Our New Web Site - No new posts here

We are in the midst of developing a new website here. We are rather excited about this change, and think everyone will like it, but it will take some time to get everything moved there. So the old sites will remain, at least for the time being.

Nevertheless, this column is going up there already, so we will not longer be posting anything here. So check out the new site. Share your opinions on the issues of the day there. The site allows that.

If you have some thoughts about the website, get back to WadeWiebe@yahoo.com or eric@southeasttransition.com

Canadians Want a Clean Energy Future

One goal of the Premier’s conference last month was to develop a national energy strategy. That did not happen. According to news reports, this failure occurred because Premier Christy Clark would not agree to any general energy strategy unless BC and Alberta could reach some agreement in their current dispute. Clark had laid down five conditions that would need to be met if the proposed Keystone oil pipeline, promoted by Alberta, was to pass through BC. The single condition that is generating the most controversy has to do with the sharing of the revenues resulting from the export of the bitumen/oil. 

At first glance there seems to be much wisdom in such a stance: if we can’t agree on the detail on this specific aspect of energy development, what’s the point of talking about general agreements. The devil is in the detail.

But on second thought, much of that wisdom evaporates. The dispute seems to be about who gets what revenue. The dispute framed that way assumes the resource, bitumen/oil, ought to be developed, exported and sold. But should and do Canadians accept this assumption?

A new survey commissioned by Tides Canada speaks to this. The results are striking. According to this new poll, Canadians believe the country needs an energy plan that reduces fossil fuel dependence, cuts energy waste, creates more clean-energy jobs, fights climate change, and sets aside a portion of oil wealth to help prepare for a clean and renewable energy future.

“Citizens are hungry for a smart plan that will move the nation forward on the emerging global clean-energy opportunity and tackle climate change at the same time,” says Merran Smith, director of the energy initiative at Tides Canada.

Tides Canada commissioned Harris/Decima to do the survey. Canadians were asked to indicate to what degree they would prioritize a series of objectives for a potential Canadian energy strategy. They identified as a “top” or “high” priority “improving energy efficiency” (82 percent), “creating more jobs in clean energy” (75 percent), “reducing Canada’s carbon pollution to slow down climate change” (66 percent), and “reducing our reliance on fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal” (66 percent).

In contrast, only 33 percent of those surveyed placed a “top” or “high” priority on “exporting more of Canada’s oil and gas resources.” 

 

Meanwhile, 82 percent of those surveyed said that they either “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that “Canada should set aside a portion of its oil wealth to help prepare the nation for a clean and renewable energy future.”

The idea of a Canadian energy strategy resonates strongly with citizens. Fully 87 percent of those surveyed either “strongly” or “somewhat” agree with the statement “the nation needs a Canadian energy strategy to plan its energy future.” 

Oh that our governments would listen!

Eric Rempel

Natural Systems Agriculture Field day

I attended the Ecological and Organic Farming Systems Field Day at Carman last Monday. As in previous years, the plots and the work we were shown was most impressive. In introducing the day, Dr. Martin Entz informed us that their work indicates they can produce field crops using 37% of the fossil energy needed in conventional farming. The 150 guests there spent the rest of the day seeing how the research team goes about achieving this remarkable efficiency.

This reported efficiency is astonishing for two very different reasons.

It is astonishing that, given this efficiency, only very few people produce food in this way. Why don’t they? Because current economics does not reward this efficiency. The current fossil energy price is artificial. True, the price is determined by free market forces. In that sense it is the free market price, but that price only includes the cost of extracting the oil, and does not even include all of those costs. Furthermore, that price includes no compensation to future generations who will not have access to this precious resource because it will be gone. Whatever that compensation ought to be, whether it is high or low, it is never included in the market price of fossil energy. The market price of fossil energy is artificially low. Because of this low market price, it currently makes economic sense to use fossil energy extravagantly, in the production of our food.

But the number is also astonishing because it shows what is possible when good science is applied to a problem. In conventional agriculture, the posed challenge is, maximize net economic return by managing fertility, weed control, pest control and genetics. Prodigious amounts of research dollars have been and are being devoted to addressing the challenge defined in this way, and the results have been truly impressive.

The Natural Systems Farming research team has redefined the challenge. Their focus is not on economic return, but on return to energy. Prior to the fossil era, prior to this era when fossil fuel has been readily available, the food production challenge has always been that: how to get the necessary food, while expending the minimal amount of energy. What was lacking prior to the fossil era, was the application of the scientific method, and world wide communications.

When my grandfather farmed with horses, he was very aware of energy in and energy out. There was no cheap energy. His tools to enhance fertility were summerfallow, alfalfa, sweet clover, and to a limited extent, barnyard manure. The Carman researchers, today, are able to choose for some twenty different potentially useful green manure crops. My grandfather was very limited in the tools he had available. Today many more tools are available to both researcher and farmer.

The work done at Carman needs to be nurtured. Input manufacturers will not do this research, because it does not result in a return for them. Such research needs to be and only will be funded by a forward thinking government.

By Eric Rempel

Does extreme weather add up to climate change?

I have no trouble remembering a time when a drought was just that: a drought. Sure, even as we lapped up the sunshine and enjoyed our ice cream, we were concerned about our gardens and the crops our farmer friends were tending. But no one doubted then, that the drought would come to an end – sometime.

But things are not that way anymore. Now we have extreme weather, and we wonder: is this just another weather cycle, or are we beginning to experience climate change. There can be little doubt that we are experiencing extreme weather. For us in Manitoba it began with the record flooding on the Assiniboine River in the spring of 2011. That was followed by the record dry summer in 2011, an extremely warm winter, and now again record high temperatures and prolonged drought.

Britain by contrast has been incredibly wet. The reporting leading up to the Olympics refers to this every evening. The wettest April ever was followed by the wettest June (more than double average rainfall), and July has started the same way.

Russia had its hottest summer ever in 2010, with peat wildfires raging out of control — over 5,000 excess deaths in Moscow in July alone — but this summer it’s wet in Russia too.

This past week we have been hearing about flash floods in China

One could go on, enumerating extreme weather events in Australia and the US, but in fact, they are all just anecdotal. Anecdotes – extreme weather events – do not prove that climate change is occurring.

