Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Category: Environment Page 9 of 19

Why Everyone’s Vote Is Vital

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On May 1, 2017

In Armchair Mayor Column, Climate change, Environment, Health, Kamloops, Self-improvement, Social issues

Originally published as a column in CFJC Today and Armchair Mayor News on May 1, 2017. 

Our days are rife with politics. News, campaign bites, signs abounding. Provincial elections coming up! Wednesday night found me listening to Elizabeth May at the Double Tree Hilton hotel downtown. No matter your colours, politically speaking, an admirable and inspiring presence like Ms. May’s transcends all of that. She has a straight backbone and accountability. We need more politicians like her to help restore people’s trust that things can turn out better after all.

We can get ourselves there on May 9, or between May 3 to 6, if you prefer advance voting. Please get out and vote. Voting is, at once, the right, duty and chance that can see us building a better future.

To say the clock that measures our time as a species on this planet is ticking may sound too much like the doom and gloom predictions that environmentalists have been delivering lately. I agree, it’s not pretty. But it’s real.

Last Friday, president Trump reversed the order regarding drilling in the Arctic and the Atlantic. The oceans that are already at risk due to warming, acidification, overfishing and plastic accumulation, will see more drilling for fossil fuels. The announcement spoke of jobs and other benefits, without any references to the risks.

That our governments, provincial and federal, should re-examine their stand on how they deal with the fate of future generations, no matter what our neighbours to the south do, is an understatement. We now know that carbon dioxide levels have breached the 410 parts per million threshold. Another kind of beast unleashed, one that we should stop feeding and soon, or else.

One way to do it? Go and cast your vote. Read up on what each candidate and their party stand for, ask questions, and listen to debates. A lot is at stake. Jobs are needed, yes, but creation of jobs should be the result of an ‘out of the box’ process. A much needed reform.

The world as we know it has been changing due to climate change, and in face of that kind of threat, money can do little, if anything, to compensate.

We cannot turn back the clock or put the greenhouse gases back in the bag. But we can ask that our governments show concern for the environment, globally and locally.

And there are many local and province-wide issues our future elected MLAs will have to deal with. In Clearwater, industrial logging at too large a scale in high-risk areas has brought the local population of the Canadian Southern Mountain Caribou to a dire situation: there are but 120 left roaming (and declining).

The infamous Site C project, criticized by environmentalists and scientists here in Canada and abroad is a failure to care of our present government, to put it mildly. An environmental, economic, and cultural disaster waiting to happen. Disasters that have already happened (Mt. Polley mine tailings spill) have yet to be properly addressed, legally, ethically, and morally speaking. The present government has failed at that too.

If environmental issues are not your highest concern, there are plenty of other issues in need of addressing: child poverty (British Columbia has, after all, and shamefully so, the highest child poverty rates in Canada), lack of proper medical care, and lack of a proper school system, to name but a few.

These issues are but testament to the need for change in how our provincial government deals with life at all levels.

It has to be good for more than a select few, and it should happen even in the most remote communities (think access to clean water which is a basic human right.)

It has to come with a vision for what the future could be like, should alternative technologies and industries be promoted so that our pale blue dot and our children have a fighting chance.

It has to come with people being offered jobs that do not put their own communities and health at risk, and it has to come with a good education and medical system.

The order could not be taller. Nothing could be delivered overnight either once May 10th comes around. The future is built one day after another rather than delivered in one day as a done deal.

What matters now is to choose politicians whose minds and hearts are open, and who are willing to communicate and follow up on issues. Leaders with the moral stature and vision that will call for fairness and ethics in determining who gets to do business in British Columbia, making transparency the word of the day and the standing practice in all governmental offices.

Yes, a lot is at stake. Voting is the one thing that can be done to save what can be saved and through that, our future. Please consider casting a vote when the day comes and encourage others to do so too.

The Case of Bird vs. People

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On April 26, 2017

In Armchair Mayor Column, Environment, Health, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Self-improvement

It’s a beautiful and yet uneasy feeling. Walking into a territory where you belong but do not speak the language or even barely understand what the high and low notes mean. That’s what an ordinary morning does: it turns on you. The guest, you.

