What If?

What would happen if each person in North America decided to make a change? A small change. 

What would happen if we all decided to take a short walk each day? If we simply focused on quieting the inner dialogue. If we took time to connect.

What would happen if, upon returning from this stroll, we all picked up one piece of garbage? Just one piece.

Image via Flickr - Lynn

What would happen?

Our bodies would change. Our souls would change. Our earth would change.

And in a single year, 192, 983, 014, 620 pieces of garbage would be saved from making their way into streams, rivers, oceans, and animal's stomachs.

Why don't you try it?

Take Your Feelings Off Auto-Pilot

Most of us go through life with our feelings on auto-pilot. What do I mean?

"Many people don't know about the power of good feelings, and so their feelings are reactions or responses to what happens to them. They have put their feelings on automatic pilot, instead of deliberately taking charge of them. When something good happens, they feel good. When something bad happens, they feel bad. They don't realize that their feelings are the cause of what is happening to them. As they react with negative feelings to something that has happened, they give out more negative feelings, and they receive back more negative circumstances. They become trapped in a cycle by their own feelings. Their life goes around and around in circles not getting anywhere, like a hamster on a wheel, because they don't realize that to change their life, they must change their feeling frequency!"

Rhonda Byrne - Author of The Secret and The Power 

Image via Ruemag

Series: A Critique of Common Justifications for Alberta's Oil Sands

[This post is the fourth in a 5 part series, which looks at the main economic, social, and environmental justifications for Alberta's Oil Sands. The final post in this series will discuss select renewable energy sources, along with the feasibility of implementation in Alberta. Click for Justification 3, Justification 2 and Justification 1]

Argument 4 - Most Stringent Regulations in the World

“Canada’s oil sands industry operates within some of the most stringent and comprehensive regulations for resource development anywhere in the world” (OSDG)

Unfortunately, although many hours and expenditures are going into drafting these complex socio-economic and environmental regulations, the laws are simply not being monitored. World class policies remain on paper, while the realities of the industry are not accounted for. The Royal Society of Canada explains that “the environmental regulatory capacity of the Alberta and Canadian Governments does not appear to have kept pace with the rapid growth of the oil sands industry over the past decade.”

There is also a clear lack of transparency in the industry; although oil is being extracted on public lands, private property leases have been administered. Public ground access is prohibited, and minimum flight elevation rules hinder any useful observations. In addition, there is a “paucity of relevant data available to the public due in large part to a decline in government monitoring in recent decades that have coincided with rapid and major expansion of the [oil sands] industry.” (Timoney and Lee)

Native American Code Of Ethics

Rise with the sun to pray. Pray alone. Pray often.
The Great Spirit will listen, if you only speak.

Be tolerant of those who are lost on their path.
Ignorance, conceit, anger, jealousy and greed stem from a lost soul.
Pray that they will find guidance.

Search for yourself, by yourself. Do not allow others to make your path for you.
It is your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.

Treat the guests in your home with much consideration. Serve them the best food, give them the best bed and treat them with respect and honor.

Do not take what is not yours whether from a person, a community, the wilderness or from a culture. It was not earned nor given. It is not yours.

Respect all things that are placed upon this earth – whether it be people or plant.

Honor other people’s thoughts, wishes and words. Never interrupt another or mock or rudely mimic them. Allow each person the right to personal expression.

Never speak of others in a bad way.
The negative energy that you put out into the universe will multiply when it returns to you.

All persons make mistakes.
And all mistakes can be forgiven.

Bad thoughts cause illness of the mind, body and spirit. Practice optimism.

Nature is not FOR us, it is a PART of us. They are part of your worldly family.

Children are the seeds of our future. Plant love in their hearts and water them with wisdom and life’s lessons. When they are grown, give them space to grow.

Avoid hurting the hearts of others.
The poison of your pain will return to you.

Be truthful at all times. Honesty is the test of one’s will within this universe.

Keep yourself balanced. Your Mental self, Spiritual self, Emotional self, and Physical self – all need to be strong, pure and healthy. Work out the body to strengthen the mind. Grow rich in spirit to cure emotional ails.

Make conscious decisions as to who you will be and how you will react. Be responsible for your own actions.

Be true to yourself first. You cannot nurture and help others if you cannot nurture and help yourself first.

Respect others religious beliefs.
Do not force your belief on others.

Share your good fortune with others.
Participate in charity.

Do You Know Where Your Food Comes From?

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity. 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson / Essayist

Via Flickr - thornypup

Series: A Critique of Common Justifications for Alberta's Oil Sands

[This post is the third in a 5 part series, which looks at the main economic, social, and environmental justifications for Alberta's Oil Sands. The final post in this series will discuss select renewable energy sources, along with the feasibility of implementation in Alberta. Click for Justification 2 and Justification 1]

Argument 3 - Reinvesting in New Technologies to Extract the Rest of the Oil Sands

Current techniques make a large portion of the oil sands unavailable to us. While investing only a small portion of funding into renewable and sustainable technology, Alberta and the oil companies are investing in new technology to extract the rest of Alberta’s oil sands. The logic behind this decision is that “Alberta's conventional oil and gas supplies are declining rapidly” (Alberta Innovates) Industry admits that oil is a finite resource. The thing is, by definition, a finite resource will in every single instance reach a point where it dwindles and runs out. Therefore, even if newer technologies are made available, humanity will yet again find itself at this very same point of exhaustion. However next time, there will be no more oil, or, what remains will not make economic sense to extract. By this time, the rest of the world’s reserves will have likely run out, and as the only alternative, the world will have switched to powering their economies by use of sustainable technology, making oil the least desirable option.

This is what miles of undisturbed boreal forest now looks like thanks to the oil sands operations. Via Flickr - mrjorgen

There are many examples of countries and states already moving away from non-renewable energy sources. By 2007, Denmark had managed to source 19.7% of their electricity from wind power alone. This was a 16.4% increase in only 16 years. Even other nations who are oil rich are planning ways to reduce their dependency on oil. The UAE, a federation with the most oil per hectare than anywhere else in the world, is structuring their economy to be less dependent on oil money. An unstable oil market and eventual exhaustion are reasons cited for this, conditions that apply to oil extraction projects everywhere. Saudi Arabia is also moving away from oil for the same reasons. Although the alternatives that these nations choose are often unsustainable as well (ex. energy consuming skyscrapers, nuclear power), it does show a global consensus that oil is clearly not the energy of the future.

Alberta Innovates has directly stated that the priorities of the Energy and Environmental research are focused on the next twenty-years. Such short-term thinking is highly illogical when we fully expect multiple generations to come after ours. It would be much wiser to invest in renewable technologies, which are constantly improving and becoming more affordable, both for long-term business strategy and economic, social and environmental health.