So can we say anything about climate change with absolute certainty? Well, no, we can’t. It is just possible that all of the events we are witnessing are just a random collection of extreme events that signify nothing at all. But it’s a long-shot. Occasionally a tossed coin comes up heads six times in a row. But usually it doesn’t.

Were global warming actually occurring we would not feel it. If the actual temperature of our planet went up one or two degrees, we would not notice this. The glaciers and the polar ice caps may be affected, and, say the climate scientests, the weather would get wilder.

We never really experience the climate; what we feel is the daily weather that it produces. A climate that is changing will produce unfamiliar weather — and if it is getting warmer, it will be more energetic weather. Wilder weather, if you like.

That means hotter, longer heat waves, and bigger storms that bring torrential rain and killer wind speeds. But it can also mean prolonged droughts as rainfall patterns change — and much more severe winters, like the “Snowmageddon” storm that hit Washington in February 2010 and shut down the U.S. federal government for a week.

You can’t prove that all this means we are sliding into a new and steadily worsening climate right now — that the long-threatened future has arrived.

The statistics aren’t good enough to support that conclusion yet. But if you have to put your money down now, bet yes.


By Eric Rempel

The Need for Resilience

In 2006 we became aware of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Even if we did not read the book, author Michael Pollan effectively raised all of our awareness of the implications of our food choices: the distance some of the food on our dinner plate has travelled, the inputs used in growing our food, the labour conditions present in the production of other food, and the sustainability of our whole food system. Pollan’s other concern is agricultural policy, and how subsidies, some overt, but many covert, affect our food choices.

On the heels of that book came The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating. This is one couple’s account of life when they had set themselves the challenge of eating only food grown within 100 miles for a year. Inspired by that account, others have set themselves identical or similar challenges. All the people I have heard talking about this experience say the same thing: the discipline was a good experience, one they encourage others to try, but it is not a discipline they intend to follow for the rest of their life. They do not advocate it as a lifestyle.

Now there is The Localivore’s Dilemma. The book seems to make some good points primarily in drawing attention to the fact that long distance transportation may not be as large an energy input in the production of our food as say, the heating of a greenhouse. Had they stopped there, the book would be a good contribution to the whole food discussion. Unfortunately, the authors seem exceptionally intent on debunking The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The 100-Mile Diet. Without that emphasis, the book would be much more helpful to us as we make food choices.

Perhaps more helpful is The Resilience Imperative, a book I have been reading lately. This book suggests that with regard to our entire way of life, things have been going well. Nevertheless, shocks will come, whether they be the result of financial breakdown, resource depletion, or political breakdown. How well are we prepared for such a shock?

Our food system is predicated on a number of largely unexamined assumptions. The first assumption is that cheap fertilizer made from distant fossil and rock deposits will always be available. Conventionally, large quantities of energy are needed in both the production and delivery of food. The second assumption is that this energy will always be available.

A few dedicated researchers at the University of Manitoba are devoted to developing a food production system independent of imported fertilizers, and less dependent on fossil energy inputs. If these questions concern you, consider attending the Natural Systems Agriculture field day in Carman July 23.

At the South Eastman Transition Initiative we discuss and delve into these important questions. Join us Thursday, July 26 as we spend the evening with Kim Shukla and Richard Whitehead of Stonelane Orchard discussing the challenges and rewards of growing food without chemical inputs.

Eric Rempel

When the Power Goes Off

Events of the past few weeks have again reinforced the awareness that as a society we are extremely vulnerable to extended electrical power outages.

In my world, three recent events have helped to focus my attention and concern. At the Annual General Meeting of Steinbach Housing, Inc. on June 27^th, it was reported that a faulty stand-by generator had recently been replaced with a new one. Shortly after the announcement, the power went out, leaving the gathering in semi-darkness. “Will the new, standby generator work?” could be heard here and there. Fortunately the power came back on in about a minute so the standby system did not get a workout.

Then about a week ago a severe storm passed through Prince Albert, Saskatchewan where my son is working at Camp Kadesh. In that case power was restored a day and a half later, just in time to begin their annual staff training sessions.

Last week Friday, my sister flew home to Virginia after spending a week with family here in Manitoba. She made it as far as Richmond and then was advised to seek shelter from the “derecho” storm instead of attempting the one-hour drive to her home. She barely made it into a motel before the deluge hit. As we all heard in the news, electrical power went down for three million people. Four days later, 1.2 million people still were without power, and that amid sweltering heat.

All this makes me wonder what impact an extended power outage would have on us in Southeastern Manitoba. Of course the winter season is of greatest concern, but our normal lives would come to a virtual standstill during any season of the year should our electrical power system fail for more than a few hours.

Most of us don’t want to think about how vulnerable our power supply really is and don’t make even minimal plans for life without electricity. There is a collective denial among us that extended power outages could happen where we live. We simply choose to believe that when the lights go out, they will be back on shortly. Sometimes that happens. What if it doesn’t?

Larger institutions in our area place their hope on stand-by generators. These are good for short-term outages, but are less reliable when the power stays off for extended periods of time. And even so, these generators do not bring power to the larger population in the area.

A sustainable solution to such an eventuality has become quite elusive because we have built dependency on electrical power into the fabric of our modern life styles. Our grandparents survived quite well without electricity and so could we if we put our minds to it. But we cannot ‘flick a switch’ to erase such dependency. We have to think long and hard about how to minimize our dependence on electricity.

The question is whether we have the courage and willingness to change our lifestyles to reduce the vulnerability we now live with.

Jack Heppner

Phosphates in our Ditches

I have previously written about the phosphate cycle. In nature, plants take up phosphate from the soil, and it becomes a part of plant tissue. The nutrient is returned to the soil when the plant dies. If it is ingested by animals or people, the phosphate is returned to the soil when the animal defecates. The cycle is complete.

In modern food production systems phosphate is a scarce resource. It is mined thousands of miles from here, is transported to where it is needed and applied to fields and gardens. The phosphate works its way up the food chain, and ultimately ends up in a livestock barn or human stomachs.

