From the Fall 2006 Spacing magazine, "What the Trees Give Back", page 40:

What Trees Give Back
The value of our urban forest far exceeds what we afford it

Todd Irvine

By best guess there are around six million trees in our city, half on private property, half on public. Together these trees make a forest, a haphazard patchwork quilt of forest that changes complexion at the crossing of each fence -- a few patches are lush and green; too many others are threadbare.

Urban foresters, however, are new kids on the block. It is only recently that the millions of trees that grace our city have been thought of as a single forest, and it hasn't been a quick idea to catch on. More established city builders such as architects, designers, and engineers have been leery of the time and expense necessary to make room for trees in a city they have so thoroughly planned and constructed.

When asked, the vast majority of people, politicians and otherwise, say they like trees and want them in the city. Unfortunately, our appreciation far exceeds the care and respect we afford them. Few have considered just how many sustainable, immediate and economically advantageous benefits a well-managed urban forest provides.

ENERGY REDUCTION, HEALTHY PEOPLE
On a summer day waves of heat can be seen rising off the surface of the schoolyard at St. Paul's Catholic School near Queen and Parliament. There is not a single tree on the property. As with many urban schools, the yard is covered from edge to edge by black asphalt, which surrounds a red brick building with a black tar roof, all surfaces that attract and hold heat from the sun. Studies have found that temperatures in schoolyards can be five degrees hotter than the surrounding neighbourhoods. We are literally baking our children alive.

Trees can help. They are like giant parasols we can set up wherever we choose to keep us, and our buildings, cool. For instance, three trees strategically placed around a house can reduce its summer colling demands by 40%, an imperative in these times of near brownouts and rising electricity costs.

The shaded ground under a tree can be 25 degrees Celsius cooler than the area directly beyond, which is exposed to the direct heat of the sun. Tearing up the asphalt in schoolyards and planting trees provides a canopy of protection that enables our children to play comfortably below.

BIRD CORRIDORS & GREEN DEVELOPMENT
Each spring, birds fly north across Lake Ontario looking for strips of green they can follow on their way to the further reaches of the province. The millions of trees throughout the city's ravings provide migratory birds safe passage to their nesting sites.

If these connections are broken, the birds will not come. If they are re-created, we can have migratory song-birds in our backyards, and, at the same time, protect these species by providing them with green corridors for a safe journey. With proper planning, we could map out these corridors and incorporate them in development plans. Ravines could be connected to each other, by way of a park or a swath of naturalized backyards.

STORM WATER MANAGEMENT
A heavy rainfall places an immense demand on the infrastructure below our city. Water roars through our hundreds of kilometres of sewers. Pipes often explode under the pressure requiring costly repairs. Many older sewer trunks do not have the capacity to handle the influx of water allowing it to mix with raw sewage, which then empties directly into the lake, lowering water quality and causing beach closures in Toronto.

The trees of the urban forest ease the pressure on our sewer system by slowing rainwater down. Their dense canopies, made up of thousands of individual leaves, act as giant filters through which each raindrop must slowly make its way. When the water that does not evaporate during this filtration process finally reaches the ground, much of it absorbed by a tree's vast network of roots. In the end less water enters the sewer; the water that does flow there does so at a more manageable rate.

Less water means fewer new sewers to build. For instance, it has been calculated that Washing DC's urban forest reduces the need for water retention infrastructure by 949 million cubic (metric), a savings valued at (US) $4.7 billion per 20-year construction cycle.

POLLUTION ABSORPTION
Smog days are a now common occurrence in Toronto. The brown clouds that hang in the air on muggy summer days is a stew of harmful toxins such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter most of which is released by the burning of fossil fuels. It's been estimated that 1,700 people die each year as a result of air pollution while another 6,000 experience health related problems.

The leaves of trees act as a filter, drawing pollutants out of the air. An appropriate mix of trees can filter out up of 85% of air pollution in a park and as much as 70% in a street setting.

