My wife and I decided that our family is going to eat healthier in 2010 than in previous years. Always a good New Years Resolution to make, the fun part is following through. We are going to eat more locally grown food and more organic food. And hopefully, as much as possible, locally grown, organic food.

So what has this got to do with yogurt and light bulbs? Let’s explore.

There are three primary challenges with greening with our diets:

1.       Finding food that is greener

2.       Determining whether the food is healthier

3.       Dealing with the price difference

So what has this got to do with yogurt and compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)?

We recently switched to Stonyfield organic yogurt from another brand (non-organic). Yes, the price the is slightly higher, but it tastes better and Stonyfield has a great reputation for not only their organic products, but everything else they do for the environment. Finding their product in our grocery store was relatively easy – there it is in the yogurt section, just like you can find CFLs I the light bulb section in a hardware store. Both are now easy to find and both are slightly higher in price than regular yogurt and incandescent light bulbs. What they have in common is that this wasn’t the case a decade ago.

As time goes on, more organic and locally grown products will become available where most of us shop for food – at the grocery store (next time you go there, check out the organic department, I bet it is much larger than it was a couple of years ago). Until that happen, please visit your local farmer’s market and pick up some locally grown eggs, meat, chicken and veggies.

In the meantime, we still have a bit of work to do. Next time you go to the grocery store, check out where some of the fruit and vegetables come from – you will be surprised! For as much as I support organic, I also support buying locally, but organic from a few thousand miles away? Where is the health / carbon footprint there?

Bottom line – support your local farmers.

Several years ago, I worked with potato farmers – wise and pragmatic people.  In springtime, they would bring some snow into their potato storages.  Snow absorbs a lot of heat as it melts, so it kept the storage (and potatoes) cool, extending the life of the potatoes. 

Just as snow keeps those potato storages cool, it can help you save a bit of energy and money at home:

• If you take snow or ice from outside and put it into your fridge, it will absorb heat as it melts, meaning your fridge comes on less.  (That’s how ‘iceboxes’ worked in the days before fridges.)
• You can make ice cubes for free outside, giving your fridge’s freezer compartment a break.  (When you pause to think about it, it’s a bit odd that we use energy to make ice in winter…)

Take advantage of FREE snow and ice to save a bit of energy and money!

In the News:

“We have a real emergency” says former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in a New York Times column urging world leaders to come to a global agreement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/opinion/10iht-edgorbachev.html?_r=1

“Winter activities across Canada, from Olympic sports like skiing and snowboarding to iconic Canadian pastimes such as ice fishing and pond hockey will be at risk if we don't take international action to reduce global warming,'' write current and former members of Canada’s Olympic team in a letter to Prime Minister Harper urging serious action on climate change.
http://www.canada.com/Olympic+athletes+join+call+action+climate+change/2320896/story.html

If your household is like mine, Halloween is one of the most exciting times of the year.  (It also results in a pillowcase full of treats which tend to last into spring.)  But even Halloween has a impact on the planet – mainly through treats, decorations and travel.  If you’d like to reduce your family’s ‘Halloween carbon footprint’, here are a few ideas:

1. the best single action you can take is to leave the car home and walk around the neighbourhood.  Bundle up, and for added safety consider flashlights, reflective tape, face paint instead of masks, and, if the kids allow it, adult accompaniment.

2. minimize the use of inflatable decorations (they use as much power as 4-6 CFLs) and lights; use timers to turn them off automatically and save money

3. consider ‘greener’ treat options, food or otherwise.  Check out www.greenhalloween.org for lots of information and suggestions.

In the news

The President and cabinet of the Maldives, a tropical paradise threatened by rising sea levels, held an extraordinary underwater meeting Saturday to raise awareness and sign a declaration calling for cuts in global emissions. 

The CEO of Shell, one of the world’s largest oil companies, is urging the US Senate to act on climate change legislation.

In the News

US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday urged world leaders to tackle climate change on a global scale.

Could this face in the ice be Mother Nature sending us a message?

