Tag: Consumerism

Do the Math (the Movie)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Every month or so, the NWEP hold an informal get-together of like-minded folks to chat about sustainability issues. This follows the international movement known as “Green Drinks”. The original Green Drinks model was to have a regular informal networking and conversation session for environmental professionals, sustainability activists, and like minded folks to create a crucible for action. There are literally hundreds of Green drinks held internationally, and each has its own character.

Here in New West, we are trying to attach a small-scale event to each Green Drinks, a speaker or such to lubricate the conversation and to increase the reach to the general community. As per the Green Drinks code, the evening is not “about” the speaker or a specific topic. The conversations after are broad-reaching and held in small informal groups constantly migrating, really it is just a cocktail party not a rallying session. Above all, it is a social night out where folks can meet new people and share new ideas. As a bonus in New West, we can meet in the Back Room of the Heritage Grill, where the license if food primary, so it has a “pub” feel, but people under 19 can attend, and there is no expectation to imbibe in alcohol if that isn’t your thing. There is even live music up front for those who do feel like hanging out a little later.

Last week’s Green Drinks was moderately well attended, considering short notice and the burgeoning nature of this new iteration. 25-30 people gathered to see a short documentary film that was just released last month:

Just to put things into a local perspective, I gave it a short intro, and tried to put the local and personal spin on it all. For the record, here are my speaking notes from the night (of course, I ended up speaking more off the cuff and may have missed some of this or added new stuff- you’d have to have shown up to recognize the difference).

INTRO:
Tonight we have a short new Documentary; “Do the Math”

Don’t be afraid of the title, there are only three numbers discussed, and the movie is less about the math behind those three numbers, and more about what those three numbers means to us as denizens of Earth in the 21st century.

The film revolves around Bill McKibben, who has become one the most vocal environmental activists in the Land of Freedom, therefore the subject matter is almost exclusively about our southern neighbours – but maybe that is an interesting thing to keep on your mind during the film: how does the situation there relate to Canada? Or does it relate? What are the similarities and differences?

Finally, I like this film because after the first third talking about the problem, McKibben makes a compelling case about how it is time to stop playing defense for the environment, and if we are going to make any difference at all before it is too late, we had better start playing hard offence, and hitting the people who are perpetrating climate change right where they hurt: their stock value.

Clearly an academic who got dragged into activism (much like Marc Jaccard, Andrew Weaver, James Hansen, Michael Mann, etc.), McKibben has an academic’s speaking style. He wants to be understood more than heard, so what he lacks in bombastic, he makes up for in factual information.

So without further ado: on with the show.

AFTER:
I want to mention a number that was alluded towards, but not part of the “big three numbers” in McKibben’s argument. That is the number 400, as in parts per million CO2.

Sometime last month, while many of us were distracted by a Provincial election, the global atmospheric concentration of CO2 exceeded 400ppm for the first time in about 3 million years. This number is much higher, I hasten to mention, than 350 – the number that the globe agreed was the limit we had to shoot for long-term to prevent unpredictable and catastrophic results of the global atmospheric temperature increasing by more than 2 degrees due to fossil carbon in the atmosphere.

It might be seen as ironic that this arbitrary milestone was passed in the middle of an election where the winning party set as their main policy goal – as their great vision of the future and economic salvation of our Province – a rapid expansion of fossil fuel extraction and quick sale through the most energy-intensive and unsustainable means possible. That this position was supported tacitly by the poll-leading opposition party might be part of the reason we saw a strong surge in support for the Green Party.

Look, mea culpa: I own stocks in Exxon. I own stocks in Encana and Suncor and BP. Not by choice, mind you. I work for a municipality, and am required to contribute to the Municipal Pension Plan. All of those companies are listed amongst the holdings of the MPP. I also have a small personal RRSP, and until recently, Suncor (a large bitumen sand producer) was included as part of my “Ethical Fund” investment. For many of us, we either cannot know where our retirement savings are invested, or have no influence over how they are invested. Maybe the first thing we should take out of this film and McKibben’s “disinvestment” idea is to find out. See if we can change that.

But even if you are not lucky as I am to have some retirement savings, think about what those election promises meant. We have a government right now who wants to invest in hydrocarbon extraction and burning in order to put the Provinces’ finances in order. That is your money they are investing in extracting part of that 2000 GigaTonnes of carbon that needs to stay in the ground if we hope to leave a recognizable global ecosystem to our kids and grandkids. Maybe here in BC, that is where divestment starts. But in this case, we are not just the shareholders- we the voters are the corporation.

There is a coal terminal proposed for across the water that will be responsible for more GHG per year than the City of New Westminster, all its citizens and businesses and cars and schools and everything puts out over 200 years – but our local Chamber of Commerce is all for it because it promises 25 local jobs. Is that a good investment?

There are two pipeline proposals to make BC the export port for bitumen bound for gas tanks and boilers around the Pacific Rim – risking our coastline and our water supplies to expand bitumen sand extraction in Alberta. Is that a good investment?

The big proposal on the table right now is to use your tax dollars to double BCs electrical generating capacity, not to wean ourselves off of less-sustainable energy sources, or even to sell to neighbouring jurisdictions to offset their more carbon-intensive electrical generation, but so we can refrigerate methane extracted through fracking, transported in pipelines, with up to 20% of the methane lost during drilling, pumping, and transportation activities, letting all of our chips lie on the roulette table known as the global natural gas market. Is that a good investment?

To quote the film- we need to start taking money from people causing the problem, and start giving it to people solving the problem. But first, we, as British Columbians, need to stop being former, and start demanding that our government become the latter.

The Wal-Mart enigma.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I work for a City, and I serve on some civic committees and volunteer for a few not-for-profits, so I go to a lot of meetings.

Yes, some of those meetings can be crushingly dull, but most are interesting and informative and productive (otherwise, I don’t stick with the organization too long – I bore easily). Occasionally, there are great moments that could not be repeated in any other setting.

An example happened a few days ago, and I will spare the who-what-where details to protect the innocent. There was a consultant talking on some arcane (but pertinent to the meeting) operation of the free market to a (in her perception) less-informed member of the committee. Everything below is paraphrased from my memory:

Consultant: “Let me give you an example- you shop at Wal-Mart, right?”

Citizen: “No. I don’t”

Consultant (after brief pause to re-group, addresses crowd of ~20): “How many people here shop at Wal-Mart?”

Crowd:      [crickets]
       [snickers]        
       [one hand goes up]

Consultant (long pregnant pause): “Ok, people shop at Wal-Mart, right, and…”

It was funny because the consultant clearly didn’t know the crowd.

