World Oceans Day is just a few days after World Environment Day. Given the recent oil spill catastrophe, ocean protection is now more important than ever, I believe. The 2010 theme is ”

As a result of a United Nations General Assembly resolution passed in December 2008, World Oceans Day is now officially recognized by the UN as June 8th each year. From the Ocean Project website:

The concept for a “World Ocean Day” was first proposed in 1992 by the Government of Canada at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and it had been unofficially celebrated every year since then. Since 2002, The Ocean Project and the World Ocean Network have helped to promote and coordinate World Oceans Day events worldwide. We help coordinate events and activities with aquariums, zoos, museums, conservation organizations, universities, schools, and businesses. Each year an increasing number of countries and organizations have been marking June 8th as an opportunity to celebrate our world ocean and our personal connection to the sea.

On World Oceans Day, please take a moment to reflect and think of ways in which you could help protect marine life and the integrity of aquatic ecosystems. Now more than ever, it’s crucial.

Related posts:

1. Living Oceans’ Finding Coral expedition sails in June 2009
2. World Environment Day 2007 – June 5th
3. World Water Day and “The Global Water Crisis” event by WaterDrop

Having had one of the world’s foremost authorities on climate change as a PhD advisor when I was doing my doctorate was a bit challenging at times, because a lot of people didn’t understand how could I be supervised by a climate expert and NOT be interested in climate policy at all. I now do a bit of climate work. This year I have started a project on climate change and water, and since 2006 I have incorporated climate-related examples in the classroom when I teach environmental politics.

I have no problem admitting that it irks me when people assume that climate change is THE one and only environmental problem that we have. I can’t even begin to tell you how many people start their conversations with me by mentioning Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth. And of course, I smile sweetly and roll my eyes. I am a pollution control specialist, not a climate one. I will fully admit that, up until I had to start teaching with examples from the climate negotiations, I had absolutely no interest whatsoever in climate policy. My focus was, and continues to be, finding ways to minimize the impact WE (humans) already have on the planet.

I have spent the better part of the last decade studying human behaviour and processes to minimize and curtail pollution in solid waste and in water. I am one of the very, very few social scientists who study wastewater governance, worldwide. Most of the focus on water is on QUANTITY not on QUALITY. And it does disappoint me when people forget that there are MANY other environmental problems worldwide beyond climate. This is one of the reasons why I have never been too fond of the excessive exposure that global warming and climate change have in the media.

While I am completely and utterly heartbroken by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (not only for the negative environmental consequences, but also because of the magnitude and extent of the damage), I am somewhat hopeful. Yes, this may sound contradictory, but I feel vindicated. The BP oil disaster has reminded the world that pollution is STILL one of the most important environmental problems we haven’t solved. We need to continue to work to reduce our impacts on the environment, and pollution is a big impact.

I mused on Twitter that the next time somebody tells me why I eschew climate policy in favor of water and pollution control policy, my answer will be just two words: “BP Spill”.

Related posts:

1. The politics of climate change
2. My passions: solving environmental problems
3. Environmental groups mobilization and protests: More than meets the eye

I have had an interest in environmental issues for more than 20 years. Even before I thought about starting my undergraduate degree, I knew I had an interest in protecting the environment. The better part of the last decade of my life I have spent it researching, analyzing data, interviewing government officials, activists and scholars who work in the sustainability field. I did a Doctor of Philosophy in Resource Management and Environmental Studies because I knew that I wanted to focus on pollution control policy.

While the past four years I have done a lot of personal blogging, I do have a research blog, and I am delighted that I now have extensive experience that allows me to bridge my interests: sustainability, education, social media/technology and the environment.

Unfortunately, Earth Day falls within the two weeks when I have had the most work ever, and I am really swamped for time, so I don’t have the time to recount all the pitches I received regarding events for Earth Day. BUT I will be approving comments remotely, so if you have an event for Earth Day that you’d like to tell my readers, by all means drop a comment.

For Earth Day (which coincides with my 4 years blogiversary) I am having a social gathering at my office at The Network Hub tonight, I have a short social media appearance to make before that gathering, and I am in the middle of marking papers and preparing final exams, and dealing with students. I spend every day thinking about ways in which I can improve not only my proximate environment but also that of my fellow human beings. And I’m proud of the research, consulting and teaching I do in the environment and public policy fields.

Happy Earth Day, everyone. Remember, we only have one planet. Let’s take care of it.

Related posts:

1. April 22nd 2008 – Earth Day
2. Upcoming events – Earth Day @ Jericho Beach
3. Earth Hour 2010

Via my friend Monique Trottier I found out about a webinar that is going to take place on Tuesday December 8th – details below.

Learn How Voltage Optimization Technology Can Reduce Your Facility’s Power Cost by 6-10%

Guest Speaker: Dr. William Dunford, Moderator: Erik Wolfe, Legend Power Systems
* Key Applications for Cost Savings With Automated Voltage Regulation
* An overview of how new Automated Voltage Optimization technology can reduce overall power consumption by 6-10%
* Featured BC Hydro audit results from IKEA, Loblaws, and case study overview

Time: 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST
Location: Online Webinar
Registration Online

It sounds like a good webinar and I’d be interested to hear more of what Legend Power is doing.

Related posts:

1. Power The Games Facebook App
2. The Power Smart BC Village of BC Hydro
3. Kenzo Power (cologne review)

But then I got an email from Linda North indicating that they were giving me an HP PhotoSmart A646 Compact photo-printer to give away on my site. I found this quite a generous offer, and I love giving away stuff on my site. As I said before, I don’t do this for money or the fame, but if people read my site and I can provide my readers with free stuff, all the better. So, I gladly accepted. They couriered the printer to me and I finally got an opportunity to write about it. I found the environmental features of the photo printer very appealing. From their communications, I found out that this new compact printer has some great environmental features. It’s shipped in a reusable tote bag made from recycled plastics and its body is made with more than 32 per cent recycled plastic material.

You can enter the contest just dropping a comment on this post. I’ll draw a winner on Thursday November 5th, 2009. Feel free to re-tweet, share, and spread the word. And thanks to H&K and HP Canada for giving me a chance to give something away for my readers!

Related posts:

1. Review: HP PhotoSmart Premium Fax series C309 [part 2]
2. Review: HP PhotoSmart Premium Fax series C309
3. My 2010: Contests and giveaways

I am not a big fan of styrofoam, but as someone who cooks and consumes Indian food, I’ve always been aware of the challenges that designing containers for this type of food brings along. Similarly, styrofoam is frequently used to prevent shocks when packaging computer hardware (I have a LOT of styrofoam from the HP PhotoSmart I was sent by HP Canada). While in my research I haven’t looked specifically at styrofoam waste management, I have always kept it in mind as a challenge, particularly as space in landfills becomes more and more scarce. I would prefer much more if we minimized our usage of styrofoam than having to dispose of it.

I learned about London Drugs‘ recent partnership with Green Deal via Cynnamon Schreinert, and from the press release, I became aware that London Drugs also can receive used batteries for disposal. I’m a bit confused as to whether this partnership and recycling program only applies to disposing styrofoam from items purchased at LD, or if consumers can also bring other styrofoam. I think applying a levy would/should work. I’m interested in learning more about this initiative, both

Related posts:

1. Book signing w @miss604 at @LondonDrugs
2. Fresh Start Recycling and Disposal Ltd.
3. Jack O’Lantern’s post-Halloween disposal – Greening your celebrations

Related posts:

1. Water stress: Beyond water availability
2. World Water Day 2007 – Coping with water scarcity
3. Virtual water: Should drinking coffee make you feel guilty?

