Halifax Retro

With our trip to Europe only a little over a month away and our devotion to Halifax Retro taking somewhat of a back seat in the midst of our planning, the time has come to combine the two and start posting about our trip. While we encourage anyone to contribute content about all things sustainable, for the next 4 months our personal content will be turning into more of a documentation of beginning our journey towards living sustainably.

It’s not only living on organic farms that will help us accomplish this, but also finally breaking free from our conventional way of life, and all the things we depend on society to sustain it with. That’s not to say we aren’t taking anything with us, but we will be eating only the bare essentials; we won’t have a car, a television, an oven, a toilet, a shower or a couch for 3 months. It will be interesting not taking these things for granted for once, and will be the first step toward breaking our reliance on them.

We plan to eat only bread, cheese and vegetables with only about 10 Euro’s allotted for food each day. We are taking a tent and two sleeping bags, with the plan being to stay in campgrounds or the flat out bush unless simply not possible. We also plan to take part in a program called couchsurfing – one of the most honest and faith-in-humanity restoring movements I’ve ever come across. You basically open your couch up to people around the world, and in return, you can stay on other people’s couches around the world. And with a rating system and setup similar to facebook, safety isn’t much of a concern.

Other than that we’re bringing a few changes of clothes, a camera (of course), a towel and a small laptop that weighs in at less than 1.5 pounds – perfect for keeping in touch with the world while we live in isolation from its mediums. Safety wise, we are bringing extremely loud whistles (a must when traveling in small groups), a deck of cards and a book that tells us virtually everything one needs to know about Europe - including maps of all major cities, embassy and hospital locations, grocery locations, hostel and campground locations, and, of course, tourist attractions.

Overall we’re planning on living on under 50 Euro’s a day when not Wwoofing on organic farms, which will not cost anything. Balance wise we will be doing each traveling and staying on farms about 40/60, respectively, not to mention staying in a monastery in Ireland for the first week (which Adam’s ancestors erected). From there we go to France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden, Norway and then finishing off in the Netherlands area.  

So there you have it, that’s basically where we are. We have a 3-month train pass that covers all our long-term travel and we’ll be writing about this adventure up until we leave as this is basically the extent of the plan so far. So if you want to read about our journey towards sustainability, or just want to read about the amazing places we see, make sure to check out Halifax Retro as we will be posting regularly while there.

Keep it retro!

Every week I get calls from people confused about how to make their homes more energy efficient. Most calls go something like this: “I’m looking for someone to come to my house and tell me how it can be more energy efficient.” Or, “I’m building a new house and I don’t know what to use to heat my house. What are my options?” Or even questions like “I’ve just torn apart my basement and I’m thinking about putting some of that pink insulation stuff in there. David Suzuki told me I could get money for it, is that true?”

For many people, the whole building or renovation process can be a bit daunting, I understand. Before I started working as the Energy Programs Officer at the Nova Scotia Home Builders’ Association (NSHBA), the idea of energy efficient housing solutions was like opening a 500 page text book for the first time and realizing that you don’t understand the first paragraph. I often thought: “Wow, this stuff is a little confusing, can’t I just get the Coles Notes?” The good news is, over time I’ve made sense of it all and now it’s my job to make the world of energy efficient homes easier and more understandable for you – the environmental consumer with a busy schedule.

So, let’s clear some of this up, shall we?

To start, it’s important to understand two important things:

1. Most energy efficient housing programs in Nova Scotia fall under one government-funded initiative – The EnerGuide Rating System.
2. Most peoples’ issues can be separated by asking a simple question – are you building a new house or renovating an old one?

If you’re looking for a more sustainable home renovation, your first step will be to call or visit Conserve Nova Scotia online. As the government agency responsible for providing Nova Scotians with a wide range of energy solutions, Conserve Nova Scotia is where you will find everything you need to know about EnerGuide for Houses and the marvellous government rebates that come attached to it.

Conservens.ca will provide you with a list of qualified energy evaluators in your area who will come to your home and complete an energy efficiency test. Essentially, this test involves depressurizing your home (basically, a big fan that sucks all the air out of your house – allowing you and the evaluator to walk around the house and find any air leaks you will need to fix). After the test, the evaluator will give you a list of possible upgrades to make your home more energy efficient. From that date on, you will have 18 months to make the changes before the evaluator returns for a final test.

