Direct Action

Get Informed with Pollenize Canada

- Adam Clare

pollenize-canada

Pollenize for iOS and Android can help you navigate the upcoming Canadian election. I’ve checked out the app and it’s a really great way to see where the parties stand on popular issues. I recommend Pollenize if you’re looking for an easy way to understand the election.

Pollenize is free so they can reach as many potential voters as possible. Let’s hope that Pollenize gets into the hands of every Canadian. An informed populace may help Canada avoid another Harper-led recision and ongoing destruction of the environment and Canada’s overall wellbeing.

Nonpartisan and tailored to young voters, Pollenize breaks down each of the main parties’ platforms point-by-point to give users all the information they need to make an informed decision on election day. This modern approach to politics proved especially successful during the 2014 Toronto mayoral election, where our coverage contributed to a record voter turnout of 60 percent, with more than 980,000 Torontonians casting ballots.
“Young people want to make a difference in their country’s political picture, but it’s confusing and difficult to get the information necessary to make an informed decision at the polls,” says Pollenize co-founder Trevor Blades. “Pollenize makes it easy to understand what each party stands for and helps people cast their vote with confidence.”
A recent study by the Broadbent Institute found that one of the main reason Canadians under age 35 don’t vote is because they don’t know enough about politics. Pollenize aims to fill the gap by giving individuals the necessary tools to become educated on all active political agendas without doing the overwhelming research.

Check out Pollenize.

How To Stop An Oil And Gas Pipeline: The Unist’ot’en Camp Resistance

- Adam Clare

The Unist’ot’en people have been fighting the deplorable people at TransCanada, Enbridge, and other companies who are trying to increase their capability to destroy the environment. The Unist’ot’en camp began in 2010 and has grown since to blockade the land from corporate tools trying to get pipelines through the area.

Of course, the Canadian (and BC) government supports the corporations but hopefully recent actions in the courts will force the government to back down. In the meantime, you can read about the Unist’ot’en camp.

Our nine-day visit supports the Unist’ot’en Camp practically as well as politically. On our second night in camp, while my fellow visitors shovel snow and build a counter for the kitchen, I go to the frigid Wedzin Kwah to collect water. As I lug heavy plastic jugs full of ice-cold water up the snowy hill to the main cabin, the opportunity feels special, a rarity for a suburban kid like me. I realize I’ve never lived near a stream clear enough to drink from. This strikes me as completely nuts, considering I’ve grown up entirely in the sopping-wet Pacific Northwest.

Bringing water up from the river by hand leads everyone to use water thoughtfully. There are 12 people at the camp, and during my stay, all of our daily cooking, cleaning, and drinking is accomplished with about 40 gallons — a quantity that a showerhead with the EPA’s WaterSense label would run through in 20 minutes.

Read more.

You’re an Environmentalist?

- Adam Clare

In some parts of the world it seems that caring about the world around is what nerds do. Corey got sick of this attitude against environmentalists that they did something about it – published a post on Medium.

It’s a quick read to reinvigorate your caring for the environment. Don’t be like Harper – care about people and the environment!

Omg, you’re such an environmentalist

I get it all the time.

“lol. Corey, you’re such an environmentalist!”

So apparently i’m an environmentalist because I throw out the top part of the yogurt container and recycle the bottom half.

Read more.

Forget Burning Man, Go To Ephemerisle

- Adam Clare

Ephemerisle is a libertarian Burning Man on the ocean. It’s goal is like Burning Man’s insofar that it exists to explore new ideas while throwing a big party. Ephemerisle is really trying to figure out how people can survive on the ocean for an extended period of time while finding solutions to the logistical aspects of doing so.

Ephemerisle participants need to figure out many things from waste management to how to generate electricity. On top of that, because it’s libertarian, do it all while creating some sort of economy.

I’m not into the American libertarian movement but I do like the idea of finding out how to live on the open seas in a sustainable manor.

Seasteading’s proponents say it isn’t impossible, it just has a funding problem: existing solutions cost money to implement, and the solutions that don’t exist yet cost money to develop. But even they admit it’s a hell of a funding problem. The funding necessary to launch even the simplest floating city was in the billions, leaving most proposed projects dead in the water, so to speak.
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Unlike Burning Man, where participants are still subject to the laws of the United States, Ephemerisle would offer attendants true autonomy from American government. Also unlike Burning Man, which bans cash transactions between participants at the event, Ephemerisle would embrace money and commerce, as a respected feature of society. And also unlike Burning Man, Ephemerisle would be unticketed, free to anybody who could get there.

If people liked the festival enough, Patri thought, they might start staying out there for longer year after year, and invite their friends. It would grow both temporally and in population. For that to happen, the island itself would have to grow, too. Over time, maybe these people would be motivated to solve a lot of seasteading’s hard engineering problems, so Ephemerisle could continue to grow.

Read more.

Community Solar Garden to Open in BC

- Adam Clare

Germany, and to a lesser extent other nations, have championed community-owned sustainable energy production. In many ways it gives power to the people. Indeed, one way to encourage mass adoption of sustainable energy is to make policies which favour decentralized and community owned production. This means that big utility companies often oppose such efforts.

In British Columbia the city of Nelson may be the first city in Canada to take on this German-insipred approach. They are looking to open a solar facility which not only provides energy to the people it provides added revenue.

A community solar garden is a centralized solar panel farm that gives homeowners and businesses access to solar energy without having to install and maintain panels on their own roof.

The price of the electricity purchased from the proposed solar project in Nelson would cost residents more, but initial community feedback indicates people would be willing to pay the extra costs, said Proctor.

It’s about more than trying to save money, she said, and added costs eventually will even out.

Nelson Hydro is still working out detailed costs, but says people could end up investing something like $1,000 for a solar panel space for 25 years. They can either pay a lump sum up front or make monthly payments of about $3.47 until the solar panel space is paid off.

Read more.

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