From their website:

Living Oceans Society is excited to announce the launch of our Finding Coral Expedition on June 8th. The expedition will use two mini subs to explore deep sea corals in Hecate Strait and the Queen Charlotte Basin. The subs will be piloted by Jennifer Lash, our Executive Director, and a blue ribbon science team who will dive to depths of up to 500 meters to gather evidence of corals, associated species, and damage from human impacts.

To find out more about this expedition, check out their website. And to find out more about Living Oceans, you can go over their website. Living Oceans

Living Oceans Society is Canada’s largest organization focusing exclusively on marine conservation issues. We are based in Sointula, a small fishing village on the Central Coast of British Columbia.

Related posts:

1. World Oceans Day
2. Upcoming event – Spring Living Fair
3. The BC Healthy Living Alliance Walk (Tuesday Apr 28th, 2009)

You can read his review here and Rebecca’s article on E! Online interviewing Mojave is here. I really enjoy Mojave’s music (they’re an acoustic band with very Earth-y, natural tones) but even more importantly, I value 3 elements in their approach:

1) They live a very eco-minded life. As in, their day-to-day life. They eat, breathe and live in an ecologically-conscious mode. They are inspiring.

2) Their music is fantastic. And they created a song that they contributed to the Earth Hour Canada

3) They are very approachable and connected. Both Paul and I follow each other on Twitter, and he interacts with people very frequently (e.g. he is a real person behind the keyboard, not only promoting the band, but creating a very personal following because of how nice he is. He comments on blogs, he writes on the Mojave blog, etc.). I love having geeky friends who are environmentally minded and musically inclined.

Go, Mojave, go!

Related posts:

1. Mojave Band live at #yvr #blogathon headquarters (WorkSpace)
2. 7 Questions with Mojave
3. What’s so great about Rock Band?

The feedback on my presentation was great and people seemed quite happy with the content of my speech. I think people were also taken by the fact that I presented the social network of the New Testament in a very cool visualization.

Thanks to AHA Media for providing documentation through videography/photography/live-tweeting and to Darren and Joe, respectively, for MC-ing and organizing/inviting me.

The liveblog/live-tweet is inserted below (or you can click in this link) and my presentation slides are hosted in my research blog and on SlideShare.

I’d be very curious to hear people’s reactions to my talk on the comments section. One thing I noticed is that people had a lot of questions that I really couldn’t address right there and then as we had very limited time, so if you have any questions, feel free to drop me a comment on my research blog or here.

Related posts:

1. My talk at @BCIT on Social Media, Politics and Public Policy
2. At the intersection of social media and sustainability
3. My #nv10 talk on social media, politics and public policy

The event took place last night, with a showing of a video that WaterDrop created, a screening of the movie/documentary “Flow” and two talks, one by the folks of Run for Water (I’ll write more about them in the next few days) and my own. I’ll have my slides up on my research site in the next couple of days. On the way back, we were talking about the event and I mentioned that they should be proud, because bringing 70 people to Langley (at Trinity Western University) on a Saturday night to talk water, is not an easy task, and the participants stayed for much longer to talk to the folks who had exhibits at the event (the Township of Langley, Oxfam, the Council of Canadians). They did an amazing job and they also had several people who helped make the event successful, and I personally had a great time.

Water and energy are considered two of the most important and pressing environmental issues in the next 50 years. Unfortunately, so much emphasis is placed on the need for energy resources that not enough attention is paid to the myriad of issues surrounding water. Who has the right to access water? How can we make this access equitable? Is privatization the right way pathway for water conservation? What can we do to re-purpose wastewater and how safe is the technology? There are many, many questions regarding water that are still not answered. My research on water governance aims to tackle just a few of this questions.

Only 3% of the world’s water supply is freshwater (the rest is salt water). This fact comes as a good reminder that today, March 22nd, 2009 is not only the second day of spring, but also the celebration of World Water Day. The theme for 2008 was Sanitation (where my main focus of water research is) and for 2009 is Transboundary Water.

Over the last 60 years there have been more than 200 international water agreements and only 37 cases of reported violence between states over water. We need to continue to nurture the opportunities for cooperation that transboundary water management can provide. [World Water Day UN Site]

In my research, I have examined the way in which wastewater policy is created within a river basin that encompasses territory of five Mexican states (the equivalent of provinces in Canada). The 2009 theme of Transboundary Waters is very timely, because (as I found while conducting fieldwork for this project) water can be used not only as a natural resource but also as a political resource. When water bodies (aquifers or lakes or rivers) are shared amongst two political entities, conflicts about jurisdiction over the water bodies may potentially ensue. Right now, we don’t have water wars, but given the irresponsible consumption patterns that many individuals have, we may see real water fights in the near future.

How many transboundary river basins are there?

There are 263 transboundary river basins. Over 45 percent of the land surface of the world is covered by river basins that are shared by more than one country. Over 75 percent of all countries, 145 in total, have within their boundaries shared river basins. And 33 nations have over 95 percent of their territory within international river basins.

While most transboundary river basins are shared between just two countries, there are many river basins where this number is much higher. There are 13 basins worldwide that are shared between 5 to 8 countries. Five river basins, the Congo, Niger, Nile, Rhine and Zambezi, are shared between 9 to 11 countries. The river that flows through the most countries is the Danube, which passes through the territory of 18 countries.[UN World Water Day]

On this World Water Day, I encourage all my readers to re-think their consumption patterns, to think of ways to conserve and recycle water, to ponder how can each one of us contribute to the work of non-governmental organizations that are fighting tirelessly to provide safe drinking water to the many people in developing nations that don’t have access to clean water. Happy World Water Day.

Related posts:

1. Water Drop: The Global Water Crisis on March 21st, 2009 – I’m speaking
2. World Water Day 2010 – Clean Water for a Healthy World
3. Movie review: Blue Gold: World Water Wars (2008)

Related posts:

1. My panel talk at Independent Power Producers ‘09 #ippbc09
2. Journalist 2.0 Panel Liveblog (Convergence ‘09) #cvg09
3. At the intersection of social media and sustainability

On March 28th, 2009, from 8:30pm to 9:30pm, millions of Canadians will turn off their lights for Earth Hour in support of action on climate change. You can encourage friends and family on the WWF-Earth Hour Canada site. The WWF is also encouraging participants to think about ways to reduce your carbon footprint (e.g. transit, unplugging electrical appliances, etc.)

More information on their site. Also, you can follow Earth Hour Canada on Twitter here and join the Earth Canada Hour Facebook page here.

Related posts:

1. Earth Hour Canada 2009 – What will I do?
2. Brave New Code Earth Hour (Canada) Plugin
3. Earth Hour 2010

Virtual water is the amount of water that is embedded in food or other products needed for its production. For example, to produce one kilogram of wheat we need about 1,000 litres of water, i.e. the virtual water of this kilogram of wheat is 1,000 litres. For meat, we need about five to ten times more.[World Water Council]

Credit: Ianiv and Arieanna

People who are unaware of the negative environmental impact of excess water consumption argue that, after all, it’s *just* a cup of coffee and that we have enough water in the world. My question to them is - How much of the world’s water is available for human consumption? Yeah, I told you about that a few months ago, remember? 0.38% – not nearly enough to sustain our current consumptive patterns.