This was a group of hyper-engaged citizens, most of them (like the person who said “No, I don’t”) were taking time out of their busy day to take part in a public consultation for no reward, just to take a small role in making the City a better place. Some actually had to book time off work and (in my case) re-schedule some deferred time off to take part. We were not there because we were paid, or even for the free cookies. We were there because we give a shit about our community.

Now I recognize that many people shop at Wal-Mart, and this is not about judging them. The majority of the population may, I really don’t care to know the statistics. But in that room full of people who value their community enough that they invest their “free” time and their income into making it a better place? Wal-Mart is for the most part not part of that equation. Frankly, we would rather pay a few pennies more for (or buy a few fewer) socks or bags of nails or lawn furniture knowing that the marginal difference is more likely to be re-invested in our local community, through better wages, local sourcing, or non-predatory pricing policies.

Of course, if she said “Costco”, she might have got a different result. I don’t shop there, but it seems that Costco unfairly avoids the local-retail-crushing non-sustainable-consumption community-killing reputation that Wal-Mart carries. And apparently Target will also avoid that fate, based on the conversations I have heard in reference to potential Uptown tenants. I wonder why that is.

Even a dull meeting can bring moments of insight, and new questions to ask.

R.I.P. Rads

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 14 Comments.

Today is a sad day. Today I will cut my last pair of Rad Pants into rags.

The die was cast a couple of weekends ago. I leaned over to check a culvert for debris, and heard a soft rrrip while my thighs suddenly felt breezy. One of the crotch seams in my last pair of Rad Pants let go. Ms. NWimby laughed out loud; I think I felt a tear on my cheek. I knew immediately that this may be the last blow for my old blue Rads. An era came to an end. There is no repairing this lost seam, the nylon is a decade old, and has been around the world. A few smaller patches and duct-taped tears were OK, manageable, if not fashionable. But this was a fatal wound.

Anyone who has known Mountain Equipment Co-op long enough that they refer to it as “the Co-op” or as “Em-E-See” (as opposed to the new generation that call it “Mek”, a sound that will always cause me to cringe) will remember the original Rad Pant. Most of you probably owned a pair, or at least can pick them out of a crowd.

Originally designed for climbing, the Rad Pant was one of those designs that came together so well that the produce created filled many niches, true multi-purpose field and travel pants. A simple pant, with tapered legs and loose around the hips. Elasticized waist with integrated waistband, elastic cuffs, slash pockets with a few accessory pockets. The material was a light nylon that found the perfect compromise between durability, breathability, and wicking. They weren’t waterproof, but they dried so quickly, they were great for hiking in mixed weather. They were also magic at keeping bugs off.

I did a couple of field seasons doing exploration geology in the Swannell Ranges – a part of north-central BC where mosquitoes, black flies, and deer flies remind you every day just where humans reside on the food chain. Cool mornings, warm afternoons, and almost daily thunderstorms make for wet muggy conditions, and when you are a geologist, you spend a lot of time up above treeline, walking ridges. Your presence scares off the marmots  the grizzlies, the elk, and so you become the only meat available for the voracious little insect bastards. Any illusions one might have about avoiding DEET for heath reasons are forgotten in a day. Your hatline, back of the neck and the back of the hands will be raw flesh without it. We even had to apply it to the shoulders of our long-sleeve shirts, as persistent mosquitoes will puncture through cotton or poly weave (and deer flies will scissor through it) where it is pulled taut. However, the light nylon used for Rad Pants had a tight enough weave that mosquitoes couldn’t puncture it. And the gathered cuff and elastic waist kept the bugs from wiggling around the nylon.

They were so damn versatile: light enough to roll up and stick in the back pocket of your cycling jersey or in the bottom of a day pack, roomy enough to slip them on over shorts. Durable enough to sit on rocks all day, repairable with duct tape if needed, and kept the wind off without being too hot for tropical use. I’m going to miss them, and haven’t found a replacement.

I don’t even remember when I bought my first pair, but I do remember they were tan brown, and it must have been before I finished my undergrad in 1997, because there are pictures of me wearing them at field schools up in the mountains of central Vancouver Island, and travelling thought the Basin and Range of Nevada after my grad. I have pictures of me wearing Rad Pants while sampling volcanic gasses on the edge of the Hale’ma’u’ma’u crater, while kayaking in the Gulf Islands for my thesis work, and while visiting mountaintop temples in Thailand.

Now, my last pair is dead, and there won’t be any more. MEC stopped making them a few years ago. Inevitably, they couldn’t let the greatest product they ever made stand. They messed with the fit, put in a non-elastic waistband, changed the cut and colours. Soon, they didn’t fit so well anymore, people complained, and sales dropped off. Then, instead of going back to the formula that worked, MEC killed the line. They just weren’t fashionable enough for the new MEC, the one people call “Mek”.

So goodbye Rad Pants. What good times we had:

Me and my Rads, somewhere in the Osilinka Range of Central BC. 
A terrible, terrible day for a mountain bike ride, when the Rads came out of the
pack early and helped stave of hypothermia on the Seven Summits Trail in
the Rossland Range. Note Aladar behind, in Rads of a different colour.
Mr. And Ms. Rads, at Thaba Bosiu, the birthplace of the Basotho nation,
and burial place of King Moeshoeshoe I. 
That little speck in the middle is me, with my blue Rads, measuring
sedimentary sections somewhere in the Bowser Basin in NW B.C.
My original tan Rads, (RIP 2010) not at all fireproof, but still adaptable
to sampling liquid lava from Pu’u’O’o on Hawai’i.
My Rads were breezy enough to keep me cool in the cloud forests of
Costa Rica, while wicking off the moisture! Thanks Guys!
Caught in a rainstorm during a hike? Head over to the fire and the Rads will dry off
lickety-split. Here, at the Sani Pass Lodge on the Lesotho/South Africa border. 
Planning a beach attack on the Gulf Islands during my thesis work. 
With Ms.NWimby and her fetching Eggplant Rads, on the way
into the crater of Mt. St. Helens. 

The Shops at New West Station are open.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

It’s been seven months since I reviewed the then-just-opening Plaza88 Transit Mall. At the time I was excited about the prospect and what it means for the City, while being a little puzzled by a few of the choices made. Overall, my feeling was that the project is brilliant from an urban planning perspective, less than stunning in its execution.