If you’re building a new house your first step should be to call us or visit the NSHBA website at www.nshba.ns.ca where you can download an EnerGuide for New Houses application form. Be sure to talk to your builder about filling in the application as it involves a few technical items about your new home that you may not know. As you have probably guessed, EnerGuide for New Houses is similar to the EnerGuide renovating program offered by Conserve Nova Scotia, but with one major difference: the first evaluation is done using an accurate software program that digitally evaluates your house and provides you with energy efficiency options before you build. When all the work has been done, the energy evaluators will perform one final air tightness test and you will receive an EnerGuide for New Houses label in the mail. This shows how energy efficient your home is.

Overall, building energy efficiency in to your home is an extremely smart decision – no matter the shape or size. These upgrades are nothing more than an upfront investment that pays you back month after month, especially in the winter.

Adam Meery
Energy Programs Officer
Nova Scotia Home Builders’ Association

Photo credit: nick findley from Flickr

I can’t help but laugh at myself. There I was, several months ago, dreaming of ways in which I could sincerely turn my daily actions, into greener ones. And being a writer and sceptic of almost everything, in particular the public and especially mainstream media channels – I wanted to find an avenue in which I could document, and simultaneously open a network of like-minded people who shared my interest in learning real ways in which we could learn how to live more harmoniously with the earth. It was so dreamy. I was determined to turn green, and I was stoked to get others involved in my new revelation. I wanted to submerge myself in our local community and discover what people were doing – companies, organizations, and people. Dreams of organic living, community building, sustainable living, locally eating, and existing peacefully! As I look back on my naive but well intentioned state, I shudder a little bit. It seems that in the small lifespan that is Halifax Retro, the green movement has peaked and started to turn on itself very quickly.

Like every trend, the recent mainstream “green movement” was quickly embraced by the mass public as a result of over-stimulus via advertising and production, and has thus become tainted with scepticism and over-generalizations. It’s becoming harder and harder to distinguish what is real, and what is in-vitro. And as I write this, I am waging a war inside my own head. Part of me is saying, “isn’t it every environmentalists dream for the green movement to have finally reached such a viral scale?” Another part of me, probably the writer and business oriented side of me, can’t help but be a little hesitant, knowing the flash-of-the-pan trend life cycle that the green movement seems to have just gone through.

Groups specializing on the subject are now causing doubt throughout the green movement with terms such as “green washing”, “green hype”, and the like. As consumer confidence is practically non-existent in regards to the integrity of big-business, the claims of environmentally friendly products is diminishing right along with it. With companies placing their own rendered seals of approvals on products claiming “sustainable production”, “organically grown”, “fair trade”, “energy efficient”, etc, green messages are being seen as just another marketing gimmick to sell you more stuff; and albeit, while the green movement had good intentions, many of those who had innocently began to live in a more sustainable way are quickly having it turn on them, as the green movement itself becomes bastardized and over-utilized in the media. Human nature demands us to become cynical when we see too much of a good thing – and it seems that if government officials and companies are now pushing environmentalism this hard, something fishy must be going on, right?

With rampant evidence that global warming may be an almost completely natural process, and with the government spilling billions into green initiatives, it almost seems that the wind is being taken out of our individual efforts by the day. I cannot help but wonder what the bigger picture is here? It seems as though the higher echelon in this world are working ferociously to gain our confidence that the right thing is being done on a wide scale, and not to worry about the details quite so much anymore.

All the while, individuals who look beyond the label are trying to explain that these companies are not actually being as green as they claim, explained in the “Green wash Guide” by Futerra Sustainability Communications, one of the few efforts speaking out against this new era of exploiting genuine values, to go along with articles like this, and this, and this.

I fear that with this kind of over-exposure to green messages – both faulty and valid, consumers and activists alike will become numb to believing anything at all. What was possibly once our last effort to vainly save ourselves will become the subject of our own demise - with nothing to blame besides our own conditioned human behavior, provoked by media controllers.

