Note: This story was first published in http://www.corporateknightsforum.com. It is an international story that does have ramifications for all Canadians. So-called world class cities don't fit well in countries that allow this:

Canadian Fisheries has once again proven that it thinks bad politics beats good policy. Last weekend’s seizure of the Farley Mowat—a Sea Shepherd Foundation protest vessel—proves the point. After an abysmal week for the Canadian government agency where four fisherman drowned as a result of a towing accident involving a Canadian icebreaker, Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn decided to deflect the generation-old criticism of Canada’s sealing industry by arresting environmentalists.

Leader of the Sea Shepherd organization Paul Watson made it easy for Hearn to take this step when he stated, “The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society recognizes that the deaths of four sealers is a tragedy but Sea Shepherd also recognizes that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups is an even greater tragedy.” According to the CBC, Watson also described sealers as “sadistic baby killers” and “vicious killers who are now pleading for sympathy because some of their own died while engaged in a viciously brutal activity.” With eastern Canada enraged over Watson’s comments, Minister Hearn saw an opportunity to act and he did. He ordered the Mowat seized in international waters.

Of course, this was Watson’s purpose all along: provoke a disproportionate government response to get headlines and reach an international audience. Read this quote from the Sea Shepherd’s web site:

In seizing the Farley Mowat and arresting the Sea Shepherd crew Loyola Hearn has done something that Sea Shepherd hoped he would do but we did not believe he was stupid enough to do – an unlawful boarding of foreign registered vessel in international waters. With the European Parliament on the brink of voting to ban seal products into the European market, Loyola Hearn decides to arrest Europeans for the “crime” of documenting incidents of cruelty on the ice.

Given the provocation, it is hard for Canadians to support Watson’s efforts to ban sealing. That’s why Green Party leader Elizabeth May decided that it was time to distance herself from the group. She resigned from her role as an advisor to the Sea Shepherd society.

“There’s a point at which someone’s comments are just so completely repugnant,” May told CBC News Friday.

“We’re just reeling from the loss of these men at sea, and whether you support the seal hunt or not, you want all the seal hunters to get home to their families safely.”

Watson said Friday he is not apologetic about his comments.

“I don’t pretend to not be controversial. I’m here to rock the boat, to make waves, to make people think, you know, to provoke. That’s what I do."

Canada’s bad policy on sealing makes Watson’s job easier. The story is already in the world’s news cycle, and Canada’s image abroad is eroded first and foremost by the primitive spring blood ritual, and then by the making of laws meant to prevent (...read more...)

Hey -- what’s with the partial nudity?

That’s just how Robert Nadeau regards economists. Because, according to his recent article in Scientific American, economists are scientifically ignorant. That’s why, on his view,

Unscientific assumptions in economic theory are undermining efforts to solve environmental problems.

Essentially, Nadeau’s argument isn’t that economic theories are inconsistent. Only absurdly incomplete. As if mainstream economists were describing nothing but straight narrow portions of spectacularly long winding roads. Thus, particularly when it comes to ecological impacting, economists mislead us. Their theories can’t lead us anywhere we need to go.

Economic theories are misleading rather than explanatory due to how absurdly incomplete they are. Nadeau is calling for economic upgrades:

Because neoclassical economics does not even acknowledge the costs of environmental problems and the limits to economic growth, it constitutes one of the greatest barriers to combating climate change and other threats to the planet. It is imperative that economists devise new theories that will take all the realities of our global system into account.

Some economists might not take Nadeau’s threat to tinker economics lying down, though. “Bender”, for instance, commented that,

In an article purportedly discussing economic analysis and environmental policy neither externality nor externalities ever appeared! I don’t know which is more depressing, that someone could be stupid and ignorant enough to produce this tripe or that the Scientific American has sunk so low as to publish it.

How pedantic. That's exactly what Nadeau's talking about -- how overwhelming economic externalities like ecology are getting. But Nadeau not utilising the specific terms “Bender” recognizes resulted in “Bender” utterly missing Nadeau’s point. Standard economic theories mislead us precisely because environmental crisis constitutes such overwhelming externality.