I have since attended a movie on opening weekend (Avengers – remember that? Greatest Movie Ever? Yeah, I forgot too…), have shopped in a few of the stores, have whinged on-line about the use of sandwich board advertising throughout the pedestrian space, visited friends who live in the towers, boarded and de-boarded scores of Skytrains, and have lamented the loss of the 8th Street crosswalk that served the pedestrian public gallantly, but somehow raised spite in the heart of the City’s transportation staff. In short, I have had a pretty full Plaza88 experience.

This past weekend, however, was something new. The Grand Opening of what is now re-branded The Shops at New West Station took place on Saturday. With new owners who are presumably more used to running malls than the developer who built the buildings, I was looking forward to walking around the site with fresh eyes, and sampling some of the businesses.

I started off Friday night, by attending another movie: Skyfall. I can review in a relatively spoiler-free way by saying lots of shit got really blowed up in that movie. Jolly good blowed up, indeed. The good news is that it seems people have discovered the Landmark Cinemas. The theatres were full enough that there was a (short) line-up in the men’s room. Our theatre was better than 90% full (thanks on-line reserved seats!) which is a good sign. Much better than a few months ago, when I went to a movie and there were a dozen people in the building, and 5 of them walked in with me.

This time, I ran into a former co-worker who I had not seen in a few years, he says they come down from Burnaby to see movies here all the time: this is their new destination. It is easy to see why: the theatres are comfortable, seats are great, the screens are proportionally large to the room size, and they don’t feel the need to turn the volume up to 11, ticket prices are reasonable, the Popcorn has actual butter that came out of a cow. All good news.Even Ms.NWimby was pleasantly surprised by the experience.

Interesting that when we got out of the theatre, there was the unmistakable sound of construction – 9:30 on a Friday! It seemed they were burning the Midnight Oil getting some furniture and lighting fixtures finished for the Grand Opening, only 14 hours away. No minute like the last one!

Back in the morning for the Grand Opening, my first feeling was fear. Fear for these four guys and their impossibly small barbeque.

Because this was the line-up for barbequed foods they were going to manage. With that little barbeque. Good luck guys.

There were crowds all over the place, as there were some giveaways and some live music and some kids activities. Despite the cold weather and rain, there were many people about: and it felt like a really fun, active human space.

The hard work of Friday-night’s the midnight oil burners was apparent in some finishing of the overhead space and installation of sitting areas. This is, again, a simple but great improvement on the original aesthetic of the space. It was great to see people sitting in the outside space under the Skytrain rails. Although the Safeway/Starbucks Patio/Bunker was empty, there were lots of people on the new seating, although the weather was perhaps a barrier to lounging on the more whimsical furniture.

With more businesses coming in, there is now something to do on all three levels, and with the movie theatre now drawing them in, there is still potential to grow for some of the remaining available lease space.

Also promising is the new treatment on the “back side” of the venerable Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant that is adjacent to the transit plaza. It is great to see, again, future deck seating on the plaza, although the hard fencing (alas, probably required because of the liquor licence) again creates a barrier. Hopefully, when the Tim Hortons opens there will be outside seating as well, and this plaza entrance will be bustling – to both pull people into the Shops at New West Station and to pull people from the Shops to other businesses in New West.

Overall, my feelings about the Plaza88 The Shops at New West Station are a lot more positive than they were just after the complex opened. There are still a few growing-pains type issues (see the ubiquitous “slippery when wet” areas – shouldn’t outside pedestrian mall areas be higher-grip?), but it looks like the place is starting to develop its vision.

There are still some growing pains ahead, I don’t suspect every small business there now to survive, but several will no doubt prosper: and the mix of goods and services will change until the right mix is found. Surely, the opening of the Anvil Centre and attached office complex will help, as wound improved connections between the inside of The Shops and the other businesses on Columbia – the undeveloped Kyoto Block is the next piece in this puzzle. But who could possibly know what the future will bring there?

Thrifty Pedestrians

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 4 Comments.

I think I love Thrifty Foods.

All of the sudden there are a lot of grocery options in New Westminster. No less than three Safeways, all of them of the recent-design mega-big variety; a Save-On-Foods of the slightly-too-compact urban style, an IGA that is seemingly a little crowded out and increasingly out of the way, along with Donald’s at the River Market and other smaller boutique-type options. Notably, Thrifty’s is the only Grocery spot in Sapperton (7-11 excepted, of course). The only grocery deadzone appears to be Queensborough (although, someone might tell me they have groceries in Wal-Mart: I’ll never know).

I have nothing against Safeway, and think their willingness to put a storefront on a Transit mall is a bold move worthy of praise, but I generally find their prices a little high, and their approach a little too “corporate”. I am “personally” thanked by checkers, with few of them taking to time to look at my actual name before saying, blankly, “Thank You Mr. Moose” (A Safeway Card under the name Space Moose was a bit of culture-jamming I engaged in a few years back. Note, if William Jefferson Clinton wins a big prize in one of those Save-on-More Card contests, I’m not sure how hard it will be to collect. But it makes my junk mail more interesting).

Alas, we tend to buy our groceries within walking distance, which means the Save-on-Foods with its less-than-optimal aisle widths, it’s strange practice of labelling all of its fruit as multi-origin (“Apples: USA/Canada”), and its distinct paucity of humans working the checkouts.

Aside: Look, the automatic checkout is never faster or more convenient for the shopper than having a person check your food, unless there are not enough checkout staff. If you think I can enter the code for apples (fuji or ambrosia? ) or lettuce (green leaf or romaine?), operate a bar-code scanner, and fill a grocery bag faster or more efficiently than someone who does it 8 hours a day, you are crazy. Essentially, Jimmy Pattison is getting me to do the work of his staff – because he doesn’t have to pay me. . –end rant

I would be remiss to also point out that Ms.NWimby does most of the grocery shopping for the household. This is mostly because of her advanced ability to shop ahead a week (instead of my tendency to buy for today and tomorrow), but also because she found me no fun to shop with, as I am generally an ornery retail customer (having grown up working in retail and having high customer-service expectations) and not much fun to be around when assaulted by bad retail decisions.

For smaller “just-pick-up-a-few-things” trips, I tend to run up to the Uptown Market on 6th – a small shop that always impresses me with their variety, quality, and customer service. In the summer, the drive to buy local often leads us to Hop-On Farms on Marine Drive- for garden-fresh produce. Weekly trips to the Royal City Farmers Market just about rounds out or grocery experience.

So I have only been in Thrifty’s a few times, but I might need to start about making it the usual – maybe I’ll buy a cargo bike, and take some of the load off of Ms.NWimby. The thing about Thrifty’s is that it is everything I like: they have a good mix of basic groceries and higher-end fancy stuff. They have a nice produce section, and I know what is being grown domestically. The space itself is expansive and comfortable, the lighting is soft and organic. I’m not assaulted by offers to save more by buying more than I need. And when I am done shopping, an actual human being helps ring up my purchase. In fact, there are actual human beings working throughout the store – unobtrusive but helpful. I just wish it was walking distance.

