...I would embrace new adventures!

The day we’ve been looking to for the last four years has finally arrived: I’ve departed to Nepal for placement. I’m currently on the plane from Montreal to Doha, on hour 9 of a lovely 12 hour flight. It seems so surreal to me right now that we’re actually going on placement. All throughout University placement has just been this thing that will happen in the future and it’s weird to me that I’m actually doing it now, but I’m incredibly excited to get there and get started.

Yesterday morning I also received noticed for a change to my mandate. Before I was going to be working as a documentation intern for a climate change project under the Integrated Development Society (IDS) but I am now being moved to a documentation intern for the Multi-stakeholder Forestry Project, a collaborative

project between IDS, CECI and a couple other organizations. The work I will be doing will be preparing reports, promotional material, and creating a website for the project. According to my new mandate, I will also have the opportunity to travel to rural areas for this project, which I’m quite excited about.

I’m actually quite excited about this new mandate. I liked my old one as well but forestry is one area I’m particularly interested in, and have even taken a couple courses in forest ecosystems, so hopefully those skills will come in useful.

However, I also don’t actually start working on the project right away. When we get to Kathmandu tomorrow morning, we get thrown right into three full days of orientation (jet lag should be fun!) followed by 10 days of language training so I don’t actually start with my organization until Sept. 19. Luckily though, there is Internet at the CECI Passage House where I’ll be staying, so I’ll keep you updated!

...I would be concerned about rising sea levels

Left side is chunk that broke off measuring 720km2

The past couple weeks there’s been all kinds of drama on the news: a plane crash in San Francisco, a train derailment causing an explosion in Québec, President Morsi overthrown in Egypt, another train derailment in France, etc. But have you heard about the large ice shelf that broke away from the Pine Island glacier in the Antarctic?

Scientists say that it’s normal for chunks of ice to break off as cracks form in the ice, especially from Pine Island glacier, because it’s the fastest flowing glacier in the Western Antarctic. The concern, however, is that the wind directions have changed in the Amundsen Sea, bringing warm sea air underneath the shelf, so that it breaks from the bottom. This leads to the concern that the ice will become unstable and more very large ice chunks will slide off, going into the ocean and causing sea levels to rise substantially. The chunk that just broke away measured 720km² (about the size of a large city) and is expected to slightly increase the global sea level.

            If the entire West Antarctic ice shield were to go into the ocean, sea levels would rise by 3.3 meters, flooding parts of many global cities. Many of the world’s cities are also along coasts, making them vulnerable. The ten cities deemed most at risk to sea level rise are:

1. Miami, USA

2. Venice, Italy

3. New York City, USA

4. Mumbai, India

5. Singapore

6. New Orleans, USA

7. Osaka, Japan

8. Tampa, USA

9. Dhaka, Bangladesh

10. Tokyo, Japan

If breaking ice shelves can cause such a significant impact throughout the world, why aren’t we more concerned? Is it because melting ice and rising sea levels don’t have the dramatic story that a plane crash or explosion do or is it just too long term to be a good news story? Why do you think we’ve become so indifferent and bored of one of the biggest potential changes in history?

...I would raise my own food

In many countries in the world, families keep small animals at their homes to use for food and other products. When I was in Madagascar last summer, we always kept 4-5 chickens with us to use for their eggs and when there was a feast, they were killed and eaten. Most of the vegetarians in our group didn’t like the idea of killing the chickens, but the idea of raising your own food appeals to me.

I don’t eat meat for environmental reasons, due to the high resource requirements of meat and unethical forms of raising animals. However, by raising your own chickens, this eliminates a lot of the issues with meat production since they you know exactly what they’re eating, how they’re raised, and can use the eggs from them for a few years. I think this is a much more sustainable way or raising meat and I would likely eat chicken if I raised them myself.

But it seems I’m not the only one who thought this sounded like a good idea. Apparently, a number of people in urban areas of North America also decided it would be a good idea to raise chickens but now hundreds of chickens are being abandoned by “hipster farmers” as the owner of Chicken Run Rescue called them. They decided they would raise chickens for eggs but didn’t realize the amount of work they would be. In Canada, there's a number of cities that allow people to own chickens, including Kitchener, Vancouver, and Niagara Falls.
Even though it sounds like work I still think the idea of raising your own food is appealing and would be interested in keeping chickens if I did more research. Would you ever consider raising chickens at your home?

...I would take action on climate change

Flooded Calgary Stampede Grounds

Today I have a lecture on extreme flooding in my Hydroclimatology class, which seems appropriate with all the extreme weather we’ve seen this year. But to me, “extreme” means that it rarely occurs and flooding doesn’t exactly seem rare right now. Crews are still working to clean up Calgary from the extreme flooding they’ve had and Toronto saw flash flooding on Monday after 123mm of rain fell within a few hours, breaking the previous rainfall record set by Hurricane Hazel in 1954, and many people in Toronto still remain without hydro today.

On the other side of the world, western China has also experienced extreme flooding, affecting more than 360,000 people,

Floods in Western China

but most of those areas are even less equipped to deal with flooding than Canada due to lack of infrastructure regulations. The heavy rainfall in China has also resulted in multiple landslides in areas with heavy deforestation, which erodes the soil, and 30-40 people were buried in one landslide.

Dr. Blair Feltmate, Program Director of Sustainability Practice at the University of Waterloo, argues that the extreme rain we’ve been seeing lately will no longer be rare; it is the new norm. He says we need to predict where the most affected areas will be and adapt to prevent disasters, rather than dealing with them as they occur.

Flooded GO Train, Toronto

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford says “It’s mother nature, right? All we can do is cope with it.” Yet I disagree. We need to take action to prevent damage from these types of weather events, especially since they’ll be occurring more frequently. As awful as floods have been this year, I hope that they can help people realize that climate change is an issue and one that is not only going to affect the Global South; it is affecting us in Canada too. Do you think that these flooding events will help to bring climate change closer to home and force people to change their behaviour, or will people continue their lives as normal with the attitude that there’s nothing we can do anyways?

...I would require GMO labelling on food

Since the beginning of May, Occupy Monsanto protests have been taking place in cities around the world. Yet, the majority of people have no idea what Occupy Monsanto even is, and it’s no wonder when most major media sources have not even mentioned it.
If you haven’t heard of it, millions of people have been protesting against Monsanto’s influence on our food systems through Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). There has been very strong opposition to Monsanto in the U.S. due to the protection of Monsanto by the U.S. government. In late March, President Obama signed the ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ and last month, Senate voted 71-27 against an amendment to the Farm Bill that would give power to each state for the decision to label GMO foods. At the end of May, a list of politicians who were paid off by Monsanto was released, showing the hold that Monsanto has within the U.S. government.
Due to the lack of news coverage on Occupy Monsanto protests, many people are also questioning whether Monsanto has infiltrated media sources as well. Some people have announced that Facebook is restricting people who have been posting photos of the Monsanto protests (http://intellihub.com/2013/05/26/facebook-censors-pictures-of-children-rallying-against-gmos-during-gglobal-march-against-monsanto/). It concerns me that a corporation can hold such power, especially when it comes to our food sources. Are you concerned about how Monsanto is reaching into the government and civil society? Do you think it should be mandatory for GMOs to be labeled on foods?