to last so they can be passed on to someone else instead of thrown out? Will we worry about having enough clean water? Will we have come up with better ways to deal with pollution or energy issues?
What sort of world are we handing over to the our children? I worry about the future of the earth and how what we are currently doing (and not doing) today will effect the next generation. As David Suzuki, said in an interview with Natural Life magazine:
“If you love your children you have no choice but to care about the sustainability of life on this planet because that means your children and their children. It doesn't mean countless generations from now because we don't have that long. Now is the time for change.”
What have I done to help? I try to be a good green model for our children. We talk about environmental issues with them. We’ve taken them to the city landfill to give them an idea of what happens to garbage. In school and at home they’re learning about animals and habitats, recycling, pollution, and energy issues.
And, once again, I realize it’s often the little changes that give me hope. My computer-savvy, Ipod/electronic game-obsessed children love all things natural. When they’re cranky, all I have to do is take them for a walk in Fish Creek Provincial Park and they’re almost instantly blissfully happy, spotting animals, finding water creatures, and looking at the trees and plants. They know, perhaps instinctively, that the earth is worth protecting. I have more trust in the decisions they will make about the earth than the decisions currently being made by politicians and most individuals.
When it comes to environmental issues, I think my children and their friends “get it.”
The kids are alright.
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If you’re looking for resources to help teach kids about the environment, the library (of course)has countless environmental books written for children or for parents, like 365 ways to live green for kids: saving the environment at home, school or at play—every day, by Sheri Amsel. (J 333. 72 AMS) and Get out!: 150 ways for kids and grown-ups to get into nature and build a greener future, by Judy Molland (J 333. 72 MOL).
The Eco Kids website and the Environment Canada Kids’ Zone are good places for kids to find more information.
The David Suzuki Foundation website has a "What you can do section." All of the suggestions are pretty simple—and some of them even fun (buy some music...Playlist for the Planet is being released this fall to celebrate the foundation's 20th anniversary).
Visiting friends in Montreal this past weekend, we decided to take advantage of their BIXI system to rent bikes to go for a ride around the city and its pathways. BIXI is a public bike system launched by the City of Montreal in May 2009. Because of the enormous success of BIXI, there are plans to implement the system in other major cities worldwide.
The system seems easy-to-use and flexible. Judging from my first experience with BIXI, it's clear to me why it's become so popular so quickly.
There are 300 bike docks throughout the city. Each dock (which is entirely powered by solar panels) has a pay station and a rack full of bikes. Once you've made your payment, you simply release your bike and off you go. You can drop off your bike at any of the other docks; once the bike is locked back into the rack, any charges are put through on your credit card..JPG)
BIXI subscriptions can be purchased by the year (May to November--bikes are removed during the city's harsh winters) or for 30 days at a time. For people like us who only need bikes for one day, there is also an option for 24 hour access. For our afternoon journey, we each paid $5 plus our additional time. For those just using the bikes to get to and from work or errands, the first half hour of use is always free. Beyond that the costs increase (to the point that it isn't as economical to use the BIXI for more than ninety minutes at a time). For an hour-and-a-half on a sturdy commuter bike that allowed us to move quickly and easily around parts of the city otherwise difficult to see, our costs were $9.50 each. Well worth it, in my opinion.
For Montrealers without cars (or even those, like my friends, who have a car but try not to use it unnecessarily), BIXI is a quick, reasonably-priced option for getting around the city.
Even though I own a bicycle, I would love to see BIXI or a similar public bike launch in Calgary to give another option to people who wish to travel throughout the city. Could it work in a city as spread out as ours? Calgary has been working to make itself more bike-friendly but there are still some roadblocks to making our city as cyclist-friendly as Montreal. In Spinning Wheels or Making Progress, Drew Anderson did a great overview of some of the issues surrounding cycling in Calgary in FFWD Magazine a couple of weeks ago. I will say this: I was reminded again how much I love the on-street bicycle routes in Montreal, something Calgary lacks. Like my fellow bloggers, I sometimes commute to work by bike. I spend the majority of my 60 minute ride on the Bow River pathway. The ride is beautiful and I appreciate the good bike pathways. If it were safer to ride up some of the regular streets to get from South Calgary to downtown, however, I could cut my travel time in half. I hope Calgary becomes even more of a cyclist-friendly city in the future.