I hope (and expect) that Thrifty’s will prosper in Sapperton, even though it is currently neigh-impossible for many Sapperton folks to walk there. And here is where my second rant of the blog post begins:

The City of New Westminster has, as I have noted many times before, a Pedestrian Charter. The Charter says that the City puts a high value on pedestrian safety and access, and that walking will be prioritized over other forms of transportation within the community.

Meanwhile, for the entire time Thrifty’s has been open, the sidewalk leading north from Thrifty’s up Columbia Street has been closed to pedestrians, with no accommodation made for safe passage of those on foot. People walking down Columbia from Royal Columbian Hospital or any other business in Sapperton (not to mention about 70% of the residences in Sapperton), need to cross Columbia for a block, then cross back at Simpson Street to get to Thrifty’s.

This might be a minor nuisance, except there is no safe crosswalk at Simpson Street! Right where Thrifty’s entrance/exit abuts the “closed” sidewalk, there is nary a street sign, paint on the ground, pedestrian sign, flashing light on anything to facilitate the safe crossing of the street. I stood there on a recent Sunday afternoon, and watched as people (young, old, single, groups, adults and children) walked out of the store, and made the choice between weaving through the “no pedestrian zone” barriers and tape (there was no active construction happening) or braving an unmarked crossing of a busy street while laden with groceries. Never did I see a car stop to let people cross. Even with light Sunday traffic, it was a terrible situation.

Problem is, it has been like this for months – has no-one in the City recognized this problem? I know I brought it to the attention to someone on staff two months ago, but nothing seems to have been done. Of course, I shouldn’t have to bring it to the attention of staff: when the sidewalk closure was approved to facilitate ongoing construction on the Brewery District site, was no though paid to how people were going to get past the site, to the one significant pedestrian destination south of the site? That is what a community with a Pedestrian Charter should look like. A crosswalk would take $100 worth of paint, the contractor building the new building should have to pay for it.

Or, for an example of what should have been done, walk up to Uptown Property Group’s development on 6th Ave and 5th Street and look at the hoarding arrangement there. There are concrete blocks and scaffolding cover to protect pedestrians from construction and from passing cars during construction. The point is, pedestrians are accommodated as important road users, and are not forced to cross the road unsafely (although, I note, there are marked crosswalks at every intersection near there to improve safety there as well). What’s good for Uptown should be good for Sapperton.

I just wish there was a Thrifty’s Uptown.

the Dollar Store Debate.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

OK, I will wade into it.
This was touched off by a minor local Twitterstorm last week, when some lamented the opening of yet another “Dollar Store” in New Westminster. Some had the temerity to suggest that miscellaneous discount crap fresh off the container from East Asia was not a product category of which New Westminster was suffering paucity.

Ever-opinionated, usually correct, and fiercely local Twitterista Jen Arbo was quoted in the Record lamenting that this was the best our local retail environment could offer. The counter argument being, I guess, all hail the free market and the entrepreneurs for which it stands. I have to count myself on the Arbo side of the discussion, but had little to say on the issue. I don’t go into Dollar Stores, because they have nothing to offer me, although they apparently offer something to others: go, go, free market!

Then I noticed the Record article quoted a New York Times article thusly:

“We are awakening to a dollar-store economy,”

…and I shuddered. I cannot think of a more damning lament for our economy, or for our society. No I gotta comment.

This “Dollar Store Economy” is one where the retail environment is dominated by bountiful cheap choice. If you cannot find the quality or the features you want, that is offset by the remarkable affordability of what you don’t want. As the times article points out, it is the “Luxury of Quantity”. Tired of crappy stuff? Here is some more crappy stuff. This is the foundation of the economy that makes Wal-Mart the largest retail business in the world, and IKEA the largest seller of home furnishings in the world. This is the philosophy that brings us 5000-square-foot plywood McMansions in neighbourhoods without sidewalks, straining the City’s ability to provide basic services, while the homeowner laments outragrous 2.5% property tax increases. This is the philosophy that makes it profitable to burn the crap we import and pay a dollar each for more when we find a more pleasing colour the next day.

This also creates the market condition where it is difficult to shop in New Westminster if you want to shop locally and support the local economy. Outside of Wal-Mart, there is no place to buy sporting goods in New Westminster. We have two very good bike shops, but not one place to get a decent selection of running shoes. We host the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame and one of the greatest Lacrosse teams in the history of the sport, but you cannot buy a lacrosse stick within our 15 square kilometres. The same lament for people trying to buy office supplies, gardening equipment… the list goes on.

The big-box merchants at our periphery provide a dizzying supply of low-quality replacements for all of the above. Think about it: one sure way to tell you are not an aficionado of something, but are merely a dabbler, is when you find yourself buying supplies for that thing at Canadian Tire. People who race bicycles (or even commute seriously on them) don’t buy tires at Crappy Tire; barbecue experts are not going into Home Depot to peruse the latest offerings from Broil-King; professional Graphic Designers are not picking up art supplies at WalMart. All for the same reason: these businesses sell crap for the masses who don’t know better (which also explains why I buy car parts at Canadian Tire, I guess).

Which brings me to my favourite example of the unseen cost of cheap goods. Look at the coffee table in this picture:

It looks pretty non-descript, if boring. We bought it about 10 years ago from an Amish guy when we were living near Amish Country in the Mid-West, so it is hand-made of real locally-sourced hardwood. Real joinery, too, the thing is built like a tank. Barring housefire or natural disaster, this is probably the last coffee table I will ever own. But the wood was local, made by a local artisan, and we bought it right from him: cost us about $150. I seriously think this is the last coffee table I will ever buy in my life. In that sense, it is similar to the $80 solid wood cutting board I bought from Louie at the Royal City Farmers Market. Well built, local, durable.

Now there is another way we could have gone. Drive down to IKEA, and see what they have to offer. They have a very similar coffee table, for about a third of the price; what a bargain. It is, of course, made from a compelling blend of particle board, fibreboard and plastic, wrapped in a provocative envelope of Melamine foil and acrylic paint. It is packed 3 inches flat in cardboard, with Styrofoam and plastic film, and comes with a little 4mm hexwrench to put it together.