We flush our toilets and that phosphate is on its way to Lake Winnipeg. Animal manure is applied to agricultural fields. If the same amount of manure phosphate is applied as what the plants will take up, the natural phosphate cycle is intact. If surplus manure phosphate is applied, the extra is on its way to Lake Winnipeg. No matter how the phosphate is treated, it does not simply disappear.

As the phosphates get to Lake Winnipeg, they encourage algal growth in the lake, which in turn consumes oxygen resulting in a sterile lake unable to support fish or anything else. 

There are currently projects underway to see whether excess phosphate can be removed from Lake Winnipeg. Experimentally, cattails in the lake are being harvested and removed to see if the lake could benefit from such a removal. This may offer possibilities, but in my mind, the biggest problem is not addressed: the recovered phosphate is now a long ways from where it is needed, namely the farm fields.

Recently, David Dawson pointed out to me that the Highways Dept and Municipalities cut the grass and cattails in our ditches regularly. The lush growth in the ditches is the result of nutrients coming off the adjacent fields. In spring, many of these ditches become raging torrents. The rotting mass of cut grass is flushed down into the rivers and into Lake Winnipeg where it releases its phosphates.

Suppose, David says, an enterprising farmer cut the grass in the ditch, baled it up, took it to his farm and fed it to his cattle. Then the farmer collected the manure from his cattle and dumped it back in the ditch. There would be an outcry and rightly so. But, in fact, the farmer would be returning less to the ditch than he had taken out. The cattle would have utilized a good part of it. So why is it OK to leave all that grass in the ditch but not OK to dump the manure back in the ditch?

If we are seeking ways of removing phosphate from Lake Winnipeg, surely it makes more sense to prevent the phosphate from getting there in the first place. A relatively simple solution would be that the Highways Dept include in its grass cutting contracts a clause that the cut grass be removed. The material could be composted and recycled for public use. It’s not rocket science.

By Eric Rempel

Fish Lip Service

Imagine that your government would only protect you if you were proven to be valuable to the economy.  Imagine that even if you were valuable to your economy, and therefore legally had the protection of the government, they are careful to point out that they will only protect you, not your home.  Would you feel protected?

This is what has happened to the fisheries act under Bill C-38: the government has been careful to clarify which fish they will protect (only those with commercial value), and they've removed protection for the habitat of fish.  This has all been done for the sake of cutting red tape for development projects, and the government insists that it has not reduced actual protection, just bureaucracy.  But how can they single out a few types of fish to protect in the midst of an ecosystem?  And how can they expect to protect those fish without protecting the places where those fish live, breathe, eat, and spawn?  In this regard, what is true of a fish is also true of you and me: how can we be healthy and safe if our environment, which provides the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, and the materials for our shelter, clothing, and other consumer goods, is not itself healthy and safe?

Of course, just because the government no longer protects the habitat of fish doesn't necessarily mean that they are at risk.  Development projects still must undergo environmental reviews, even though those have been streamlined significantly (read: sped up).  But new legislation actually gives a minister the ability to circumvent the assessment process, if the project is significant enough.  

So we have protection of fish, but without protection of streams; and we have (fast) environmental assessments, unless it's a really big project, in which case it can be skipped.  This speaks volumes about the Harper government's commitment to a growing economy at all costs, as well as its belief that economy and environment are opposed to one another and economy must triumph over environment.  These assumptions are simply untrue.

There is a belief, common in our government, that environmentalists are against the economy.  What an absurd claim!  We have jobs, pay taxes, buy the products we need (and want), give to charity, and volunteer in our communities, just like everyone else.  While we may debate over whether continual growth is positive (or even possible), we know we need an economy to survive as a community, as a nation.  What environmentalists don't believe in is a growing economy at all costs.   

Protection of the environment is not about being a bleeding-heart animal lover, or coveting our favourite canoeing spots.  Economy cannot exist without environment, which is the source of all of our goods and resources.  To pay lip service to protection of the environment while allowing major industrial projects to skip even an assessment is disingenuous, and will ultimately cut the legs of our economy (that is, our environment) out from under us.

Jeff Wheeldon

Beyond Capitalism

We had a booth at Summer in the City. Our theme was Envisioning a Solar Future. We drew attention to the many opportunities we have to harness solar power: solar for electricity – to light our houses and to pump water in off-grid situations; solar to heat water – for domestic use and to heat our homes; solar to bake our food and solar to dry and preserve our food. We had some excellent conversations.

Many people wondered what price they would pay for the various solar systems. We did have the answer that question and advised them to check with suppliers.

However there is another answer to the question of cost, that suppliers can’t answer. I recently spoke with a friend who has covered most of his south facing roof with solar electric panels. On a sunny day he generates more electricity than he can use, and sells the surplus to Manitoba Hydro. When the sun goes down, he purchases electricity from Manitoba Hydro. It all looks impressive.

I challenged my friend and suggested it would take him twenty years to recover his investment. He told me that, by his calculations, cost recovery will take seventeen years without considering interest; perhaps thirty years considering interest. But, he challenged me, why should the rate of return on an investment be considered the most important criteria when making an investment.

“Were I seeking the highest financial return on an investment I am making,” he continued, “I should invest in the Alberta tar sands. Were I to do that, I believe my investment would be bad for my children on the long run. With these solar panels, I am investing in something I believe will be good for them.”

As I have reflected on what he said, I come to realize there is something very profound in that way of thinking.

Capitalist thinking has had a profound effect on all of us. It has taught us that the most important, perhaps only, consideration when making an investment is the financial return on that investment. I dare say those of us who have our savings in the Credit Union, have them there primarily because the return there is higher than at the bank. The fact that the Credit Union is built on not-for-profit principles is incidental to our investment choice. This is capitalism at its best, but not humanity at its best.

Capitalism does not ask whether an investment contributes to the creation of beauty or the destruction of beauty. It does not ask whether an investment contributes to the taking of life or the giving of life. It is concerned only with the financial return.

This does not mean capitalism is bad. It becomes bad, however, when the investor is not conscious of capitalism’s limitations. Unfortunately, all too often we are so enamored with the allure of capitalism that we forget this limitation. If more of us would apply ethical criteria to our investments, there is little doubt that the world would be a better place.