Hazy Opera House: a dust storm hits parched Sydney  

I’m delighted to share that I have raised over $26,500 in pledges. Thanks to everyone who contributed!  (It's still not too late: http://www.terryfox.org/cgi/page.cgi/Run/participants.html/USH8SW)

Have you ever come across an idea and thought to yourself - "I wish I thought of that".

Here is one, check out eatatlantic.ca. Co-op Atlantic have launched a challenge between the four Atlantic Canadian provinces, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador to see which province can get the most number of people pledging to eat locally grown food...brilliant.

The pledge reads (from the site):

"I pledge to eat only foods produced in Atlantic Canada for the day - for our economy, our environment and our future." 

The challenge runs today, Friday, September 4, 2009. At the time of this writing, more than 4,000 took the pledge. Very cool.

I would love to see more challenges like this year-round. Wouldn't you?

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola

The Fraser River’s sockeye salmon are in trouble. And when the salmon are in trouble, we’re all in trouble.

The number of sockeye returning from the ocean to the Fraser River this year is one of the lowest in the past 50 and follows two years of dangerously low returns. In fact, we have witnessed decades of decline for diverse sockeye populations from the Fraser Watershed, some of which are now on the brink of extinction.

Many salmon runs besides Fraser sockeye are also endangered, while others have disappeared altogether. As populations decline, so does genetic diversity. This diversity allows salmon to adapt to the challenges they face and keeps the populations strong and healthy.

The total disappearance of Pacific salmon would be devastating not just for First Nations and families that depend on the fish for food, but for all who consider salmon a healthy and tasty food source and who rely on the money salmon fishing brings to the economy. Salmon are also essential to the healthy functioning of ecosystems. They bring nutrients from the oceans to the rivers and forests and are a valuable food source for whales, bears, birds, and other wildlife.

The Fraser sockeye fishery is one of Canada’s most valuable, accounting for close to 50 per cent of the economic value of all salmon caught in B.C. Their extremely low returns have been called a mystery because finding one simple cause or solution is difficult. However, even though we can’t always link an exact cause to every salmon population decline, we do know the major threats, and that gives us hope that we can change things for the better.

Sockeye have been heavily fished over the years, their spawning habitat in rivers and lakes is being destroyed, their survival is threatened by warming oceans and rivers due to climate change, and they are vulnerable to sea lice and diseases from open-net salmon farms.

While we need to invest more funding in science to understand the exact details behind saving our disappearing salmon, we can and must take precautionary actions to curtail activities that we know harm salmon. Canada’s Wild Salmon Policy provides the tools to do this, but although the government adopted this policy in 2005, it has yet to fund it and put it to work. Now is the time to do so.

Specifically, we need to work with government and industry to find ways to catch salmon from healthy stocks while avoiding catching salmon from threatened populations.

Freshwater habitat needs to be conserved and rebuilt, and destructive practices such as converting fish-bearing lakes to mine-tailings ponds or destroying streamside vegetation should be stopped.

We must also make sure that seafood labelled as sustainable truly meets the necessary criteria. Third-party eco-certification, like that offered by the U.K.-based Marine Stewardship Council, must be reserved for fisheries that are well-managed and don’t further endanger threatened salmon populations.

We need to change salmon farming to remove the impacts of sea lice and disease by creating a thriving closed-containment industry that separates farmed fish from wild.

Canada must also combat global warming by committing to major reductions of greenhouse gases at upcoming negotiations in Copenhagen if the salmon are to survive their long journey from spawning grounds to the sea and back over the long term.

Fortunately, leaders are starting to emerge in the struggle to protect the salmon. Fishermen are working with First Nations in the Skeena watershed to use beach seines to selectively harvest abundant salmon runs. Commercial-scale trials of closed-containment salmon farms are underway off the East Coast of Vancouver Island and at other sites around the world. Municipalities such as Maple Ridge have adopted improved development practices to protect salmon streams.

These efforts employ a holistic, ecosystem-based approach that acknowledges the many factors that affect salmon’s ability to survive and thrive.