The urban forest is one of the few assets the City owns that appreicates in value over time. If mature trees are lost so too are the benefits they afford. For a small investment, there can be a huge return -- we should be affording it the respect it deserves. Maintaining an ecologically vibrant urban forest is an easy, affordable way to make Toronto a healthier city.

From the Summer 2008 Finding Solutions newsletter of the David Suzuki Foundation, Dr. David Suzuki's "Last Word" article about his concern for bees and their role as pollinators:

 

THE BUZZ ON BEES

Pollinators need protection

I'm sure you've been reading about the mysterious disappearance of honeybees recently. There is even a fancy name for it, colony collapse disorder, although it is clear we don't have a clue what is causing it.

When I first heard of it, a bolt of fear ran through me. There are a lot of frightening scenarios in the environmental scene these days, from oceans emptied of fish to toxic pollution throughout air, water, and soil to runaway climate change. But the disappearnce of one of the important vectors of pollination with no explanation conjures up a terrifying outcome.

Pollination is the process of exchange of genetic material in flowering plants. Almost 90 per cent occurs by cross pollination where wind, mammals, birds, and insects like butterflies and bees pick up pollen from one flower and transfers it to another. This has the result of shuffling genes to provide new genetic combinations that are the raw material of evolution.

Humans are an ingenious species, but no scientific megaproject would ever be able to do what nature does for us on any given sumer day - pollinate trillions of flowers of tens of thousands of species in hundreds of different ways.

We have only made things worse by creating powerful compounds intended to kill pests, but which also kill other species that are integral parts of our biosphere. In clearing land, cutting down forests, damming rivers, and building highways, cities, and farms, we also tear at the interconnected fabric of all life. Yet we are utterly dependent on the rest of nature for our health and well-being. The disappearance of pollinators ought to be a big warning shot to us about the way we are living.

So what can we do? Plenty. We can design gardens with native plants to provide pollen and act as hosts for pollinators, and give up chemical pesticides. And we can teach young people about the importance  of pollinators. It's the least we can do to return the favour to them.

For more information on pollinators, visit www.davidsuzuki.org/Conservation/Endangers_Species/pollinators/.

From the Saturday, November 17, 2007, front page and pages A16-17, an article about the changes in the Arctic because of global warming:

 

Arctic in Peril

Within 60 years, climatologists predict most of the Arctic will be free of summer ice, just as it was 1 million years ago when giant beavers and camels roamed the North, Ed Struzik, this year's Atkinson Fellow, travelled the remote region to explore how Canadians can adapt to and even exploit this precarious return to warmer times

 

THE NEW COLD WAR

Ed Struzik

Atkinson Fellow

Devon Island, Nunavut - In the summer of 1985, helicopter pilot Paul Tudge was flying over Axel Heiberg Island in the High Arctic when he spotted what he thought were tree stumps near the edge of a giant ice cap.

When Tudge reported the sighting to scientists, they were skeptical. The nearest tree was 2,500 kilometres south. Nevertheless, geologist James Basinger flew up the new year to have a closer look. It didn't take him long to realize he had found the Holy Grail of Arctic paleobotany.

Not only were tree trunks sticking out of the permafrost,some buried below were more than 2 1/2 metres wide and five metres long.

What really amazed Basinger was the realization that these trees were 45 million years old. Many of the nuts, seeds and cones were so perfectly preserved they look as if they had just fallen to the ground.

By the time Basinger finished excavating the site 14 years later, he had assembled a picture of a dawn redwood swamp filled with royal ferns and cypress that flourished downstream from pine, spruce and walnut trees. The High Arctic, Basinger concluded, was once as warm and lush as the Carolinian forests of Georgia in the United States are today. Several scientists have since discovered evidence that the Arctic was warm for a very long time after that.

*  On Devon Island, Richard Grieve and a team of scientists unearthed, among other fossils, remains of a primitive rhinoceros in and around a 39-million-year-old meteorite impact site. While not as warm as it was 45 million years ago, Grieve says it was warm enough to sustain a mixed conifer-hardwood forest. The mean annual temperature was between 8 and 12C.

