The days after
With all the Waterfront festival people claiming a record success, they would wouldn't they? I went off to look for myself on cleanup day.The King St merchants I spoke to did not notice much more traffic during the festival, cementing an opinion that visitors to the waterfront rarely migrate to the downtown whenever there are waterfront activities. This opinion was confirmed when the merchants told me that Sunday, the first day after the festival and the day after the American holiday, was a busy one. "Nothing at the harbour let's go downtown!" seemed to be the sentiment from the majority of people, mainly visiting Americans. Not to be negative let's celebrate the fact that Cobourg put on a good show, even though one must remember that it is a major commercial event run by the Rotary for the Rotary.
The Toronto garbage strike is going to drag on and the two sides have to get down to brass tacks now that McGuinty has said he will not legislate them back, well he can't if he has let the Windsor strike drag on for eleven weeks. What did Mayor Miller expect? that the union would roll over. Not going to happen. You can't give all the unions (police and fire) except the grunts 3% raises and improvements to contracts and then turn around and takeaway a year later in the bargaining cycle, "Just because things have changed" Besides despite the big issue, that keeps getting distorted, like the sick pay issue (this one for all the union bashers is in lieu of the short term disability that most provate sector companies have) you can't take away without a quid pro quo. I wonder what all the bashers would say if the Feds suddenly said, when all the execs in the country are getting bonuses and when all MPs and other pols are raising their own wages "Your CPP is being cut by 10% because we are in a recession!" not going to happen. But because these folks are in a union their wages and benefits are fair game. Both the City and Union have to get real - compromise and finish with a status-quo contract. Unfortunately Miller, who has had bad advice on this issue, will come off worse but perhaps he deserved it because he has not led on this one.
Sad, reports from the war-zone that two more soldiers have died today. The tragedy about this one is that it may have been caused by technical failure. Let's face it we are fighting with equipment built by the lowest bidder and held together by baling wire.
12 comments:
The Waterfront Festival didn't seem to be as busy as in past years, although I didn't make it there until the last day, Saturday, which might have been less well attended.
A sunny but windy day, neither the beach nor the midway were crowded. Even the vendors weren't busy in the height of the afternoon with live music blasting from the bandshell.
Is this because fewer people have cash to spread around at events like this? Staying home and having a BBQ is much cheaper than carnival rides at $4.50 a pop for a decent ride, and hot dogs for $3.50.
Whether we'd even be told if the year's take was smaller than normal is doubtful, so we may never know.
Thanks to everyone who worked to put it all together, it must be a tremendous investment of time and energy by lots of people.
Now that the Province has decided to investigate the various "green bin" programs throughout Ontario I would like to nominate our own Ben Burd to chair the committee.
Our one time Cobourg garbage czar brought the beloved blue box program to Cobourg way back when, and certainly could do a fine job of co-ordinating the mish mash of programs out there now.
First order of business is to put a stop to the kind of thinking we have in Northumberland where they won't re-cycle something if they can't make a buck selling it off. Example: styrofoam.
Re-cycling is not about making a buck, it is about reducing the damage to the environment that our copious amounts of trash cause.
The reason the staff at beer stores are buried under a mountain of empty wine and liquor bottles is because the various municipalities couldn't get their acts together and all agree to accept these empties for re-cycling, which was simpler and more sensible. We could do that in Northumberland, but not in many other areas.
If we had standardised province wide rules for re-cycling that fiasco wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't have to pay deposits on those bottles either.
This review is well past due. If we're going to get serious about how we dispose of our trash, we need to be on the same page, with the same goal at the end of the day.
Perhaps if more emphasis were put on the other two parts of "RRR", being 'Reduce' and 'Reuse', some of the load on the third one, 'Recycle' would be avoided altogether. In fact, the main goal should be the most emphasis on "Reduce", which would only benefit the rest of the formula.
The trouble with "reduce and re-use" is that it runs contrary to the mantra of our rabid consumer society, where we must shop til we drop to keep the economy moving at all cost.
I've heard it said more than once that it is people who save rather than spend their money, and don't go in for conspicuous consumption, who are partly to blame for the downturn that is causing unemployment and stock market plunges.
Then again, I've also heard that this type of person is almost extinct as most of us are in debt that we can never pay off and truly one pay cheque away from the dreaded welfare office.
Either way the economy is directly related to the environment and we need solutions that respect both.
Yep, we need solutions. Anyone offering solutions to anything?
Save your money
&
Save the economy
That is one good idea.
Essentially, it boils down to lifestyle choices and the inherent successes available through simplicity.
How can anyone realistically expect to restore or even save a consumption based economy by implementing conservation strategies as a central part of the plan?
I was pumping irony, Manfred
D O'C wrote: "Either way the economy is directly related to the environment and we need solutions that respect both."
An interesting, but not quite equivalent restatement of this is as follows: “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the biosphere."
This restatement appears in the article "Top 10 Myths about Sustainability" by Michael D. Lemonick, published in the March 2009 Special Edition of Scientific American titled Earth 3.0.
Written for the general reader; I read it while waiting for my lawyer!
Getting rid of the consumer based economy is just one of the many side benefits of conservation, in my humble opinion.
So Debbie, do you have any proposals about how to abolish the consumer based economy? Is that just a dime-a-dozen throw-away remark, or do have even a hint of a plan?
To answer your question Wally, here's what I think.
The collapse of the current global economy along with the perfect storm of environmental degradation coming our way should together take care of the problem of our consumer based society.
We will be far too busy trying to feed ourselves and keep warm to worry about HD tv sets and the master closet in our master bedroom suite with the Jacuzzi tub and rain forest shower in our master en suite.
I do realize I watch too much HGTV with its real estate shows. The greed being endlessly showcased has made me give it up though, but not before I learned about master suites and all the junk that goes with them.
"The collapse of the current global economy along with the perfect storm of environmental degradation coming our way should together take care of the problem of our consumer based society."
Oh, ok, so no one has to do anything. It's all being taken care of. So you should be happy that the nightmare of a consumer-based society will be swept away. Societies everywhere will be so much healthier without washers, driers, electric stoves, toasters, tvs, etc. I can foresee happiness spreading on an unprecedented scale.
It's a pity that the USSR folded its cards. It was a perfect example of a non-consumer society. Still people seemed to retain a knead to make their lives a bit more comfortable and easier with this or that do-dad.
I don't own a car, a tv, radio, washer/dryer, table, couch, chair, linen, cutlery, dishes or anything except a bike, laptop, camera, ten or so books and two suitcases of clothing. That's it. That's my "stuff". I presume that with your passionate dedication to non-consumer goods, you have even less stuff than I do.
The absence of "stuff" gives me freedom. For example, I will spend August near Algonquin Park with a friend who has a room for me. I take care of my board. Then off in spring to Vancouver to stay with an Iranian poet for a month, then a photographer for a month, another month in Toronto at one or two places. Life is wonderful.
There hasn't been much of a consumer-based society for many years in Zimbabwe. There's a role model to emulate.
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