Learning to Support the Tree and Earth

Most Terrifying Video? I think not …

January 14, 2008 – 8:09 pm

It’s not that the idea is not terrifying, it’s just that the most terrifying video would actually involve no debate whatsoever. The video itself demonstrates how important it is to approach to the environment in different ways. It poses the question of whether or not we take action now, later, or never. It seems to be popular around the web, although I had yet to see it until some friends at work passed it along.

My own opinion? It’s an interesting debate to weigh the pros and cons but I hardly see environmental regulations causing a worldwide depression and if governments want to prevent a worldwide depression, then they have to be more active in enticing customers and businesses to do better. Regulation won’t do much but if we provide the proper incentive for citizens and consumers to be green (not just fashionably green), that will encourage businesses to change. The policy wonks in government will have to be a little more interactive with the ground level (i.e. the citizen).

On the other hand, a prime example of what governments can do to encourage business change would be what Juan Enriquez in the previous video pointed out in order to encourage and maintain innovation in the alternative energy business.

Regardless, governments need to take a more active role and for the most part they are … recently. But that is as long as citizens and consumers are actually genuinely concerned about the environment, not just simply being fashionably green. Ideally the change has to take place within every individual — it’s not easy and I can’t claim that I’ve done a whole lot, but I am trying to tweak my behaviour — bit by bit. Maybe, there is hope but a lot of it lies within each individual, consumer, and citizen.

By Ehren | Posted in debate, video | Comments (0)

Juan Enriquez talks about Bioenergy - Energy that We can Grow

January 11, 2008 – 2:32 pm

I thought this video was pretty insightful and Juan Enriquez does an excellent job explaining how we should take the idea of agriculture and apply it to the energy industry. More specifically, Enriquez points out to us that what we consider a chemical substance (i.e. petroleum or coal) is really condensed energy from sunlight.

Those who may recall biology class from high school or university will probably understand the whole process behind photosynthesis and the conversion of sunlight into energy. The hydrocarbons that we identify in petroleum or coal are essentially highly compressed forms of that sunlight, or rather the plant that had consumed the sunlight ages ago.

The key point that Enriquez makes is that we have to rethink how we regard fossil fuels — that is we have to think of them as an aspect of biology rather than under the umbrella of chemistry. The ideas that come out of this thinking has a significant impact on how we can effectively and efficiently produce energy without destroying the natural landscape or environment that surrounds the resource we are seeking.

Unfortunately we are still dealing with the idea of continuing to use fossil fuels, but it would be an impressive first step in the right direction for everyone if we could change the way we extract, produce and distribute energy resources. Enriquez last point is really intriguing. It is policy-related and involves a form of tax on gas to ensure that the price of oil remains stable in order to encourage businesses and entrepreneurs to research and develop alternatives. The only problem I can see with something like that is that politicians will have to take the risk in implementing these measures so I guess the question I would pose would be — is the voting public willing to accept such a tax?

By Ehren | Posted in energy, policy, research, video | Comments (0)

Why Carbon Credits and being Carbon Neutral Mean Nothing

January 10, 2008 – 6:15 pm

I really think the guys at CheatNeutral pulled off a brilliant campaign to show people why carbon credits are useless and are simply a way for people to feel less guilty without actually changing the way we think or the way we do things in the world.

Web hosting companies have been purchasing carbon credits in order so that they can market themselves as “green”. I initially did not fully understand the carbon credit idea but CheatNeutral really put it back into perspective.

By Ehren | Posted in humour, policy, video | Comments (0)

Yossi Vardi Talks Global Warming vs. Local Warming

January 10, 2008 – 5:55 pm

We may be concerned about global warming but this hilarious talk by Yossi Vardi brings a little laughter to the matter of local warming. More specifically … it’s a male concern.

By Ehren | Posted in humour, video | Comments (0)

Public Transportation vs. the $2500 car (or any car)

January 9, 2008 – 7:19 pm

Treehugger, a very popular online magazine, has an article written by Lloyd Alter about a $2500 car that notes the impact of such an introduction into India.

In one of the most populated countries in the world and likely to become the number one country in terms of population very soon (currently behind China a little), Alter points out in his article that the $2500 car (aka. Tata’s new car, named after India’s Tata Group) addresses very few safety and environmental concerns.  I guess the impact can be huge considering the number of these cars that could be on the roads of India.  It is literally the ultimate bare bones car. If you could even think of something that would be unnecessary to drive, it’d probably be missing from the car. It’s not only India that has to contend with issues surrounding automobiles–China appears to have similar problems but on a different scale due to the insanely rapid urban development (That said, correct me if I am wrong).