There has been discussion, also, about the impact that the recession is having on the sustainability movement, but it seems that this very movement is becoming a primary scapegoat for the recession in the first place (Financial Sense, an American investment company highlights this attitude in this article). It’s like a catch-22, and all the more reason for us to turn our heads at the calamity. If we act in a more sustainable way it seems, the economy suffers and therefore our finances are affected so we’re forced to choose cheaper alternatives – most likely not the most environmental. As a result, thousands of people are losing their jobs, particularly in non-sustainable industries, like the auto industry.

Recessions are taught to be a scary thing, but I believe this one could reap a lot of benefit in many senses. This recession could be used to re-prioritize ourselves, and to develop cleaner, healthier alternatives. In our last global recession, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the government’s solution was for everyone to spend, spend, spend. Have babies, buy houses, buy cars, live the “American Dream”. Our shelf-life on this planet would skyrocket if we could only be a little smarter this time.

Companies are trying to save themselves and their toxic operations by ironically utilizing green messaging. We as decision makers have to be cautious of what we’re “buying”, because we’re at a tipping point in a green trend that may come crashing down as economic concerns escalate, and governments look to hoard more money through green taxes, aka carbon taxes, and so on. Living green is more than just purchasing the trendiest green products and ditching your current car for the latest hybrid edition (as if there aren’t enough cars on the road already?) – it’s about not purchasing anything you don’t need, and supporting causes that are truly sustainable and local. Not just purchasing that $18.00 bottle of non-toxic and biodegradable bathroom cleaner – but exploring other alternatives like making your own, alternatives that aren’t laid out before us on a logo covered red carpet.

The cognitive dissonance and doubt that plagues us today regarding the environment and the economy is hype within itself. It’s always a bad news story, or one of great confusion and fear. Fear drives us, and fear sells. It always has. Fear of the decomposing economy makes you spend. Fear of a depleting environment makes you spend. We’ve reached a point where our over consumption has flooded our primary market, and there’s nowhere to go but down in many industries (the auto industry is a prime example of this, same with housing). Fear has driven us to blindly start purchasing anything with a green label – but at the same time we have to be cautious of what exactly we are purchasing, because in an increasing amount of cases, it can be merely a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, for example, offers report cards on green-washing organizations that try to mask testing products on animals. Meanwhile, PETA also has its critics, who say that the organization kills more animals (through euthanasia) than it helps.” (Bankrate.com)

It’s important to be aware of the games being played in the public realm, but to always keep a positive mind-frame, and to know that making changes in your own life is the only way to start. It is truly time for us as individuals to use our common sense, turn off the TV for a second, and think about what you can do in your own life to minimize your emissions, your garbage, your needless spending. Accepting what the media reports about our economy and about the environment is virtually useless – we know this. They report what they’re told to report; told to emphasize, told to hype - otherwise their jobs will be in jeopardy.

By not doing your own research into the issues and information presented by those who control information - the media and corporate marketing companies - you’re willingly acting as a victim to the virus they spread to make us believe they are something they are not. Until these companies learn to change for real, not just change how they market the same old stuff, our “green movement” will be going nowhere fast.

By Kimberly Walsh

Photo credit: kuuipo1207 from Flickr

Up until recently, I have generally thought of beauty as being only skin deep. In a philosophical sort of way I still believe it. But lately, after having some conversations with girlfriends and reading articles about parabens in beauty products, I can’t say I agree with the statement anymore. Considering that skin is the largest human organ, I’m starting to believe that I should take a bit more care of mine.

What’s the deal with parabens, you might ask? Well, for those of you who don’t know, they’re the group of chemicals often used as preservatives in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. And they’ve been linked with causing cancer due to the presence of carcinogens and estrogen mimickers. While the scientific jury is still out on whether or not to ban them outright, I’m not taking any chances.

When you really think about it, the average person is practically radiating with parabens. By the time you’ve prepared to go to work in the morning, you’ve likely showered (with shampoo, conditioner, soap), possibly shaved (with cream), put in a hair product, used deodorant and brushed your teeth. For you gents, you’re probably splashing on a bit of aftershave. For us ladies, we also typically put on a bit of make-up. Well, most of those common products that we use each and every morning have parabens.