Credit: Snap(R)

The concept of virtual water isn’t new, but it is a powerful tool that helps us understand how negative our consumption patterns are. I just hope that the great work that water-focused researchers (myself included) are doing to highlight the negative consequences of our day-to-day activities and over-consumptive patterns can resonate with the public. Please remember that water is VERY, very scarce, before flushing your toilet, before purchasing bottled water, before taking long showers. Thank you.

Related posts:

1. Water stress: Beyond water availability
2. World Water Day and “The Global Water Crisis” event by WaterDrop
3. Water footprint: A new tool to examine water scarcity and use

I see the intersection of social media and sustainability as a part of my emerging new research, teaching and consulting agendas (by the way, have you checked my new research blog? No? Go ahead and check it out then come back). And one of the great things I’ve learned is how you can apply these social media tools to enable environmental non-governmental organizations and Crown corporations to reach out to a broader audience. Examples that a variety of awesome social media gurus have done for environmental causes and the such follow (this is a short link-love list – if you find yourself not included, feel free to drop me a comment). And the most exciting thing of them all? I heard about them on Twitter

- Dave Jones from Hill and Knowlton alerted me to the work he had been doing to help World Wildlife Fund Canada to spread the message about Earth Hour Canada. He spoke to a room of 18 people from the WWF Canada as sort of a “socmed bootcamp” and got them started on Twitter, Facebook and all that jazz. Dave is a great Canadian social media/PR person, and I offered to contribute to the Vancouver Earth Hour volunteer team.

- Darren Barefoot, Julie Szabo (Capulet Communications) and Monica Hamburg (in collaboration with Capulet) helped Forest Ethics, Greenpeace Canada and Sierra Club BC launch a social media campaign (that included Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and blogger outreach) to protect the Great Bear rainforest. I wrote about their campaign on my blog a couple of times. Excellent work here too.

- Before they merged with Third Whale, Dave Olson (mentor and good friend) helped spread the amazing work of HappyFrog.ca all over the Twitterverse. I even did some podcasting and liveblogging of EPIC ‘08 as part of Dave’s FrogSquad!

- Third Whale is also on Twitter. The account is managed by relentless and ultra-enthusiastic Emily Jubenvill (who by the way is considered Canada’s greenest life-style person). I had a chance to chat with Dr. Boyd Cohen (who works in the corporate sustainability field) and is an entrepreneur. I foresee great things in the future of Third Whale.

- Social Signal (headed by Rob Cottingham and Alexandra Samuel) helped BC Hydro spread their message on energy saving tips through a variety of social media tools. Although I could very well recommend some improvements to BC Hydro’s Human Resources policy, I think the work that Rob and Alex did with them was most excellent! Obviously, that speaks to the fact that Social Signal’s work is superb.

- The recently launched site that my friend Anthony Nicalo is co-leading (FarmFed) is yet another excellent example of the convergence/intersection of social media and sustainability (in this case, sustainable farming, sustainable food policy). I have a guest post for their blog that I will email ASAP.

- Finally, and not to toot our own horn, but the Vancouver Twestival is another space where sustainability (in this case, water sustainability) and social media converge. Rebecca Bollwitt is the main focal point for Twestival and Lorraine, Keira and I are helping Rebecca in whatever we can. I predict that Twestival will be a great event, and I’m very grateful to 6S Marketing, The Opus Hotel and everyone who has donated prizes for the raffle. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

In summary – social media and sustainability can and SHOULD intersect. I am actually quite excited that my work in social media (e.g. my blogging and micro-blogging, participation in social media events, etc.) is offering some leads in regards to contract work. At this juncture in my life, even though I love research and teaching, I will for sure accept some social media contract work, but only to the extent of what my abilities can do. Remember, in regards to social media, I’m still a newbie

Related posts:

1. Social Media for Sustainability and Public Policy
2. Canadian social media and social computing data/statistics
3. Digital media and sustainability: Friends or foes? – NDMD ‘08

Their yogurt is fantastic, and while I think it deserves a fuller review (which I’ll do in a later post), it’s a good idea just to let you know that they’ve started with their soft-launch, and that they are on Twitter. Follow them here. Both Warrick and Jesse are very interested in engaging with their public and get as much feedback as possible.

I also wanted to let you know that they are on UrbanSpoon. They have also agreed to sponsor a contest in the next couple of weeks with a prize of two gift cards, which I think is completely awesome. Come to think about it (and sorry that I didn’t think about this earlier, Warrick) I should let 3rdWhale know about Qoola too!

Their grand opening is coming soon, so I’ll let them inform you guys via Twitter when this will happen. In the mean time, if you have a chance to swing by and try some of their excellent products (no, they didn’t pay me to give them a glowing review, I’m honest in saying that I *loved* their yogurt) I’d recommend to do so.

Related posts:

1. Qoola promo for May (Hummingbird604)
2. Restaurant review – Theresa’s (Denman Street, West End)
3. Martini’s delight at Delilah’s (West End, Denman and Comox)

One of the benefits that I’ve gained from engaging with the social media community at large (I can no longer say I only engage with social media in Vancouver, as I have Twitter followers from all over the world) is that the terminology from one field (and the ideas) cross-pollinate other fields. That is the case with my research on water. The concept of echo chamber that has been coined in mainstream media and new media is very much applicable to social science research on water.

I can’t tell you how often I have read the same discussions over, and over, and over again. Water is scarce, we should learn how to manage the common pool resource, we need to design more robust institutions for water management, integrated watershed management is the way to go, etc. All of these are phrases that have become commonplace in the literature on water governance. I have gotten to a point where I feel as though there is an echo chamber in the social science literature on water research. I want the discussion to move forward!

Credit: Ankraut

Yes, I am frustrated. I am particularly frustrated because despite the fact that 2008 was the International Year of Sanitation, very little progress has been made. I would hope that in the near future, we learn more about how to advance the water research agenda. And yes, the phrase I wrote before still applies – before we learn how to govern water we need to learn how to govern ourselves.

Related posts:

1. My year in review – Water governance and policy research
2. Virtual water: Should drinking coffee make you feel guilty?
3. World Water Day 2010 – Clean Water for a Healthy World

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should have recently noticed a cold snap in Vancouver that has brought us a White Christmas and a really cold month of December 2008 and now January 2009 starts with more snow. Vancouver is, of course, a mess because “it never snows in Vancouver” (the now infamous phrase that people have been using to tell me why Vancouver is so ill-prepared for snowy and icy conditions)

There are two inherent problems with having this somewhat-delusional view of the world. First, while it may be true that this weather is not common, the mere fact that we are seeing such dramatic fall in temperature should have triggered an “Emergency Preparedness Action Plan”. Which apparently, we don’t have. But don’t get me wrong – we don’t have tools to prepare and adapt to extreme weather events. We do (as I researched it) have Emergency Preparedness workshops that are more targeted towards earthquakes and other kinds of catastrophes.