Pup and I walk the couple of blocks to the park and then we let loose. She’s off her leash, allowed by higher authorities than me, and I am off mine (everyday rush and craziness). A couple of crows swoop close enough but not like last year’s bullies that almost got me twice. Not yet anyway. Building nests and having babies is serious business, I know that. Humans can meddle, as they’ve shown on many an occasion. We’re on the black list, no pun intended, and the crows show it when they have a chance.

Pup and I hike the hill taking the narrow steep trail, all the way to the top. If you steer a gentle left you leave the highway buzz behind and the crystal-clear song of a meadowlark (now I know) reaches straight into your soul as if to show what you’re missing on when immersed in urban cacophony.

Just like that, you’re hooked; you’ll be seeking this cascade of sounds every morning. I do. The meadowlark perches herself (himself?) on the very top of the tree and delivers a loud, clear and perfectly harmonized song it makes me wonder the same every time: where does so much sound come from when the body is so puny?

I choose to think of it as a greeting. I am no birder, hence sweet ignorance protects my feelings. It could be a threat call (pup and I are the threat, again), or it could be a song delivered despite our presence there for other purposes. My new reading ‘What the Robin Knows’ (author John Young) is building a pyramid of question marks in my head. The more I read, the clearer it becomes: I know nothing of birds. I thought I did, a bit. Sweet ignorance, how thick your veil.

The resident hawk I often see swooping from a scraggly tall dead-looking (I know it’s not) Ponderosa pine dances rather than flies. Elegance. I think of us humans walking, often waddling, hunched forward, ungraciously forgetting to even breathe deep enough in our rush, forgetting to look up at the sky, overwhelmed by problems, often self-created, painful many of them yet diligently maintained. Yes, I envy the hawk easiness of being…Grace.

Robins. We saw two this morning, possibly a couple. Staring as if to detect our intentions. Friendly. How do I say that in bird language? I stop and stare. They’re beautiful and remind me of my mom. Here’s why.

One flies away to get the pup’s attention. Protecting a mate perhaps. The one left on the branch looks at me. I am fascinated, mute in my delight and sorrowful in how most of us humans have forgotten to sit quietly and observe… Sparrows dart every which way, cheeky and cheery, even on a rainy day. The life continuum sketched by outstretched wings, chirps, and intentions I will most likely never be able to interpret.

The other day I found a dead bird on the side of the path. As if asleep, its tiny body frozen yet soft to the touch. Light as feathers… patches of sparkling yellow on its sides and head, beautiful gray and charcoal ones adorning the body, wings and tail; delicate black feet. The boys and I identified it; an Audubon warbler. One less song. Warblers sing just because, for the love of it… I would have never known. It took this bird on the side of the path. Why did it die, the boys asked? I had no answer. Quiet reverence as death stares us in the face. So easy to forget we’re all due one. Infatuation over our self-proclaimed superiority doesn’t help when humility is needed.

We know so little. It’s easy to let go when you know little. There’s but one answer: we ought to learn more. Understanding even a fragment of that continuum; the language of songs that fill mornings with wonder, with panic, with love, with sounds that perpetuate life. Our songs are the same, except that we sing inwardly and mostly forget to do so by the time we need it the most. We ought to relearn, we ought to rediscover serenity, grace, and that sliver of gratefulness… the robin knows…

Happy Earth Day Beyond Earth Day

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On April 25, 2017

In Armchair Mayor Column, Climate change, Environment, Health, Homeschooling, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Self-improvement, Social issues

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today and Armchair Mayor News on Monday April 25, 2017. 

There is an interesting realization that sneaks up on you once you spend enough time in nature to be humbled by it: that you know squat about it, other than the very basics, if that, unless you dedicate time to learn about it. It is mind-boggling to think that for the most part, our awareness of the living world is minimal. That hinders much of our chance to succeed at saving ourselves.

Children have the right idea when they start out as wee curiosity-fueled machines. Nothing is yucky in their path, nothing too disgusting to look at, smell or touch. The world is an endless array of networks to learn about, to wonder at and to return to every day.

Nothing is ugly or boring. Rain or shine, hot or cold, children want to be out and exploring. As they grow up, we qualify the living world around them using words and concepts meant to provide safe boundaries which often end up becoming the reason children’s curiosity subsides. They learn to disengage.