By embracing our role as a significant part of the ecosystem and acting with the knowledge that we are connected to it for good or for ill, we have a chance to reshape the way we fish, build communities, and live our lives so that salmon remain a healthy part of this coast. We will all be richer if we succeed.

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Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and chair of the David Suzuki Foundation and Dr. Faisal Moola is the Director of Science at the David Suzuki Foundation.

Take David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge and learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola

One of my favourite summer activities is picking wild blueberries with my family at our cabin in northern B.C. The waning weeks of summer are the best time to be out in the bush, as the berries are ripe and flavourful, in contrast to the sometimes bland-tasting commercial varieties from the grocery store.

Wild-berry harvesting is a Canadian tradition that rural and northern people from Newfoundland to the Yukon share in late August. Wild blueberries have been an important part of the traditional diet of First Nations and Métis for generations, especially in the boreal forest where several varieties, including the lowbush and velvet leaf blueberry, grow well in the acidic and nutrient-poor soils.

According to University of Victoria ethnobotanist Nancy Turner, berry gathering has always been a social activity in aboriginal communities. Family members and friends often set up berry-picking camps, where they will stay for days or even weeks to take advantage of nature’s bounty. Berries are great fresh, but they’re also tasty in jams, jellies, fruit leathers, and pies. They can also be sold commercially, which provides important seasonal income in rural and northern communities.

Our approach to managing the wild lands where these berries grow, such as the boreal forest, leaves something to be desired, though. According to prevailing economic thought, the only value in these areas is in the money we can make from harvesting or extracting resources – most often lucrative timber, oil and gas, or minerals. And so when a natural forest is cleared, we replant it with a single or a few economically desirable tree species of the same age and genetic stock, and then we try to maximize the growth of these species by using toxic chemicals to kill any insects or “competing” plants that would slow them down.

It’s time we started to recognize the significant economic importance of wild blueberries and other native plants – what rural economists call “non-timber forest products”.  For example, economists estimate that the Canadian boreal forest is worth between $261.4 million and $575.1 million a year to aboriginal people for subsistence food alone.

And these foods are increasingly becoming a delicacy for non-northerners. A pint of wild blueberries from Northern Ontario sells for close to eight bucks in the trendy health-food stores of Toronto, where many consumers are motivated not only by the fantastic taste but also by increasing scientific evidence about the health benefits of the fruit.

Harvesting, processing, and selling wild blueberries brings pleasure and profit to many rural and northern communities. It’s distressing that industrial activities such as herbicide spraying by logging companies can kill wild blueberry plants and other vegetation, which are considered competitors for resources needed by the trees, such as light, nutrients, and water.

In Canada, the most popular herbicide for this purpose is Vision, produced by agri-chemical giant Monsanto. This column’s co-author, David Suzuki Foundation science director Faisal Moola, has studied the impacts of Vision herbicide on wild blueberry plants, and has published research showing that chemical spraying harms the plants, reducing the amount of berries available for people and wildlife like bears and birds.

Logging companies typically spray the herbicide in mid to late summer, which is when the berries are ripe. Because of this, wildlife and berry-pickers may also be accidentally exposed to chemical residues when they eat contaminated fruit (even though warnings must be posted when areas are sprayed).

Scientific debate over whether Vision poses a serious risk to human and wildlife health is ongoing. Still, some indigenous and local people have expressed concerns that chemical spraying could make the berries less healthy and are therefore reluctant to eat them.

This indirect consequence of spraying herbicides in our managed forestlands concerns us. Wild berries are a free, healthy, and traditional source of nutrition for northern communities. If fears about toxicity, real or perceived, keep people from eating berries or the animals that graze on them, the consequences will be serious for people who are already ravaged by a western diet of too much sugar, salt, and fat.

We should do everything we can to encourage people to eat safe and nutritious “traditional country foods”, such as wild blueberries and other plants and resources of the forest (including wild fish and game). We must protect the traditional foods of First Nations and others who live off the land from the damage that industrial activities can cause.

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Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and chair of the David Suzuki Foundation and Dr. Faisal Moola is the Director of Science at the David Suzuki Foundation.

Take David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge and learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.