By Eric Rempel

Measuring Wellbeing

Last week I lamented the continuing emphasis on GNP and growth, not only by our governments at all levels, but also within our news media. The media is educating us in the inadequacy of GNP as a measure of our wellbeing, and then that same media floods us with information about GNP as if that is the only measurable indicator of wellbeing.

As long as we focus on GNP, our concern will be the amount of money changing hands each quarter, not the actual well-being delivered by the economy. Taking seriously a different way of measuring wellbeing is crucial to establishing a sane, sustainable, steady state economy.

The unlikely country of Bhutan, a kingdom in the Himalayas with a population about that of Winnipeg, is giving world leadership in the development of a “Gross National Happiness” indicator. By the standard measurements of wealth, Bhutan is not a rich country. In terms of GNP per capita, Bhutan is ranked 130 in the world. But they have established as a national goal, to become happy, rather than to become rich. As early as 2007, Business Week ranked Bhutan as the happiest country in Asia, and the eighth happiest in the world.

At a recent UN conference, the Prime Minister of Bhutan observed that GDP growth is killing the planet, destroying our future, and making humanity less equitable and, on the whole, more miserable. I think he’s right.

Any attempt to measure happiness will, without a doubt, draw the skeptical response that any such measure must, by its nature, be subjective. While this is true, the implied inference that such a measurement is then unreliable and of little value needs to be challenged. If we limit our pursuits to the attainment of indicators that are easily measured (economic growth), we are doomed to pursue that which is unattainable: perpetual growth.

Remember, if you hang your laundry out to dry, letting the sun and wind do the drying, you do not contribute to GNP. But if you throw it in the dryer and use electricity, you give the GNP a nudge upward. If one parent stays home to care for children, the GNP index is not happy. If both parents take a job and place their children in daycare, the GNP smiles.

It is interesting to note that following Bhutan’s lead, Britain's David Cameron, and France's Nicolas Sarkozy have become supporters of adding well-being to raw economic indicators. Australia, New Zealand, China, Italy, Japan and South Africa are some other countries that are considering measuring wellbeing as a way of informing policy.

Here we have the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. Data for this is being collected by a non-government group, which may be a good thing in that it makes it independent of political bias.

Unfortunately however, any reading of the federal omnibus budget bill now before the house must conclude that the only interest this federal government has, is in economic growth. This bias could be offset by greater enlightenment at the provincial or municipal level. But it is lacking there too.

Eric Rempel

Why the Continuing Emphasis on GNP?

It happened again last night. The national news reported “Canada's gross national product [GNP] grew at a 1.9 per cent annual pace in the first three months of the year, the same pace seen at the end of 2011.” So what does this tell us? Well it tells us that the total value of everything produced by enterprises in Canada grew by 1.9% annually. What it does not tell us is whether this growth was good or bad.

I find this discouraging! Discouraging because 30 years ago, in 1992, the same broadcaster, the CBC, first showed me how inadequate and potentially misleading reporting GNP is. 1992 was the year of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. If you don’t remember it, google for it. This was the first UN conference on the Environment and Development. The CBC, and other media covered it extensively. It was because of that conference and that reporting that conference, that many of us first realized the fragility of the environment we depend on, and the negative impact human activity is having on the very resources we depend on for life.

Specifically on the GNP, I came to realize that an oil spill off the coast of British Columbia does more to raise the GNP than the discovery of a new cure for cancer. We were told then, of the need for more meaningful indicators of well-being than GNP.

And much as been done to develop a new index. Best known is the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW). But it is hardly well known. It is ironical that the same media that covers and applauds the existence of this index, does not use it.

I find it discouraging that the media, in spite of giving us these stories about the need and development of better indicators of national well-being, continue to use GNP in their reporting as if it is the only indicator of our nation’s economic health with any value.

No doubt the GNP is easier to measure than the CIW. I suspect it is realistic to expect a report on GNP every quarter, whereas a quarterly report on CIW is probably not possible. Nevertheless, I think it is reasonable to expect a news item on GNP to include some comment on more meaningful context. For example “GNP rose slightly this month, but we don’t expect that to have an effect on the CIW because . . .” I think our news media is guilty of biased reporting whenever it reports on GNP and doesn’t place that in the context of wellbeing.

Somewhere within us, we all know that some growth is good, and some is not good. When reporting growth, the media has a responsibility to help us discern the likely effect that growth is having on our wellbeing. Were the media to do that, we all would be more critical, in a good sort of way, of any growth occurring around us. And were we all to have that critical capacity, it would affect the policies favoured by our politicians.

 Eric Rempel

Rethinking Global Finance (II)

Two  weeks ago I alerted readers to the fact that global financial institutions, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are presently in the process of rethinking the advice they give to governments around the world. They have become acutely aware that the present trajectory of financial practices is simply not sustainable.

Johnny West, founder of OpenOil, a Berlin-based consultancy in oil and other extractive industries, and columnist for Petroleum Economist, has written extensively about some of the new thinking that is happening in these global institutions.

At the heart of this re-orientation is the notion that much more of the profits of extractive industries like oil and mining should flow towards local governments. According to Paul Collier, governments should then use these funds to “Invest in investing: the creation not of industries but of the infrastructure to support them, that infrastructure being partly physical, such as roads and utilities, and partly social, such as developing trading and legal systems which encourage private investment.”

Unlike manufacturing that actually makes something people need, extractive industries are making massive profits by delivering products to people who own them in the first place. (Consider that in 2008 Exxon made a profit of $45 billion dollars – the largest profit ever recorded by a company.) Because of this unique dimension of extractive industries, it is argued that we can stay well within capitalist orthodoxy by also applying unique taxation practices for these industries without creating market distortions.

The traditional argument is that these massive profits are justified because of the huge risks these companies take in discovering their products. However, with present computerized data now available on the substructure of most of the earth’s surface, the risks are substantially reduced. Why, for example, should government not use this data to identify where oil and minerals are located and then auction off the rights of extraction to the highest bidder. Nova Scotia did just that recently. It invested $15 million in oil exploration and then sold extraction rights for $900 million. You could argue that the rightful owners got the lion’s share of the profits.