Moreover, that childhood nowadays comes with screens and alternative reality fast-paced games and movies that take the young minds even farther from the slow-paced real life is not helping much either.

The human brain is amazing in how it can absorb and use information, in how it can solve problems and find solutions. And puzzlingly so, it is also, especially in our young ones, easily addicted to things and activities that create pleasure loops to get lost in, all supplied by an array of marketing ploys that are, as per their intended design, overwhelming.

Such activities, toys and gadgets, provide the kind of stimulation nature cannot provide. Not because it lacks anything, but because the nature’s rhythms are not meant to create addiction of any kind, but to soothe, heal, and allow for space to find ourselves and the inside voice that suits us best. That voice is, for lack of better way to explain it, in tune with the living world around.

That kind of meaningful, life-enriching and enabling duet, is more visible in some fellow humans than others. Come Earth Day, we are invited to remember the things that matter. No economic growth plan matters much if a community is under the threat of natural disasters, often induced by improperly and abusively conducted human activities. It could be clear cutting, mining, building of dams, you name it. Not just in BC and Canada but throughout the world.

Nature’s little note, never illegible I dare add, reads the same every time: work in congruency with nature’s way, never against it. Make operations sustainable and respectful of the living world, and things can work just fine. The one caveat: there would be lower profits perhaps, though bringing ethics into it can make it fair for everyone. The reward, though, would be longer term projects and much healthier outcomes environmentally and human health-wise; common sense replacing greed and the utter conviction that nature is ours to grab from, dominate and squeeze dry.

Awareness of the earthly gifts in all of us, from the very young to the very old, can make Earth Day a culmination of sorts rather than the isolated day when we celebrate our planet. An hour of turning off the lights is a good thing, but better yet if we do it daily. Just imagine having an hour a day, at least, when you spend time with your loved ones, or rest, walk and listen to the sounds of the world around you, anything that can be done with lights off and without any devices close at hand.

The earthly gifts are many and varied, but the basic ones are the same everywhere: water, air, and food. Imagine the kind of awareness that can be created if we had days dedicated to learning about hunger and thirst for example. By experiencing them, no less. Imagine a day when we would have a limited supply of food available, or clean water.

Imagine having the kind of overwhelming marketing campaigns that promote the selling of goods, and then more goods and gadgets, promoting awareness instead, based on what we need to know of the living world, people included.

Imagine being made aware (and becoming more appreciative of your own blessings and abilities to help) of issues that can be alleviated or even mildly improved, by knowing more about: lack of food or proper food, lack of clean water (more than 80 Indigenous communities in Canada are under boiled water advisory and many other communities are plagued by industrial pollution of their drinking water), lack of proper legislation that would see natural habitats protected and thus helping restore any environmental imbalances that ultimately come to affect our lives.

Imagine a day when those in a position of power, whether in manufacturing or marketing, would come together to realize that there is already enough stuff to go around and would press for developing aggressive alternative strategies to address the surplus through reusing, repurposing and overall reducing consumption. Delivery from slavery on both sides of the spectrum you could say…

On Earth Day and beyond, remembering that we have become so used to having convenient rather than respectful to nature, is worth yet another reminder. We have become used to resealable, non-recyclable bags for everything we consume, from produce and fruit to snacks and wipes; we have become accustomed to simply grabbing our cold drinks in single-use plastic cups covered with the plastic lid (number 6, non-recyclable in most recycling facilities), with a straw planted in it, no less, and we choose to not spend too much thought on why Canadians now produce approximately 10 billion tonnes of garbage yearly (9.6 billion tonnes in 2012) while the world’s oceans receive a staggering 8 billion tonnes of plastic from all of us earthlings.

During a recent talk at TRU on the topic of the health of our oceans, Fabien Cousteau shared one of his favourite quotes by Richard Louv. ‘We cannot protect something we do not love, we cannot love what we do not know, and we cannot love what we do not see. Or hear. Or sense.’

Hence the need to return to the simple things: exploring nature alongside our children. Playing in the muck, sitting in the shade of old-growth trees and listening to birds, wading in streams, and growing some of the food we put on the table. Discovering more so we can live with less. Knowing. So we can love and protect.