So, what do we do about it? I mean, we’re not exactly going to give up on this daily ritual. After all, our level of cleanliness has reached epic proportions according to author Katherine Ashenburg, who wrote The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History (Knopf). Never in the history of human civilization have we seen a culture so obsessed with cleanliness to the point that many of us even carry hand sanitizer around (guilty!). At my workplace, there are even hand sanitizer dispensers in the hallways.

And according to the Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association, retail cosmetics represent a $5.4 billion industry in Canada. The fact of the matter is that every day we’re inundated by thousands of images of beauty standards, from commercials and magazines to television programs and movies. In reality, that’s a lot of pressure to look good, and we all consume the goods that will help us on this never-ending quest to do so.

Couple that with the fact that, if we’re being honest, the average person who’s looking to go green isn’t looking to make huge sacrifices. They’re looking for baby steps. Let’s face it, most Canadian ladies aren’t giving up on the shaved legs and armpits model that we’ve all grown accustomed to; for the record, that’s me included.

One thing that was supposed to have helped consumers make more informed decisions was cosmetic labeling. Since November 2006, Health Canada made it mandatory that the outer label of these products list all the ingredients used. The problem I’ve found with these labels is that they’re not exactly as easy to read as, say, food labels. You really have to do your research and know what to look for in order to make an informed decision. Frankly, who has the time to do that? Yes, I know if you care enough you’ll do it. But my point is that the average person would rather be putting their leisure time into other activities. And that’s exactly what the cosmetics companies are banking on.

Thankfully there are people out there who are willing to do the footwork for consumers. Just recently, while trying to find replacements for my facial care products, I stumbled upon a site called the Environmental Working Group. They’re based out of Washington and offer, among other things, an online cosmetics database. It ranks pretty much every major cosmetic line you can think of on a scale of how hazardous each product is for your health. The ranking system takes into consideration ingredients that have been linked to cancer, developmental/reproductive toxicity, allergies, among other things.

Just to torture myself, I did a search on my current products and was not at all comforted to find that they were listed in the yellow “moderate hazard” category. Then I did a search on the Burt’s Bees products I wound up purchasing and found each and every one of those items in the green “low hazard” category. It really didn’t take that much convincing after I did the comparisons.

Now, I’m not advocating ignoring your inner beauty altogether. Taking care of the inner you is just as important as the outer you. Eat well, drink plenty of water, and live a balanced life, and you’ll be on the path to radiating with good vibes rather than parabens. Nobody said being a green god or goddess was easy but there are certainly resources out there to help you not only look good, but feel good, too; on so many levels.

It’s called the most vigorously debated topic on Earth.

Global Warming, debated you say? The United Nations and Al Gore pronounce that only a few “skeptics” remain on the topic of Global Warming – so what is there to debate? Even the media has hopped on the global warming band wagon, lambasting companies responsible for wasteful actions. The whole concept of “saving the planet” has become sensationalized, this imminent global doom if we don’t refine our ways, instead of our fossil fuels.

A faction called The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine is once again gaining a voice behind the scenes, amid widespread discussions that some places may have actually gotten cooler last year. They are known as “the petition,” containing the names of 31,072 Americans with university degrees in science, including 9,021 PhDs, calling for the debate on global warming to be re-opened. Their goal?, to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favour of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climatological damage, is wrong. They believe no such consensus or settled science exists.

Instead, these scientists think that the current model of human-caused global warming is impossible, just a construct of society who is drawn to chaos and enjoy feeling like they can save the Earth’s eternal existence by using paper instead of plastic. Their viewpoint is that this sort of climate change is impossible on such a massive level and that it is almost arrogant to think humans could actually harm a giant sphere that could conceivably shake us off like a bad cold if it actually felt threatened, you know, being around billions of years and all, compared to our couple hundred industrial years.

They even claim that “government action on the basis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterproductively damage both human prosperity and the natural environment of the Earth.”

Really? Government action against global warming would be counter-productive to human prosperity? So according to this logic, if not caring about global warming until now = what we have know; and what we have now somehow equals some twisted form of “prosperity”…Then prosperity, according to this analysis, would equal a society of chemical breathing, cheeseburger eating, gun toting invaders, whose wasteful and un-preserving western society is an international joke which nobody wants to hear the punch-line to. America is ridiculed on the international scene in terms of environment, and Canadians, whether we like to admit it or not, are right up there with them.

Now don’t get me wrong, philosophically we have no reason to believe one side or the other in the scientific debate on climate change, as there are plenty of ethical concerns regarding the validity of global warming, just like there is plenty of evidence that seems to absolutely support it. For instance, how 11, 000 years ago the aboriginals who lived here were watching a glacier melt; or how Vikings claimed living in lush Greenland within just the last thousand years, when now it is nearly uninhabitable. These periods were long before we were pumping out CO2, however, the climate seems to change quite naturally over time, in quite a short amount of time.

This petition of scientists believe that the Earth goes through normal cycles in climate change, and the current one is nothing to be alarmed about.

They don’t seem to take into account that intense weather episodes have risen steadily over the last decade, increasing in frequency and sheer intensity with every passing year. They don’t really explain why CO2 emissions have never been higher than they are right now, or why these levels are almost always, throughout history, followed by a climactic chaos. Since we started along our obsession with burning cheap and easily obtainable fossil fuels for quick energy, the signs of climate change follow very closely with the 25% rise in atmospheric CO2 levels since that same period in history. There is clear evidence that global warming is happening, it just seems that these 30,000 scientists believe it is from natural causes, making it completely okay to continue to be “prosperous”, without going fossil fuel-less.

There is absolutely no denying that global warming could be a natural occurrence, and although our CO2 emissions could be contributing, there is no proof that they are the direct cause. This is completely true, we should all realize this, and these sentiments are summed up nicely in this excerpt from a cover letter which was signed by a past president of the National Academy of Sciences referring to the Kyoto Protocol:

“This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful.”

Quite reasonable, now here is a quote from the petition which is still on their website and was submitted to the government using the same letter head as the National Academy of Sciences just before the Bush administration withdrew from Kyoto in 2001:

“We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.”

Damage the health and welfare of MANKIND? So because we are trying to impose caps on the production of useless petroleum based garbage that ends up in our landfills, and because the reason for wanting to do this isn’t proven to contribute to slowing global catastrophe that would see many inhabitants of Earth perish, that means it’s okay and we should just go about business as usual, otherwise damaging the health and welfare of MANKIND?

I can’t even begin to explain how many things are wrong and corrupt with that type of statement, let alone with a government that would listen to it.

What is especially concerning is that the United States government did listen to this extremely fatalistic assessment. They rejected Kyoto after “scientists” made 5 separate attempts to discredit global warming.

What’s ironic is now, all of a sudden, a realization is occurring that a boatload of millions can be made - not by placing a hard cap on emissions and “saving the planet”, but by taxing the amount companies exceed the caps by – and suddenly the industrial world is globally warming up to the idea of global warming. So is the government is hedging its bets?

There are actually numerous economic theorists that claim the idea of human caused global warming is now being used in the West to push the implementation of a carbon tax to go along with the proposed cap and trade system, which has already been implemented in most of Europe. This would allow the new administrations to look like the “good guys” after embarrassingly having to pull out of Kyoto earlier this decade. In other words, instead of banning these chemicals being pumped into our air, their solution is to just start collecting money from them, which would be much the same thing they have done with cigarettes. Not solving the problem, but making money off it.

Whether or not our governments have realized pushing the idea of global warming could actually be beneficial, especially if they used the carbon tax to invest in green energy, for some reason this “petition” is still pushing the concept that trying to stop global warming is counter-productive to humanity. Either way, the real problem is not being addressed, just manipulated in a flurry of different corporate agenda’s and moral obligations.

Since when is reducing the amount of garbage in our landfills a negative only if the government can make money off it along with the company doing it? Since when is moving toward a sustainable society that uses wind, hydro and solar renewable energy that won’t ever run out, counter-productive unless the companies who still use fossil fuels can continue to do so freely?

The Kyoto protocol should have been followed by every country who signed it, regardless of the validity of human caused global warming. It was signed in good faith for the future - but why is it we can’t seem to look toward the future, if it too much effects our present? If we keep thinking like this, our narrow-mindedness will preclude a narrow future, and no petition will be able to challenge what happens next.