There is cause for concern, for example, when corporations are extracting large amounts of oil from some African countries which are largely fed by Save the Children or the World Food Program. What would happen if, in such cases, the IMF moved in to advise local governments to insist that most of those oil profits should go to feed their own people and strengthen local infrastructure?

Some of the impetus for this new way of thinking is coming from Latin America where an increasing number of countries are claiming ownership of their own oil and minerals. It is becoming clear, that if private companies want to stay in the game, they will have to be willing to make major concessions. The World Bank and the IMF should see the writing on the wall and begin advising governments differently in relation to their extractive industries.  

Jack Heppner

Local Fruit, Free for the Sharing

Unless you have a mature orchard in your backyard you probably don’t have access to a diversity of local fruit. The grocery store may sell a small selection of local fruit, however most fruit is trucked in from afar. Distant fruit is picked early and expected to ripen enroute. This results in fruit with focus on texture rather than taste. How do you get local fruit when you don’t have fruit trees? The answer is Fruit Share.

Fruit Share is an organization started by Getty Stewart in Winnipeg that connects volunteer fruit pickers with tree [or rhubarb] owners to harvest luscious, local fruit. This year South Eastman Transition Initiative is bringing Fruit Share to Steinbach.

When you walk the neighbourhoods of Steinbach you may notice many fruit trees and bushes. Apple trees, cherry trees, and rhubarb plants are just a few of the possibilities. During September you may notice some fruit beginning to get over-ripe, it may even be littering the sidewalk on which you walk. Local fruit going to waste!

With many people struggling to fill their bellies, food should not be squandered. There are different reasons that fruit owners may not be able to harvest their own fruit. Fruit owners may not be physically able to reach the fruit on the high branches or they may not have time due to a busy schedule. Un-harvested fruit drops to the ground and rots; this attracts insects, undesirable animals and makes a mess.

Now Steinbach fruit owners who do not have the ability or desire to pick their own fruit can register with Fruit Share. Fruit Share will organize Steinbach volunteers to harvest that fruit. On the day of the harvest 1/3 of the fruit will go to the fruit owner, 1/3 will go to the volunteer pickers and 1/3 is donated to a local organization such as the South East Helping Hands Food Bank. Instead of wonderful fruit going to waste, Fruit Share connects those in the community who have excess to those that have a need.

Not only does Fruit Share rescue fruit and deliver it to those who want it, Fruit Share also builds community. New friendships and connections can be made over the sweet success of a full apple basket or a freshly baked crisp made from the harvest of a neighbour’s plentiful tree or bush.

Next time you bite into a tasteless apple trucked in from a distant land take the time to sign up with Fruit Share. Make your fruit trees available to those with the ability to harvest them or sign up to volunteer and go home from a harvest with an armload of delicious fruit costing you only an afternoon of picking with friends.

Fruit Share is now picking rhubarb. Do you have excess or are you looking to make some rhubarb crisps? Visit and register at www.fruitshare.ca or call Fruit Share Steinbach at 326-3919. 

Rebecca Hiebert

Rethinking Global Finance (I)

Most of the time we find ourselves preoccupied with personal and local issues with reference to developing sustainable lifestyles. In one sense that is appropriate because it is the sum of many individual choices that changes lifestyles generally in a region like Southeastern Manitoba. On occasion it is helpful, however, to raise our eyes to the global dynamics that either hinder or enhance sustainable lifestyles around the world.

Ever since World War II, two agencies that have impacted millions around the world are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They were created to assist developing countries to become economically viable. The World Bank would loan developing countries money for major projects designed to stimulate their economies. If a country had difficulty paying its debt, the IMF could be called upon for advice, additional monies or loan guarantees.

That was the theory. In reality it quickly became apparent that these agencies were the handmaidens of established governments and large corporations. In short, the following story was repeated around the globe: The World Bank persuaded developing countries to borrow money for projects to boost their economies. The money went directly to international corporations to build the projects but the debt was unloaded onto the developing country. When these loans could not be paid, the IMF came in to call for “structural adjustments” in exchange for debt reduction or further loan guarantees. These adjustments consisted of the three kingpins of neo-liberalism: privatization of public utilities, deregulation of industries and cuts to social spending. This, in turn, created an environment for international corporations to move in for the kill. (If you don’t believe this scenario, read “Confessions of an Economic Hitman,” by John Perkins, and “Shock Doctrine,” by Naomi Klein.)

This environment created a dynamic in which wealth inevitably flowed upward. The number of billionaires around the world began to mushroom while abject poverty continued largely unabated. And now even developed countries are beginning to look to the IMF to rescue their faltering economies. With most of the world’s wealth now in a few private hands, it is becoming clear that economies around the world are in deep trouble.

It is in this context that the World Bank and the IMF are attempting to re-invent themselves because the present trajectory is simply not sustainable. For the first time in history the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, is not an economist but an anthropologist and medical doctor who appears to be prepared to challenge status quo thinking at the World Bank. And the IMF is presently studying a paper proposing that extractive industries like oil and mining be taxed at a higher rate than other industries.

The IMF and the World Bank have a virtual monopoly on giving advice to governments about public finance and a whole lot else. So there is reason for optimism that the new winds blowing through these organizations will help to bring a greater degree of sustainability for economies around the world. More about this in two weeks.

Jack Heppner

Pesticide Ban in Manitoba

The Manitoba government recently gave notice that it is leaning toward banning the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. We remain one of four provinces without such a regulation. So it appears likely that it is only a matter of time before Manitoba follows suit. 

Of course, there will be opposition from chemical companies. Like tobacco companies before them, the chemical industry continues to argue that there are no conclusive, scientific studies that prove that such chemicals are harmful to human health. And they may have a point. But just like any person of average intelligence knew a few decades ago that inhaling smoke was not healthy, so it is becoming increasingly clear that exposure to industrial chemicals can be harmful, especially to young children. There is no shortage of anecdotal evidence to support such an assertion.

Many will charge that such a ban is a threat to individual freedom; another example of the government telling me what I cannot do! I concede that sometimes government regulations are unfair and favor only certain sectors of society while, at the same time, harming others. However, from my point of view, this coming regulation will benefit us all in the end with respect to what really matters.

