Vert-à-Go

I confess that I do struggle against climate dread. Any new news about the environment is very seldom good news, and it is demoralising beyond belief to walk home from the farmers’ market with a bag of locally-grown organic food, only to be blown past by someone chucking a McDonald’s wrapper out of the window of their Hummer.

But we can’t sit around and do nothing, even if somewhere out there our evil twin is itching to replace every ounce of carbon that we struggle not to emit. And the food that we choose to eat can make a real and instant difference to our ecological impact. It’s important to educate yourself about what is in the food you eat, where it comes from, how it is produced, and what impact it has on your health, the people who grow it, the animals who provide it, and the environment. As Wendell Barry puts it, “Eating is an agricultural act.” We need to pay attention to our food, not just be mindless consumers.

Here are a dozen things you can do right now to radically reduce your food footprint. Most of them will save you money and improve your health, too!

1. Eat less meat

2. Grow some food to eat this year

3. Eat seasonal, locally-produced food

4. Eat organic food, preferably locally-produced

5. Choose fair trade food products

6. Only eat fish and seafood from safe and sustainable fisheries

8. Reduce your consumption of industrially-produced/processed/fast food

7. Walk, bike, bus or carpool to the store, market, or restaurant

9. Plan your meals ahead and keep track of leftovers to avoid food waste

10. Drink tap water, not bottled water, and don’t forget the carbon/water footprint of other drinks too

11. Compost your food waste

12. Use more energy-efficient ways to cook your food

…and check out Reiko’s Bento Lab–-just because I guarantee it will make you smile!

(this post is mostly a rerun–but it still says everything that I want to say. Happy Earth Day!)

The Saskatchewan Eco-Network will host the 4th Annual Saskatchewan Environmental Film Festival (”See the Change, Be the Change”) this weekend at the University of Saskatchewan.

Today, 22 March, is the United Nations’ World Water Day. This year’s theme deals with transboundary water–the lakes and rivers that cross political and geographical borders. This theme is a timely reminder that when it comes to water, we’re all in the same boat. We all need it every day, and we’re all vulnerable to the same problems that can affect our water supply: drought (as climate change reduces snowpack and rainfall) and contamination (by factories, transportation, agriculture, and individuals). We may live on a large and  (for now) seemingly abundant river here in Saskatoon, but that water has to travel a long way to get to us. What happens if and when something happens to the water supply upstream? Forget oil–it’s a water shortage that’s the real concern.

Most Canadians take clean and easily accessible drinking water for granted. But worldwide, 1 in 7 people do not have access to safe drinking water, and a child dies every 8 seconds from drinking contaminated water. It’s not just a problem in developing countries, however. No one is immune from the dangers of unclean water, as the deaths and illnesses in Walkerton and North Battleford tragically demonstrated. Last April there were nearly 1,900 “boil water” advisories in place in small communities across Canada. First Nations communities in particular are vulnerable to contaminated water supplies, due to environmental pollution and lack of proper treatment facilities.

Water supplies are also a giant concern. Although the earth is covered water, most of it is salty and only 1% of it is fit for drinking. Canada has a large share of the world’s fresh water, but we are also gluttons when it comes to water usage. The average Canadian uses an average of 329 litres of water per person per day, which is twice as much as Europeans. In Mozambique, the average person uses 1.3 litres of water per day–that’s less than one flush from a low-flow toilet. We seem to think that we can simply go on using as much as we like of it while dumping whatever we like into it (chemicals, fertilisers, animal waste, and other pollutants) and that it will just keep flowing, clean and pure, from the tap indefinitely. This is a profoundly deluded viewpoint, and it will come back to haunt future generations unless we smarten up and start treating water as the incredibly precious resource that it is.

Here are some links/petitions/events to help you learn more about the ‘hidden water’ you’re consuming, and which can also help you to reduce your water consumption:

• GOOD magazine’s illuminating table of typical daily water usage can show you exactly how you can cut your water footprint. Hint: pick chicken much more often than beef, and grains and vegetables much more often than meat.
• Waterfootprint.org can help you calculate your personal water footprint, and also features a product gallery showing how much water goes into what, complete with case studies.
• Inside The Bottle, a campaign against bottled water, is asking you to sign a petition today supporting public water systems in Canada and around the world. Pour yourself a glass and count yourself in as one of the many people who are choosing tap water over bottled, which is more expensive and uses far more energy and resources to produce.
• Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op sells rain barrels–catching rain water for your garden can make a really satisfying dent in your summer water bill.
• Rethink that trip to Las Vegas–Lake Mead could be within a few years of going dry, which could literally leave Las Vegas high and dry (and Los Angeles too).
• Oxfam Saskatoon is showing two films on Tuesday, 24 March in honour of World Water Day–Sisters of the Planet and Refugees of the Blue Planet. These films will be shown from 2-4pm at the Neatby-Timlin Theatre (Arts 241) at the University of Saskatchewan.