But how long do we anticipate before the $50 coffee table starts to look tattered around the veneer edges? How long until those 4mm hexwrench fasteners start to wiggle loose in their particle board sockets, of the fiberboard shelf starts to sag? How long before this coffee table is headed for the landfill and another trip to the IKEA is required? 3 Years? 5 years? Then try to imagine how much of that $50 stayed in the local economy? The guy who sold it to you spent 3 minutes punching in the purchase, and gets paid $10 an hour. Your proportion of the money spent by IKEA that day in Coquitlam might total 10% of that purchase, and some of that will be eaten up by the landfill costs of the packaging…
That is the promise of the “Dollar Store Economy”: more cheap shit, sold by the lowest bidder, brought to you by mass production overseas, with no local content, and little contribution to the local economy, except what we can squeeze out in the form of taxes (with the resultant whining about how taxes are hurting “competitiveness” of business).

So thanks Jen Arbo, for running a local businesses that helps other local businesses succeed, and for all your work at the Royal City Farmers Market, bringing local goods directly to local consumers. You might not have thought about it this way, but you have been fighting against the forces of the “Dollar Store Economy” before you ever piped up in the Record.

Emma Maersk

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Hunter S Thompson was one of my favourite authors. He probably understood politics better than any other writer of his generation, and through that insight, he became remarkably and hilariously cynical. This cynicism could only be expressed through the use of Gonzo Journalism; a genre he did not name, although he invented it, and he, alone, mastered it.

People talk about Gonzo Journalism being about the writer being “immersed” in the story, and writing without objectivity (both characteristics of all journalism, although most journalists don’t want to admit it). But I see it as including one other thing: a vicious disregard for accuracy in order to get to the actual truth. Things don’t have to be factual to be true. In “Fear and Loathing in Elko” , He chronicled a drunken, murderous trip through northern Nevada with Judge Clarence Thomas and two hookers. He wasn’t suggesting this was a true story, but he was able, through the story, tell some truths about the Judge that he couldn’t say within the confines of “objective journalism”.

But that was then. Now, Hunter is dead, politics are beyond cynicism, and instead of journalism, we have the internet.

Recently, I received a chain e-mail that got me thinking about truth and accuracy. I think there is a message in here, I think the author is trying to say something, but the actual information is so far from an objective analysis of reality, that it must be meta-gonzo.

Here it is in it’s entirety, complete with pictures, lurid formatting, and quixotic syntax.

From:
Sent: September-23-11 12:55 AM
To:  Undisclosed Recipients
Subject: Fw: MAERSK LINE

Subject: FW: MAERSK LINE

Be Sure to read the ending…………………….

See the editorial under the last picture.. That says it all!

The Emma Maersk, part of a Danish shipping line, is shown in the photos below.

What a ship….no wonder ‘Made in ‘ is displacing North American made goods big time. This monster transports goods across the Pacific in just 5 days!!
This is one of three ships presently in service, with another two ships commissioned to be completed in 2012.

These ships were commissioned by Wal-Mart to get all their goods and stuff from China . They hold an incredible 15,000 containers and have a 207 foot deck beam!!
The full crew is just 13 people on a ship longer than a US Aircraft Carrier (which has a crew of 5,000). With it’s 207′ beam it is too big to fit through the Panama or Suez Canals …

It is strictly transpacific. Cruise speed: 31 knots..

The goods arrive 4 days before the typical container ship (18-20 knots) on a China-to-California run. 91% of Walmart products are made in China . So this behemoth is hugely competitive even when carrying perishable goods.
The ship was built in five sections. The sections floated together and then welded.

The command bridge is higher than a 10-story building and has 11 cargo crane rigs that can operate simultaneously unloading the entire ship in less than two hours.


Additional info:


Country of origin – Denmark
Length – 1,302 ft
Width – 207 ft
Net cargo – 123,200 tons
Engine – 14 cylinders in-line diesel engine (110,000 BHP)
Cruise Speed – 31 knots
Cargo capacity – 15,000 TEU (1 TEU = 20 cubic feet)
Crew – 13 people !
First Trip – Sept. 08, 2006
Construction cost – US $145,000,000+

Silicone painting applied to the ship bottom reduces water resistance and saves 317,000 gallons of diesel per year.

Editorial Comment!

A recent documentary in late March, 2010 on the History Channel noted that all of these containers are shipped back to China , EMPTY. Yep, that’s right.
We send nothing back on these ships. What does that tell you about the current financial state of this country? Just keep buying those imported goods (mostly gadgets) until you run out of money.


Then you may wonder what the cause of unemployment (maybe even your job) in the U.S. and Canada might be????


‘Nuff said ??


This message, if any, surely deserves forwarding, doesn’t it ?

(end transmission)
 As is my wont, I am going to go through this point by point.

Paragraph 1: Correct. This is a photo of the Emma Maersk, a large container ship of the Danish Shipping company Maersk.

Paragraph 2: Wrong on every point of fact. The Emma Maersk has never transported goods across the Pacific. It’s regular run is between southeast Asia and Rotterdam, making the Pacific the long way around by far. The Emma Mearsk’s maximum speed is 25knots, and it cruises at around 20knots, making the hypothetical crossing of the Pacific (say, 5144 miles from Tokyo to San Francisco), not a 5-day journey, but more than 9 days. Add a couple of days if you want to go to China. This is in fact one of 8 (not three) “E-Maersk” ships of the same size in service since the 8th was commissioned in 2008.

Paragraph 3: Only mostly wrong. These ships were not “commissioned” by WalMart, nor does the Emma Maersk even travel to North America. The ship carries between 11,000 and 15,000 containers (depending on how you measure them), and the ship’s beam is 185 feet.

Paragraph 4: Getting Better. The minimum crew is 13, although there is capacity for 17 more people. The ship is indeed longer than any American aircraft carrier ever built, and an aircraft carrier typically has 5,000 crew members (notably, the Emma Maersk’s compliment does not require a lot of aircraft pilots or mechanics). The Emma Maersk is indeed too wide and too long to pass through the Panama Canal, but it not only can pass through the Suez, it has regularly passed through the Suez many times since it first did so on it’s maiden voyage.

Paragraph 5: Wrong and wrong. It has never travelled the trans-Pacific route, and it certainly cannot cruise at 31 knots.

Paragraph 6: Wrong when relevant. The Emma moves at the same speed as a “typical” container ship, around 20 knots. It does not go from China to California, never has. Where WalMart makes it’s goods is a non-sequitor. Although I cannot comment on competitiveness, some argue the MSC-class container ships, though smaller, are actually more efficient in container handling, even if they may use a little more fuel. Notably, perishables are usually carried in refrigerated containers, much like on other container ships. The Emma Maersk has capacity for 1000 reefer containers.