Second, it’s not really about the drop in temperature itself. A lot of climate skeptics have been laughing “global warming? see.. it is freezing and snowing in Vancouver!” You see, the problem with climatic change is not as much just a question of “global warming” but a question of extreme climatic events. And as you can see (from all the people who have been stuck in the snow, whose travel plans have been delayed by icy road conditions, the homeless people who have been perishing in an effort to try and keep warm), we NEED an adaptation plan towards extreme climatic events.

I’d be more than happy to point my readers out to the literature on adaptation to climate change (I had to read these for my PhD dissertation), but one accessible resource you can access is Natural Resources Canada’s website on Adaptation. Give it a read, you might find it interesting.

Related posts:

1. The adaptation vs mitigation of climate change debate #bad09
2. Adaptation and vulnerability to floods and climatic events in Mexico
3. Climate change in Canada and Mexico

While I blogged WAY MORE about water this year than I have in the past, I didn’t do much in terms of research. I used the field research notes that I had accumulated during my almost three years of fieldwork on wastewater governance in Mexico (2004-2006) to produce one journal article (that actually was already accepted for publication in early 2007, so it shouldn’t really count).

But other than that, I haven’t done much with it. I gave a talk this summer on wastewater governance and watershed councils, and I received really good feedback. This feedback was so solid that I have decided to pursue independent projects on each one of the research streams that emanated from this talk.

One of the reasons why I think my involvement with the social media community has become part of a very successful cross-pollination process is that I’ve learned to use many Web 2.0 tools to strengthen my own findings, to advance my research agenda, and to make it easy for me to publish research thoughts in draft form that I may be able to polish in the future (much along the lines of what danah boyd does). Furthermore, I am also in talks with Rachel Black, who also does research on water, and I wouldn’t have met Rachel if it hadn’t been for Twitter (and Anthony Nicalo, as well).

Speaking of tools that make my life easier that I wouldn’t have come across if it hadn’t been for my involvement in the tech community, Blurb is an online (free) software that Arieanna and Colleen used (in the case of Arieanna to publish the photos from their trip to Europe, and Colleen to create a Christmas gift for their families).

I’ve been mulling over publishing one version of my book (in Spanish) on wastewater governance in Mexico (a book that I had finished writing in 2006, but with the further development of the International Year of Sanitation – which was 2008) using Blurb. Another method I’ve been considering is an on-demand press, as Beth Snow did with her first book).

I REALLY, REALLY want to have at least one volume of my book printed out by the end of 2008 so that I don’t feel so terribly lousy about not having done much with such a large body of work. I mean, it’s kind of stupid. I did compare the wastewater policies of five states (the Mexican equivalent to provinces) and I really should be able to produce more stuff (particularly in the English language journals).

If I manage to publish the book with Blurb, I’ll be VERY happy. I’ll let you guys know what I managed to do with that. Overall, my 2008 wasn’t all that bad for my water research. Learned about new topics, thought more about where my water research agenda will go, and used social media tools to strengthen my research. Good stuff.

Related posts:

1. The echo chamber in water research (social sciences)
2. The governance of wastewater and the culture of flushing
3. The International Year of Sanitation was 2008 – how much progress have we made?

This was a relatively slow year in regards to my research on environmental mobilizations. My co-authors and I wrote a report on a multi-year research project that examines the behavior and strategies of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) across North America (Canada, the US and Mexico).

This year, I didn’t participate in any international meeting where I presented these results. That’s somewhat sad, as I normally get to at least do a talk per year on the topic. I did present the preliminary results of this project to the funding agency in December of 2007, so I guess that should account for something.

I wrote a financial report and a response to comments from the peer-reviewers to this project, and revised our preliminary report and submitted it to a peer-reviewed, edited volume. So, at least I got a publication this year out of the project.

I was invited to contribute an entry to an international volume on civil society (my entry was on NGOs and sustainable development), which I shared with some of my social media friends. This was one of the very few times where I let both my worlds cross-over.

For the coming year, depending on the job search outcome, I might have to put some of my research portfolio on hold, but I would hope that it won’t be the case. I can’t complain about my research output in this area, but I would really have liked if I had published more or given more talks. Oh, well. C’est la vie.

Related posts:

1. My year in review – Water governance and policy research
2. Call for recruits: Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC)
3. The echo chamber in water research (social sciences)

Credit: rissdemeanor

You may remember a post I recently wrote about the social media campaign that Darren, Julie and Monica are putting together to help Greenpeace, Forest Ethics and Sierra Club of Canada to influence the Provincial Government of British Columbia to help protect the Great Bear Forest.

[Brief editor's note - if you haven't followed the Spirit Bear on Twitter, submitted your photo to the Flickr contest or joined the Facebook Group or sent an email to the Premier of British Columbia, do it NOW. Ok, good. Continue]

I picked up the most recent ‘The Vancouver Courier‘ (an outlet I really like, even though I am going to have to admit my fondness for the 24 Hrs, The Georgia Straight and the Vancouver Sun, all of whom have been very kind to me and provided me with coverage), and guess which topic was the lead story? Simon Jackson and the Spirit Bear!

I talked to Simon earlier this year during EPIC 2008 (I even got a photo of myself with him, which I suppose I should email to him sometime!), and it was so nice to see that despite his fame, he is still very much down to earth.

It is very nice to see that mainstream media and social media can act synergistically to help such a worthy cause.

Related posts:

1. Help save the Great Bear rainforest
2. EPIC ‘08 – Simon Jackson: The evolution of a sustainability leader
3. Action-packed weekend but no energy to recap it :-(

I would have linked to the Metro Vancouver website but guess what? It’s DOWN! Argh. See you there (despite the fact that it’s going to be the second time I have to be at an event at-7.30-in-the-morning). I am SO not a morning person.

Related posts:

1. Eco-density: Urban form and sustainability
2. Upcoming event: Sustainability Breakfast on Social Housing (Metro Vancouver)
3. Towards Zero Waste – Metro Vancouver Sustainability Breakfast Nov 4th

I have been a proud member of the FrogSquadders (I covered EPIC 2008 for them along with a great line up of local bloggers). I frequently guest-post in HappyFrog’s FrogBlog and they have given me great exposure in their newsletter as well. Funny how everything is connected in this world, I do know of the work of Boyd Cohen, the force behind 3rdWhale (although, surprisingly, I’ve never met him in person despite the fact that we both live within the Metro Vancouver area!)

I look forward to learning more about what 3rdWhale and HappyFrog.ca merged can do combined! One improvement that 3rdWhale’s page desperately needs is an “About Us” page. I am pretty sure that everyone wants to know more about how they came about and what they’re up to!

3rdWhale recently organized a PodMob (which I also promoted on Twitter), although truth be told, at some points I was overwhelmed with so much writing and talking about the podmob. The success of the podmob at Sushi Bento on Robson Street is in no small part due to the enthusiasm and positive energy of the people behind 3rdWhale, and I believe primarily it was Emily Jubenvill, who is “The Greenest Person in Canada”.

It’s great to learn about these new developments! Congratulations to HappyFrog.ca and 3rdWhale!

Related posts:

1. At the intersection of social media and sustainability
2. Green Thursday, Raul time Friday and easy weekend
3. EPIC ‘08 – Simon Jackson: The evolution of a sustainability leader

My personality traits work to my advantage when using qualitative research methods. I am pretty good at interviewing people, analyzing textual data, coding using Strauss and Corbin’s axial coding methods, undertaking ethnography, etc. I am considered a specialist in institutional analysis because, well, I know how to study rules and routines. And the majority of these studies are undertaken by observing and interviewing.

