Golf Greens Suck

Our governments - federal and provincial - have a lot of nerve suggesting we take short showers and turn off the tap while brushing our teeth, when they continue to make side deals with mining and gas companies to dump tailings in ponds, and give 10 golf clubs enough water to hydrate 25,000 households. Fuckers. If I were childish, I'd run around my house turning on all my taps, laughing maniacally. But I'm not. I'm concerned. And I think golf sucks, and is just an excuse for bad fashion. And water wasting. I repeat. Fuckers. See what you make me do?

WTF People Throw Out

I've been walking recently. A lot. I don't stop for rainy days, and unfortunately, I don't stop for garbage days either. Poor me. In high July, it reeks. 

A couple of months ago I was appointed to a city committee charged with the duty of helping Toronto get to 70% waste diversion by 2010. That is, educate, berate, prod Torontonians through whatever (legal) means necessary to reduce, reuse and recycle vs buy and toss. Before being appointed I was moderately aware of what people pitched. Now, combined with my new morning walk routine, I'm hyper aware. It floors me every week. Especially when the generous citizens of Station Street in South Etobicoke put their garbage out a week in advance. I affectionately call it "garbage alley" and I navigate its resulting jumbo maggots by walking down the middle of the street pretty much daily. Thanks.

On any given day, people are throwing out so many things that can be recycled - boxes (and they don't break them down either), cans, bottles, paper, etc. They're pitching the stuff of compost gold - like rotting fruit and veggies, moldy bread, kitty litter, you name it - into (and more often in the general vicinity of) their garbage pails rather than their green bins. Most are unaware and can hopefully be enlightened. Unfortunately for us, and the planet, many others simply don't care.

So I'm on a mission. Though I haven't resorted to sorting garbage from recyclables on my morning rambles, I have spoken with people on said walks about what is recyclable and what isn't. It's staggering how many people think they should throw milk cartons in the garbage.

I've also secretly (so don't tell anybody) committed to relocating the garbage put out WAY TOO EARLY (we're talking several days here) by the local library and church to their respective front steps. For institutions so permanently attached to the public teat, they have a lot of nerve polluting my morning walk with their smelly shit. As Yosemite Sam used to say, "that'll learn 'em."

Hear Here, Timmy Ho Ho

Read on. I hope Tim does too. The bastards.  

How dum is we?

Recently, the BC government has been flirting with the idea of using trees infested with pine beetles to power the province. Since the wood is no good for sale, why not cut it down and shove it into an oven to create power? Um, maybe because doing so would generate thousands upon thousands of kilos of C02s, not to mention denude large tracks of vegetation that provide habitat to animals, birds and insects even in its decaying state. But hey, we need power, so cut em down and set em on fire.

This, juxtaposed with the debate currently raging in Ontario over the spreading of human waste of fields of green to fatten our broccoli and soy beans confounds me. We humans are stupid. We're spinning around, desperately looking for alternative sources of energy, and spreading something that is arguably sustainable - human feces - over the very stuff we'll put in our mouths at supper time. I'm no fan of incineration - I live in a part of the province that is choking already on the fumes of poorly regulated industry. That being said, I'd rather burn shit than eat it. And I rather burn it than burn the trees, dead or alive, that provide the cover and the habitat for increasingly threatened wilderness.

As an aside, it's a good thing we humans weren't around when the dinosaurs started to die. We would have burned their carcasses, no doubt, and then sadly (insert sarcastic intonation here) there would be no tar sands...

Carlin said it best...

RIP George Carlin, who skillfully rewrote the lyrics to America the Beautiful to reflect the unfortunate environmental reality of not just our neighbours to the south, but cringingly (yes yes, I made up another word), us too. This is what our prime minister's stonewalling is doing for Canada.

"Oh beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain. For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain. America, America, man sheds his waste on thee. And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea."

RIP George. RIP Alberta. RIP Ontario. RIP Newfoundland. RIP Saskatchewan. You get the picture.

G8 My Ass

"Yo Harper" was only the beginning. Congratulations to us for voting for a climate change denier. A guy who buddies up with W, and at the same time says that no significant movement will be made on the climate change file (climate change, I thought that was a myth) until W is but an unfortunate legacy. The same guy who says we shouldn't have to take any real steps in reversing the tide that is growing more ominous daily until the Chinese and the Indians do.

It's called leadership Stephen. And we've got at least a 100 years of wicked industrial polluting on them. It's time for us to take responsibility for our significant contributions to the problem, rather than waiting for everyone to line up and jump in together. Because that's leaders do. So, the next time you're pointing fingers at Stephane Dion, implying that he isn't a leader, you should take note of the rest of the fingers pointing back at you. Fuck stick.