Most of us have been used to the “Betty Crocker” approach to maintain our lawns and gardens in the past half century or so. (Do you have a problem? Reach for the latest chemical and spread it around!) So the move toward a chemical-free approach is almost unthinkable. But one should remember that there were lots of lawns and gardens around before the age of unlimited access to chemicals.

Moving toward chemical-free lawns and gardens is not a regressive step, as some charge. Even while chemical usage was mushrooming, various groups and individuals suspicious of this new trend were developing techniques for chemical-free gardening. They discovered things that even our grandparents didn’t know. So the coming ban on pesticides does not spell a cataclysmic end to lawns and gardens.

What is required, however, is a reorientation of our approach to lawns and gardens. No longer able to “spray and forget,” we will have to enter into a long-term relationship with our soil and our plants to ensure a better future.

I offer a few pointers to help us move in that direction. Reduce the size of your lawn. Spread compost and aerate your lawn regularly. Don’t insist on a “monoculture” lawn. Remember that a healthy lawn is the best defense against unwanted weeds. I know, because it works for me. 

Similarly, in your garden, make generous use of compost, green manure and straw to create a vibrant soil and control weeds. Try companion planting and crop rotation. Reduce the size of your garden by making use of raised beds and vertical gardening techniques. And finally, don’t be afraid of getting some exercise in your garden.

In light of the coming ban on pesticides, it is fair to say that the best is yet to come!

 By Jack Heppner

Oil Development = Wellbeing?

Canada has become an energy giant – at least this is what Wikipedia says. According to the US Energy Information Administration, Canadian oil reserves are the second largest in the world. Only Saudi Arabia has greater assessed reserves. Mind you, much of Canadian oil is hard to get. It is either tied up as bitumen in the Athabasca Oil Sands, it is in the frigid north, or it is off shore where drilling is difficult.

As world oil supplies become more and more scarce, there is, and will continue to be increasing interest in these Canadian deposits. The question is: how should Canada as a nation respond to this growing interest? Conventional wisdom seems to say that we view this as a bonanza: we need to cash in on it as quickly as possible. But why? Last week I suggested that the market for our oil will not disappear, and the price of oil will only go up.

We know that oil companies need to show their investors a quick return on investment, but this is not true of governments. Our government needs to take a longer term, broader perspective on the development of such a resource. It is probably not reasonable to expect an oil company to consider what is best for our children and grandchildren in its long term strategy. However, I think it is the responsibility of a government to take such a long term perspective.

This is simply good conservative thinking. I am very disappointed that our current government, which claims to be conservative, applies what I call “company thought” to an issue that requires “nation thought.”

Furthermore, because the oil reserves we will be wishing to develop in the future will be hard to get at, their development will be more labour intensive than the oil developments of the past. We see this already. Labour demand in Alberta is high, and anecdotes of problems associated with this high labour demand are abundant – a shortage of housing, weak communities, and jobs simply not being filled. At the same time, some of the cities in eastern Canada are in recession.

Will there be any real winners if jobs continue to be lost in Eastern Canada and people wanting work need to continue to move to those areas where the oil is? Will there be any real winners if some of the areas we have considered part of Canada’s natural heritage become tailings ponds and other scars of open pit mining for oil.

Once wealth, whether it is national or individual has risen beyond a certain point, happiness is not a function of GDP or income. Happiness then is a function of family and community stability. Happiness is consistent with a country has stable communities and a diversified economy exporting a variety of products.

Given that we are dealing with a much sought after, but also very limited resource, the role of a conservative government needs to be to temper and guide the development of that resource. Instead, we see our government cheerleading the unfettered development and export of our non-renewable [once it is gone it is gone!] oil resource.

By Eric Rempel

When in Doubt, Use Caution

When in doubt, proceed with caution! When an input is scarce, use it sparingly! To my way of thinking, these are two core conservative values. I believe in these values, and find it puzzling that these values seem absent from many of the policies and actions of our current conservative government.

Take the promise, in the recent federal budget, to streamline environmental approvals. In general we all agree that streamlining is good thing. It removes unnecessary bureaucratic blockages. But if statements made by Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources, are any indication of government intent, the intent of this streamlining is to not to assess the process. Instead, it seems, the government simply wants to get the environmental review process out of the way as quickly as possible so it can get on with its real agenda. Where is the caution here?

Why the rush? A successful business needs to know when to bring its product onto the market. It is not uncommon for a business enterprise to have to make a choice. It can choose to bring an inadequately developed product onto the market early and capitalize on an “early delivery” premium. Or it can spend more time on product development, sacrifice the “early delivery” premium, but deliver a good product.

I can understand why the oil companies are in a hurry to get things done. Each company wants to get in ahead of the other company because there is a premium in that. I can understand why the oil importing countries are lining up to fund the building of Canada’s pipelines. If they get in early, they have a better chance to get Canada’s oil.

But I can see no reason why Canada needs to be in a hurry. Why the hurry in exporting Canada’s oil resources? Why the desire to shorten the environmental approval process? Why the desire to attract non-Canadians to invest in the extraction of Canada’s oil? Why create jobs in the oil industry, when the jobs need to be filled by attracting immigrants? I could understand the hurry if it would be likely that we would lose if there were a delay in getting our oil onto the market.

But Canada won’t lose if we take our time in getting our oil onto the market, if we “take the time to develop a good product.” As the world oil supplies become harder to get; as the oil the world depends on comes increasingly from sources hard to get at (such a deep sea wells and Alberta’s tar sands), the price of oil will only go in one direction – up. The longer we delay in bringing this resource to the market, the higher will be the price. What’s to lose?

If Canada slows the delivery of tar sand derived oil onto the market, this delay will accelerate the rise in world oil prices. And this will affect what we pay at the pumps. That will hurt. It always does. Be that as it may, a substantial increase in the price of oil is inevitable. If not sooner, then it will be more later. Higher prices mean more pressure to find alternatives. We need that pressure. We need it soon.