Tata Car

The article about the $2500 car didn’t actually make me want to post about the article, but it caused me to think about how we live here in North America, and more specifically for me, the city of Toronto in Canada. On a personal note, I drive a 2001 Pontiac Sunfire, not the most environmentally friendly of cars but I am looking towards purchasing something a little more fuel efficient and air friendly. I don’t however, drive into the downtown core–at least I try to avoid anything south of Eglinton (for those of you not from Toronto, that’s a street that runs east-west across the mid-north part of the city).

Many organizations, governments and individuals promote public transit as the alternative to the traffic congestions in the city, yet people continue to drive.  From my opinion, it’s all about incentive.  It can be cheaper, it can be more environmentally friendly, but if it isn’t just as comfortable as sitting in your car (or more so), then I don’t see how people will be inclined to leave their cars at home and ride the public transit.   In fact, people will pay more money to drive their car around because they can’t stand it in the public transit.

Pros:  environmentally beneficial, less expensive, takes potentially less time to get from A to B

Cons:  poor behaviour by other people, crammed into a small and limited space, poor air quality, very little opportunity to sit down, can take longer time to get from C to E than a car

Despite arguments by fellow citizens, action groups, activists, public officials and individuals for public transit, I have yet to see them pose solutions to the drawbacks of public transit.

From my perspective, to truly reduce the number of people driving within the metropolitan core of a city, we need to give fewer reasons for them to do so.  I believe in public transit but I cannot stand it–I feel as if I can’t breathe majority of the time on the subway, bus drivers turn up the thermostat in the winter as if we all step on to the bus wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and it takes me 4 hours total commuting time.  I can drive to a city one hour away from Toronto in less time than it takes for me to arrive at work downtown.  That’s pretty sad isn’t it?

 Photograph by Osvaldo Gago

Photograph by Osvaldo Gago

So for public transportation to win over car drivers, we need to address the issue of comfort and personal space.  Some may point out that in other countries, people just live with it.  In places like Japan, New York, London, and Hong Kong people are all crammed into buses and subway trains–but why does it have to be that way?

Tokyo Subway Pushers

When the image of public transportation becomes a picture with one person’s arm reaching over my head while another person’s arm reaching across the couple of inches of space in front my nose, I don’t blame those who choose to continue to drive to work.  Nor would I blame them for avoiding public transit after being elbowed and shoved by people who seem to believe getting a seat on the train is worth more than another person’s safety.

The underlying flaw in public transportation is that we don’t consider citizens as individuals.  A citizen takes the public transit and contributes to society, whereas individuals look at everything from a “me first” perspective.  I don’t mean that in any negative or positive way, but rather I am emphasizing the fact that public transportation should be taking into account how people behave.

holding on

Photograph by SF Buckaroo

It is similar to a simple design on a user interface.  No one likes a cluttered screen with many buttons, our eyes need space to be able to breathe and see each individual button.  Note:  I am not stating that individuals are buttons!  I was merely using design as a way to explain my idea.

The argument that focusing only on economics and finance is the way to really have a well-funded public transit system doesn’t mesh well enough with me.  Despite the fact that I can’t stand the public transit, I continue to take it because I cannot afford any other method so economically I am stuck in my current state, just as many other individuals (aka. citizens).  However, just because something works and has worked for however long, does not translate to it being the best plausible solution.   I believe that if public transit were just as comfortable as an average car in North America, we would be able to in conjunction with a few other traffic limiting measures, encourage majority of the population to take public transit.

There are many factors to public transportation and we need to look at more than just funding or urban planning.  The previous post where James Howard Kunstler talks about people in cities living closer together, in smaller spaces, and sharing space is valid and important, but that can only work if we acknowledge that there is still a need for personal space.

If not, I guess there’s always the idea of having the business community stagger when people go to work and home… ?

By Ehren | Posted in policy | Comments (0)

James Howard Kunstler Talks about Places Worth Caring About

January 8, 2008 – 6:58 pm

I really like this talk by James Howard Kunstler. Granted, it was quite amusing but more importantly, his points about civic space and suburbs in the city really struck a note with me. I was born in Toronto and grew up in the metropolitan suburbs surrounding the downtown core. I found that I never liked the downtown area and I always yearned to be closer to wide open fields or lush forests. Unfortunately, employment is primarily in the urban core — thus I am working in the downtown core. I still live at home in the suburbs, but one of the worst aspects of my lifestyle is the fact that I have to commute for two hours everyday to work, and then commute for two hours back home. That in itself is a different issue.

