Unhappy Meals

There is a very interesting article about food and nutrition in the New York Times called "Unhappy Meals" (it's not about McDonalds). It's very long, but it's worth the read.

Doing what we can

It can be very hard to bring myself to mention climate change after days and weeks of windchill and wearing two pairs of pants, just to be warm enough to walk to the bus stop. Winterpeg isn't just a clever nickname. I heard a rumour (okay, read it in her blog) that my cousin saw An Inconvenient Truth. She blogged about about some of the ways she is doing her part to minimize her environmental impact, as it were. She neglected to mention one of the most important things she is doing: talking about it.

Nobody is eco-perfect. My fiancé owns a mini-van, and we like to take road trips. I buy bananas, despite my guilt about how far away they are grown, because they are so cheap and convenient. And sometimes, I let the water run while I'm brushing my teeth because it's just easier. But when I read about what other people are doing, and talk to people about what they could or should be doing, I am encouraged to do my part. It's easy to get discouraged, due to the largeness of the issues at hand (as that movie undoubtedly pointed out), but everybody just has to do what they can, and keep talking about it. Look how we're scaring the Harper... someone who has been quoted as calling the Kyoto accord a money-sucking socialist scheme.

If a tree falls

Umbra Fisk answers environmental questions every week at grist.org. I signed up to have them sent straight to my inbox. I thought this week's article was particularly interesting over some of the usual paper vs plastic bantering, and wanted to share the contents.

According to research, planting trees in certain locations on Earth can contribute to global warming rather than combatting it, which frightens me and probably a lot of you, due to the inherent counter-intuitiveness of the idea.

This is due to albedo (reflectivity, in this case of solar energy). Umbra explains it best:

Since forests don't tend to reflect heat, they hold a lot of warmth. When the study authors integrated albedo into their computer model, they found that replacing grasslands and other non-forested areas with forests in temperate zones (e.g., North America, Europe) would eventually lead to net warming of the Earth. In tropical areas (e.g., Brazil), forests exhale more water; scientists say this contribution to cloudiness will help cancel out the warming effect.

Le stade

I don't pay much attention to sports, but I do love new things!

A proposal from CanWest Global executive David Asper to help build a new $120-million stadium for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers was swiftly met with praise from politicians, including Premier Gary Doer and Mayor Sam Katz.

Freshening up the stadium sounds like a great idea, especially because the public money going into it will be paid off in about six years.

There is some concern about privatizing our team, which is one of 3 community-owned teams remaining in Canada, along with Edmonton and Saskatchewan.

This strikes me as funny for some reason. Probably because Saskatchewan would un-privatize Walmart if it could. Saskatoon's convention centre isn't named after a company, it's named after the Teacher's Credit Union.

I love you Saskatchewan! I love you, new sporting facilities that will potentially house great concerts!

Money (Pink Floyd)

I find myself attracted to watching the wide variety of TV shows about people that have debt problems. They have been popping up a lot faster than that money tree I planted. I am simultaneously fascinated and disgusted by the people on these shows. How can they possibly buy so much crap, and not feel bad, or if they do feel bad, not stop the madness? Aren't their lives fulfilling enough without the excess material possessions?

Money, get away
Get a good job with good pay and you're okay
Money, it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream
Think I'll buy me a football team

Granted, some of them are caught in bad cycles. They might, for example, go into debt for student loans, and then don't make enough money at their current employment to pay back the loans back and live comfortably.

Money, get back
I'm all right jack keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a lear jet

Part of my frustration with these shows is that I find it very fulfilling to save money and not be in debt. This is perhaps a nicer way of saying that I'm frugal. I take comfort in knowing that I could afford to not work for a little while, or take a big vacation wherever I want, and that I don't have to worry about making a large purchase if I feel it's valid. I tend to say that I'm savings towards the vague goal of a house, but really, I'm just saving.

I could write a book on saving money, but I struggle with a few facts.

1. Isn't it kind of wrong to sell books to people that have problems with over-spending?

   Step 1: Quit buying so much stuff. Oh, except this book, buy this book first, then quit buying so much stuff.

2. The items that you could save money on by giving up (car, cell, starbucks, flat panel tv) might be the very staples of your life
   
   
3. Once you turn on the part of your brain that tells you not to spend, it can be hard to turn back on.

Money, it's a crime
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a raise its no surprise that they're
Giving none away

Green-washing

What does Wikipedia say?

Greenwash (a portmanteau of green and whitewash) is a pejorative term that environmentalists and other critics use to describe the activity of giving a positive public image to putatively environmentally unsound practices.

What does the NY Times say?

"As a design shorthand, it makes subtle use of specific colors, images, typefaces and the promise of what marketers call “an authentic narrative” to sell food...

Buy a greenwashed product and you’re buying a specific set of healthy environmental and socially correct values.

If the package does its work, then the food inside doesn’t actually have to be organic, only organic-ish...


And although “organic” is losing its power as a code word for certain cultural values, it doesn’t hurt to flaunt it if you’ve got it. The word appears 21 times on a box of Cascadian Farm Vanilla Almond Crunch..."

What's happening in Canada, and probably everywhere else?

"Shoppers shelling out a little more for fair trade coffees, teas and chocolates are too often being fooled by fake certification labels, say some groups pushing for federal intervention...


Fair trade products such as coffee or chocolate offer farmers in developing countries higher prices for their goods than they would typically receive on the world commodity markets. Money is directed to social and environmental development and fair labour wages.

Support for fair trade products has grown steadily. Canadians bought 21,500 kg of fair trade coffee in 1998, for example, and bought 940,000 kg in 2004."

I don't support fair-trade coffee, because technically I don't support any coffee. I don't drink it. Guess I should be looking into fair trade tea, beyond the greened package.