It’s Time to Topple the Voting System

Modern democracy is under a lot of scrutiny this century as we’ve seen increased corruption by established political parties and a manipulation of bureaucratic processes to benefit the elite. The rise populism is a reaction to a perception that the electoral system isn’t reflecting the people, the system isn’t actually democratic in many people’s eyes. Let’s change that. Right now on Kickstarter you can back a project that’s trying to revive Canada’s electoral system by replacing first past the post (FPP) with a better system which represents all people. The broken FPP has already been replaced in some municipalities and that’s just the start.

But wait – there is hope! There actually HAS been successful experiments of voting reform in Canada, and the movement is GROWING. In 2018, London city council became the FIRST government in Canada to ditch first-past-the-post. Kingston and Cambridge Ontario also held successful referendums to reform their voting systems in time for the 2022 municipal elections.

YOU can make a difference. We’ve toppled three dominoes, but there are 444 municipalities in Ontario. Who’s next?

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Giving Money Directly to the Poor can Help Entire Communities

money

Aid to poorer nations isn’t always a direct transfer of wealth, it can be training or other social support. Indeed, it’s often argued that giving money directly can increase corruption and that the recipients don’t have the knowledge to know how to use money. This attitude of (some) charities is patronizing and is increasingly questioned by groups that argue people should receive donated money directly. This is exactly what some recent researchers did and discovered that entire communities benefit when money is given directly to those who need it most.

“That’s a really big income transfer,” notes Miguel. “About three-quarters of the income of the [recipient] households for a year on average.” It also represented a flood of cash into the wider communities where they lived. “The cash transfers were something like 17% of total local income — local GDP,” says Miguel.

Eighteen months on, the researchers found that, as expected, the families who got the money used it to buy lots more food and other essentials. 

But that was just the beginning.

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Lawsuit Launched Against Conservative Government for not Conserving

birds

In Canada, the Conservative party seems to hate actually conserving anything that isn’t their own party. In Ontario, the party has loosened laws around how much damage companies can do to nature, cut emission targets, heck they’ve basically got rid of any piece of policy that actually works (including road safety issues). One thing the Conservative party is actually good at (since good governance isn’t their strength) is getting sued. This week a bunch of kids have sued the government because of the removal of the carbon tax and other anti-environmental policies. The suit is backed by EcoJustice and has a good chance of making a difference to make the world better (unlike the Conservatives).

“I just want to live a normal life in the future; I shouldn’t have to be doing this, but adults aren’t doing a good job,” she told CBC News.

“I’m afraid that so many species that I love will go extinct,” added Zoe Keary-Matzner, 13, from Toronto. “And that children in the future won’t be able to enjoy nature the same way I do.”

The applicants, ranging from age 12 to 24, are represented by Stockwoods LLP and Ecojustice, a group that specializes in public interest lawsuits in the name of environmental protection.

Their challenge is part of a growing trend in which young people across the globe are suing governments over perceived inaction on climate change.

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Dirt Houses are Good for the Planet

Inefficiently constructed housing is a problem for the planet and people. Poor insulation, intensive manufacturing process, and costs all have long term impacts on energy usage and people’s budgets. There is a solution to this that has been used the world over: building homes using dirt. Sod, adobe, and other materials have been used to make homes for millennia and perhaps it’s time we return to these natural methods. Iceland is one such country where the discussion of returning housing to its roots is alive and well.

Still, when discussing the contemporary benefits of turf homes to Sigurdardottir, she is largely positive about it. “Turf houses with their grassy green roofs are perfectly environmentally-friendly buildings and sustainable,” she says. “The material is taken from wetland areas where the grass root is thick and strong. It lasts for decades in dry weather and rots eventually like wood, just a little faster. [It] is then used as a filling in new walls or put into holes to smooth the meadow or spread it over it like fertilizer. Dry turf provides good insulation against cold weather.”

And there’s a growing coterie of people asking questions about the contemporary applications of turf homes. Last year, an exhibition in Seltjarnarnes called Earth Homing, Reinventing Turf Homes sought to explore the contemporary applications of turf houses.

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Be a Better Tourist just by Thinking

Iceland Puffing

Over tourism of popular sites, and entire cities, has gotten so out of hand that Venice, Amsterdam, and a handful of other cities have concerned adding a daily fee to tourists just to be in the city. Everyone knows this isn’t a good solution as it won’t impact the wealthy tourists who can afford it, meaning travelling to famous sites will be something only the rich can afford. Instead, if you are going to travel you should think before you go. Anybody who’s been to the Louvre knows that the Mona Lisa is a waste of time, yet everyone goes. Before following the hordes of tourists blindly being led from Instagram site to Instagram site you ought to think for yourself.

“The question is, do you want to go to a place – or show people you’ve been to the place?” says Eduardo Santander, executive director of the European Travel Commission.

“Half the reason people have superficial travel experiences is because they’ve made superficial plans,” says journalist Becker. She encourages people to do more than read a paragraph in a guide book or copy friends on Facebook, then parachute into a city and get the same selfie they did. Otherwise, you risk committing what Becker calls “drive-by tourism”, which stokes many of the symptoms of over-tourism, like overcrowding and irritating locals.

Another strategy is to ask yourself what you really want to do and see, rather than seeing something for the sake of seeing it. Becker recommends not doing things you wouldn’t do back home. If you don’t like museums, for example, don’t clog up the Louvre and whiz through without a clue what you’re seeing, she says.

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