*  On Ellesmere Island, there's a 4.5-million-year-old beaver pond site where Dick Harington and a team of scientists from the Canadian Mueum of Nature spent more than a decade unearthing fossils of miniature beavers that were preyed upon by ancestral black bears, weasel-like carnivores and Eurasian badgers. Some of the fossils were so detailed they were able to determine what tundra bunnies were eating at the time. Temperatures then were at least 10C warmer in the summer and 15C warmer in winter than they are today.

*  Remarkably, Haringon did this after he and Peter Lord, a Gwich'in native from Old Crow in the western Arctic, unearthed fossil remains of six-foot-tall beavers that shared part of the Yukon and Alaska with scimitar cats, American camels, mastodons and woolly mammoths between 70,000 and 90,000 years ago.

These are heady times for climatologists. The more they learn about the Arctic past, the better they are creating models that will predict the future.

In the next 15 to 60 years, they're predicting, most of the Arctic will be free of summer ice just as it was 1 milllion years ago.

When that occurs, the polar world could be beyond the "tipping point" - the term climatologist Mark Sereze uses to describe what happens when sea ice becomes so thin and vulnerable that winter's deep freeze will no longer be able to manufacture enough ice to offset the melting that occurs in summer.

The climate change that killed primitive rhinoceros, scimitar cats and American camels could be equally devastating to current species, even is this time the Arctic is warming once again, not cooling.

"The rest of the world will be in for a few surprises," predicts Serreze, a senior research scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Col. "What happens in the Arctic matters to the rest of the world. If we ignore what's going on, it's going to bite us down here, and it's going to bite us hard."

Unless the rest of the world finds a way of mitigating or adapting to the myriad effects of climate change, many scientists agree that history will be kind to former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, who was recently awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on publicizing the issue.

For Canada, one of the world's dominant Arctic nations, the stakes are even higher. Not only are there risks but also opportunities. Climate change could mean an economic bonanza, allowing shipping through the Northweest Passage enabling mining and oil projects not currently feasible.

The question is, how will Canada manage climate change?

NO ONE KNOWS why the Arctic was so warm for so long previously.

Ocean currents, volcanic activity, methane burps and other natural warming mechanisms may have been responsible. But the fossil evidence found in ancient lake beds, ice cores and permafrost suggests a cooling began after large mammals replaced the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. This gradual cooling, interspersed as it was by periods of warmth, continued until the time Harington's miniature beavers were avoiding predators on Ellesmere Island.

Then rapid-fire fashion - at least in geologic time - the cold wiped out the forests, the tiny beavers and, on the other side of the Arctic, the woolly mammoths, American mastodons, scimitar cast and giant beavers.

Now that the polar regions are warming rapidly, scientists fear there will be a similar catastrophic impact on the fish and wildlife and the people who inhabit the Arctic today. With sea ice melting, glaciers receding and Arctic storms getting harsher, many coastal communities are becoming vulnerable to flooding and erosion. A warmer and shorter ice season also means less time for polar bears to hunt seals and more time for mosquitoes and blackflies to afflict caribou, musk oxen and nesting birds. Beluga whales and narwhal, which hide under the ice to avoid killer whales, could also be threatened.

A warm Arctic gives diseases normally killed by the cold the opportunity to move north and infect species that have no immunity to them.

Heat threatens Arctic species in other ways, as well. There's evidence that caribou, Arctic fox, char and other Arctic species may not be able to compete if deer, red fox, and Pacific salmon continue to migrate north into their territory. The possibility is no longer science fiction. In recent years, Pacific salmon species that are declining on the West Coast have been showing up in Inuit nets.

Theoretically, a polar meltdown could shut down the ocean "conveyeor belt" that brings warm water into the North Atlantic and moderates the climate of Great Britain and northern Europe. The cold water moving south could compromise important fisheries in the North Atlantic just as it did in the early 1990s.

Rising sea levels brought on by this meltdown could also displace the 104 million people who live in coastal areas that are within a metre of the ocean surface.