Why do I put up with it? Because I still can’t see myself living downtown. I don’t like highrises and I can’t stand the overwhelming concrete jungle with very few parks to enjoy. There are people who enjoy living downtown and they love the lifestyle, and there those like myself who can’t wait to escape from the city every day of the week. Which type of person are you? Do you have places in the city you care about? I do in my neighbourhood, but not necessarily in the city.

However, Kunstler is right and I acknowledge the fact that I have to change my perspective on living in the city. The city also has to change the way it has been evolving for the past few decades. Real estate and economics play a large role in urban city planning but I think civic lifestyle should take precedence over land and property values.

I do wonder about Kunstler’s ideas and have thought of whether or not his idea on why we created the suburb has caused an increase in the number of cottages in the scenic or areas that are less developed. That said, my personal feelings for cottages are rather negative, but that’s another story! I also wonder if Kunstler’s ideas have any real correlation with how youth interact with one another. His point on how suburb-like areas can create anxiety and depression made me wonder if there was any truth to that statement with regards to the increase in violent crimes in schools. I realize there would definitely be quite a few more factors involved but nevertheless it made me wonder.

While it’s true that Kunstler’s talk focuses on America, and particularly small town USA, the ideas that he brought up and the reasoning for creating a sense of place for citizens of a city is probably very applicable to any city in North America with the continual expansion of big box shopping outlet malls.

The key outcome out of this for me was that I think I finally realize the dilemma involving cities and their surrounding suburb areas. It is as if there is a continual catch-22 cycle that needs to be slowed down to a halt if we are to preserve valuable farmland in and around cities, prevent urban sprawl (aka. National Automobile Slum), and maybe rethink how we live.

By Ehren | Posted in urban planning, video | Comments (0)

A Tale of Consumerism - Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff

January 7, 2008 – 6:33 pm

I’ve been sharing thoughts and ideas that I’ve heard about, read or watched over the Internet with some friends today. Aside from the typical response of, “Ehren, do you even have a life?” (I play with a lot of stuff over the web), there were plenty of people who really liked the idea of sharing ideas and thoughts on how to support our planet. Granted, we don’t necessarily take action all the time, but perhaps after enough idea sharing we may end up doing something or changing our behaviour ever so slightly.

The Story of Stuff

My friend Erin recommended a site called The Story of Stuff. It was created by a woman by the name of Annie Leonard to exchange her ideas on how we live and the impact it has on the Earth. I had never heard of it before but after watching only a couple of chapters, I was pretty impressed with the work of her and her team. A fun, simple, to-the-point explanation on consumerism and its massive impact on the world.

Since the Christmas holidays just past us, let’s use that as an example. Most of us realize that the Christmas holidays are a huge economic boost and that many businesses rely on that holiday season to generate their annual profit, but do we ever wonder the impact of the massive number of purchases and expenditures during that holiday? I think Annie Leonard’s YouTube Teaser sums up the problem. Watch it and then go over to The Story of Stuff to watch the complete video! Maybe even download it (yes they let you!).

By Ehren | Posted in video | Comments (0)

David Keith Presents a Surprising Idea for Climate Change

January 7, 2008 – 4:23 pm

When I first watched this video, I think the first thing that came to mind was how brilliant and simple an idea it was that the planet would have it’s own method to cool itself. Without giving away too much of the video, David Keith points out how volcanoes cool the Earth in a very rapid manner, how we can learn from this and apply it to new scientific methods of short-term global cooling while we continue to struggle to reduce carbon emissions in the long-run.

More importantly, Keith points out the more important aspects of trying to reduce warming on a global scale.

By Ehren | Posted in video | Comments (0)

Why Nature Trademarked?

January 6, 2008 – 10:10 am

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ehren Cheung. I’m a 27 year-old male and I live in Toronto, one of Canada’s cosmopolitan cities. My background is in web marketing but I wanted to help the environment, and not in the conventional sense.

I have to admit that my knowledge of the environment in general and green initiatives is likely to be quite limited. Part of my reason for not necessarily wanting to push for the same sort of informative website that seems to be propagating across the Internet is that I do not think of consumers and citizens around the world becoming more green conscious as a trend, but as a growing interest in potentially re-defining ourselves as human beings on the planet.

I guess this is my own attempt at learning more about nature and discovering how we can change the way we think about the world around us. What better way to learn than to share with others what you come across? By combining creativity, innovation and curiosity, perhaps the ultimate goal is to better understand our role on Earth and nature.  Whatever that statement may mean to you, I encourage everyone to share with me your knowledge and opinions and maybe–just maybe, we’ll all find out something new.

Thanks for visiting!

By Ehren | Posted in news | Comments (0)