Are You Able or Unable?

Recycle paper at your centre?

Use both sides for photocopying?

Compost?

Turn off lights when you are not in the room?

Turn off computers at the end of the day?

Use biodegradable dishwashers and toilet cleaners?

Eliminate styrofoam cups and plates?

Eliminate plastic cutlery?

Eliminate white boards / markers?

Adjust the thermostat by 1 degree down in winter and 1 degree up in summer?

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR GREEN BOOKWORMS

Rick Smith, Bruce Lourie: Slow Death by Rubber Duck (Alfred A.Knopf Canada, 2009)

Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, John Peterson Myers: Our Stolen Future

Stacy Malkan: Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry

George Monbiot: Heat (Penguin Press, 2006) Read why we cannot surpass 2 degrees C.

David Steinman: Safe Trip to Eden, 10 Ways to Save the World from a Global Warming Meltdown (Freedom Press)

John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry: This Moment on Earth, Today’s Environmentalists and their Vision for the Future (People from all walks of life, without concern for party or ideological lines, are coming together in unprecedented numbers across the globe) Perseus Books Group, 2007

Theodore Roszak: The Voice of the Earth

Marla Cone: Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic (Grove Press, NY 2005)

Maude Barlow: Blue Gold (the Chairperson of The Council of Canadians on the world water crisis, a must read for every Canadian!)

Thom Hartmann: The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (about our dependence on fossil fuels and new economy perspectives)

Guy Dauncey, Liz Armstrong, Anne Wordsworth: Cancer: 101 Solutions to a Preventable Epidemic (New Society Publishers)

Sandra Steingraber: Having Faith, An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood

Diane Wilson: An Unreasonable Woman

Rachel Carson: Silent Spring (the American scientist who stands behind the DDT ban, died of breast cancer)
Also authored The Sense of Wonder (lyric prose about nature)

Byron Katie: The Work (the says it all)

Thoreau: Walden (literary classic written by a sage who dismissed teaching)

Grey Owl, Collected Works (an English aristocrat converted into an Ojibway, considered to be the Canadian Conservation Pioneer) Prospero Books, 1999

Joseph Tainter: The Collapse of Complex Societies

Jeanine Benyus: Biomimicry (can biology help new technology to be less heavy on the environment?)

Paul Hawken: Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming (for all of us who are squirreling away in our individual small ways and add up to an irresistible force) Viking, 2007
By the same author (featured in the Eleventh Hour movie):
Natural Capitalism,
The Ecology of Commerce
Growing a Business

Wayne Roberts: The No Nonsense Guide to World Food (the chair of the Toronto Food Policy Council is a compelling author and activist)

Ricky Burdett, Deyan Sudjic: Endless City, An authoritative and visually rich survey of the contemporary city. The late twentieth century was the age of economic globalization.

Adria Vasil: Ecoholic (the NOW Magazine columnist gives practical tips for everyday greener living) Random House 2007

Greentopia, Towards Sustainable Toronto (a collection of articles about Toronto’s past, present and rethinking sustainable future (Coach House)

Green Leaders, Canada’s Environment and Health Resource Directory (2008/09) free at health food stores (produced by Index Media, tel. 416-661-8146

Green Tips, How to Save Money and Planet, a booklet compiled by Gillian Deacon

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Global Warming, digest version (Alpha Books), available at Sobey’s for $3.95 (2008)

Linda Hogan: The Sweet Breathing of Plants: Women and the Green World (2000)

What The Public Doesn’t Get About Climate Change

This is an abridged article from Time magazine, that can work well as a jigsaw reading material. Each group reads one passage and then members of different groups are put together to retell each other what they read. Different questions/tasks can be devised around that.





1. As I report on climate change, I come across a lot of scary facts, like the possibility that thawing permafrost in Siberia could release gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere or the risk that Greenland could pass a tipping point and begin to melt rapidly. But one of the most frightening studies I've read recently had nothing to do with icebergs or mega-droughts. In a paper that came out Oct. 23, 2008 in Science, John Sterman — a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) wrote about asking 212 MIT grad students to give a rough idea of how much governments need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by to eventually stop the increase in the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. These students had training in science, technology, mathematics and economics at one of the best schools in the world — they are probably a lot smarter than you or me. Yet 84% of Sterman's subjects got the question wrong.

2. The study reflects the tremendous gap that exists regarding global warming. On the one hand are the scientists, who with few exceptions think climate change is very serious and needs to be dealt with immediately and ambitiously. On the other side is the public, which increasingly believes that climate change is real and worries about it, but which rarely ranks it as a high priority. A 2007 survey by the U.N. Development Programme found that 54% of Americans have a "wait and see" approach to climate-change action — holding off on the deep and rapid cuts in global warming that would immediately impact their lives. As a result, we have our current dilemma: a steady drumbeat of scientific evidence of global warming's severity and comparatively little in the way of meaningful political action. "This gap exists," says Sterman. "The real question is why."