Those who live on higher ground won't escape the changes that are coming. Polar ice is the genesis of cold fronts that bring rain and snow to much of the world. If it shrinks, droughts could worsen, as could heavy rains.

The rest of the world will also be vulnerable to forest fires caused by lightning strikes in the hotter north. Few people in Toronto may realize it, but part of the suffocating smog that the city endured in the summer of 2004 was fallout from fires in Alaska and the Yukon. Five per cent of Alaska and the Yukon burned that record hot year.

Serreze cautions skeptics who think there's time to adjust. So far, he notes, the climate models that he and others have put together have seriously underestimated how quickly the changes that have happened already would occur.

Yesterday in Spain, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change backed that view. The IPCC - which share the Nobel with Gore - completed a scientific summary that is to be released today that says the damage from global warming may be "abrupt or irreversible."

Already, the latest data shows that the Arctic ice cap was 20 per cent smaller this year than it was in 2005, a record year.

"It's not so much what we know that's a problem," says Serreze. "It's what we don't know. The paleo-climate record tells us that the system changes very, very quickly, on the order of just 10 years. I suspect that there are surprises ahead that we won't be ready for."

UNTIL THIS SUMMER, John Falkingham, chief of Forecasting for the Canadian Ice Service, was reluctant to push the button so hard. But this summer, the ice retreated so far beyond all expectations that he was left shocked. Not only was the ice cover at record lows inthe Arctic, the so-called "mortuary" of old ice that normally chokes McClintock Channel in the Northwest Passage was almost all gone. What's more, Viscount Melville Sound, "the birthplace" of a lot of Arctic ice, was down to half of its normal summer cover. That's why a Russian ship was able to deliver a load of fertilizer to the Port of Churchill in October - a first.

"The ice is no longer growing or getting old," says Falkingham, who then echoes Serreze's choice of words. "Ten years from now, we may look back on 2007 and say that was the year we passed the tipping point,"

The big challenge is what to do about it.

Reducing greenhouse gases is one solution because it's accepted that carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity, are a big driver of the warming. But even if world leaders muster the will to do something meaningful in the coming years, it will take a century or more to stop or even slow the warming that is already melting the polar world.

Many think that adaptation is the key. Not only do governments like Canada's have to control emissions, they need to develop strategies that will mitigate, exploit and help communities and ecosystems adjust to the changes that are coming. A new environmental state requires a new way of managing it.

The View From the North

Edmonton journalist Ed Struzik has been writing about Canada's Arctic for 28 years.

In July, he set off on the first of nine northern journeys to examine the implications of climate change as part of the 2007 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy.

He travelled by plane, icebreaker, snowmobile, dogsled and skis, making his way from Churchill, Man., to Ellesmere Island, and from the Alaskan border to the coast of Greenland. Struzik saw first-hand evidence that the Arctic is warming almost twice as fast as the rest of the world. The change, he determined, offers economic opportunities for Canada, but also poses special risks. Watch his video at thestar.com/arctic. 

 

From the November 2007 National Geographic, pages 110-111, an article about the threat caused to certain ocean creatures as carbon dioxide makes the ocean more acidic:

 

THE ACID THREAT

As CO2 rises, shelled animals may perish

Tiny creatures near the base of the marine food chain lead perilous lives at best. Now they face a man-made threat. No, not global warming this time though the root cause is the same. As the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) rises, it is not only heating the globe but also dissolving in ocean waters, turning them more acidic. For shell-building animals that can mean a corrosive, even deadly environment.

Oceans are a natural sink for CO2, already soaking up more than a quarter of what's released into the atmosphere. Today we're pumping out massive quantities - a surge that began more than a century ago as factories, power plants, and cars began devouring fossil fuels. By now the oceans are taking in 25 million tons a day of excess CO2, and it is starting to show. Already scientists have measured a rise in acidity of some 30 percent in surface waters and they predict a 100 to 150 percent increase by the end of the century.