Paragraph 7: Unconfirmed. I can find no record of this modular construction technique, except various references to this e-mail chain.

Paragraph 6: I’ll give you a C-. That crew superstructure looks to be about 10 stories high, but the ship actually does not contain any cranes whatsoever. The 11 cranes shown in the picture are actually attached to and controlled from the shore. However, unloading the entire ship in 2 hours would require each of the 11 cranes, working in concert, to unload a container every 6 seconds, non-stop. Highly unlikely.

Additional Info:

Country of Origin: Correct!
Length: Correct!
Width: Wrong! (184 feet)
Net Cargo: Wrong! (55,400 Net Tonnes)
Engine: Almost! (109,000 hp from the main engine, plus 40,000hp from 5 auxiliaries).
Cruise Speed: Wrong! (20 knots cruise, 25 knots max)
Cargo Capacity: Almost! (14,770 TEU, which are not = 20 cubic feet)
Crew: Correct!
First trip: Correct!
Construction Cost: Pretty close!

So for a the Speed Round, the score is 55% correct. That’s a pass!

Next paragraph: Sort of. The silicone-based paint actually increases efficiency by preventing barnacle problems without the use of more toxic anti-fouling paints. It is expected to reduce fuel use by 1200 tonnes, which works out to 320,000gallons. Close enough for the internet! Of course, this ship does not burn diesel, it burns bunker fuel.

On the Editorial Content:
Well, the historicity of History Channel documentaries aside, it seems rather unlikely that a ship would carry 14,000 empty containers across the ocean. Believe it or not, the United States is still the second largest manufacturer in the world, producing almost 20% of the world’s manufactured goods. They are also the largest exporter of recycling materials to China. But all this is irrelevant, as the Emma Maersk does not run goods between China and North America!


Ugh.


Well, to take a page from Hunter, who cares about the truth and the statistics? Is the message one to be concerned about?. This ship still the largest ship in the world, and it moves a whole lotta shit from point A (developing country manufacturing inexpensive goods with low wages and lax environmental standards) to point B (post-industrial country with high wages, high environmental standards) to serve and consumers willing to ignore it all just to buy some new stuff).

This message seems to be cloaked in standard anti-China protectionist rhetoric (“China is stealing our Jobs!”). It fails to note, however, that China, and Maersk as a shipping company, are just doing what we in North America and Europe are asking for. We are the ones demanding a plentiful supply of cheap goods. We are the ones deciding to buy 10 pairs of underwear at WalMart for $5, and not one pair of high-quality underwear from Truro, Nova Scotia for $10. That the WalMart gonch fall apart faster than the plastic bag they are packaged in is irrelevant to us.

Here is my editorial comment:

Perhaps a more interesting point is the billions of dollars our Provincial Government is spending, right here in BC, to build Canada’s “Pacific Gateway”. Considering that 2% of our exports and almost 10% of our imports are traded with China (by far the largest trade deficit we have with any trading partner), isn’t Pacific Gateway essentially a giant subsidy to Chinese manufacturers over domestic or US manufacturers? I can understand why you might want to buy WalMart underwear, but why does our Federal Government want us to?

Windows, part 4

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.
One of the items that is pottentially included in the soon-to-be-renewed Conservative budget was an extension of the energy efficiency retro-fit program for residential homes. This is, IMHO, a pretty good program, in that it is not a direct subsidy, but is a tax benefit to those fortunate enough to have extra income and willing to spend some of it on reducing their energy use, as opposed to making “home improvements” that do not result in efficiency gains or pissing it away on more plastic toys. In that sense, it is both a tax break for the rich (So Steve is happy), and it helps the less than rich save a little money in home heating. It is about the only nod to the environment in the entire Tory platform.
Regular readers of this blog (Hi Mom!) would know that I took advantage of the combined federal-provincial efficiency program to have an energy audit done on our 1940 house, and came up with a priority list for efficiency improvements. We decided to look at replacement windows, and a few small other improvements mostly around improving sealing at a few key spots. I talked earlier about our decision to get new windows, about our options, and about our foray into the consumer replacement window market. Now I get to talk about the windows we bought.
As I discussed earlier, the shopping for windows was complicated by my interest in high energy efficiency, and The iCandy’s interest in protecting (or even improving) the look of the house with the windows. In the end, the only way we were going to solve this was by getting wood windows. That was when we met Jordan, the owner of Sashmasters.

Again, as I blogged a few months ago, Jordan was anything but high-pressure sales. He took the time to look at our windows and honestly assess our options. He was straight-forward about what would and wouldn’t work in our house, and even had some useful advice about how to approach some of the windows we didn’t really know how to deal with (such as the ugly 80’s re-fits in our basement suite). Then he gave us a quote.

To be honest, it was a little more than our budget, and The iCandy chewed him down a little (she is a tough negotiator), but it was an honest price. After the fact, I can attest that there were a few minor issues that cropped up during install, and he never took those as an opportunity to play the “out of scope” card for our budget: he got the job done on budget. He also committed to making me happy within the budget, and set a price that would allow me to pick the glazing options I wanted (double-pane, argon filled, low-e glass), even including laminated security glass in one of our more accessible windows. So we dipped deeper into our line of credit, and pulled the trigger.

?

(you can click and zoom into any picture)

?

There were a lot of positives going in. They were a local company, based in Burnaby. They used Canadian Douglas Fir from BC mills, and a glass supplier from Coquitlam. Prior to purchase, we did a quick tour of his manufacturing facility in Burnaby, and he walked us through the window-making process. We got to meet some of the guys who would be making our windows, and the shop dog. Somehow, it always feels better writing a cheque in a local manufacturing plant than it does dropping plastic on the counter at Home Despot. And it is cool to see a raw window frame with your name on it (see left).

Also, since every window in Jordan’s shop is custom, he was able to find solutions for many of our windows that none of the other Sales folks could. There is a big manufacturer of wood windows (rhymes with Fella) whose kludged approach to two small windows in our living room would have reduced the glass to about the size of a CD case. Jordan was able to make a unit that fit great, preserving the original look of the windows. He also allowed us to do some creative leading of our main picture window and a few of the other windows, to maintain the original look of the house.

Once the deal was done and the designs were set up, Jordan started making windows. We were again lucky to be able to go to the shop and see our windows being made:

Jordan even walked us through the process, from 16-foot planks of Fir he buys from the sawmill to the planer, the cutting of the complex joints, the gluing of joints with hydraulic clamps, the sanding, staining, painting, the complex process to put leading in double-pane windows. It was fun to see. You can get a sense by going to his website and following the “shop photos” slide show.