3. "There is a profound and fundamental misconception about climate," he says. The problem is that most of us don't really understand how carbon accumulates in the atmosphere. Increasing global temperatures are driven by the increase in the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. Before the industrial age, the concentration was about 280 parts per million (p.p.m.) of carbon in the atmosphere. After a few centuries of burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels, we've raised that concentration to 387 p.p.m., and it continues to rise by about 2 p.p.m. every year. Many scientists believe that we need to at least stabilize carbon concentrations at 450 p.p.m. to ensure that global temperatures don't increase more than about 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. To do that, we need to reduce global carbon emissions (which hit about 10 billion tons last year) until they are equal to or less than the amount of carbon sequestered by the oceans and plant life (4.8 billion tons in the last year). It's just like water in a bathtub — unless more water is draining out than flowing in from the tap, eventually the bathtub will overflow.

4. That means that carbon emissions would need to be cut drastically from current levels. Yet almost all of the subjects in Sterman's study failed to realize that, assuming instead that you could stabilize carbon concentration simply by capping carbon emissions at their current level. That's not the case — and in fact, pursuing such a plan for the future would virtually guarantee that global warming could spin out of control. It may seem to many like good common sense to wait until we see proof of the serious damage global warming is doing before we take action. But it's not — we can't "wait and see" on global warming because the climate has a momentum of its own, and if we wait for decades to finally act to reduce carbon emissions, it could well be too late. Yet this simply isn't understood.


5. If élite scientists could simply solve climate change on their own, public misunderstanding wouldn't be such a problem. But they can't. Reducing carbon emissions sharply will require all 6.5 billion (and growing) of us on the planet to hugely change the way we use energy and travel. We'll also need to change the way we vote, rewarding politicians willing to make the tough choices on climate. Instead of a new Manhattan Project — the metaphor often used for global warming — Sterman believes that what is needed is closer to a new civil rights movement, a large-scale campaign that dramatically changes the public's beliefs and behaviors. New groups like Al Gore's We Campaign are aiming for just such a social transformation, but "the reality is that this is even more difficult than civil rights," says Sterman. "Even that took a long time, and we don't have that kind of time with the climate."

Movies to See

Films with an Environmental Theme


11th Hour
(Leonardo DiCaprio)
Doc
The 11th Hour is the last moment when change is possible. The film explores how we’ve arrived at this moment -- how we live, how we impact the earth’s ecosystems, and what we can do to change our course.

Children of Men
(Julianne Moore & Clive Owen)
Feature
2027 is a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate

Dancing with Wolves
(Kevin Costner)
Feature
Civil War soldier befriends wolves and Indians, making him an intolerable aberration in the military

Erin Brockovich
(Julia Roberts)
Feature based on true story
A California power company is accused of polluting a city's water supply

Exposures
Doc
Order from the Women’s Healthy Environment Network, Toronto
Link between the environment and the incidence of breast cancer with women.
Stunning evidences of long delayed truth.

Fly Away Home
(Jeff Daniels & Ana Paquin)
Feature based on true Canadian story
A father and daughter attempt to lead a flock of Canada Geese, orphaned by development, south.

Garbage Warrior
Doc
US architect Michael Reynolds fights to introduce radically sustainable housing.

Happy Feet
Animation
A group of penguins try to discover the threat of their food source and survival.

Inconvenient Truth
(Al Gore)
Doc
Climate crisis/ global-warming

Manufactured Landscapes
Doc
Photographer Edward Burtynsky travels the world observing changes in landscapes due to industrial work and manufacturing.

The Male Disappearing
Doc
The birth rate of male babies is in decrease. A link with the polluted environment is explored.

March of the Penguins
Doc
The annual journey of Emperor penguins as they march to their traditional breeding ground.

Silkwood
(Meryl Streep & Cher)
Feature based on true story
A whistle-blower from a plutonium processing plant disappears.

Sleep Dealer
Feature, 2008
Drama, futuristic sci-fi fantasy, political commentary and ecological message. This film takes you into the near future; into a time and place where the world is physically divided by walls and virtual connect by technology. The story focuses on a young man named Memo, who travels from his rural Mexican village to Tijuana to find work after the corporate privatization of the area’s water makes farming impossible for his family.

Soylent Green
Feature - 1973
In an overpopulated Earth in 2022, a police detective is marked for murder by government agents when he gets too close to a state secret involving the origins of a revolutionary and needed new foodstuff.

The End of Suburbia
Doc
Explores the American Way of Life as the planet approaches a critical era where global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply.

