Crystal Clear

On Earth… the problem had been with cars. The disadvantages involved in pulling lots of black sticky slime from out of the ground where it had been safely hidden out of harm’s way, turning it into tar to cover the land with, smoke to fill the air with and pouring the rest into the sea, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of being able to get more quickly from one place to another – particularly when the place you arrived at had probably become, as a result of this, very similar to the place you had left, i.e. covered with tar, full of smoke and short of fish. (from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

Satire and humour sometimes get to the absurdity of our life in a way regular speech often can’t. And, it can help us step back a minute and think about what we’re really doing with our actions and decisions.

Because reading articles about the problems with the sealants we put down on our driveways (Environmental News Network, and US Geological Service) doesn’t always have the same shock factor nor encourages us to change our actions, like:

1. Drive less and use / encourage alternative types of transportation (transit, walking, bike lanes / paths, trains, etc)
2. Put in a different driveway – gravel, interlock, grass / interlock or ‘grassy pavers‘ and the like
3. Support restriction of harmful chemicals – like coal tar and the like

We’re always going to need to travel and move around. But maybe we can think about doing it only as much as needed, not doing it needlessly, and doing it in the least destructive way possible.

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I was told a story about a group of North Americans who visited a Latin American country to help rebuild after a natural disaster.

One day, a truck pulls up with stones for the cement. A local worker begins to shovel it out, one shovelful at a time, while the truck driver sits in his cab. A couple of the North American men jump up on the truck to help the ‘poor’ guy.

The driver jumps out of the truck and is very angry.

The entire truck is not meant to be emptied. Each shovelful was being counted and would be charged for. That count is now disrupted.

Very rarely does acting first and listening later actually produce a better result. How many times do we need to watch and experience that the most important thing is to listen first?

No one feels good when someone comes at you with an “I know what your problem is and I’m going to help you fix it, or fix it for you.”

I read a book called “When Helping Hurts” which looks at this deeper and more clearly than I’ve seen laid out before. Read the book or at least look at this visual book summary (when_helping_hurts2).

Because trying to help could actually end up hurting someone, it is critical we think deeper. Just trying to help isn’t enough.

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A few years ago (2007) the CBC did a story on the regulations on food products and how product of Canada could mean only 51 percent of the ingredients and production were Canadian.

So, that ‘fact’ was stuck in my head.

I was looking today for some labeling regulations for another product (ingredient of ‘white whole wheat flour’ – what does that mean?) and read the regulations for Product of Canada.

A food product may claim Product of Canada when all or virtually all major ingredients, processing, and labour used to make the food product are Canadian. This means that all significant ingredients are Canadian and non-Canadian material must be negligible… Generally, the percentage referred to as very little or minor is considered to be less than a total of 2 per cent of the product. (Canada Food Inspection Agency)

So, that’s pretty good! Product of Canada means ingredients and processing done in Canada. Yay! I’m glad to have my mind’s facts changed on this!

On another note, Imported by or Imported for which a Canadian address / company tell you virtually  nothing about country of origin. Hopefully that too will change and we’ll know where all our food comes from.

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I was doing some math today with some stats I was given on net worth in the US.

If all the households in the US with a net worth of at least 1 million donated just 0.01% of that to fight poverty and other charitable activities, an additional 2.3 billion dollars would be available.

Just 0.01% goes a long way.

If these same households gave 1% that would be 234 billion dollars! That would go even further.

(If your net worth is 10 million, and you gave 1%, that means you’d still have 9.9 million left. Seems like enough to keep to me.)

Enormous untapped resources. Enormous. (And I haven’t even added in the giving of 1% or 0.1% of those under 1 million. Little bits from many adds up too.)

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In the course of doing a kitchen renovation we needed to find a countertop. Environmentally friendly options of IceStone or PaperStone or EnviroGlas and the like get pretty pricey! Laminates, while much cheaper, are a big question mark because they have glues and resins which off gas VOCs for many years.

I began to ask around whether there are low VOC laminates. It took me quite some time to even figure out what to ask. Many people didn’t even know why I wanted this ‘feature’ and had never heard of a request like it before.

Eventually, I think I’ve made some progress, and since I’ve taken the time to try to figure this out – I thought I’d share so others won’t have to do the same!

What’s the issue? There’s actually two. (1) The backer board (particle board) is paper or sawdust held together by glue resins. (2) The plastic laminate surface is attached using a glue.

First I found out about the laminate: companies like Formica and others have a High Pressure Laminate (HPL) that is GreenGuard certified to be low VOC and use a low emitting glue to attach it to the backer board.

Next I found out about those who make backer boards: VT Industries makes a backer that is made from recycled paper and uses a water based resin. Their Canadian product from Belanger-Lamintes with the HPL and backer is called the EQ Countertop.

Perfect? Well, it was pretty hard to find a company that sells these countertops. But I did find two companies in Ontario: one is a supplier (The Top Shop) and the other is an installer (Just a Countertop).

Prices? Well, a standard laminate countertop for our kitchen of 24 linear feet was $663 not installed. The cost for the EQ Countertop was $1100, also not installed. So, that seems not too bad. (For reference we also found a solid surface countertop priced at $2500 installed. Granite, etc. is closer to $3500 and up)

So, what did I learn? I learned what to ask: do you carry a counter top that has a GreenGuard certified laminate and used a water based resin backer? I learned they can be bought in my area. I stopped searching after finding VT Industries (they have branches in the US and Canada). If you’re not in Ontario, you can call them to find out their retailers in your area.

I also learned that while you can research a lot using just the internet, things didn’t always complete sense until I actually talked to real people.

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I run across web sites here and there which really bother me. What bothers me is that these sites do not seem to be aware that if a web site is available on the Internet, it could be viewed by anyone around the world. If the site does not identify clearly they are from a particular country, or they make global claims that are really only their own country specific, such as ‘the leading provider’ of a particular service, this indicates they are probably not globally aware.

To me, it seems either ignorant or arrogant that people do not even consider there are people outside their own context.

I’ll be honest; most of the sites that bother me this way are American companies, but I’m sure they are not the only ones.

Do you write web content or even blog? Please keep in mind we live in a globally connected world now!

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