No ill effects have been documented so far in the open ocean, but the threat is clear. Absorbed by seawater, CO2 reacts to form carbonic acid, which turns the normally alkaline water more acidic. In the process, fewer carbonate ions are lift floating around - and many marine organisms, including mollusks and corals, rely on carbonate from seawater to build their shells and their hard parts. Eventually, vital species will no longer be able to build or maintain their shells and skeletons.

Users of the mineral aragonite - a very soluble type of calcium carbonate - are especially vulnerable. They include tiny pteropod snails, which help feed commercially vital fish like salmon. Computer models predict that polar waters will turn hostile for pteropods within 50 years (cold water holds the most CO2, so it is already less shell-friendly). By 2100, habitat for many shelled species could shrink drastically, with impacts up the food chain. And as the acidification reaches the tropics, "it's a doomsday scenario for coral reefs," says Carnegie Institution oceanographer Ken Caldeira. If current trends continue, he predicts, reefs will one day survive only in walled-off, acid-controlled refuges.

Massive outbursts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have acidified the oceans in the geologic past, but equilibrium returned as the oceans stored away excess CO2 in minerals on the sea floor. This time nature may be slow to heal. "Our emissions are huge compared with natural fluxes," Caldeira says."If you could stop emissions and wait 10,000 years, natural processes would probably take care of most of it." These days we're simply dishing it out faster than the oceans can mop it up. --JSH

 

From the Saturday, November 24, 2007, Toronto Star, New in Homes section, pages H, and H16, an article about green housing construction:

ECO-CONSTRUCTION
Lowrise bar hits new heights

Environmentalists argue there's still a long way to go, but a pair of subdivisions are on new turf for green building

Tracy Hanes
Toronto Star

The green building bar for lowrise subdivisions has just been raised.

Rodeo Fine Homes, a small custom builder, and Monarch, a division of the world's largest building company, have thrown down the green gauntlet with two projects in the GTA that they claim will represent firsts in Canada.

Rodeo's is the 34-house EcoLogic enclave in Newmarket and it aims to be the first all-LEED Platinum lowrise development. Monarch's is called Evergreen, a 196-unit LEED-H project on a former Scarborough brownfield.

Rodeo calls EcoLogic the "greenest housing development in Canada," while Monarch calls Evergreen "Canada's largest lowrise green residential community."

Both projects have also been developed in partnership - Rodeo with the Town of Newmarket and Monarch with the Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO) - as leading edge examples of green building for other builders and municipalities to follow.

And while such claims are often derided as more image than substance, at least one leader of a prominent eco-conscious group has some nice things to say about these "green" housing projects - even if it's somewhat qualified.

"On the whole, (developments like these) are good, but we get into quibbles," says Chris Winter, executive director of the Conservation Council of Ontario - a province-wide association of groups and individuals dedicated to a healthy environment.

"One major issue is if you're talking about climate change an energy efficiency as priorities, the housing industry is still building sprawl, putting houses where you have to drive to get a bag of milk. They haven't got the full concept yet."

Residents of Rodeo and Monarch's new subdivisions are unlikely to go on foot for much of their shopping, but both projects score better than most new lowrise sub-divisions in terms of transportation. A bus route passes the entrance of the EcoLogic development and major recreation facilities and green space are close by. Evergreen will be a fairly easy walk from the Scarborough GO station, a bus to the subway and within an existing neighbourhood.

So while some will argue that the green bar must be raised further still, there can be some agreement that these projects are part of a new era, a change in direction.

"The whole green industry is new and everyone is trying to stake out their turf," says Vincent Santamaura of RN Design, lead architect the EcoLogic project. "What is green anyway? What brand is the market going to recognize? For us, it's a whole new journey."

"There is too much information, too many programs and it is creating a tremendous amount of confusion," says Brad Carr, Monarch Corp's senior vice-president, low-rise. "But that doesn't discount the need to push the envelope," he says.

Santamaura adds that one of the key challenges will be convincing homebuyers that by spending a little more upfront for a LEED house, they are buying a portion of all the energy they are going to use over 20 years at current prices.

