March 30

Dan,

 If I understand your point, it is that we should practice what we preach? I would wholeheartedly agree except for the fact that the world is unfortunately not that simple.

 I'm reminded of the story (this may be an urban legend but I'm pretty sure it is true) of an extreme environmental political group here in BC that took that to the extreme. No cars to go to meetings, zero or minimal impact everywhere, always. However the problem was that because they all lived throughout the province, they needed to drive or fly to have their caucus meetings (this was about ten years ago so the internet was not as useful for these types of things.) They chose to honour their values by NOT driving to the meetings and quickly faded away into oblivion. Their stubborn adherence to their principles at a micro level stopped them from ever having a macro impact.

 My point is that things are almost never as simple as we would like them to be. Life is about trade-offs. We are running an event on sustainability and the reality is that with the current fragmentation of the media, we need to reach out through all available channels with the hope being that on balance, the outcomes and results of the event significantly outweight the costs.

 Current sustainability definitions often talk about the goal being to use resources in a way that does not preclude our children from being able to do the same. Note that the goal is not zero resource usage, just that it is at a zero-sum rate - what we take out, we put back or replenish. 

 I would suggest that a 30 day awareness raising campaign that involved thousands of people across this city and that helped to build stronger relationships between the various entities significantly outweighed the costs of the newspaper insert, the electricity, the vehicle travel, and the energy used to run our offices. But then, I don't know that. I can only hope. 

 My final point Dan is this. Keep your eye on the big picture Dan. And by the way, if you're looking for somewhere to help out, we would love to have you involved.

Troy 

Hi Dan,
Thanks for expressing your concerns. We just want to be clear about the insert, so here are a few facts about it:
- the paper used was FSC certified "Luna Gloss" 80 lb. stock
- the ink is vegetable-based
- the insert was printed by Hemlock Printers who have won numerous awards for their sustainable printing processes.
- A heavy weight paper stock was chosen so it would last for awhile and people could post it in a handy place for easy reference of things they could do in their daily lives to be a little more sustainable.
- As well, we vetoed a suggestion by the Sun to run a larger, multi-page insert and chose to print and distribute a single page with more meaningful content.

I certainly agree that newspapers can be a waste of paper resources and would encourage all those with internet access to consider getting some portion of their news online.

Best,
Sarah

My heros are;

• those who seek to engage others in new and more meaningful ways,
• those who look for opportunites to join hands in ways that hands have not been previously joined,
• those who recognize the paradox of sustainability and who, in spite of the paradox, continue to seek ways to change the world
• those who seek to understand and learn vs judge
• those who see possiblity in the germ of an idea and invest their hearts, minds and hands to bring it to reality
•  those willing to challenge old modes of thinking and explore new ways of being

The dozens of people behind the 30 Days of Sustainabilty (Debbie, Todd, Richard, Tom, Mark, Sarah, Troy, Coro, Sonny, Ted, Penny, Ron, Toni... and many, many others) who have invested coutless hours in advancing an idea that they belived in, they are my heros. These are people who cast stones with the belief and hope that their efforts will send ripples that will truly change the world.

You people make me proud!