This discussion made me think about my home town and how size plays a role in sustainability. It was a great community for me to grow up in however due to its size it is not really sustainable. Many people work out of town as there is not sufficient industry at the immediate location. Agriculture is really the only industry that revolves around the town, now days it is not uncommon for farms to be 5000+ acres and there is only so much land for the farmers. Due to the increased size in farms, there is really only a limited number of people that can make a living off agriculture, thus the town has a population of less than 500 people. There is only one post office, one grocery store and one café and a school of <150 students. Anyone who is not employed through these businesses usually ends up traveling to work in the oil patch (Alberta) or the northern mines. There are fewer and fewer jobs and the majority of the young people are moving away after high school. This leads me to believe that this community is too small to sustain itself.
I’ve noticed that size matters in the sustainability of companies as well. The smaller companies are often put out of business if hard times hit, yet when companies get too big efficiency seems to decrease. I used to work for a large Uranium mine and we would often hire environmental consultants for our work. We mainly dealt with two consulting companies, CanNorth and Golder. We found that Golder was so big that they had a much higher overhead cost, and thus charged a lot more to do the exact same project (60% more at times). However, sometimes we would be forced to go with Golder as they had a wider field of specialty and CanNorth could not do what we needed to be done.
A second example of this is as Cameco increased in size the cost of business increased while productivity decreased. There was a higher focus on safety and more and more paper work and meetings were required, leading to a lesser degree of productivity.
There is definitely a happy medium, not too large and not too small. To determine and maintain the ideal size is the tricky part.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Environmental Sustainability
Through my last posting I spoke of place, and how many people had lost connection with the hustle and bustle of life today. I think it is essential for people to be exposed to natural environments regularly, preferably close to home, to develop this connection with place. Being aware and connected with ones surrounding should lead to an individual to be aware of environmental sustainability and perhaps act to preserve natural spaces.
We had a speaker earlier this year who spoke of environmental development and design in urban communities. By simply engineering natural spaces, planting trees along a creek and building some walking paths for example, it increases the value of surrounding homes. Everyone wants to raise their family somewhere where the kids can go out and play in the trees, grass and creeks. Waking up and looking out your front window to see rabbits or even deer out in a beautiful, natural landscape is a refreshing experience and seems to make people happier and I would think more conscious of how their actions may effect the environment. This speaker said something even as simple as changing the design of a house 180 degrees to face the landscape instead of the front street increased value by a significant amount, proving that people do value green spaces.
I think that exposure to natural landscapes increases environmental consciousness and sustainability. I have noticed through my move from Saskatoon, SK to Victoria that people are much more conscious and passionate about environmental sustainability. I think this is largely due to the fact that the city is broken up by many natural spaces, rock, trees and ocean. Milder weather increases the amount of time people spend outside and the exposure to the beautiful landscape surrounding them.
Even within the city of Saskatoon one can see changes. The natural area down by the river is clean and well kept, where as the industrialized area's in the north end, without many natural spaces, are littered and dirty. One doesn't see many people walking down the sidewalk here, and if you do they are in a hurry and have their head down. On the other hand, people flock to the trails by the river, and many can be observed walking leisurely, looking around and smiling.
We had a speaker earlier this year who spoke of environmental development and design in urban communities. By simply engineering natural spaces, planting trees along a creek and building some walking paths for example, it increases the value of surrounding homes. Everyone wants to raise their family somewhere where the kids can go out and play in the trees, grass and creeks. Waking up and looking out your front window to see rabbits or even deer out in a beautiful, natural landscape is a refreshing experience and seems to make people happier and I would think more conscious of how their actions may effect the environment. This speaker said something even as simple as changing the design of a house 180 degrees to face the landscape instead of the front street increased value by a significant amount, proving that people do value green spaces.
I think that exposure to natural landscapes increases environmental consciousness and sustainability. I have noticed through my move from Saskatoon, SK to Victoria that people are much more conscious and passionate about environmental sustainability. I think this is largely due to the fact that the city is broken up by many natural spaces, rock, trees and ocean. Milder weather increases the amount of time people spend outside and the exposure to the beautiful landscape surrounding them.
