Weather Extremes

A few months ago I was sitting at my dining room table in the middle of a power outage writing with the feeble light from two candles. Outside the wind was howling and the rain was lashing against the windows.

At that time we ‘only’ had 70 or 80 km/hr wind so I cannot imagine what it must have been like for people in the Caribbean who had already suffered from a number of terrible hurricanes last season.

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How I Live Without Plastic Bags

Banning plastic bags in our homes is the easiest and most obvious thing that needs to be changed in our lives immediately. Why? Because we don’t need them, and because over 150 million bags are handed out in Manitoba each year - every one of them ending up either in the dump or spoiling our fields, trees and waterways. That’s because even recycled plastic ends up being garbage after a limited number of uses (unlike say, aluminum which can be recycled indefinitely). So this is pretty basic stuff.

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New Year Resolutions

Do you make new year resolutions?

I don't really, but I do try to pick up a project that will in some way lead to self improvement or change habits. This year I am thinking about ways to reduce the amount of waste I produce.

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Sound: Life Enhancing or Destructive

Almo Farina of the University of Urbino in Italy near the Adriatic Sea measures the health of an ecosystem by recording the sounds it makes.

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Rethinking Giving

The month of December is a good time to remember to be generous. I found myself shopping for trinkets recently. We have a family tradition of filling Christmas stockings with small stuff. I am fully aware that I am sustaining an exploitative economic system if I buy this stuff indiscriminately, so I try to think about who made the item, and who is benefiting from my purchase.

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