Syriana
(George Clooney)
Feature
Political intrigue & the oil industry

Toxic Trespass
Doc –
Order from the Women’s Healthy Environment Network, Toronto
Essential viewing for anyone concerned about the effects of pollutants on our - and our children's - very DNA.

Winged Migration
Doc
The migratory patterns of birds, shot over the course of three years on all seven continents.

Terminator Seeds
Documentary, 30 min.
Genetically altered seeds cannot reproduce themselves. Will it lead to global famine?

How to Save the World: One Man, One Planet, One Cow
Documentary
Biodynamic farming is a unique agricultural method that relates the ecology of the earth-organism to the entire cosmos.

Food, Inc.
Documentary, directed by Robert Kenner
On how and why the villains not only outnumber the heroes in contemporary food production, but also how and why they outbluff, outmuscle and outspend their opponents by billions of often government-subsidized dollars.

Garbage!, by Andrew Nisker
A Torontonian 5 member family stocks their garbage in their garage for 3 months and surprise themselves and us, while we learn the truth of our wasteful lifestyle.

Chemercial, a new documentary by Andrew Nisker about chemical cleansers in our homes and how we can free our lives from them

The Last Trapper
a feature movie about the last trapper in the Canadian far North, played by himself. See teaching material on a separate blog (23 Sept.2010)

Coral Reef Adventure
Stunningly beautiful underwater world is in danger. Authors investigate how the man has become a tenant in the world ocean. How does coral bleaching affect our very existence?
As a special feature on the DVD there is an interesting Trivia, comprehension questions that will make your students review what they understood in the movie.
Check the trailer at:
www.coralfilm.com

A GREEN COLLAR JOB

G R E E N S O L U T I O N S

Rick Hunter is a green homebuilder. He believes that green is the future of building.

“People are getting excited about green collar jobs. They make people happier about what they’re doing. And you can earn a living.”

Rick uses green products in new construction and renovation. Solar panels in the picture save energy.



What other jobs can be green?

List some construction products that can be green.

Why are green products better? Browse a hardware catalogue and look for better alternatives. Bring some construction products to the classroom and discuss their environmental impact.
Don’t forget, no matter what the smog index is outside, the inner air quality is always worse.

YOUR INPUT…
What green company could you start? What name would you give it?
Write an ad for your company.

GROUP WORK

A. You want to renovate your living room. Make a list of better alternatives for your healthier living and energy conservation.

B. You live in a building. Make a plan how it can be upgraded to be greener.

You are looking for an apartment. Narrow down the list to three that you will consider. Explain your choice.
� It is large and cheap, near a gas station.
� It is near a park, the windows don’t open.
� It is on 22nd floor, it overlooks the lake.
� It is Bullfrog powered, has recycling facility.
� The size and price are attractive, far from the TTC.
� It is reasonably priced, furnished with furniture that you don’t like.
� It has wall-to-wall carpets in all rooms and a daycare in the basement.
� It is near a gym and library, has no parking.

Eat Local Food

Why Eat Local? 10 Lucky Reasons.

1. Taste the difference.
At a farmers’ market, most local produce has been picked inside of 24 hours. It comes to you ripe, fresh, and with its full flavor, unlike supermarket food that may have been picked weeks or months before.

2. Know what you’re eating.
Buying food today is complicated. What pesticides were used? Is that corn genetically modified? Was that chicken free range or did it grow up in a box? People who eat locally find it easier to get answers. Many build relationships with farmers whom they trust. And they can also drive out to the farms and see for themselves.

3. Meet your neighbors.
Local eating is social. People shopping at farmers’ markets have 10 times more conversations than those who shop at the supermarket. Join a community garden and you’ll actually meet the people you pass on the street.

4. Get in touch with the seasons.
When you eat locally, you eat what’s in season. You’ll remember that cherries are the taste of summer. Even in winter, comfort foods like squash soup and pancakes just make a lot more sense than flavourless cherries from the other side of the world.

5. Discover new flavours.
Ever tried artichokes? How about asparagus, quail eggs, cranberries, or fiddleheads? These are just a few of local products. Count the types of apples of Ontario on offer at your supermarket. Maybe two? Small farms are keeping alive more varieties.

6. Explore your home.
Visiting local farms is a way to be a tourist on your own home turf, with plenty of stops for snacks.

7. Save the world.
A study found that a regional diet consumed 17 times less oil and gas than a typical diet based on food shipped across the country.

8. Support small farms.
We discovered that many people from all walks of life dream of working the land–maybe you do, too. In areas with strong local markets, the family farm is alive.

9. Give back to the local economy.
Buying from local food producers keeps the dollar at home, and everybody profits.

10. Be healthy.

We should eat more vegetables and fewer processed products. And more fresh food at its nutritional peak. Eating from farmers’ markets and cooking from scratch will make all the family healthy and happy!

