Month: August 2013

The B Team – A Plan B for the Economy

- Adam Clare

The economic stupidity of a few years back is still causing problems and the fact that the wrongdoers got bailouts for their transgressions hasn’t helped. Even years later economies haven’t recovered and the class divisions within multiple societies have widened. It’s time for an alternative to this current form of (rather bizarre) “hyper capitalism”.

This is where The B Team is looking to make a difference. It’s a new organization focused on researching and promoting a new form of economic thinking that doesn’t ignore the environment and people. Social entrepreneurship is on the rise and The B Team seems to want to help that trend continue.

The B Team is a not-for-profit initiative that has been formed by a group of global business leaders to create a future where the purpose of business is to be a driving force for social, environmental and economic benefit.

Working with a global community of advisors and partners, The B Team seeks to develop and implement a Plan B for business that puts people and planet alongside profit. The B Leaders will focus on execution and action, catalysing and amplifying others’ efforts by undertaking specific global Challenges where their collective voice can make a difference.

Check out The B Team.

Thanks to Liz! (again)

Lovebots Invade Toronto

- Adam Clare


Lovebots are a fun art project that aims to fill Toronto with little concrete robots. The goal is to remind people that the city is a lovely place filled with nice people.

No fewer than 100 2′ tall concrete statues of Lovebot will be put on display in “secret locations” across the city. Like humans, each statue is connected to a specific story of love, kindness or compassion that the curators have collected from the public. The call for submissions is still open,too. Pay Lovebot a visit on Facebook, or the Feel Good Guru on Queen West, Atomic Toybot on Queen East, Serpentine on Cumberland or A&C Games on Spadina. Happy lovins!

From BlogTO.

Thanks to Liz!

Evidence for Democracy: A Group Championing Fact-Based Policy

- Adam Clare

Evidence for Democracy is a new organization in Canada that wants government policy to based on reality. The federal Canadian Conservative government (which openly hates the environment) continually cuts finding to scientific research that can lead to a better understanding of the world around us. The constant cutbacks and denials of actual science pushed some scientists too far: now they are calling for the government to openly cite scientific research to back up their policy.

“I watched as the professors realized that they are the ones that have to stand up for science,” Dr. Gibbs said, “that they can’t expect someone else to make the case as to why it is important.”

At the behest of her colleagues, Dr. Gibbs helped organize the Death of Evidence protest in Ottawa, July 2012. Thousands of scientists and their supporters chanted, “No science, no evidence, no truth, no democracy,” as they carried a symbolic coffin to the steps of Parliament Hill.

…

“Government policies affect every aspect of our daily lives,” Dr. Gibbs said. “Using the available evidence assures that we get policies that actually do what they are supposed to do. It’s a better use of tax dollars than just picking what seems to be a good idea at the time.”

Read more at the Vancouver Observer.

Global Solar and Wind Energy Production Continues to Grow

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

The sustainable energy market consistently needs to prove its worth despite the obvious benefits, whats worse is that the industry as a whole is up against the subsidized fossil fuel industry. Despite the artificially lowered fossil fuel prices sustainable energy solutions continue to prove their economic worth.

Global solar and wind energy capacities continued to grow even though new investments in these energy sources declined during 2012. Global investment in solar energy in 2012 was $140.4 billion, an 11 percent decline from 2011, and wind investment was down 10 percent, to $80.3 billion.But due to lower costs for both technologies, total installed capacities grew sharply.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) installed capacity grew by 41 percent in 2012, reaching 100 gigawatts (GW). Over the past five years alone, installed PV capacity grew by 900 percent from 10 GW in 2007. The countries with the most installed PV capacity today are Germany (32.4 GW), Italy (16.4 GW), the United States (7.2 GW), and China (7.0 GW).

Europe remains dominant in solar, accounting for 76 percent of global solar power use in 2012. Germany alone accounted for 30 percent of the world’s solar power consumption, and Italy added the third most capacity of any country in 2012 (3.4 GW). Spain added the most concentrating solar thermal power capacity (950 MW) in 2012 as well. However, Italy reached the subsidy cap for its feed-in tariff (FIT) program in June 2013 while Spain recently made a retroactive change in its FIT policies, meaning growth in solar energy will likely slow in these countries in the near future.

Read more at WorldWatch

Choose Cage Free

- Adam Clare

Animal cruelty sadly still exists and we can all make a difference in the suffering of domesticated animals by changing our shopping habits. The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) has launched an education campaign to get people aware of the dangers of factory-farming hens while celebrating the benefits of letting the animals roam free.

Cage-free is healthier for the chickens:

There is overwhelming scientific evidence to demonstrate that caged hens have a greater chance of being infected by Salmonella; which is among the most common causes of food-related hospitalization and deaths in the US and Canada.ii,iii,iv

  • A study by the European Food Safety Authority, which analyzed data from 5,000 egg farms in more than 20 countries, found up to 25-times greater odds of Salmonella infection in farms where hens were kept in battery cages than in farms using any non-cage system. i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi
  • Keeping hens in small, barren, crowded cages causes them considerable stress, which can make the hens more susceptible to diseases and more infectious.
  • Diseases can spread more rapidly in larger, denser flocks. The average size of a caged flock in the U.S. is 75,000 to 100,000 hens while the average size of a cage-free flock is 25,000 hens. A USDA study found that farms with more than 100,000 birds were four times more likely to have birds test positive for Salmonella than those with fewer than 100,000 birds.

Take the pledge to buy cage-free here.
Read more about why cage-free matters.

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