I'm a little surprised to see that there are still a few spots open for the Wild Neighbors program at Louise Riley Library on Thursday, August 12, from 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. This is a program for kids ages 7 and up which teaches the valuable attributes of our wild neighbors - particularly those often misunderstood animals such as coyotes, skunks and bats. In fact it has just been confirmed that Marigold the Skunk will be visiting! There are few better ways to instill an importance of the environment in children than by introducing them to the wild animals we share our land with. So if you have kids looking for something to do on Thursday, check it out!
The program is being presented by Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation and is sponsored by the Alberta Beverage Container Recycling Program.
You can register on-line, by calling 403-260-2600, or in-person at any library branch.
Speaking of skunks, the picture on this post is a little skunk that visited our vegetable garden a few weeks ago! He (or she?) had a good look around before going on her (his?) way.
I went on a walk this weekend in Banff, along a trail just outside of town. The trail was edged by buffaloberries, the small red bitter berries that bears eat with abandon at this time of year. Usually I’d feel cautious and extra aware, hiking in a berry bonanza. Usually I'd holler periodically to alert any nearby bears of my presence. But I was in a small group, a group very familiar with the outdoors and with bears, so I relaxed, stayed quiet and floated along, tasting berries. Then we saw the bear. He was a large, very large, very near, very black bear. He was also munching on berries, very quietly, on the path about 10 feet away. He looked at us as if to say Leave me alone– I’m eating dinner, and we turned and silently walked out the way we had come. We should have been making more noise, but thankfully the bear wasn’t too disturbed by our presence.
As we walked out we talked about how differently it could have gone had we been on bikes. Riding quickly, as bikers tend to do, you’d be on top of this bear before you saw it. I don’t think he would have taken kindly to his dinner being interrupted by four bikers shooting out of the woods beside him. God forbid the bear be a momma bear, with young cubs by her side, like the one that charged a Calgary cyclist in Banff on Saturday morning.
The Alberta Government’s Sustainable Resource Development department put out a Be Bear Smart Mountain Biking Checklist last year. They recommend that you “don’t bike in bear habitat in early spring when bears emerge from dens, in mid-August when berries ripen or in late fall when bears are preparing for winter.” If you do encounter a bear while biking they recommend you get off and put the bike between you and bear and walk away slowly. Don’t try to be Lance Armstrong and take off like a rocket. A bear can outrun even the fastest cyclist, even going downhill. Now that’s food for thought, eh?
Check out these Calgary Public Library items for more information on bears and bear safety:
Bear Attacks : Their Causes and Avoidance by Stephen Herrero
The definitive guide by Alberta’s top bear researcher
Staying Safe in Bear Country: A Behavioral-Based Approach to Reducing Risk by Stephen Herrero
A videorecording compiling the knowledge of leading experts on bear behavior, including Dr. Herrero
The Grizzly Manifesto : In Defence of the Great Bear by Jeff Gailus
Gailus is a Calgary author and conservationist
I love my commute to work. How many people can say that in Calgary? I live close to downtown and in spring summer and fall (about five months in Calgary) I ride my bike. It's silly how much pleasure I get from doing this: my heart beats faster while I get exercise, I make it to work in about 10 minutes, and I inevitably feel like a kid again as I race through the streets.
Even if you don't live close to downtown, you have options to make riding your bike a reality. The City of Calgary has seven Park 'N' Bike sites across the city, so you can, well, park your car and bike into downtown. The sites are about 5 to 8 kilometers from downtown, on reasonably 
flat routes, and you get to avoid the two things that make Calgarian commuters pull their hair out: downtown parking fees, and finding a spot to park, for those without a designated lot. You can plan your route using the City of Calgary's interactive Pathways and Bikeways map.
If you've never biked downtown you might think it's too scary a proposition. But if you follow basic bike safety tips and use common sense, you'll be fine. Give it a spin!
I realize that Bob Dylan wasn’t talking about environmental change when he wrote that song, but the title just seemed appropriate for today’s blog entry.
As I mentioned in my previous post, my family and I were recently on holiday at a family cabin. We spent quite a bit of time with a certain relative—I’ll call him Bob.
