What’s green and shows a lot of leg?

Kitchener-Waterloo, of course!

Good news for me, the Region of Waterloo is implementing green bins this fall. Fruit flies will have but one spot from which to annoy, as the green bin will conquer all other space attractive to them.

Also green, this year’s Oktoberfest parade had a cute “green” float. It was the prettiest float in the parade, amongst the SchneiderS (TM), large stuffed bears, and kegs on carts.

Don't Litter Bug

There were also legs and liederhosen.

Lots and lots of legs. In terms of leg exposure, I am sure Oktoberfest parade could rival Pride.

Dads in liederhosen

I did not manage to take a picture of the leather liederhosen, which are quite popular. (Which also rival Pride).

Some thoughts on the parade: I felt a bit conspicuous as I did not have a kid, a lawn chair, liederhosen, or one of those funny green hats. Everyone else at the parade had at least one of those things. Also, I discovered that the parade is serious business. It starts early (830 AM), I think so that it’s done by 11 and then you’re supposed to drink all day and eat sausage and sauerkraut and other SchneiderS meats. I drank juice and ate crackers, and then headed home to mark papers.

This is the kind of innovation I’m talking about

Check it: solar bras! I love the part in the article about how lingerie can do its part to save the planet. I always *knew* it would be lingerie.

ideas of the day

How should we solve global climate change? No small task, it is true, and hence calls for innovative thinking. In addition to my world parachute for geo-engineering idea, here are a few ideas I thought of today:

Idea #1: Have Girl Guides sell emissions trading products, such as allowances (or credits) from the mandatory sector (of greenhouse gas reductions) and offsets from the voluntary sector.

Rationale: Climate change makes us all feel bad, and to mitigate it we have to pay more money or change our lifestyles immensely. But, could you really say “no” if one of these cute girls came to your house to sell emissions reductions? In addition, this could help them recover from their trans-fats image, and give a new revenue stream to fundraise for the organization. It would be even more cute if they got to run an auction for allowances, rather than just selling offsets, or trading allowances for companies.

Idea #2: Change zoning by-laws to make all garages, and garage doors too small to fit SUVs.

This could be a very uncontroversial way to pass an unconventional law which would significantly reduce the number of SUVs on the road, since owners will find it increasingly difficult to park them. While these zoning by-laws will only affect new garages (of which there will be plenty), how would you affect the already existing ones? I suggest putting standards and codes to limit the size of garage doors, so that if you had to replace your garage door, it would be too small to cover the hole, therefore, garage owners would have to cover those spots with more walls, thereby reducing the ability to fit an SUV through it.

Rationale: The biggest contributor to growth of greenhouse gas emissions in the personal transportation sector is from the rapid market takeover of SUV’s. SUV’s consume considerably more gasoline than a regular car (such as a sedan type), and their market share has gone from a very small percentage in the early 1990s, to a third or 50% of all personal vehicles.

Idea #3: The environmental icon air travel challenge. Who travels more, Al Gore or David Suzuki? Wouldn’t you like to know? If we knew how much they travel by air to educate us on the realities of climate change, do you think they would travel less?

Rationale: Traveling by air plane produces significantly more greenhouse gas emissions than most other forms of travel. One long air flight for one person (12 hours +) produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all other greenhouse gas emitting activities for that person combined (on an annual basis). Check zerofootprint.net’s carbon calculator for the proof.

5 days left and a broken coco-cup

A change of events means that I have 5 days left at work. codejill, one of my trusty career advisors, advised me that it might be a good idea to pick up a pineapple cup and sip from it during my last days at work. I didn’t have time to order one online, so I went to Balloon King and found a coconut cup. I also picked up the little paper umbrellas to put in it. I brought it in last Wednesday, and sipped from it all day at my desk. I managed to make a total of 3 colleagues laugh. When I went to fill it with water the next day, it was cracked the whole way through and water spilled everywhere! I am not happy with this small return-on-investment for my $3.95 plus tax purchase. boo. I didn’t even manage to make it to a single meeting with my coconut and umbrella!

Even better than Earth Hour

Today I went to see Thomas (Tad) Homer-Dixon speak at a work related conference. His presentation was about climate science, and underlined the need to work on mitigation and adaptation activities immediately (and according to THD, they are not in contrast to each other, as stated in the links I gave). He also discussed geo-engineering as a possibility that climate scientists are now realizing might be necessary, although undesirable (due to the unknown externalities) by putting sulfur in the atmosphere. They discovered this because this is what volcanoes spew.

But, I hear you ask, why is it necessary, and what does it do?

The polar ice caps reflect the sun’s energy back into the atmosphere so the heat is not absorbed by the earth. As the polar ice-caps melt due to global warming, there is a positive feedback loop whereby more ice melts, so there is less reflectivity, and more absorption of heat, leading to….you guessed it, more ice melting. So, spraying sulfur into the atmosphere will reflect the sun’s rays, hence heat, back into the atmosphere, and we will geo-engineer our way out of climate change.

But I have an even better, and potentially more cost effective, idea. I think that we can make a giant white sheet, and hold it over the polar ice caps region, and use that to reflect light. And I don’t think we should stop there: we should get citizens of the earth involved.

Recalling how much fun it was to play parachute games in the school yard during elementary school, I think that we could have an event where millions of people from around the world make a statement about climate change by holding onto the edges of the giant white sheet to reflect the sun’s light into the atmosphere to combat global warming.

I know that anyone with a practical side will say that this is too expensive. But think about it, what can you put on a blank white sheet which is visible to satellite cameras in space? A logo. We can auction off the advertising space to the company seeking to be known as the most advanced corporate social responsibily (CSR) company in the world.

We can also sell off the spots for the trip (by boat, of course, not by air) by telling people that they can “join people all around the world in showing that you care about our planet and want to play a part in helping to fight climate change.”

Of course, all of the proceeds will go towards funding climate change mitigation and adaptation activities.

Quitting haircut and the 71 day countdown

I am quitting my job in 71 work days. I am so excited because I have gotten into a great doctorate program.

Even more exciting is that I am leaving my job by July 4th, and planning my summer vacation! 10 years later, it feels like the end of highschool all over again: we all know I’m going to graduate (quit), but I need to put in the time to make it seem like I’m earning my final credits (pay).

Just like in highschool, apparently I have been pushing the boundaries at the office as a creative thinker, brightly dressed (generally more than 3 colours at a time, and at least one of hot pink or turquoise), a person with pierced nose, and I like to eat free food. Honestly, I never noticed my differences, but apparently they are pretty apparent to everyone else.

Given all of these creative differences I posess, I say, it’s time for a quitting haircut. I think I should get my hair cut on June 20 or 21st, so I can show up with some crazy ‘do on the 23rd, and give my 2 weeks notice. This is my introductory blog into this theme. Feel free to post suggestions and comments. I have found a few photos as suggestions to start us off.

The total angle ‘do:

The asymmetrical on asymmetrical with a bright stripe ‘do:

Or I could just go crazy: