Contraception is part of the solution.

Contraception is 'greenest' technology

A recent study from the London School of Economics assert[s] that family planning is nearly five times more cost effective in mitigating global warming emissions than green energy technologies like wind and solar power.

And yet not surprising that this element of our impact on the planet was not part of the recent discussions in Copenhagen.

Woo hoo! Brandan League is no longer a Blue Jay!

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091223&content_id=7849562&vkey=news_tor&fext=.jsp&c_id=tor&partnerId=rss_tor

TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup 2008

I hope you can join me at David A Balfour Park on Sunday, September 21, between 12:00 PM and 4:00 PM for the annual TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. You'll have tons of fund picking up tons of litter!

To register go to www.vanaqua.org/cleanup and look for David A Balfour Park in the sites for Toronto.

See you there!

What next?

TheStar.com | Business | Auto crisis kills more GTA jobs

The storm engulfing the auto industry touched down in the GTA again yesterday and swept away more than 2,000 jobs.

OK, it's time to invest in a new industry. Well, actually, the time to invest in a new industry was four or five years ago, but today will have to do.

Unfortunately, by being complacent about the success we thought we saw from the auto industry we may now be in the unfortunate situation of not having the revenue available to invest in new industries. (Most of what we got from our investment in autos went back into autos and the infrastructure to support them.) We've missed the boat on using "old economics" to fund the next new thing, so now it's up to carbon pricing to provide the incentive.

The world is changing. Will we lead people into tomorrow or will we be dragged kicking and screaming? Looks like the latter so far.

Time to Look at a NEW Industry

CAW to fight Oshawa closing

General Motors will halt production at its Oshawa truck plant next year and probably won't reopen it again because of the collapse of pickup sales in the U.S., chairman Rick Wagoner said today.

It's time for Ontario to begin investing in tomorrow's industries and help our workforce become less dependent on yesterday's industries. It would have been better to have started this a few years ago, but the next best time is to start today. Before anyone else loses a job without a new one to go to.

How about solar panels? How about scooters? How about subway cars and street cars? How about anything that recognizes that the cost of oil is only going to go up and that, thankfully, people are making different choices than they did 5 and 10 years ago. (That is, not Fiat! Same problem, different logo.)

Beyond a shift in what we make to sell to the world, we also need to be training our workforce to make a lot more of the stuff we need right here at home. The increasing cost of transporting goods means that the earth is a lot less flat than we thought cheap oil made it. A recent report from CIBC World Markets covered in the Toronto Star makes the point well.

We have two choices: we can plan now for where things are headed, or we can wait and be forced to change when it's too late. I prefer the first option.

Food and the City

canadianarchitect.com - Canadian Architect - 5/30/2008

Our discussion will begin to assess the health of the city through examining the cycles of its food – the sourcing, production, buying, selling, cooking, eating and waste disposal of food. At its very essence, the city is what, where and how it eats.

I'm looking forward to this. Hope you can make it, too.

Finally, some vision!

TheStar.com | GTA | Chop Gardiner, Miller says

No shocker, really, that I'm pretty happy about this. I've said before that the whole thing should come down.

What I love about this is the question from Denzil Minnan-Wong:

"Who's going to pay for it? We already have a $300 million backlog in road repairs, so it's logical to assume that this will come at a cost. What roads will not be repaired or repaved that are already falling apart?"
-- Denzil Minnan-Wong

It's almost funny that he can't see the answer staring him in the face. (Almost funny because this guy has a say in the direction of the city.) Well, just so Mr. Minnan-Wong doesn't hurt himself trying to think of it, here's the answer: The money to do this today will come because we won't have to pay to fix this part of the Gardiner tomorrow! And the road that will not be fixed if we do this is the Gardiner between Jarvis to the Don Valley Parkway!

On a sad note, I will miss this part of the Ride for Heart, but that's a small sacrifice to get back our waterfront.