The thing is, during the course of my PhD, I became REALLY quantitative. Since my advisor’s training was quantitative, he impressed it upon me. I’m quite grateful to him for doing that because thanks to his sage advice and training, I have examined wastewater governance and policy using quantitative methods (something that is rather atypical in this body of literature). And of course, there’s my love of game theory and econometric methods. WOWSA.

So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I drooled (just as Greg tweeted earlier this morning) when I saw StatsCan’s RSS feeds. Given the kind of research I do, economic, government, population and environmental indicators are the RSS feeds I grabbed. You can grab any others as you may see fit.

Unfortunately, and this is quite sad, I can’t get any quantitative data on water through those RSS feeds (or at least I haven’t been able to get any so far). I do know where to find some water-related statistics in Canada, but the state of the art in regards to accurate water stats in Canada is (as mentioned in Karen Bakker’s edited book) rather appalling.

If I manage to get my hands on some good data, you’ll see some pretty graphs here sometime soon.

Related posts:

1. I need help with my RSS feed
2. Statistical improbabilities?
3. The echo chamber in water research (social sciences)

Credit: Dru!

Many people have asked me throughout the years if I have ever considered a career in conservation. While my PhD degree is in environmental studies, and you could argue that my work in pollution control would pretty much amount to some form of conservation, I hadn’t been much of a fan. And since forestry isn’t really my area, for a while there I neglected discussing or researching anything that was forest conservation-related. Until I heard of Simon Jackson. I met Simon in person and did a really quick interview for HappyFrog when he was a keynote speaker at EPIC 2008. And then Darren informed me that they (Capulet) were helping Greenpeace, Forest Ethics and Sierra Club BC with their campaign to make the Provincial Government “Keep The Promise”

You might ask why did I bring Simon Jackson into the discussion. Well, here is the thing: the work that Simon has done to protect the Spirit Bear is pretty much in line with the work that the coalition of environmental non-governmental organizations (GP, FE and SCBC) are doing: conserving the forest helps conserve the spirit bear’s habitat.

Credit: Art Catcher

In my research, I’ve written about how ENGOs use various types of strategies to galvanize public opinion (often, through mobilizations). This time, the work that these organizations are doing goes beyond protests and engages in a Web 2.0 kind of mobilizations: writing electronic letters to the Provincial Government.

You, too, can help this worthy cause by sending an email to the Provincial Government (the site is really well designed so all you really have to do is fill out the data form and voila! off you go).

As you can see, environmentalism is not dead, is well alive and kicking! Please contribute with this worthy cause. You can also participate in a photo contest (check links here) and follow their Twitter account (yeah, kinda cute that the Spirit Bear has a Twitter account, hehe – he better follow me back!). Furthermore, you can join the Facebook group (no thanks, I don’t do Facebook, but you can!). EDIT – And you can join the photo contest on Flickr!

In total Web 2.0 fashion, if you need more to be convinced, I invite you to watch this video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwHofAgCzLI]

Related posts:

1. The Spirit Bear gets more action!
2. EPIC ‘08 – Simon Jackson: The evolution of a sustainability leader
3. Guest post: What’s so great about bloggers? by Simon Ogden

Credit: Eric M. Martin

Ok, so Halloween has come and gone, and you went out and had a blast. The little critters (and adults) had an opportunity to dress up and be The Joker, or Batman, or a mummy, or whatever.  Now comes the part that most people forget about (or would prefer to): CLEANING UP.

Since Halloween is such a big celebration in Canada, the United States and many other anglo-saxon countries, numerous Jack O’Lanterns are carved (many as cute as the geeky WordPress one that is shown here – hat tips to Lorraine Murphy aka Raincoaster for linking to this one).

But people tend to forget that they have to dispose of the pumpkin once the Halloween celebrations are over. So, when you think about disposing of your pumpkin, remember that you can

- Compost it – Cut it in very small pieces and throw it in the composting bin.

- Dispose it in the organic section of your trash bin – Don’t forget to separate organics from inorganics!

Given how many households and businesses carve pumpkins, I would appreciate if you thought about the negative environmental consequences of inadequate disposal. Thank you.

Related posts:

1. Have you decided on your Halloween costumes?
2. And TGIF (and Halloween!)
3. The challenge of Halloween costumes

Credit: Rebelcan

As I mentioned a while ago, we live in a rather affluent (and wasteful) society. We buy coffee to go, and then proceed to dump the paper cup in the trash can. We buy disposable diapers and then proceed to wrap them in double plastic bags, because “eeewww it’s poop”. We drive three blocks to buy groceries. And the list goes on.

Waste Reduction Week Canada helps remind us of the many ways in which we can reduce our ecological footprint by minimizing waste. If you need a refresher, I wrote a short post on solid waste management that will give you some useful reading material.

The website of Waste Reduction Week Canada offers some really neat factoids (some of which you may or may not know). As a scholar of environmental studies who happens to have worked for many years in solid/liquid/hazardous waste management, I actually do know that landfill sites account for about 38% of Canada’s total methane emissions (according to Environment Canada).

If you need some suggestions on how to reduce the amount of waste you generate, feel free to drop me a comment, send me an email or send me a tweet.

Related posts:

1. The Holiday Waste Reduction Campaign of Metro Vancouver
2. Solid waste management – Take that trash back!
3. Homelessness Action Week 2008 – October 12th to 19th, 2008

Recently, Arieanna wrote a post about implementing more ecologically-friendly measures in coffee shops. I actually was very happy that she touched on this topic, as I used to consume a lot of coffee (not anymore).

Although I had thought about some measures (e.g. using my refillable coffee mug, not accepting paper cups, not using those little bags of sugar), I hadn’t really paid all that much attention. But Arieanna’s post reminded me that it’s important to reflect on these issues. And one of the commenters on her blog pointed her out to Agro Cafe on Granville Island.

I haven’t had a chance to visit, but I might just drop by sometime soon, if for no other reason, because the commenter (Jeff) mentioned that Agro Cafe had already implemented lots of sustainability measures. I’m curious to see them, and I’ll write about them soon.

Related posts:

1. Guest coffee shop review – The Edge Cafe (Cambie and Broadway)
2. Caffeine crazed – The tradition of working at coffee shops
3. No more caffeine for me

• Green Drinks Vancouver happens again on the third wednesday of the month (Sep 17th, 2008) at Steamworks.
• The Metro Vancouver Sustainability Breakfasts series continues, and this time, they will focus on the discussions we’ve been having on bottled water. I am SO definitely there!

About the Community Sustainability Breakfast [Metro Vancouver's website]:

Sustainability Community Breakfasts – Nature’s Health Drink – Always on Tap
Wednesday, 17 September, 2008
from 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM
British Columbia Institute of Technology
555 Seymour Street, Vancouver

About Green Drinks Vancouver Sep 2008 [Green Drinks Website]

WHEN the next regular Green Drinks is: Every 3rd Wednesday of the month (except in Dec and July) Our next event is on Sept 17th, 2008
WHERE: Steamworks pub at 375 Water Street on the edge of Gastown near Waterfront Station.
Please be aware that due to changing space availability we cannot guarantee we’ll be in the same room each month – if you can’t find us just ask Steamworks staff which room we are in.
TIME:5:45pm-until?