Bob was never the most environmentally conscious person. Neatness is paramount to him.When he cleans up after a family dinner, Bob throws out all of the leftover food as well as any and all cans and bottles (he and his family are big drinkers of pop and sport drinks) into a large black garbage bag. (To give you a better idea of the extent of Bob’s “throw it all out” system, he also throws out anything he no longer needs or wants, including all paper goods, toys, dishes, and clothes in perfect condition.)
Change can be painfully slow, but sometimes the smallest changes give me the most hope.
A couple of years ago Bob began to keep a large bin in his garage for recyclable containers. He collects the bottles and cans and gives them to children's fundraising drives.
At the cabin, Bob was still the king of “throw anything and everything out.” But for the last couple of years, our family 
collected cans and bottles and put them in a bag to bring into the city to add to his recycling collection. When he realized how easy it was, he started recycling those containers as well. You’d have to know Bob to know what an enormous thing it is for him to be recycling at all, let alone carting bags of bottles and cans from the cabin to his home in the city.
I know not to set my expectations too high, however. On the morning we were leaving, I was overwhelmed by the lovely odour of the incredibly toxic weed killer he was spreading all over the lawn (which didn’t appear to me to have any weeds). Perhaps getting him off of those chemicals will be my task for next summer. And I'll read some of our natural/organic lawn care books to get prepared.
In my last post (Green Democracy) I mentioned that Vancouver has embarked on an action plan to make the city electric vehicle ready. I read the news release and thought "It requires a five year plan to get ready for electric cars? Don't you just plug them in and drive? What's the big deal?" Digging a little deeper, I found out preparing the infrastructure for significant numbers of hybrid and pure electric vehicles requires a great deal of planning. How, for example, do you handle the increased strain on the power grid? How do you install and regulate the charging stations needed? How can you be sure the public won't reject the whole idea outright? Every city that is serious about preparing for large numbers of electric cars on its streets will have to answer such questions and this is where The Rocky Mountain Institute comes in. The Rocky Mountain Institute has developed Project Get Ready - a guide that outlines the barriers a city will face, as well as suggestions to overcome those barriers. Everything from the prohibitive costs of current battery technology to consumer hesitation is examined. The point is that every city doesn't have to bumble around on their own trying to find solutions - currently there are 10 North American cities using the Project Get Ready model to facilitate a shift to low and no emission vehicles. Vancouver just signed on. Toronto, another Project Get Ready city, has declared a goal of full-scale electric mobility.
So what is Calgary's plan? Do we have one? Should we? What do you think? What do our candidates for Mayor think?
While electric cars seem to be a clear environmental choice over conventional automobiles, they certainly are not the only option. If you are interested in seeing other personal transport options, visit www.hybridcars.com and learn more about E85 ethanol, gas-electric hybrids, hydrogen-powered cars, as well as pure electric cars. You may be surprised at how many non-traditional cars are (or almost are) ready for the roads.
—that is the (green) question.
I’ve just returned from a holiday at a family cabin. The annual trip there always provides us with an opportunity to be conscious of our water use and teach our children about conservation.
The cabin in question was originally the home of my husband’s grandparents and is located in a very small town served, as are many small towns in Canada, by a septic system.
These grandparents were from the generation where you simply didn’t waste money—or water or power—unnecessarily. Visitors were expected to have infrequent baths or showers (and use little water when they did). Better yet—bathe in the free showers at the beach (which were unpleasant enough to encourage a very quick clean up). Never leave the water running when you’re brushing your teeth or soaping up your hands and use a little water as necessary to clean dishes properly. And, perhaps most importantly, only flush the toilet when necessary. (If you're not quite sure what I mean, please see the accompanying image.)
Many of us now have low-flush toilets, so we aren’t using as much water per flush. And many people I know are completely disgusted by the idea of not flushing the toilet. But consider this: even with a typical low-flush toilet, you might be using 3 litres of water to wash away perhaps an ounce or two of urine. This amount goes up to 13 to 18 litres for older toilets. Is that truly necessary?
While most of us wouldn’t want to use this method when we have guests over, perhaps it is worth reconsidering trying this out on occasion. If you can’t fathom not flushing, then at least you can try to conserve water in the bathroom in other ways.
If you are reading this blog, then chances are that environmental issues are important to you. Socially conscious person that you are, you are planning to cast your vote on October 18th for a Mayoral and Aldermanic candidate that shares your values. Calgary Democracy has made it easier to compare the platforms of the various candidates by providing a lists of all those who are running for Mayor or Alderman and provides links to each candidates website, where you can learn more about how high the environment ranks on their respective platforms.