Here is the sequence for our kitchen windows (that had been previously replaced with rather drafty plastic units):

?

Before, drafty 80’s era replacement windows

?

?

Here is The iCandy with the new frames at the shop:

?
????????

Here they are part way through installation. This was a slightly complicated install, as the previous replacement wasn’t exactly optimum, so they had to re-manufacture some of the wall.

?????????

…and as the kitchen looks tonight.

?

Note this is one of the only locations where we lost a bit of window space, in the need to re-construct the framing
around the windows. In other locations, we increased glass space, like in this very badly installed off-the-shelf plastic window in our basement suite:

We also changed the bedroom windows slightly, to make the 1940’s style window slightly more compliant with 2000’s building codes (allowing large enough openings for emergency egress). In this photo you can see the old window next to the new during install. The change in the leading pattern made these windows match the leading in the living room window that is next to it on the façade of the house. They had been mis-matched, probably since the house was built in 1940.

We elected to go with stained wood on the inside. Painted on the outside, with a colour that will hopefully be amenable with our inevitable re-painting of the house in a few years. First, we will probably be doing some work on the painted framing around the windows on the inside, to restore or replace the original wood and complete the look.

In the end, we went with a small, local manufacturer. By doing so, we did not buy “Energy Star” rated windows, and we therefore were not able to take advantage of the Federal rebate program for increasing the efficiency of our house. The process of getting their window assemblies certified as Energy Star is onerous, and would cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Easy for Fella® or Home Despot®; tough for a guy running a shop with a dozen employees in Burnaby. But we took into account the lack of rebates into our decision making on the windows. The sealed window units have CSA efficiency ratings (We know the energy gains we have received are equal to any other double-glazed low-e argon-filled units). Along with the thermal efficiency of the wood window frames, we are confident our energy rating has gone up.

And we can’t say enough about the beauty of real wood windows in a “semi-heritage” house, or the satisfaction of keeping our money local and being able to see our windows made. We know we have added to the value of our home, not just the efficiency.

So here are some before and after pics.

An Epic Vancouver Weekend

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Sunday I did what all us “environmental types” are meant to do. Like a salmon heading back to the home stream to spawn, battling Orcas, fish nets and hooks, rapids, starvation, bears, all just to squirt in some gravel and drop dead of exhaustion. I went to EPIC Vancouver

A “Sustainable Living Expo”. A consumer fair promoting the “Green Lifestyle”. An event that bills itself as “The largest sustainable lifestyle show and eco-marketplace in Vancouver, Western Canada”. The entire thing is mind-bending.

But to maintian my eco-conscious credibility, I must go. Who can say to have supped from the well of sustainability if they have not embraced the EPIC lifestyle show? I needed to try it out, see what the latest thing in Green Living is, to see if I am keeping up with the Jonses in my pursuit of the perfect Green Lifestyle.

Right off the bat, the first two booths at the entrance are Toyota (the Worlds #1 automobile manufacturer) and Post Media (The Canwest print media spinoff that brings us the Sun, the Province, and the National Post). This is not starting well. I may not totally understand the whole “sustainability lifestyle”, but I’m pretty surprised to learn it includes building 8.5 million cars a year and turning dead trees into daily pro-business propaganda sheets.

But you aren’t going to hear me say anything negative about it, seeing as how just by walking near their products, I have apparently given Toyota “all necessary rights in perpetuity [to]…the worldwide use of [my] image, voice and/or comments, as is or as may be edited, in any media whatsoever now and hereinafter…yadda yadda yadda…”
Somehow, their wishing for my enjoyment is a little hollow after that legal beating…

Toyota and Canwest aren’t the only big companies greenwashing their way through EPIC. After all what is more sustainable than a toilet brush holder made of wood and cotton towels in pleasing earth tones?

I almost felt sorry the guys who actually had good ideas:

This small start-up made a washable re-useable food wrapping product using fabric and bees wax. A sort of re-usable but biodegradable and completely sustainable Saran Wrap. It was actually a good idea, but how can he compete with a $150,000 zillion-mile-an-hour electric car?

Or even the dude making seatbelts out of seatbelts?

I mean not using saran wrap might be sustainable, but it doesn’t really fit the lifestyle, does it? A seatbelt purse tells the world you recycle, it is a “cars suck” bumper sticker for your bike that you don’t even need a bike for.

Again, I’m no expert, but my accountant brother tells me multi-level marketing is, inevitably, not sustainable.

The most sustainable thing I saw at the whole show was the row of Chiropractors, an “alternative health care modality” that actually cures nothing and has no demonstrable therapeutic value. It is, by definition,  a sustainable industry because no Chiropractor ever said to a customer “this will be our last session: you are cured!”

Despondent with my inability to grasp the green consumer lifestyle, my inability to geti n touch with the sustainability style of my generation, I finally stumbled upon a few businesses with products I could believe in. These products, although no more sustainable than cars or newspapers or Astroturf, had the power, if applied liberally enough, to wipe away all my concerns that I was not keeping up with the true sustainability lifestyle consumers who were going to prevent our consumer driven collapse by creative purchasing.

After a couple of hours at the booths, sipping sample after sample from my compostable plastic sample cup, I walked out of there with a strange rumbling in my gut. I was actually a little nauseous. Then it occurred to me, I may have been in the wrong conference. There were, after all, two going on at the same time at the Convention Centre:

Water fight!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I’m getting a little tired and punchy over The story that just won’t die. What started as an effort to reduce the environmental impact of bottled water in our schools has turned into one of the silliest political debates in the city since… hmmm… I can’t think of sillier one.

I should declare my bias here, since conflict of interest is such a big part of this. I have already publicly declared my opinion that bottled water is one of the most egregious examples of the victory of cleaver marketing over common sense, good economics, and sustainability. Not on par with smoking in the personal-health-risk department, but probably more damaging on a global heath risk, and no less stupid. So my bias is that I agree with the students on this one, not the Board of Education.

I don’t know Lori Watt, I had never met her before the infamous school board meeting where the latest motion on bottled water was discussed. Frankly, I was not impressed with her unprofessional manner at the meeting, but it is not like being unprofessional stood out in that completely dysfunctional organization, where most if not all of the members have lost touch with what they are there to do. Speaking as an adult, I was embarrassed to have the students in the audience watch their elected representatives act like that. So for the two “slates” on the board, I say a pox on all your houses.