It’s lucky that both of these events fall on the same day, and that I’ll be back in Vancouver by then! And again, I’ve got a full week booked (Brew 2.0, Green Drinks, Launch Party AND a special day!). Can someone please clone me? Thanks.

Related posts:

1. Upcoming environmental events in Vancouver (March/April)
2. Upcoming environmental events in April 2008 – Metro Vancouver
3. Upcoming events – Nov 16-20th, 2008

Being an academic and a blogger, I look at issues through research-trained eyes, and the whole discussion on banning bottled water in Vancouver is one of those debates that attract me. I am hoping to do some research about it in the short term future.

Photo credit: Ianiv and Arieanna

I am particularly drawn to water issues as I’ve done research both in the environmental engineering field (building wastewater treatment plants) and in the environmental studies field (studying water governance and policy). I am trained to examine problems from the social sciences AND natural sciences/engineering lenses.

A few weeks back, Duane kindly invited me to guest post on his blog. We were doing Blogathon and my post examined very briefly the debate on water privatization, but I didn’t delve in depth.

The whole banning bottled water debate in Vancouver touches on two issues. One of them, the commodification and privatization of water. The other one is the potential health-associated risk of consuming water from the tap. Both of these issues would give me enough material to start a new blog. However, I’m going to just focus on one small sub-issue: bottling water for sale and redistribution (and the health effects associated).

We often (but not always) consume bottled water because we feel safer. Sometimes we consume bottled water simply because we don’t have access to tap water at the moment. There are different rationales. However, one associated (implicit) benefit is that we don’t need to worry about our safety and health if we consume bottled water. Is our tap water really all that bad?

When I worked as an environmental engineer, I would get stomach illnesses whenever I would be exposed to wastewater streams. But I have never gotten sick from consuming water from the tap (neither in Mexico nor in Canada). I know, the whole “revenge of Montezuma” joke is based on a perception that potable water in Mexico is really polluted and thus every foreign visitor will get stomach cramps or get ill when visiting if they consume water from the tap. But it has never happened to me (not even now that I’m visiting).

Metro Vancouver is undertaking a project to have people pledge to consume only tap water and reduce the number of plastic water bottles thrown into landfills. I have to say that I wholeheartedly support this initiative. From their website:

Why Metro Vancouver has a Tap Water Pledge
* Metro is committed to reducing bottled water use by 20% by 2010 to reduce the environmental impact of bottled water
* Millions of single-use plastic water bottles (one litre or smaller) ended up in our region’s landfills in 2007
* We want to provide a tangible way residents to support a sustainable practice – using refillable water containers instead of single-use plastic water bottles

[Metro Vancouver: Take the Tap Water Pledge]

The Tap Water Pledge page has information on health risks associated with water, fast facts, etc. that are aimed to help the public understand the rationale behind the project. Interestingly enough, I didn’t find data on the worldwide consumption of bottled water in comparison to Canada and/or Vancouver. I think this would be a broader perspective. From the IBWA statistics page, their 2007 stats report, I found out that Mexico is the second largest consumer of bottled water in the world, with 54.1 gallons per capita (but is this figure per year, per month? If one drinks one litre of water a day, how many gallons is that a year? I hate websites with poor statistics!)

Now, from a social media perspective, I have to say that while I think the page is a good resource, I would probably take a much more “public understanding of science” approach to it. I have to say that it would be fun to undertake this type of project, and it would merge Web 2.0 with sustainability research…. Hmm… good idea!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: For some statistics on bottled water consumption, the International Bottled Water Association has some data. But I couldn’t find anything on Canada. Frustrating.

Related posts:

1. Drinking water fountains are needed in Vancouver!
2. Governing water, governing ourselves
3. The Red Room, bottled water and bar-hopping

As you can see, cars are at serious risk of being taken by the river. The local authorities are rather unprepared for these extreme rain events. But the funny thing is, I wonder how prepared are the Metro Vancouver municipalities. I will be doing some research on this topic upon my return to Vancouver.

Related posts:

1. Adaptation to extreme climatic events in Vancouver
2. Upcoming environmental events in Vancouver – September 2008
3. World Water Day and “The Global Water Crisis” event by WaterDrop

This weekend, I went to wash Mom’s car, and I used the same carwash she’s been using for years. I was reading some books on water while I was waiting for the car to be washed but I didn’t see a lot of environmentally-friendly features.

However, the funny thing is that I saw a sign that said “At this carwash, we don’t waste water, we recycle it”. But I couldn’t see where they recycled it, nor any type of water treatment. I didn’t ask, but I’ll be back to investigate.

In the meantime, I just thought I’d include a couple of photos and some video of the process (sorry if the music is too loud, but I was bored inside the car).

I also plan to interview Geoff Baker upon my return, once I get all my other interviews out of the way (I still haven’t interviewed Al Pasternak about Bokashi composting, and we’ve been trying to talk about this for months!).

Related posts:

1. EPIC ‘08 – Simon Jackson: The evolution of a sustainability leader
2. At the intersection of social media and sustainability
3. Digital media and sustainability: Friends or foes? – NDMD ‘08

I’ve mentioned in previous posts how much it irks me when people forget about pressing environmental problems such as solid waste. In case you didn’t know, the Vancouver Landfill is filling up (geez, I wonder why?).

People are SO intent on working on issues of climate change, that they forget that solid waste is a priority issue. It’s funny, though. If people implemented the 3 R concept (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), I am pretty sure it would be much easier to deal with the problem of solid waste.

However, the cycle is not closed completely by applying the 3R. That’s also why I enjoy the idea that Fresh Start offers – give the recycled stuff to charity. By giving back to the local community, Fresh Start atempts to close the gap between actual closed cycles and open cycles. I really enjoy this business model, and I am sure that they will be able to implement new fresh ideas (hence Fresh Start!) in the near future.

[EDITOR'S NOTE - And here is a link to Fresh Start's blog!] Mosey over and check them out!

Related posts:

1. Fresh Start Recycling and Disposal Ltd.
2. Earth Weekend Vancouver Aquarium and Fresh Start Recycling
3. Waste Reduction Week Canada – Oct 19-25th, 2008

I love the way Raul phrases his environmental passions: “Being a student of the Environment”. I’ve found myself amongst the dozens of people I know that have put their previous career paths aside and pursued environmentally-related position in hopes of making a difference (and I’ve abandoned any inclination to feel the least bit hesitant to say that making a difference bit regardless of how trite it may be perceived by some).

So I’m confronted with it everyday – people wanting to do something, and we constantly hear.. “Just start anywhere.. it doesn’t’ matter where – the first step will introduce you to a plethora of options, and before you know it, you’ll come across something you’re really exited about.” Well, what if you don’t know where to take that first step? This is where this post comes in, I hope to offer some options of first steps that might lead you to your green passions. So here they go.

1) GREEN DRINKS The perfect combination – environmental geekery and sophisticated discussions with all kinds of people working in, or interested in the environment. I’ve only attended the Vancouver version twice, but it’s been a lot of fun – there is always a mix of veterans and solo flyers that show up without knowing a soul (but that is of course changed after the first beer).