Happy Earth Day beyond Earth Day!

The Case Of The Wildflower vs. People

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On April 25, 2017

In Armchair Mayor Column, Climate change, Environment, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Self-improvement

Say you pass by a wildflower somewhere on a trail. Its splendor is impossible to miss, as wildflowers truly are like jewels sparkling in what is still dry grass mixed with new shoots of green blades.

If you get close enough and look at the flower head, observe how perfectly arranged all the parts are, how harmoniously distributed the colour, how beautifully oriented to receive sunlight, the only logical reaction is to ask how and why?

I know, we have heard the story a million times over. Spring, renewal, hope, green, warmth… in the end words, no matter how you bunch them together, mean nothing if our minds don’t peek into the very story to get to the wonders hidden in petals, leaves, the dirt hugging the roots and the profound love for every ray of sunshine.

Just think about it: what would happen if you were to spend the time to learn everything you can about that wildflower? The way the plant resurfaces every spring, the way it goes from a fuzzy bud to a vivid colour petal crown dancing graciously with the morning breeze… deeper still, the way atoms (which ones?) are arranged to form complex pigment molecules, the way these pigments break down and reveal a different shade (why at a certain time?), the way a plant cell wall is organized, different from an animal cell (why?) and how the petals and delicate inside parts do not wilt under the strong midday sun but thrive, pulsing with a life current so strong it pulls your gaze into it…

Just a wildflower, which you get to know enough about to cherish. To notice with the corner of your eye, to marvel at, to want to learn to know more…

Just a wildflower. Just enough to get you to love nature so much you’ll never take it for granted…

The Sense That Is Never Lost

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On April 20, 2017

In Armchair Mayor Column, Environment, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Self-improvement

It was as if someone lowered pup and I into a glass of milk. We were walking on the dirt trail up on the ranch in the rain. It was foggy but it became so dense the trees were but ghosts guarding a world of chirping and dripping.

Creepy you say? Not a tinge. Comforting and soothing, spring curled up at our sleep, succumbing to incessant and much needed rain. It’s the place where you hear birds and become aware of how little you know past that. Birds? Yes, but which kind? What’s the song about? Are you part of the landscape enough for them not to worry over you, or are you the intruder that rudely converts the sweet morning tunes into alarm sounds? Not that you’d notice…

To call it deafness would be inaccurate. It’s complicit ignorance… to the world that does not require us to know but what a gift towards becoming better versions of ourselves if we do. It is striking that the average person taking a stroll through the woods knows so little about what they see or hear.

Delicate stems of grasses that might as well be invisible for how little we know of what they are and why they’re there, wildflowers so pretty that we perhaps take photos of but do not take the thought far enough to learn their names… Trees with lives so mysteriously and beautifully intertwined with ours; trees that many (most?) of us call but trees, and go maybe as far as divide them into coniferous and deciduous, leaving way too much into the realm of ‘one day I will know more…’ because really, the day is today. That is all we have.

 

What then? Take a long enough breath to feel tingly all over and grateful beyond words for being able to so do. Make it so that you learn one thing on any given day, about the world so humbly laid at your feet you forget to give it thanks for providing the very ground you step on, a solid one. For the way it is mysteriously draped from the sky all over to where your lungs and eyes can be satiated without even you realizing it.

Save your sense of wonder. Save it from the daily rush, save it from careless gazing upon things you might not even notice after all, and save it from becoming uprooted in any way. We’re born with a sense of wonder; when we first touch the world our senses are steeped into all that the world has to offer, and then at some point – you’d be right to ask why and where, therein lies the trouble – we steer away from it.

 

Truth is, it’s still within, all of it. All it takes is silence punctuated with bird songs, rain dripping cold and soothing on your face, slipping on a patch of mud just enough to almost step on a delicate ring of flowers you then go and learn the name of… it’s all there. Pup and I keep finding that out. You do it too, why not?

It’s Time We Decriminalize Political Discourse

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On April 4, 2017

In Armchair Mayor Column, Climate change, Environment, Health, Kamloops, Learning, Social issues

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today and Armchair Mayor News on April 2, 2017. 

If I had a dollar for every time I was part of a conversation that had people purposefully steer away from subjects such as politics… well, you get the idea. It’d be a good chunk of money.