By Eric Rempel

Local, Efficient Protein Production

Meat! I like meat. I also like eggs, cheese and other milk products. Meat, eggs, milk and plants contain amino acids that form proteins. Our bodies need eight different amino acids to survive. However, it takes ten vegetable proteins to produce one animal protein, so the production of animal protein takes about ten times as much space and resources as it takes to produce the equivalent amount of plant protein. In a finite, polluted, populated world, a world running out of resources, surely it makes sense to eat less animal product. Should we live without animal products? Probably not, but I say we need to do with less animal products? I do. I have been doing it for a several years.

Cereals (wheat, oats, barley) have six of the amino acids our bodies need. The two missing ones are present in legumes (peas, beans, lentils). If you eat your cereals together with legumes (a common, ancient practice in many traditions), you will get all the essential amino acids your body needs. It is equivalent eating meat – well, almost. Vitamin B12 is also essential, and this we cannot get from plants. Most of us get the small amount we need in meat and milk. However, vegetable B12 is available at your natural food store (food yeast, naturally brewed soya sauce, supplements). Alternatively, you can continue eating small amounts of local animal products.

Responsible eating also means we examine how far our food travels. Locally grown whole cereals, legumes, meats, eggs, milk products are available. We do not have to depend on food produced far away (In North America food travels an average of 2000 kms. between field and plate). There is no need to burn tons of fossil fuels transporting the food we need. If I have to burn fossil fuels, I prefer burning it to travel myself. My food cannot enjoy traveling anyway!

I am an organic gardener and I have found a relatively easy way to reduce my dependency on animal products. I now produce my own dry beans. For the last two years, I have been producing my own organic red kidney and pinto beans! Legumes grow well in poor soils and are good companions for potatoes because they confuse potato beetles and their roots fix nitrogen: they produce a natural fertilizer. Most of the beans dry on the plant, so you do not have to can, freeze or dry them. You simply throw the pods in a burlap bag, tread on them and beat them up a bit (excellent frustration spender and good exercise! Save on gym costs!). Then wait for a windy day and let the wind separate the beans from the chaff. Bonanza!

I can already envision the yummy chillies, soups, stews! Life is great! Yes, there are challenges, but solutions are available everywhere for those who want to find them!

The South Eastman Transition Initiative (SETI) gathers people who are concerned about the use of fossil fuel. We meet to encourage one another in the search for solutions to problems of this nature. SETI is sponsoring a workshop on organic backyard food production on Thursday, April 26. The workshop will be at the allotment gardens behind the Steinbach Mennonite Church, 134 Loewen Blvd. Anyone is welcome. Check southeasttransition.com for details.

Gabriel Gagne

We Are Running out of Miracles

You may not have noticed. Today we do not treat medical infections the way we treated those twenty years ago. I recently accompanied a friend to the emergency room at the hospital. It turned out he had a serious infection. Twenty years ago, he would have been given an injection of antibiotic, a prescription of oral antibiotic and sent home. Not today!  He immediately got a dose of antibiotic intravenously, and then needed to come back to the hospital two times a day for the next several days for further intravenous antibiotic.

This, my medical friends tell me, is because of antibiotic resistant bacteria. I am not old enough to remember infections before antibiotics, but I am old enough to remember the first generation of antibiotic: Penicillin. Penicillin was followed by second, third and fourth generation antibiotics. Now, it seems, the only way antibiotic is sufficiently effective is if it is administered intravenously. And once that no longer works, what is the next step?

This should surprise no one. Natural selection decrees that this will occur. The bacteria resistant to an antibiotic survive and reproduce.

Had we known then, when penicillin was first discovered and available to doctors, what we know now, would we have used these wonder drugs in the way we have? For example, would we have allowed their use in animal feed? We have a problem.

Within our food production system, we face a similar situation. Conventional food production conveniently disregards nature’s cycles.

Within nature, there are many natural cycles. The ones we understand best are the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle and the phosphate cycle. In each case the plant, as it is growing, take up elements from the soil and air, converting them into plant tissue. The plant dies and the elements return to the soil and air. Some plant tissue is eaten by animals, but as the animals defecate and die, the cycle is still completed.

But our conventional food production system does not recognize these cycles. Instead, the science behind our conventional food system recognizes that plants need phosphate and nitrogen to thrive. Science has found a way of converting natural gas into nitrogen fertilizer. The plant response to this fertilizer is phenomenal. The natural nitrogen cycle, it seems, is no longer pertinent.

In the same way, conventional science has found that phosphate, mined at Kapaskasing, can be converted to fertilizer. Again, the plant response to this fertilizer is exceptional.

But there are problems with this food system. First, the supply of both, natural gas and phosphate rock is in limited. Already we have used up the most accessible supplies of both resources. Secondly, when the plant tissue we consume is “used up”, the “waste” consists of the nitrogen and phosphate. Nature says that needs to go back to the soil to feed future generations of plants. But it does not. Instead, it becomes a pollutant. Much of it ends up in Lake Winnipeg.

Fortunately, for food production, there is an alternative, at least a partial one. While scientists and farmers within the conventional food production stream have been looking for ways of increasing the plant response to chemical nitrogen and phosphate, a much smaller group of scientists and farmers have been looking at an alternative, a way of enhancing food production within the natural cycles. They call themselves organic producers. As we remove our conventional blinders and become more aware of what these scientists and farmers have discovered, what we find is truly impressive.

By Eric Rempel

Can Organic Farming Become Mainstream?

Had someone asked me five years ago to describe the organic food industry, I would have placed organic food production somewhere on the fringe. I knew of consumers who believed organic food was healthier than conventional food. These consumers are willing to pay a premium for organically grown food and are complemented by farmers who grow food organically. These organic growers need the organic price premium in order to compensate for lower yields. Everyone is happy.

But not everyone, really. Anyone prepared to take a critical look at conventional agriculture, has always been concerned about the vulnerability of that production system because of its dependence on scarce and exotic chemicals; scarce in that phosphate and nitrogen as inputs are non-renewable resources, and exotic because chemicals are carefully developed in order to address a defined problem under defined conditions. The understanding of how these exotic chemicals work and of their side effects is limited.

The above thoughts should really not be new to anyone. What follows may surprise you.