2a) STORY OF STUFF This is a great little description of how the world currently works, some of the problems our actions are causing, and how to get involved in changing these patterns. The point with this one is.. simply reach out and learn more about how the world works, and how we can minimize our impact on the environment

2b) CRADLE TO CRADLE Similar to Option 2), this is a monumental piece of work that redefines the way we approach how we go about building stuff and creating the everyday objects we use. This novel concepts presented in cannot be called short of anything but a paradigm shift in the positive direction of what it means to be human. It’s simple, and beautiful…

If you’re interested in learning more without diving into the book, I’d recommend having a look at the TED talk featuring one of the authors (TED has numerous amazing talks on many other subjects including psychology, art, music, and technology. The one other talk that seems to be somewhat related would a brain scientist experiencing life a stroke in her left hemisphere, leaving her exposed to the raw experience of living life through her right – creative, loving, unified hemisphere – the experience’s lesson – if we use both of our brain real estate (Left AND right hemisphere), then we are much more in tune with others, and the environment around us – have a look).

2c) INCONVENIENT TRUTH If you haven’t seen it yet.. The only thing i gotta say about this one – i think any movie that helps someone win the Nobel Peace Prize might – just might be worth watching.

3) TAKE A HIKE I’m not kidding. Go get outside. Listen to the silence of the air and the stillness of your thoughts. There are many accessible parks in the Metro Vancouver area. Some of my favorites include Lighthouse Park (which is easily accessible by public transit, but surprisingly beautiful and secluded), the Grouse Grind if you’re adventurous, Shannon Falls or Bridal Veil Falls (if you prefer a light walk in the woods), or the Chief if you’re fit and would like a bit of a challenge.

4) LEARN ABOUT WATER Why on earth am i writing about water? An excellent recent film “Flow: For the Love of Water” about water illustrates this resource’s incredible importance. For one second care to entertain the thought of considering how essential water is to our survival, health (as in, the lack of clean water leading to health and survival problems). Climate change is melting glaciers and snowpacks around the world meaning that rivers worldwide are or will be facing water shortages. In 1999, 26 percent of Canadian municipalities reported problems with water availability, including seemingly wet locals such as Vancouver and Victoria (Environment Canada 2001; Boyd 2003). To illustrate the importance of this issue a bit further: 440 of 669 major cities in China face moderate to severe water shortages, and data collected from NASA and the World Health Organization suggest that 4 billion people will face water shortages by 2050 (Lagod 2007).

5) FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE SIDE Learning more about the state of the world can be difficult at times, but one of the most important lessons I’ve learned about environmental issues is the absolute necessity to stay positive, and not let things get to you personally – I’ve just started a blog about this and highlighting the importance of something known as the Lotus Effect (the real definition). Using all the energy generated by anger of learning about humanity breaking environmental laws and transforming it into something positive – action on improving things or leading by example. And last, and most importantly, keeping a sense of humour about it all, and not taking things, and ourselves too seriously.

A great example would be a well-known (and very witty) standup comedian talking about energy and world politics in Robert Newman’s History of Oil (I love it). Another PERFECT example of this would be the words of wisdom by a writer on the Simpsons - Welcoming Homer, the Tree Hugger! I’d like to end on that note, if you don’t visit any other links, visit the last two – I’m particularly fond of always looking at the bright side of things. With Love, L.E.

Related posts:

1. My favorite job – Guest post by Jeffery Simpson
2. Being a superhero/comic nerd :) – Guest post by Jeffery Simpson
3. Environmental groups mobilization and protests: More than meets the eye

Obviously, you’re going to ask me – so what IS Fresh Start?While I am sure you’ll check their site, basically let me tell you that Fresh Start takes the business of recycling one step further, and brings the recycled stuff to charities. Moreover, one element that really impressed me was that they look for local charities within the communities where their clients are located.

Founded in 2004 by Vancouver native Thomas Goodall, Fresh Start Recycling & Disposal Ltd. is committed to reducing clutter in your life while minimizing our impact on the environment by reducing the amount of material that goes straight to the landfill.[Fresh Start Recycling website]

Let me give you an example. Currently, my friends Ianiv and Arieanna Schweber are in the North Shore area, and are currently renovating their house. Their floor has to be fully torn apart and they need to install new flooring. They’ll probably also need to remove and recycle stuff. The obvious choice of company to do this? Fresh Start, of course!

By demonstrating that recycling can be still a successful business model AND that you can incorporate elements of corporate social responsibility (CSR), therefore enhancing how and where the product is delivered and the ethical/social aspects of recycling within local communities, I think Fresh Start is indeed off to a very fresh start, and a successful one!

Even smarter, Fresh Start maintains a relationship with customers, vendors, potential clients. How? By using one of the most innovative forms of communication – Web 2.0! Yes, sir! Fresh Start has a BLOG. I can’t help but feel really excited about this, because I am always a firm believer that you can meld social media with sustainability, and as you can see, Fresh Start is doing it!

In addition, of course, I should highlight the fact that their office is in Mount Pleasant, very close to my house, as a matter of fact!

Kudos to Fresh Start as well, because they were the first corporate sponsors of my Blogathon 2008. While I am raving about them in this post (and very legitimately, as I do believe in their positive intentions), they did NOT sponsor this post, so this is in NO way paid advertisement. They DID, however, sponsor a forthcoming post that will describe in more detail the whole concept of Recycle, Reuse, Reduce (3Rs), and for their contribution to the BC Cancer Agency and my Blogathon, I am very, very grateful!

Related posts:

1. Earth Weekend Vancouver Aquarium and Fresh Start Recycling
2. Closing the cycle through recycling
3. Sponsored posts for Blogathon 2009

I was going to leave this post all the way until Blogathon, but Arieanna’s recent post on “Canada, the water” reminded me of the relevance of understanding how water supplies and water management works (great post Arieanna by the way). Arieanna’s post calls attention to the fact that the bottled water being sold at Whole Foods was pretty much targeted towards tourist buyers.

Photo credit: Ianiv and Arieanna on Flickr

What worries me a bit more is not so much the privatization and commodification of water, but the misconceptions of water availability on this planet. According to the 2nd. United Nations Word Water Report, between 25 and 40% of the world’s drinking water comes from ground sources (groundwater).

This fact should be scary to people, but I’m not sure that people who live in Canada and particularly British Columbia (since we are so well served by our watersheds and local reservoirs) realize the degree of water scarcity that pervades the world, even if there is a generalized perception that . Therefore, it’s not hard to think that many people have a reason to be rightfully annoyed by the increasing privatization of water supplies.

Given the investment and capital costs that need to be covered in order to provide groundwater for drinking purposes, I would imagine that people would be cognizant of water scarcity and avoid increasing demand on water reserves, both by conserving water and by recycling grey water. In one of my research projects, I have looked at the use of common pool resource (CPR) theory to try and understand the conflicts amongst two communities who share and access the same aquifer (in Mexico).

The nature of public accessibility of aquifers makes them an excellent laboratory to study the behavior of communities who have to share a common resource that can be depleted if inappropriately managed. The purpose of my post was (as subtly suggested in the header) to indicate that in order to appropriately manage or govern water, we need to first learn to govern ourselves and control our natural consumptive instinct, in order to avoid depletion of our water reserves. Will we be able to do that? And how can we increase the visibility of the challenges of governing water when we can clearly see that other issues (such as climate change) are so high up in the environmental agenda in Canada?