However, the claims of “conflict of interest” in this case seem a bizarre stretch, legal opinion notwithstanding. During the last election for Board of Education, Lori Watt worked as a staffer for CUPE, and was a member of COPE, and CUPE contributed to her campaign (as they did to Trustee Ewen and Trustee Janzen). These are not secrets, nor do they preclude her for running for the Board. People voted for her in spite of (or in some cases, I am sure, because of) these associations. Labour Unions are political organizations, just as multinational corporations are. They have political interests, and put their support behind those that reflect them. Watt is a member of a labour union (like about 30% of Canada’s working population), and quite possibly shares some of the same political ideas as the Union does. It is possible she even goes to Union Meetings and takes part in the democratic process of setting those policies. Of course, she can’t vote one CUPE policies, only COPE ones.

Note also that New Westminster is a “union-friendly” City. There are numerous union offices in town, the population mix is decidedly working class, and it is a longstanding labour-NDP stronghold since before the days when Tommy Douglas represented New Westminster in Ottawa. It is entirely possible that Lori Watt’s labour connection helped her get elected: that people voted for her because of her union affiliation. These people are her constituency: like it or not, that is representative democracy.

So a member of the Board of Education, elected as a union member, put forward a motion for a policy change, seconded by Trustee Graham (who did not receive CUPE funding) and supported by all members of the board, that happened to reflect the expressed interests of her constituency. That is the conflict of interest? Conflict of interest is now putting forward a motion reflecting the interests of her constituency that was immediately supported by the rest of the board? Huh? Is there any suspicion that she personally gained financially from this? Did she short-sell her PepsiCo stocks prior to this motion coming forward? If she didn’t bring the motion forward, would she be fired from her union job? Where was her gain here? Excuse the French, but this is so much ado about sweet fuck all.

But what of the legal opinion, you ask? Given sufficient money, I could have a legal opinion drafted up that says the sky is not blue and the ocean is not wet. When one of the world’s largest bottled-water selling multinational corporations (Nestle) pays for a legal opinion from the same law firm that represents another one of the world’s largest bottled-water-selling multinational corporations (PepsiCo), and that opinion comes back in favour of the position of the bottled-water-selling multinational corporations, are we to be surprised? We should be no less surprised that the Board’s own legal opinion said there was not conflict. Legal opinions are like children: there is no limit to how many you can have, even if you can’t afford them, and everyone thinks their own is the best.

Since we are on the topic of conflict of interest: we know O’Connor received some financial assistance from Nestle for his supposedly one-man grassroots campaign against Watt. We know there were other, so far unnamed, financial contributors, willing to spend money to support one failed Board of Education candidate, as the “public face” of the fight. Receiving secret funding to wage a personal campaign? No possibility of conflict there. If O’Connor was really concerned about openness and accountability, he would declare just how many people contributed to his “grassroots” campaign, and how he got the address of PepsiCo’s favourite law firm. Still, I have yet to hear Patrick O’Connor mention anything about the interests of students (remember them?) in this entire debate. It is pretty ugly on the face of it.

I am afraid the local “Voice for openness and accountability” is on the wrong side of this fight. They threw another shot across the bow last week in the form of a letter from the President to the News Leader, praising the Board for making a “balanced and thoughtful” decision on this matter. It is clear Neil was not in the room witnessing those discussions, as there was clearly little thought put into the fall-back position this board came to.

However, there are two things I think get lost in the language, but not the spirit, of Neil’s letter, and I hope to clarify them: the health concerns of NWSS water, and “freedom of choice”, two arguments used by Voice Board of Education Members, and reinforced by the Gentleman™ from Nestle™ at that board meeting.

During the meeting, there were three people expressing the opinion that the water at NWSS was not safe: Trustee Cook, whose nuanced argument included reference to a video he apparently saw on YouTube and a headline from the Vancouver Sun that he took out of context to create the perception that school water was laden with killer lead; The Gentleman™ from Nestle™ who made vague references to “immune-deficient people”; and some guy named “Paul” from the DPAC, who I didn’t know, but I seem to recall him saying something about commies and our precious bodily fluids:

But the funniest moment was shortly after this when Trustee Goring suggested (without a hint of irony) we need to educate the youth better, because he didn’t know where these rumours were coming from amongst the students that the water was unsafe…when there were numerous youth in the room arguing for a ban on bottled water, and it was only a few misinformed (or misinforming?) adults making these ridiculous claims…

For the record, the public health officer did not say the tap water at the school was unsafe. She suggested that a ban on bottled water should be applied concurrently with a ban on all single-serving drinks, including juices and sodas. Note, she was not arguing to maintain “freedom of choice”, but to remove all choices, leaving the school with only tap water, as this would be the healthiest alternative.

Which brings us to freedom of choice. This was big part of the Gentleman™ from Nestle™ argument, and something Trustee Cook was all over: give the students choice, and educate them to make the right choice. The false choice thing aside (with no facilities to easily fill refillable bottles, and big, glowing, pop machines everywhere you look in the school, just what is the message students are being given?) why would we give the students a choice that is the opposite of the recommendation of the public health officer? I am sure the public health officer would not suggest we install cigarette machines, then let the students “choose” not to smoke. Part of an education system is empowering the students to make the right choice by providing respite from the constant media bombardment to do the wrong thing. How do we effectively teach them to make the rational choice when we turn around and take money from a global multinational to advertise the irrational choice in the teaching environment?

On an almost completely unrelated note, you might have noticed this story about how Pepsi has slipped to #3 in the “Cola Wars”. Frankly, I don’t care what brand of malted battery acid you drink, but one number popped out to me: the United States annually consumes 1.6 billion cases of Coke. A “case” is an industry measure, equal to 24 x 8-oz containers, or 192 oz. That means the USof freaking A consumes 9.1 Billion Litres of Coke a year. To put this number in perspective, if you were to fill a 10-foot-deep swimming pool with this volume of Coke, the pool would need to be as wide as a CFL Football Field, and more than 100 km long! And that is just Coke Classic, we haven’t even thought about the Dr. Pepper effect. Freedom of choice indeed.

So, if the Board of Education was really concerned about the student’s health, they would immediately adopt the public health officer’ recommendation (see the recommendation here, on page 20) and begin the phasing out of vending machines in the schools. It is clear that the public health officer thinks tap water, supplied by Metro Vancouver and regulated by Vancouver Coastal Health is the helathiest, safest alternative. If Patrick O’Connor is really interested in cultivating his position as “maverick community activist” and not a bought-and-paid hack for Multinational Corporations, then he should stop taking their shadowy money, and if Voice is really interested in open and accountable governance, they should probably be backing away from this issue and Mr. O’Connor completely.

Oh, and everybody: apologise to the damn students for being such idiots.