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Toronto West CRAG Meeting
November 26, 2008, 7:45 pm
Minutes
Present: Peter, Heather, Anders, Tim, Nancy, Shareen
1. Review of last meeting and minutes.
2. Sharing ideas for a low-carbon holiday season.
We shared ideas for a low-carbon holiday, and discussed a list of ideas sent by e-mail by Gordon Chamberlain and others compiled by Anders (see list that will be posted online).
The idea of buying people a certificate for a certain amount of carbon dioxide reduction was discussed. This led into the pros and cons of offsets, and the issue of whether offsets are a flawed way to buy one’s way out of the need to reduce emissions or an improvement on not doing anything. Is the critique of offsets a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good? This issue was not resolved.
Some other suggestions were given to add to the draft list of ideas: – fair-trade, cooperatively produced gifts from stores such Ten Thousand Villages – environmentally-friendly goods from Grassroots on Bloor or natural food stores – First Nations gifts from the Native Friendship Centre gift shop on Spadina north of Bloor – buying vintage or second hand items (with the proviso that Tim still remembers without fondness the second-hand Evil Knievel that he received when he was 7 years old – the morale being to avoid second-hand evil Knievels) – supporting local artists: Tim suggested http://zunior.com/, a local website that sells independent, digital, Canadian music – Nancy suggested gifts from the organizations listed on the Social Enterprise marketplace on the Enterprising Non-Profits site: http://www.enterprisingnonprofits.ca/marketplace. (One of the groups on the site, the Phoenix Print Shop, sells holiday cards designed by at-risk youth using paper that is “Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certified and produced with wind-generated electricity”: http://phoenixprintshop.ca/?page_id=148) – Gifts or gift certificates from local green businesses (visit Green Enterprise Toronto for a list of businesses committed to developing a local, green economy: http://www.greenenterprise.net/web/).
It was suggested that planning ahead and not leaving things to the last minute help in making sure you end up buying more environmentally- and socially-responsible gifts.
We discussed whether taking a sports fan to a game should be on the list, and whether it is really low carbon once you consider the full range of impacts, such as travel, behind pro sports? We eventually agreed to rephrase the idea as “Take a sports fan to a game – by public transit. Or better yet, take them out to actually do a sport.”
One key issue is how to have a low-carbon, green holiday without disappointing children. Shareen suggested that the key is coming to an agreement with family that children will only get one toy, and to tell other family members to give contributions instead if they want to give something, e.g. an RESP contribution. Nancy said that kids are very attentive to their social environment. She suggested that avoiding the stress and tension that often arises with a conventional holiday can help improve the holiday for children, and that people should focus on the spirit of the season as a gift.
Heather noted that last year she gave second-hand gifts, and took any new items out of the box so that her son didn’t see any difference between second-hand and new items. She also asked friends and family to give hand-me-downs since she didn’t want him to have a feeling that second-hand items were no good.
One question was how to deal with older kids when their friends at school getting lots of expensive stuff? Tim said he tries to reason with and be honest with his kids, saying that they don’t have a lot of money, but they still have great times together. Shareen said we tend to underestimate kids and what they can understand, and that we need to bring them in to explain why we make certain choices. She noted, though, that kids can be cruel about having more than others, and so there is a need to recognize whether or not your kids have the capacity to deal with not having as much as other kids. Tim added that you need to start early – you can’t easily start changing things when they’re 14 years old.
How do you stop others from bringing gifts? One idea was to use the gift exemption vouchers on our list.
Tim noted that he always appreciates a gift that something put a lot of thought into, even if it’s a small item – like a second-hand book that would mean a lot to him.
Someone asked how much impact the holiday season has in terms of its ecological and carbon footprint? As it happens, Anders’ dissertation supervisor just wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times about this. She notes that in the US, “Roughly a quarter of annual spending, garbage and ecological impact occurs between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Measured in carbon alone, that represents five tons of emissions for each American.” For the full article, see:
Juliet Schor, “Holiday shopping — just don’t”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-schor28-2008nov28,0,2421385.st…
We realized the ideas on our list could be divided into two categories: “consuming differently” and “consuming differently.” We agreed to order the ideas into those categories.
3. How do we bring more people into the group?
Some ideas that were suggested: using the “meet up” website to publicize our events, as well as Craigslist, and notice boards/electronic lists at York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies or U of T’s environment list. Also suggested was integrating more of a social component into the group to develop the social bonds that keep people together. One possible model is that of the Toronto Dollar Supper Club, which holds their meetings at a restaurant and has speakers give a talk after the meal. Another idea was to integrate films into our meetings, which led into our next item…
4. Planning for public meeting
We discussed focusing our proposed public meeting around the showing of a film. We considered a few options: The Gospel of Green (on the Fifth Estate), What Would Jesus Buy?, the History of Oil, and a video of an Al Gore lecture that came after the Inconvenient Truth and puts more emphasis on solutions.
The issue was raised of whether or not we want to try to bring in people to our meetings who are strong organizers with many connections in the community. In other words, do we try to reach the wider community by organizing our own event for the public, such as a film? Or do we try to appeal directly to the connectors?
We focused on the idea of organizing a public meeting centred on a film, with a target date of late January or early February. We agreed that those who want to do so would meet at Heather and Danny’s place on Dec 17 at 7:45 to watch the Gore video and decide on whether and how we will use it. Others can watch the video individually and let the group know by email if they think it is worth showing publicly (see the video at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/al_gore_s_new_thinking_on_the_climate…)
Nancy expressed an interest in using this meeting, and the CRAG more general, as an opportunity to motivate people to take action on climate change, using popular mobilization techniques.
5. Can we make more of our web presence?
We did not have time to fully discuss this issue. One question is whether we should have a Facebook group. The advantage is that Facebook is where a lot of people are connecting these days. One downside is that we already have a Google group discussion list and a page on the UK CRAG site. How do we keep it getting unmanageable and confusing by having our web presence split among several sites?
Other ideas that came up during the evening:
To encourage CRAG members to buy locally-grown food, we could include in our e-mail communications a list of items that are in season at the time (possibly including recipes).
The One Million Acts of Green website was recommended for ideas simple things you can do, more complex things you can do, and community things to do
The Toronto Environmental Alliance has a petition on its “My Toronto Includes Windmills” site allowing people to show support for the installation of a wind testing device in Lake Ontario off the eastern shore of Toronto: http://www.torontoenvironment.org/windmills