Nadeau’s right, of course. We are rushing full steam and toxic waste to being overwhelmed. Not just economically.

But should economists seek to internalize theoretically and factually overwhelming externalities like environmental crisis? No. By no means. Absolutely not. There is no economic solution to our problems. Rather, let’s better appreciate how limited and incomplete economic theories are -– and let’s start looking way past economics for what it means to be more natural. What it means to be at all natural.

Can we do that? Toronto living is just about the most economically affluent anywhere –- ever. We expect some economic turbulence ahead. Will we be willing to look past it –- for what it means to be more natural? Or do we remain forever fixated on economic maximizing -- regardless how affluent we get? Regardless the cost to everything natural so precariously remaining?

[Peter Fruchter teaches in the Division of Humanities at York University.]

Screenshot from here.

The scrap truck cruised along the street, stopping at a pile of bicycles placed at curbside for pickup. Moments later the driver paused in front of our home, glanced at the wooden table we'd set out, drove off. Metal guy. Mixed scrap isn't worth so much, but sorted aluminum will bring in up to a dollar a pound, depending on the salvage yard and the yard boss's mood.

Last night we set out by bike on our own salvaging run. Not looking for anything in particular, just cruising. Peter collects bike parts; I like vintage appliances: an old sewing machine; a 1950s portable record player. We both brake for many-paned windows, usable lumber, and, once, a box of discarded crystal. Last night we passed on myriad chesterfields and unmatching chairs, wooden cupboards lacking doors, a set of Barbie vehicles: hopefully she's now driving a hybrid. We didn't bring home anything last night, except the pleasure of looking and the night song of robins returned to the city.

Later this year the City of Toronto plans to implement a new fee-based garbage program. Residents will order city-supplied standardized garbage bins and will be charged according to the size ordered. The smallest bin, which holds the equivalent of a single garbage bag, is planned to net the homeowner a $10 annual credit. The largest bin, which accommodates the equivalent of four and a half bags, will cost $190 per year. The new program is part of the City's strategy to achieve 70% waste diversion by 2010, and coincides with the new recycling program already being phased in through the distribution of behemoth blue bins. Scarborough residents are already being asked to select their new garbage bins; the program will be rolled out westward across the city during the summer, and the new collection system is scheduled to be implemented by November 1, 2008.

After living and working for years in one of the first Ontario municipalities to implement fee-based garbage pick-up, I greeted news of Toronto's fee-based system with cautious enthusiasm. Then, while reading the materials provided to date by the City, it occurred to me that the new regime might put a crimp in urban salvage activities. If all waste must be crammed into the bins, what will happen to the objects currently salvaged, especially small appliances, toys, electronics, books, bicycles, building materials and metal scrap? The City suggests that these objects might be donated to charity or taken to City-run drop-off centres, but it seems to me that this overlooks a vital curbside step in waste diversion: the local economy of salvage.

In our neighbourhood, residents tend to place useful but unwanted objects at curbside a day or two ahead of pickup, in hopes that they will find a new home instead of ending up in a landfill. While it would be difficult to quantify the volume of waste diverted this way, it's been our experience that the majority of reusable objects and saleable scrap are picked up long before the (...read more...)

I don't think it is a secret that the ROM Crystal is not Jack Diamond's favourite Toronto building. Even worse, the architect—designer of the popular new Opera House—must have had fits when Libeskind's Crystal was anointed as one of the "seven new wonders" of the architectural world.

That's why I think Mr. Diamond is delighted by his new design for the Museum Subway stop. After all, most of the people who come to the ROM come by TTC, and the first space they'll encounter on the way to the Crystal is Jack's.

Here are some pictures of the new stop as provided by the architect.




The inscription contained within the letters on the track wall is from a limestone relief in the tomb of an ancient Egyptian nobleman named Met-jet-jy. Dating to approximately 2300 BC, the original artefact is housed in the Egyptian Gallery at the Royal Ontario Museum.