EarthMatters

Founded in 2003, Post Carbon Institute's mission is to lead the transition to a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable world by providing individuals and communities with the resources needed to understand and respond to the interrelated ecological, economic, energy, and equity crises of the 21st century.

We spoke with Rob Dietz, Program Director at Post Carbon Institute about the many programs that PCI offers.

postcarbon.org

resilience.org

Effective communications are integral to gaining acceptance for carbon pricing and to ensure that audiences understand human-induced climate change.

Dr. Louise Comeau, is an independent researcher and communications specialist and a Research Associate at the University of New Brunswick.

Her communication, policy and education recommendations are based on quantitative and qualitative research. She has almost 30 years' experience in analyzing and developing climate change policy, communications, and solutions-related programming.

More information can be found at http://louisecomeau.ca/

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/02/1906589116    https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2Fs13421-019-00948-y    https://climateoutreach.org/resource-type/centre-right/

M-KOPA Solar has provided 750,000 homes in East African villages and towns with small, affordable solar kits - bringing households light, power and communications, and avoiding harmful kerosene and diesel fumes. 

Through micro-payments, as little as fifty cents per day, M-KOPA allows customers an affordable approach to ownership and self-sufficiency.

Since 2010, Co-Founders Jesse Moore and Nick Hughes, and their growing company, have employed 3,000 people and avoided approximately 780,000 tonnes of CO2.

In 'Trains, Buses, People", transportation expert Christof Spieler looks at how cities can build successful transit.  He profiles the 47 metropolitan areas in the US that have rail transit or BRT, using data, photos, and maps for easy comparison.

He explains broad concepts, but recognizes all of the technical, geographical, and political difficulties of building transit in the real world.

Spieler is Vice President and Director of Planning at Huitt-Zollars, and a lecturer at the Rice University Schools of Architecture and Engineering.  He was a member of the board of directors of Houston METRO from 2010 to 2018.

Christiana Figueres was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in July 2010, six months after the failed COP15in Copenhagen.  

During the next six years she dedicated herself to rebuilding the global climate change negotiating process based on fairness, transparency and collaboration, leading to the 2015 Paris Agreement, widely recognized as a historical achievement. Over the years she has worked in the fields of climate change, sustainable development, energy, land use, technical and financial cooperation.

Figueres was recently named one of the top 100 most influential people in Climate Change policy.

I met up with Figueres at 'Collision' a high tech conference during a Q & A session.

Also at the Collision tech conference held in Toronto was another member of the top 100 Climate Change Influencers, the Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna.  In that capacity, McKenna drove her country's efforts in ratifying the 2015 Paris Agreement.  Since then, McKenna has been pushing the effort to establish a national Carbon Tax amidst strong backlash from several provincial governments.

At one session during the day, McKenna spoke about the fact that people should not rely on governments to do all the heavy lifting when it came to Climate Change mitigation – that everyone had a role to play.

In 'Protecting Pollinators: How to Save the Creatures that Feed Our World', beekeeper and author Jodi Helmer explores why pollinator decline has become so dire and how it can be reversed.  Her book, published by Island Press, offers a hopeful vision for the future of pollinators - not just the iconic monarch butterfly and the dainty hummingbird, but the drab hawk moth and homely bats that are just as essential.

The book ends with twenty-nine actionable ways for readers to get involved with pollinator protection, including choosing plants with a variety of colours, shapes, and scents, and leaving "mulch-free" zones in your yard.

Over two billion cups of coffee are consumed, worldwide, every day. According to the International Coffee Organization, each year some 10 million tons of coffee is produced employing 120 million people with 25 million of them being small farm producers in 37 countries.

We spoke to three retailers of coffee, all using certified Fair Trade coffee, and asked how and why they got started. One company is a worker co-op, another is a certified B Corporation (meaning that social and environmental values are just as important as shareholder returns), the third is a private company but 100% of profits go towards food, water and education facilities in countries around the world.

http://planetbeancoffee.com http://ethicalbean.com http://earthgroup.org/

Transportation is often noted as the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. 

The built environment – offices, factories, homes and hospitals, for example are not far behind. 

Between the ecological footprint of construction, demolition, and the ongoing generation of heat and electricity used on a daily basis, its no wonder says Jeff Ranson of the Canadian Green Building Council (CaGBC.  After all, we spend upwards of 90% of our time inside buildings, he notes.

CaGBC, as its known, is a membership-driven association of builders, architects, and green building advocates focused on improving industry standards, developing best design practices and guidelines, advocating for green building, and creating educational tools to support its members in implementing sustainable design and construction practices.

Jeff Ranson, Regional Director for the Toronto Chapter of CaGBC, recently spoke to a group of green industry leaders explaining what the Council does, the state of the green building construction industry, highlighting some of the reports that have come out recently such as "Making the Case for Building to Zero Carbon", and promoting the Council's drive for "Disclosure Challenge" which encourages developers to disclose building data on energy, water and carbon consumption in order to demonstrate that transparency is a core value, and a commitment to sustainability and continuous improvement is a good business practice.

Clean Works is a joint venture between Paul Moyer, a fruit farmer and Court Holdings Ltd., a family business involved in manufacturing, technology and steel services.

The process - called Clean Verification - was validated by the Food Science Department at the University of Guelph, a leading agri-food institution.  The method is chemical-free and waterless.

According to Clean Works, the process using ultraviolet light and vaporized hydrogen kills up to 99% of pathogens and complies with regulations.  This innovation is garnering interest and support from industry leaders across North America.

Growing crops to feed farm animals is vastly inefficient, driving up the price of grains and legumes, and entrenching global poverty.  The challenge to produce enough food for 9 billion people by 2050, requires a more efficient system and less food waste.

The Good Food Institute works with scientists, investors, and entrepreneurs to discover improved methods and use all the tools of science to uncover new ways of producing healthy and nutritious food. GFI, as it is known, has placed a focus on clean meat and plant-based alternatives to animal products—foods that are more delicious, safer to eat, and better for the planet than traditional production methods.

One of the recipients of GFI's Competitive Research Grant Program is Professor Mario Martinez and his team at the University of Guelph.  Their two year focus will be on the study of "plant-based meat" that will give meat lovers the textures they savour in beef, chicken or fish while retaining the human and environmental health benefits associated with eating plants.