More resources and materials for reading:

- The World Water Assessment Project page – Provides lots of information and good statistics. The UNESCO International Hydrological Programme is currently putting together the 3rd World Water Report.

- CBC Series on Water – While I am VERY weary of pointing people out to media sources instead of academic sources, I kind of liked this series.

- The National Water Research Institute of Environment Canada – Basically focuses on freshwater, but a good resource nonetheless.

- The International Water Resources Association (IWRA).

Related posts:

1. Water stress: Beyond water availability
2. The echo chamber in water research (social sciences)
3. Virtual water: Should drinking coffee make you feel guilty?

I’ve always been puzzled as to why would numerous individuals of different backgrounds decide to come together and volunteer their time to engage in environmental activism. Putting pressure on government is an activity that has taken place for a long time, and with the recent increase in media exposure to problems such as climate change and pollution, we have witnessed a spiraling growth of ENGO mobilizations.

Global warming protest outside Washington Park (Photo: Pembleton/Flickr)

You may or may not know that one of the most famous environmental groups (Greenpeace International) was initially founded in 1971 here in Vancouver.

In 1971, motivated by their vision of a green and peaceful world, a small team of activists set sail from Vancouver, Canada, in an old fishing boat. These activists, the founders of Greenpeace, believed a few individuals could make a difference.

Their mission was to “bear witness” to US underground nuclear testing at Amchitka, a tiny island off the West Coast of Alaska, which is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone regions.[Greenpeace website]

My research on ENGOs has focused less on understanding the motivations behind environmental groups’ (a topic that, while interesting, provides in my opinion less insight on potential public policy options) and more on the strategies that ENGOs use to put pressure both on industrial polluters and on governments at different scales (local, regional, transnational).

Moreover, I have been interested in gathering empirical evidence of the formation of transnational coalitions of ENGOs and how these coalitions use their collective knowledge to engage in strategic behavior and put pressure on national governments. Interestingly enough, there are many cases where ENGOs have been successful in pressuring polluters and shaming governments.

However, one of the most interesting insights that I have found in my research is that, for an issue to really galvanize public opinion, it has to be notorious and affect the population in a deep way (that is, it must be scary enough to make people put words into action). As I mentioned in my previous post on the governance of wastewater, it irks me to know that other pressing problems, such as dwindling supplies of water and increasing wasteful behavior on the part of urban populations are being overlooked in favor of climate change.

While it appears as though environment (and climate change) are two of the issues that Canadians indicate as public policy priorities, I am still surprised that there are not more environmental group protests on issues of pollution, and still place so much emphasis on climatic change issues.

My hope is that, in the coming years, people will continue to mobilize and try to change how environmental policy is shaped and implemented, but hopefully by then, we’ll have a much more holistic view and not only one shaped by excessive press coverage of environmental issues that, while pressing, are not the only ones we need to look at.

Related posts:

1. The relevance of the BP oil spill for global environmental politics
2. My passions: solving environmental problems
3. The death of environmentalism?

The Eco-Shield for iPhone (Image source: Apple Store)

EcoShield is made of a hard-plastic derived from recycled plastic bottles, even the package is made of recycled paper and easily recyclable plastic. And though the EcoShield is one of the thinnest cases around, it offers protection second to none. With interior pads to protect the iPhone 3G, this case is the perfect choice for life on the go. It also includes an Agent 18 dock adapter, so you can dock your iPhone in any Universal Docking device without taking it out of the case.[Apple Store]

Duane and I have lots in common, we’ve both had some brushes with the academic life, and we are very open in regards to what we discuss in our blogs. And we both love nachos and geekery (although truth be told, I don’t think I could ever reach his Geek Master level – he could write the entire WordPress platform if he wanted to!)

One of the many things that I appreciate in Duane that I don’t think I tell him often enough is his interest in environmental issues. Just browse through his environment category and you’ll find a lot of awesome tidbits. And he’s implemented lots of energy-saving features in his own home. As I told him in a recent tweet, he just got himself 500 Green Points

And if Duane decides to blog about the Eco-Shield, you’ll find a link back to his blog here. Hat tips to Duane for getting an Eco-Shield for his iPhone and for providing me with fertile ground for yet another blog post

EDIT – Rebecca reminded me of her post in her comment below, a post that I actually had read, but overlooked the bit on the Eco-Shield…. oopsies Nevertheless, just look at the Juicy Couture case for the iPhone and you’ll fall in love … And while I’m going back on posts, Tanya had done a review of BodyGuardz too]

Related posts:

1. Tethering on an iPhone for PC
2. I will NOT be buying an iPhone
3. The Apple Store in Vancouver has done it right, I think

Darren Barefoot is helping IKEA Canada spread the word about IKEA’s most recent initiative: The IKEA Way. What is this? In a nutshell,

The IKEA Way is our promise. We promise that we’re working towards having an overall positive impact on people and the environment. In other words, we’re going to be nice to people and nice to the planet. Sounds ambitious for a global company? It shouldn’t. We believe it’s just part of smart business, but more than that — it’s the right thing to do. [The IKEA Way - What We Do]

In the academic literature I have frequently come across the concept of “GreenWashing”. In non-enviro-geek terms, greenwashing refers to the deployment of a series of strategies and tactics that will make your company “look” green but it does not mean that you will indeed be undertaking measures to reduce your company’s environmental impact.

While doing a little research for this post, I came across a really neat article on TreeHugger titled “Greenhushing doesn’t help anyone“. So what is greenhushing? Pretty much the opposite of greenwashing: when a company doesn’t want to promote its environmentally-conscious efforts for fear that they will be taken as greenwashing.

As Stiffelman points out, greenhushing may just be as bad as greenwashing. Why not promote your efforts if you are actually a company that is trying to better its environment? That’s one of my own personal pet peeves. If you have it, flaunt it! The whole concept of eco-labelling is predicated on this idea – my products are more environmentally-friendly, thus merit eco-labels (be it SeaChoice, Forest Stewardship Council, Environmental Choice or any of the other ecolabels floating around).

The IKEA Way seems to me like a good initiative (I have been perusing the website and offered some feedback on how the website and the overall initiative can be strengthened). Of course, there is work to be done, but at least, these are some steps towards better environmental performance. And besides, who doesn’t like IKEA furniture? I do…

Moreover, this looks like a perfect mesh of Web 2.0 and environment. This is the direction where my own work is going to go, I can see that. I like to harness the power of Web 2.0 to effect social change and sustainability. Hat tips to Darren for pointing me out to the IKEA Way.

Related posts:

1. Digital media and sustainability: Friends or foes? – NDMD ‘08
2. Digital media and sustainability: Friends or foes? – NDMD ‘08
3. Of bloggers, geeks and other musings

At any rate, I found out that Gary Jones is looking for coffee and snacks sponsorships. Given that I work in the environmental field, ideally I’d like to see a reduced environmental footprint. One idea would be to contact local, environmentally-conscious producers to see if we can get some type of sponsorship (e.g. organic vegetable platters, or organic, ethically-traded coffee). I’ll see what we can do – I am sure amongst my readers there must be people who work in environmental issues and the food industry, so if you do (or know of someone), drop me a comment or send me an email.

Related posts:

1. WordCamp Fraser Valley 2008
2. WordCamp Fraser Valley – The tekkie part
3. WordCamp Fraser Valley – The aftermath