"You're pre-buying energy at today's dollar . . . that's a fundamental concept that's hard to get through everyone's head," Santamaura says.

He says over the 70-year life cycle of a building, the capital cost - the purchase price - typically represents only 5 per cent of what it will cost to operate the building.

"But people don't spend 70 years in a home - they are going to have to see that in 10 years they will have added value to their home," Santamaura says.

Lenard Hart, a consultant on EcoLogic and co-creator of the Energy Starfor Houses in Ontario program during his former job as business development manager for the EnerQuality Corp., says LEED offers better choices for consumers.

"For me, this LEED platinum project is so far beyond anything I have ever been involved with, R2000 or Energy Star, but it feels like we are truly beginning to transform the way homes are built," he says.

"LEED looks at more than just insulation levels and furnace efficiency. It changes the way you build, promotes recycling on site, soil erosion controls, recycled materials, advanced framing and many other environmental advances that other programs do not cover."

He says while public education is important, the EcoLogic site "is such a leadership project that we are really appealing to an elite segment of very green consumers who are already quite well informed."

One hurdle is distribution of the materials needed for LEED homes.

"The products are out there, but it's the channels and pricing that are the challenge," Hart says. "We had to develope new channels. Builders have a fairly small circle of suppliers and we went to them first and made them part of the process, but asked them to bring in what we needed. That's part of the social transformation."

EdoLogic project hopes to achieve LEED platinum status by reducing household water draw by 25 per cent and reducing water discharge (effluent and storm water runoff), solid waste, greenhouse gas production and energy consumption by 60 per cent over conventionally built homes.

The site was part of the 36-hectare Stickwood-Walker farm, purchased by the Town of Newmarket in January 2003. The town developed a land-use plan that included the Magna Centre recreation complex, green space and heritage reserves and 160 residential lots, says Jason Unger, assistant director of planning.

Of the 160 lots, Menkes bought 124 for $16.1 million in August 2005: the town set two lots aside for Habitat for Humanity homes and slated another 34 lots for an environmentally progressive subdivision, based on public consultantion. Menkes offered to buy the 34 lots for $3.7 million if a suitable environmental developer did not come forward.

But Rodeo responded to the town's request for proposals and in January 2006, bought the 34 lots for $3.2 million with the condition that the developer had to achieve the stringent water use, waste reduction and energy-saving goals set by the town.

Two model homes, which should be completed next spring, will be learning vehicles for trades and building inspectors about LEED. Prices have not yet been determined for the detached homes.

Santamaura says a company like Rodeo is perfectly suited to tackle such a project. For one, it is a small, custom home builder that has had experience "tinkering" with new products that custom homeowners want. As well, a small builder can easily educate staff and quickly make changes.

Santamaura says that in three decades of green building, "it has taken 15 years for us to understand the building envelope, then 15 years working on mechanical systems and HRVs (heat recovery ventilators) and knowing how to design them for the right type of space. The final step is LED lighting, which we are just understanding now.

"For all us diehard advocates (of green building) we've been quietly trying to apply them for years and it's really great to be able to put all the stuff we've learned into a development," says Santamaura, who started his green building career in the 1970s, designing a super-insulated custom home for a Newmarket client.

The $100-million Evergreen development in the Midland and St. Clair Aves. area, to consist of 196 brick old Ontario-style singles, semis and townshouses, will be built to LEED-H, or basic, certification. All homes will meet Energy Star standards, construction waste will be reduced significantly and rainwater collectors will recycle runoff. The homes are to be ready for first occupancy in late 2008.

The goal is to demonstrate a green residential community can be economically viable and marketable, Carr says.

Monarch had owned five hectares of the site since the late 1990s and the City of Toronto oowned much of the land surrounding it. Carr says it was virtually impossible to get approvals as a result, but then the land reverted to TEDCO, the city's principal redevelopment corporation.

TEDCO operates at arm's length from the city, its sole shareholder, and has a mandate to pursue opportunities with a variety of public- and private-sector partners to restore derelict and vacant lands. It agreed to sell five hectares to Monarch, with the condition it build an innovative green community, makring the first time TEDCO has worked with a residential builder.