I know conversations that venture into politics can turn contentious, but that’s the nature of the beast. It doesn’t have to be all ugly though. Like with everything else, there is a learning curve that eventually can help us get to the place where we can engage in healthy dialogue that does not turn friends into enemies.

It seems we are inching the other way. Political conversations will get you a raised eyebrow in many circles. That, I dare say, is a threat to democracy itself.

We are soon to be immersed, as a province, in the thick of the provincial elections campaign. There will be news stories about parties and candidates, ugliness included, platforms to read and understand, and many will experience the campaign fatigue that comes from all that information pouring over our heads like incessant rain.  Come May 9, we will have to make our choices. And they’d better be good, is what most of us think to ourselves. But what’s good for the gander will not be good for the goose, or so we think.

The ‘good’ – in whatever sector we’re talking about – will not be the same for everyone, at least not in the details. The basics are the same for most of us: a good education system, medical needs taken care of no matter your social status or age, decent jobs and minimum wages that allow people to live rather than barely survive from month to month, the list goes on. It’s a long one. Then come the specifics. That’s where what’s good for some may not work for others and things like climate change-adapting economy proves too big a conversation to start. The specifics can turn healthy dialogue into ugly word exchange.

Scary as that is, if people aim to give it a decent makeover to the point of making political dialogue at any level possible, we’d all benefit from it.

That cannot happen though when so many of us are shying away from talking politics, considering it boorish and aggressive. It can be, but it doesn’t have to. Public discourse is what keeps democracy alive so it makes sense to have one brewing at all times. People staying away from political conversations at a time when they are most needed – prior to elections – has no positive outcomes whichever way you look at it.

If children and youths learn that talking politics is a dirty deed, they’ll be hard to convince to step up and vote when the time comes. That is a recurrent issue not just in British Columbia and Canada, but in many countries around the world.

When people start asking questions, exchanging information, debating, and engaging in public discourse that makes their concerns visible, that forces the political parties to pay attention and tailor their values to match those of the people they represent.

I get it. Political garb is far from the entertaining stuff that pours from social media platforms, sitcoms, reality shows, or whatever else people flock to these days. Getting past the gagging and learning what each party stands for or lack thereof in some cases, discerning through the promises that have the potential to become reality or fall flat on their faces, that can have some seriously uplifting down the road. Literally.

We usually read about developing countries dealing with corruption and people having to bear the effects of it, be it environmental disasters caused by loose industry standards, subhuman living conditions and treatment of vulnerable population groups, prosecution of people who dare challenge the system, to name but a few. The buffer zone between here and there allows us to touch on those topics or shake our heads disapprovingly while counting our blessings that come with living in a democracy.

As it turns out, those issues pop us everywhere, including Canada. One way to keep them at bay is having people engage politically – from the level of their living rooms to barber shops to public rallies and talks – so that knowledge can be shared, views can be challenged and wrongdoings turned into good decisions and deeds for the community.

It’s about time we decriminalize political discourse and instead focus on making it civil and constructive. There are tomes written on the art of conversation. An almost lost art, I’d say, that can be revived.

Public comments that follow online articles are often vitriolic in their nature and quickly turning to personal attacks. Many use fake names rather than their real ones, which adds to the volatile nature of the present political discourse, making it look ugly and boorish.

By decriminalizing political discourse, we can bring back something that often gets lost in today’s hurried life: a society where everyone has a voice is a better one. Though we call the hunter and gatherer societies primitive when we compare them with our present one, there was one thing that somehow the ‘primitive’ mindset included: everyone contributed to the well-being of the community, that ensured more than their well-being. It ensured their survival.

One facet of it nowadays could be the willingness to engage in educating ourselves politically, engaging with open minds in dialogue that will have us know more, challenge more, be humbled or bold when the situation calls for it, and most importantly, change what needs to be changed when the time comes to cast a vote. A privilege that cannot be ignored.

That our children will follow our example and be grateful for leading the way towards a better future, I have no doubt. That too is a privilege we cannot afford to ignore.

Where To From Here (Or Why Changing Our Ways Can Spare Some Of The Trouble Ahead)

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On February 15, 2017

In Armchair Mayor Column, Climate change, Environment, Health, Homeschooling, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today and Armchair Mayor News on February 13, 2017. 