Check these websites:
http://www.torontolife.com/guide/food/markets-farmers-markets/farmers-markets/
http://www.evergreen.ca/rethinkspace/?p=148
http://www.foodshare.net/
http://www.thestop.org/

www.veg.ca/environment
http://www.toronto.ca/parks/programs/community.htm (about community gardens)

Green Buildings Toronto

Ravina Project

Fill in the gerunds: using, adding, replacing, becoming, living.



The Ravina project is a fascinating experiment in renewable energy and off-grid ______________. It is an 80-year old building in the east, on the verge of _______________ one of the first homes in Toronto using its own resources.
Several upgrades were made, such as _______________ insulation to the attic and basement and ___________________ the old windows with modern double pane glass. It has a computer-controlled boiler using natural gas and operating at an astounding 95% efficiency.
A 1,500-watt solar array on the roof provides power for the house on a daily basis, charges the storage batteries, and exports excess energy into the grid. _________ this house is an experiment that will test new theories that are very promising.

Green Buildings Toronto

G R E E N
B U I L D I N G S
T O R O N T O





Cecelia Murphy Building

Write words for the numbers in parentheses:

________ (60) solar thermal panels were installed on the roof of ________ (11) Coatsworth Crescent, a ______________________________________ (174) unit
residential building run by Neighbourhood Link Homes. The solar set-up is the largest in Toronto and is expected to generate __________________________________________ _________________________________________ (134,000) kWh of power annually. The solar panels capture the radiant energy of the sun, and use this energy to heat water for showers and sinks in the building. Energy savings are expected to be______________
________________________________ ($ 10,200).

Green Buildings Toronto

G R E E N
B U I L D I N G S
T O R O N T O





Beach Solar Laundromat

Use the Comparative or the Superlative of the adjectives in parentheses:

The Beach Solar Laundromat is located at 2240 Queen Street East, in a 65-year-old building. It houses 21 washers and 14 dryers. The house is far _________________ (efficient) than it was at the time the owner bought it in 2002. After many heating and lighting retrofits, the Laundromat has become one of Toronto’s __________________ (energy efficient) buildings and one of Toronto’s ____________________ (profitable) laundromats.
Eight solar panels on the roof heat water, and the natural gas consumption was reduced by ___________ (much) than 30%. The revenue has grown 200% over 4 years.
A ____________ (high) efficiency lighting system reduced the lighting bill by 72%.
The company was awarded as the _____________ (good) greenhouse gas emission reduction project in Canada in 2004.

Green Buildings Toronto

G R E E N
B U I L D I N G S
T O R O N T O



401 Richmond








Use the correct passive form of the verbs in parentheses:


401 Richmond is a 200,000 ft2 century-old tin factory that _________ (restore) .The building is home to a thriving community of 130 cultural producers and micro-enterprises.
A courtyard, early learning center, café and stunning roof garden __________ (include). Many of the flowers, vines and bushes ___________ (grow) from seeds. The plants and flowers in the roof garden ________ (select) for beauty, aroma and their ability to attract butterflies, ladybugs, birds and other insects. A roof composter _________ (use) to build up the organic matter for supporting new seeds and potted plants. In 2005 another 2,600 ft2 roof garden _______________ (add) to the deck. Two small 100 ft2 rooftops ____________ (install) on two skylights showing that no roof is too small to green.
The reuse of historic buildings is one of the greenest things ____________ (do).

They said...

Mother Earth

Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man – man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood that unites one family. All things are connected.

Chief Seattle of the Puget Sound Suquamish tribe
Speech given when handing his territory and his people to the sovereignty of the US in 1854


All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. Chief Seattle

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. Chief Seattle

Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. Chief Seattle

It’s the only planet we have got, after all.
William Golding

ABOUT TRUTH

Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man.
M. Gandhi

A man of truth must also be a man of care.
M. Gandhi

Without properly kept accounts it is impossible to maintain truth in its pristine purity.
M. Gandhi

Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit, the more you nurture it.
M. Gandhi



FOOD

One cannot live well, sleep well, if one has not dined well. (Virginia Wolf)

Organic food consumption is ecological altruism (David Richard, Taste of Life)


ACTIVISM / TEACHING

Activism is the rent I pay for living on the Earth.
Alice Walker

I touch the future, I teach.
Christa McAuliffe

Do what you love, and then you will not have to work a single day of your life
Confucius


Be a student, not a teacher. Even if you find yourself in the role of teacher, remain a student still, sharing with your friends, simply, fresh insights and discoveries.
Paramahansa Yogananda

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

It is not on you to finish a task, but to begin it.
Talmud