TEDCO CEO Jeffrey Steiner says fair market value was received for the land and TEDCO did its due diligence by obtaining two value appraisals and testing the market by tendering other lands nearby by confirming prices.

He says as the two properties were intermingled, it made sense to sell to Monarch and to share services such as roads, storm water management ponds and more. These economy-of-scale savings will be reinvested in the green aspects of the development.

Carr says Monarch is striving for basic LEED certification, not silver, gold or platinum, because the builder feels it is more effective to "reduce energy use by 15 per cent on thousands of homes," rather than achieving more dramatic reducctions on a small number.

He says it's important that Evergreen not be a "one-off" but something that's economically viable and repeatable" that could be built without government subsidies.

"LEED is very paper-driven and is a prove-to-me auditable process," Steiner says. "It's not just about how you build, but what you put in and about leaving the smallest possible footprint."

Steiner says the Evergreen site will triple the number of LEED lowrise homes in North America and the projet's results and know-how will be shared with the housing industry, including the GTA's BILD (Building Industry and Land Development Association).

Carr says part of the mandate was to keep the homes affordable. He says that's why, for example, the homes will use conventional natural gas heating, cutting energy consumption with efficient two-stage furnaces and extra insulation.

Priced from the mid $300,000s to $500,000s, Carr admitsthat "clearly not everyone can afford that, but in the City of Toronto, unfortunately that's where affordability is."

The Conservation Council of Ontario's Winter says there will be a market for the EcoLogic and Evergreen homes, as a recent poll shows homeowners are investing their own money in conservation practices. Some of them will want turn-key energy-efficient houses and "LEED is a very reputable standard and it's doing a tremendous job putting forth standards the building industry can work with."

He says one of the difficulties in bringing LEED standards to entire develpments is that it will require changes to planning standards that have been around for 50 years.

Here are some environmentally friendly resolutions for the New Year from The Daily Green, Sunday, December 16, 2007, http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/new-years-resolutions-47121520:

The only comment I will add is on the resolution to declutter your house, which does not mention recycling the unwanted stuff. There are all kinds of community or charitable organizations which will accept clothes, furniture and other household goods. There are other companies that will take computers and other electronic goods. You can also have a garage sale. Some libraries accept books and magazines to resell. You may find relatives or friends or co-workers who may need or want some of these goods. There are also online places or newspapers where you can post notices to sell or give away items.

12.14.2007 3:55 PM

7 New Year’s Eco-Resolutions for 2008

Ideas Even a Toe-Dipper in the Green Pool Can Deal With

 

Annie Bell Muzaurieta /
For The Daily Green

1. I will relinquish my title of Most Likely to Acquire Useless Crap I Don’t Wear or Need.
Admit it — your closet is full of had-to-have items that have been punished to a life of hanging unworn. Your have enough notepads, pens, books, magnets, and collectible tchotchkes to fill a ministorage unit. Yes, our purchases keep the economy going, but most of us buy far more than we need. (There are whole TV shows dedicated to demonstrating ways to unclutter!) Remember that packaging, waste, and pollution are created to make these items available to you. If you trash those once-new goodies when you’re no longer interested in them, they will live in a landfill for years and years. It’s time to clean out, and stop the crap collecting.

2. I will avenge my phantom load.
Phantom load has nothing to do with the pounds that mysteriously appeared on your midsection over the holidays. The term refers to the energy wasted by electronics and power chargers when they are plugged in but not in use. That’s right — your computer cord, cell phone charger, and time-telling DVD player are all sucking energy from the outlet even when there isn’t anything attached or being watched (hence the spooky phantom-ness). Actually cut the power to your electronics by plugging them in to a power strip and flipping the switch to off when you’re not watching or listening.