Even within the city of Saskatoon one can see changes. The natural area down by the river is clean and well kept, where as the industrialized area's in the north end, without many natural spaces, are littered and dirty. One doesn't see many people walking down the sidewalk here, and if you do they are in a hurry and have their head down. On the other hand, people flock to the trails by the river, and many can be observed walking leisurely, looking around and smiling.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Week one
PLACE.
Some of us get a chill when we hear this word, during my last semester of classes I did as well. However my opinion changed as I felt a real chill, sitting out on the ice, during a cold winter day in central Saskatchewan. As the wind howled out side my shack I sat in silence, dancing my jig and minnow in attempted to attract a walleye and coax him to take my lure.
It was here when I started to think and reflect. Place. Many lectures, speakers, friends and books that I had been exposed to through the last four months of my life, as a student enrolled in an Environmental Science program, touched on this topic. A speaker from the Arctic, Shiela Watt-Cloutier talked about it. How a loss of connection with place, the land, the animals and the tradition, was effecting society today. Suicide rates have risen and it seems individual happiness has fallen as tradition fades.
I will skip over some of the other examples to a recent experience that triggered me to revisit the concept of place. I had a deep conversation with my Grandma, now 87, about the past depression. Times were tough, life consisting of long, hard, physical days and wages of $5 a month in the early 40's. It was mind blowing to think of how little they lived off that back then, before I enrolled in school I was making $30/hr, which seemed hardly enough. The following day she made a statement, "people have too much money these days. A few decades ago they were much poorer, however happier."
This lead me to think of when I lived in Alberta, I worked the patch as did many of my friends. Everyone was making good money, 80 to 100g/year, although I saw it multiple times. People were unhappy and many turned to alcohol and drug in pursuit of happiness. Everyone was in a hurry to get somewhere, to make more money, to spend more money. The streets of Lloydminster, a booming oil town, were full of big trucks, with lifts and rims, all driving fast. If anyone slowed down a minute to look around, to think for a minute, they were bound to be honked at and flipped off.
I wonder, when was the last time people went ice fishing? Sat down and thought of place? When did they last hear the wind howl, when did they last sit and watch the birds, when were they last in touch with the mother of our earth?
Some of us get a chill when we hear this word, during my last semester of classes I did as well. However my opinion changed as I felt a real chill, sitting out on the ice, during a cold winter day in central Saskatchewan. As the wind howled out side my shack I sat in silence, dancing my jig and minnow in attempted to attract a walleye and coax him to take my lure.
It was here when I started to think and reflect. Place. Many lectures, speakers, friends and books that I had been exposed to through the last four months of my life, as a student enrolled in an Environmental Science program, touched on this topic. A speaker from the Arctic, Shiela Watt-Cloutier talked about it. How a loss of connection with place, the land, the animals and the tradition, was effecting society today. Suicide rates have risen and it seems individual happiness has fallen as tradition fades.
I will skip over some of the other examples to a recent experience that triggered me to revisit the concept of place. I had a deep conversation with my Grandma, now 87, about the past depression. Times were tough, life consisting of long, hard, physical days and wages of $5 a month in the early 40's. It was mind blowing to think of how little they lived off that back then, before I enrolled in school I was making $30/hr, which seemed hardly enough. The following day she made a statement, "people have too much money these days. A few decades ago they were much poorer, however happier."
This lead me to think of when I lived in Alberta, I worked the patch as did many of my friends. Everyone was making good money, 80 to 100g/year, although I saw it multiple times. People were unhappy and many turned to alcohol and drug in pursuit of happiness. Everyone was in a hurry to get somewhere, to make more money, to spend more money. The streets of Lloydminster, a booming oil town, were full of big trucks, with lifts and rims, all driving fast. If anyone slowed down a minute to look around, to think for a minute, they were bound to be honked at and flipped off.
I wonder, when was the last time people went ice fishing? Sat down and thought of place? When did they last hear the wind howl, when did they last sit and watch the birds, when were they last in touch with the mother of our earth?
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