Again, a week of many happenings. Like many of you who heard the story of the Kamloops couple who stopped to offer their help at an accident scene on the Coquihalla and were hit by a car that lost control, I kept hoping that Anna and Matt Grandia, parents of two, will both survive and recover. Sadly, Anna Grandia passed due to her severe injuries. The pain her family goes through and for the rest of their lives, is impossible to put into words.

Yes, it is unfair and senseless; these things always are. Following such tragic stories, you’d expect most of us drivers would learn something and apply it. Speed can kill, speed and winter weather conditions even more so. Yet if you drive around Kamloops and outside the city limits too, you come across speedy, careless drivers whose recklessness not only puts their own lives in danger, but mine and yours too.

What are we learning from reading or watching the news? How far does the message reach? Too often, a simple shrug and the next piece of news moves our attention from stories such as this, heartbreaking as they are.

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as ‘doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’ In case of driving recklessly and the mild consequences the reckless or drunk driver faces, compared to the pain he or she causes to others, well, they are, for the most part, severely disproportionate.

This is not an argument for sacking and punishing people for the sake of doing so. It’s about protecting everyone and making sure rules that keep everyone safe are being reinforced. Because let’s face it, heartbreaking stories seen from a distance elicit a certain response. Yet being in that story changes the terms completely. No one should have to go through something that can be prevented.

Whether it is protecting all people in a community from the ill consequences of dangerous driving, or protecting the community (up to the level of province, country and beyond) from any kind of peril brought upon by someone’s actions, we all need to be able to see where changes need to be made and do all that we can to see them implemented.

Two events I attended at TRU this past week added to the argument. On Tuesday I attended a talk by Naomi Klein. True to her reputation, she said it as it is and in no way sparing the ugly bits: environmentally speaking, we are in a rough spot, our commitment to the Paris agreement not only lacking some touches here and there, but being the complete opposite of what it should be.

With a powerful wind of climate change denial blowing incessantly from the south of the border, and our provincial and federal governments’ commitment to extracting and using more fossil fuels instead of reshaping our ways to sustainable alternatives, things are really not looking good. No, such things are not immediately visible, nor are they served as reminders in our media. We want to keep a sunny optimistic attitude as a society, and we believe that somehow things work out regardless. Again, I am reminded of the definition of insanity by Einstein. Powerful stuff.

Better regulations for industrial polluters that would prevent more carbon from being added to a constantly heating atmosphere, plus better and unbreakable ways to reinforce the regulations, that would get things moving in a different direction.

A forum on air quality, also held at TRU and hosted by Dr. Michael Mehta, professor of geography and environmental science, who has been recently and diligently monitoring the air we breathe using sensors peppered all throughout Kamloops, brought yet another problem forward. The air in Kamloops is often farthest from clean.

From the pulp mill emissions to idling, to air traffic pollution and residential wood burning in town, our air, on a bad day (and they are not rare, unfortunately), is but a collection of small particles and gases that can and do cause serious health problems, in some of us more than in others.

There are solutions, the forum participants, which included the Green Party, NDP and Communist Party candidates for the May 2017 provincial elections, concluded. Things need to change if we are to see better air days.

Better regulations and better ways to reinforce them, not for the benefit of corporate profit but the well-being of the community, yes, it can be done. Our brains are wired to find solutions when a problem is identified. As it happens, denial often gets in the way.

Future bad happenings can be avoided. We now know that leaving things unchanged will have us find ourselves, yet again, to the fork in the road labeled ‘crisis’. Trouble is, which each time we return to one crisis or another, we may find that the time we have left to change things may be drawing short or that we may have had one too many freedoms normally granted by a democracy, taken away from us, which renders action and change far more difficult.

From rules pertaining civilians to those concerning the industry, locally and country-wide, if we care about our collective well-being and our children’s right to inherit not only a better world but also the courage to speak up and influence change when change is due and needed, we ought to change some of the rules we have in place.

As said many times by many wise people throughout history, change starts with bettering ourselves at a personal level by reviewing our values. That way we can be objective in seeing what needs to be change at the level of our community and beyond.

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