But you don't have to wait until October 18th to practice environmental democracy! If you want the candidates to know that the citizens of this city expect our elected officials to make the environment top priority, then you have to let them know! Ask your candidates questions about density versus sprawl, public transport, recycling or whatever is of particular interest to you. The point is that they won't know Calgarians care about the environment unless we tell them. The time to shape civic policy is now.
The City of Calgary website provides information on the specific initiatives the city is currently involved in and this may help you frame the questions that are of most importance to you. You might also want to see what eco-initiatives other cities have taken on, in order to suggest similar programs to our politicians-in-waiting. Here are some links to the environmental pages of the City of Vancouver (some interesting ideas about preparing the infrastructure for electric vehicles) and the City of Edmonton (The Carbon Dioxide Reduction Edmonton plan is intriguing). We're not going to let these other cities out green Calgary, are we? At the very least we can steal some of their good ideas!
Voter turnout for the 2007 civic election was only about 33%,* which means every vote represented 3 eligible voters. All the more reason why this civic election is such a tremendous opportunity to advance environmental concerns!
* There's no excuse for voter apathy; Paula Arab. Calgary Herald. Oct 19, 2007. pg. A.26
EcoLiving Events has thought of the ideal way to learn about the environment; charter a big old yellow school bus, register about 30 people, then tour several sites which are living, breathing examples of how we can not only reduce our environmental footprint, but even produce energy. Example- the EchoHaven community project in Rocky Ridge.
We toured the demonstration home which is currently under construction. This will be a net zero home as it will produce at least as much energy as it consumes. With south orientation for passive solar gain, PV modules to generate electricity, solar thermal collectors for hot water, rain water collection and a dedicated greywater line, to name a few, this and the other 24 homes will preserve more than 60% of the area's rich wetlands ecosystem and maximize solar exposure.
Have a look at the EchoHaven site and also the CMHC Sustainable Housing Demonstration Initiatives site.
Better yet- visit the demo home in September when it is completed.
Calgarians are embracing the adage to eat local by returning to their roots, and planting both individual backyard gardens and community gardens with gusto. The next logical step, once you have all that fresh produce, is to spend some time in the kitchen preserving the fruits of your harvest for the winter ahead.
What’s the first thing you think of when I say “canning, pickling and drying”? According to author Sherri Brooks Vinton, the first two reactions are usually a fear of hard work and a fear of killing someone. In her new book, Put ‘em Up! A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Picking, Vinton writes:
“Why on earth would you do that?” That’s what people want to know when they see me moving through the hardware store balancing five cases of Mason jars on my way to the cash register. It’s often followed by “Aren’t you afraid you’ll kill someone?” I guess these questions pretty much sum up the most widely held beliefs about home food preservation: 1) that it’s hugely time-consuming and not worth the effort, and 2) that it’s mysterious, difficult, and wickedly dangerous. Well, I say, not true and not true. Home food preservation is simple and delicious, and no one was harmed in the marking of this book.”
Put ‘em up! Is an entertaining, colourful, and informative book with instructions on how to preserve everything from apples to zucchini, along with mouth-watering recipes. She does make preserving food sound easy. Beet Relish? No problem! Dilly Beans? I could make them in my sleep! If I could just get off the couch…
On a hot day last week, as I was biking to work just before noon, I heard the familiar whirr of a lawn sprinkler diligently working its way across my neighbor’s long, lush green lawn. Watering your lawn at the hottest part of the day is never a great idea because evaporation rates go up with heat. You may as well wait until evening when it’s cooler out.
Better yet, use a rain gauge to measure how much rain your lawn is getting. Your lawn needs only 2.5 cm (one inch) of rain water per week to be healthy and green. I picked up a rain gauge from the City of Calgary's Water Services booth at the Lilac Festival, but you can also make one yourself. With the amount of rain we’ve been getting, setting up the sprinkler might be watery overkill!
Rain barrels can also help you save water. Green Calgary has them ranging in price from $85.00 for a regular blue plastic barrel to $195.00 for the deluxe old-fashioned looking oak rain barrel. By catching and using water from your roof you’ll be reducing demand for treated water and cutting down on water waste. Click here to read more rain barrel tips from the City of Calgary’s Water Services department.
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