In February, I attended the first ever Canadian Organic Science Conference in Winnipeg. The conference was fascinating in many respects, but what struck me most was the growing awareness by the conference attendees that organic food production is able to compete with conventional food production on its own terms: that is, organic food producers are poised to compete in the same market place with conventional food producers.

The Rhodale Institute in Pennsylvania has been a leader in the research, development and promotion of organic food production methods since 1947. They have been running a farming systems trial for 30 years comparing conventional and organic farming systems. The Institute has recently published a report thirty years into the study. They have found that:

• Organic yields match conventional yields
• Organic outperforms conventional in years of drought
• Organic systems build rather than deplete soil organic matter, making it a more sustainable system
• Organic farming uses 45% less energy
• Organic systems produce 60% of the greenhouse gases a conventional system does
• Organic farming systems are more profitable than conventional

Organic food production is not simply the elimination of chemicals in the growing of food. An organic producer told me recently, that a conventional farmer monitors his field, and when he detects a problem, he goes to his agricultural input supplier, buys the appropriate chemical and applies it. An organic producer, on the other hand, needs to be aware of the problems he is likely to encounter two or three years earlier, and begin to deal with them then. Organic production requires an understanding of the biological systems at work in the field or garden, and a familiarity with the wide array of tools now available to the organic grower.

Nobody said organic food production is easy, but as fuel prices go up and weeds and insects develop chemical resistance, more and more of us will need to embrace organic food production.

Eric Rempel

Everything we thought we knew is wrong!

Okay, maybe not everything. But what if some of our core beliefs about how the world works turn out to be seriously flawed? Last Thursday some of us watched a documentary that flipped our world upside down to see what makes it tick, as it explored the most critical question of our time:

How do we become a sustainable civilization?

Water shortages, hunger, peak oil, species extinction, and even increasing depression are all symptoms of a deeper problem – addiction to unending growth in a world that has limits. GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth goes way beyond prescribing Band-Aids to slow the bleeding. This film examines the cultural barriers that prevent us from reacting rationally to the evidence that current levels of population and consumption are unsustainable.

It asks why the population conversations are so difficult to have. Why it’s more important to our society to have economic growth than clean air. Why communities seek and subsidize growth even when it destroys quality of life and increases taxes.

Our growth-centric system is broken. It’s not providing the happiness or the prosperity we seek. But that’s good news; it means a shift to a sustainable model will be good for us. We’ll be happier and more prosperous!

Individual and public policy decisions today are informed by a powerful, pro-growth cultural bias. We worship at the Church of Growth Everlasting. Undeterred by the facts, we’re on a collision course powered by denial and the illusion that growth brings prosperity. Before we can shift our civilization meaningfully, effectively, and substantially toward true sustainability, the world must be “prepped.” We must become self-aware and recognize the programming that keeps us hooked. GrowthBusters attempts do just that. We heard from leading thinkers of our time – scientists, sociologists, economists – to help us separate fact from superstition.

We’re approaching the end of growth. Will we embrace it and find a winning solution? Or will we deny it and go down fighting?

From Las Vegas to Atlanta, Mexico City to Mumbai, the White House to the Vatican, GrowthBusters took us on a whirlwind tour of growth mania. Kind of like Wild Kingdom with a twist: the cameras are turned on humanity as our own survival skills were examined. GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth looks into the psychology of denial and crowd behavior. It explores our obsession with urban and economic growth, and our reluctance to address overpopulation issues head-on. This documentary holds up a mirror, encouraging us to examine the beliefs and behaviors we must leave behind – and the values we need to embrace – so our children can survive and thrive.

The movie, of course, does not focus on southeastern Manitoba. It looks at the world as a whole, and examines how embracing growth has affected some specific communities. The people of New York, Toronto, Hong Kong and Mexico City need to ask how they should be living if they want to leave a habitable planet for their children. But it’s a question we, living in southeastern Manitoba, need to ask as well. When will we do that?

Eric Rempel

Wanted: Extraordinary Canadians

Penguin Canada recently released a biography of Tommy Douglas, one volume of their Extraordinary Canadians series.  I received it for Christmas, and finished reading it on December 27^th.  At only 221 pages it was a light and fun read, a brief outline of the career of the Greatest Canadian (as Douglas was voted in 2004) that gave a strong sense of his character and personality.  By the end of the book I had a great sense of loss: we need Tommy Douglas in Canada today, just as much as we needed him in his own time.

I was not yet two years old when Tommy Douglas died, so I have never known a Canada without his incredible contributions.  He’s known as the father of Medicare in Canada, which (in spite of its problems) is an institution that is treasured by most Canadians, but he and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF, the fore-runner of the NDP) were the first to promote many ideas and institutions that I’ve always known to be a part of life in Canada.  The original CCF mission statement, The Regina Manifesto (1932), called for the protection of rights for ethnic and religious minorities; a Canadian constitution, charter of rights, and central bank; national workplace standards, EI, CPP, and public healthcare.  At the time, they were called Communists for suggesting such things; now, at least thirty years after we’ve adopted all of those ideas, we take them for granted.  Fairly impressive work, considering that Douglas, the CCF, and the NDP that followed it have never formed a federal government!  Their small voice in government and the Canadian public square, over time, have had great effect.

Throughout this biography I was struck by the ways in which our situation today reflects the situations that Douglas faced.  The rhetoric used against Douglas and the CCF in political campaigns, both in Saskatchewan and federally, compared them to Nazis and Communists in the same sentence, charged that they would confiscate farms and require all citizens to work for the government, and many other baseless claims; these make our attack ads today seem petty and tame by comparison.  And the reaction against their proposed universal health care included the charge that “bureaucrats would commit women with menopausal symptoms to insane asylums”, which sounds just as bizarre as the reaction to the so-called Obamacare that continues to rage in the US.

Today, all of the angry rhetoric and baseless claims are against the suggestion that we need a system that is environmentally and economically sustainable.  Sustainability, like universal health care, is a sensible solution to problems caused by our society.  It's not partisan ideology.  Like healthcare, a government policy on sustainability is simply Canadians doing together what we already do individually: take care of each other.  In the midst of all of the debates about climate and oil, it's easy to lose sight of that.  We need new Tommy Douglases to rise above the rhetoric and insist on what is right.

Jeff Wheeldon