3. I will be smarter than bottled water companies and drink for free what they are trying to sell me.
Kicking the plastic water bottle habit might sound like an impossible feat if you’re as addicted as the average thirsty American; last year we consumed about 50 billion plastic water bottles. If the fact that plastic is bad for the environment doesn’t get you to quit, just think: Several bottled water brands use the same H20 that’s available from your faucet. So buy an eco-chic reusable stainless steel bottle, and refill it throughout the day — for free. If you’re parched at the mere thought of quitting cold turkey, ease into a plastic-bottle–free life by bringing one less bottle a week to the gym, or by giving them up at the office.

4. If I can remember to TiVo “Dancing with the Stars,” I can remember to bring my own bags to the grocery store.
It’s as if plastic shopping bags are required to exit a store—the disposable sacks are forced on customers even when the purchase is just a can of soda. But plastic bags are made from petroleum and only about 1 percent of the estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion Annie Bell plastic bags consumed worldwide are recycled each year. Most end up in landfills (where they take perhaps 1000 years to decompose) or in the sea. If you start bringing your own bags now, you’ll be ahead of the curve if plastic ones become outlawed in your community.

5. I will switch to recycled paper products at home (but not if they make me chafe).
We know there are some folks out there who must have two-ply, but even you can commit to changing just one thing. If you have a Larry David-like aversion to recycled toilet paper, try the paper towels. If brown won’t match your kitchen colors, look for recycled paper towels that are whitened without chlorine or stick with washable dishcloths. By purchasing recycled paper products you’re preventing trees from being chopped down, and paper waste from ending up in landfills. In addition, less energy and water is required to produce a recycled paper product.

6. I will consider whether my meal came from the farm or the factory.
Big agriculture isn’t all bad. Everyone has a guilty culinary pleasure that comes from a big factory (see: Oreos, and Cap’n Crunch). But while you’re worrying about your own carbon footprint, remember that your food has one too. Think of how many miles your food has traveled (do you really need berries from Chile?), how many chemicals are used, and how much pollution and waste have been generated in the production of your foodstuffs. Support local agriculture by shopping for food at a farmers market. The goods will be fresh, and you might enjoy meeting some of the people who grew your dinner.

7. I will take a day off from road rage and take mass transit or car-pool one day a week.
If you have public transportation options available to you, try switching to the train or bus one day a week. According to the American Public Transportation Association, public transportation use saves 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline each year, and can reduce household expenses by $6,200. Plus you’ll get a day off from road rage. If you don’t live near public transportation, try organizing a once-a-week carpool with your neighbors or coworkers. You’ll save on fuel, tolls, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by removing cars from the road. As a bonus, you’ll gain access to that exclusive carpool lane.

 

I don't know whether you saw the documentary March of the Penguins. Now I know scientists don't like people attributing human characteristics to animals. However, it is hard not to when you see the father penguins so anguished when the egg they keep warm on their feet while the mother goes to get food, slips off onto the ice, freezes and kills the baby penguin inside. That was one of the saddest things I have seen.

The World Wildlife Federation says we are putting penguins at risk by not addressing climate change. Here is an article from the Wednesday, December 12, 2007, Metro newspaper, metronews.ca, page 12:

 

PENGUINS WILL DECLINE

The emperor penguin will march toward drastic decline if the brakes are not put on climate change, wildlife advocates announced in the United Nations conference on the topic in Bali, Indonesia, yesterday.

Already, melting sea ice and a shrinking food supply are threatening the four penguin species that live entirely on the Antarctic continent - including the celebrated star of the Academy Award-winning documentary March Of The Penguins - the World Wildlife Fund's study reveals.

:This is happening before our very eyes because of the fossil fuel pollution, we're pumping into the air," WWF Canada's director of global threats Julia Langer said yesterday from Toronto, admonishing Canada's stance at the climate talks as "not very helpful."

"We don't have time for political posturing,"

While increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is warming temperatures around the globe, it is most extreme at the poles.

Torstar News Service

From Gaia.com, http://www.gaia.com/article/7188?from=conscious-consumer, here are five holiday eco decorating tips:

 

5 Holiday Eco Decorating Tips