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SS: Rafael, what inspired you to submit to the ITF contest?

RT: As design students [at Emily Carr], we are often expose to the idea of creating a better future through critical thinking and innovative solutions. Many of our classes deal with environmental ethics and the idea of sustainability. The things we learnt in class provided me with a great foundation to facilitate ideas on. I am sure many of us have innovative (or crazy) ideas every now and then and BC Hydro provided us a great stage to showcase these ideas.

SS: How did you come up with your winning idea?

RT: I bought a can of pop one day; I finished it in 30 seconds. At first, I thought this drink is too expensive, considering that it lasted less then a minute. So I start questioning why it is so expensive, I soon realized all the manufacturing processes this drink had to go through and in addition, the amount of work needed to recycle the can before it can be use again. So I ask myself, how can I minimize this process to make vending machine drinks cheaper and more environmentally friendly. That is pretty much the foundation of my idea.

SS: What did you do with your prize?

RT: I have not decided what to do with it yet; maybe I will buy a nice bike and do some travelling in my home country, Taiwan.

SS: What types of sustainability projects or initiatives are you working on now?

RT: Right now, I am concentrating most of my energy on school works as I am graduating in one year. However, I always try to maintain a sustainable life style. By that, I mean just doing the little things, always pull the plugs out when you sleep, always recycle and try to use reusable bags, or reuse your plastic bags. Nothing is too small! Doing little things is better then doing nothing.
*****
Inspiration for making change is all around us! Thanks Rafael for sharing your inspirations and motivations with us! Stay tuned to find out about this fall’s contest so that you too, can Invent the Future…

We kicked off the week with a group of nurses doing a waste audit of our brand new University Centre – this is really exciting because we just started up our new Earth Tub and will have campus-wide composting in September!!

Tuesday was a day full of events focused on water for World Water Day. We were lucky enough to have the amazing Robert Sanford visit us and talk on the water situation in the Okanagan, a water cooler drum parade, campus sustainability tours and even a water related poetry slam!

On Wednesday our always entertaining BC Hydro rep came to res where we had students participate in an energy-efficiency jeopardy challenge! Competition was intense but our Energy Evadors slipped by in the end to take home the ‘zza!

Campus was buzzing on Thursday with our Alternative Transportation Fair in the main courtyard. The Longboard Club was out groovin to the Rock n Roll Club while the Cities Transportation Department advertised for Bike to Work/School Week and we unrolled the new UBCO Unicycles program!

A lot of work went in to planning the event, but the comments from students and hearing their concerns were totally worth it. I definitely recommend planning events for this week next year!

Turning off your lights for one hour is a great start.  However, there are many other things you can do to make Earth Hour 2010 a success. Use the link below for access to the BC Hydro Earth Hour Tool Kits, features and ideas.

http://www.bchydro.com/news/community_events/earth_hour.html

You can do lots of fun things in the dark! Plan a candlelight dinner for your sweetie or a group of friends. Play board games, tell stories, and sings songs with your kids and your neighbours.

My family has signed up for the second time. Last year we played the piano by candlelight and sang songs.  This year we will be at a friend’s home for a candlelight curry meal – which will make two households taking a stand.

So take a stand yourself by participating in Earth Hour.  Let’s make Canadians #1 in participation!  Count yourself in now.  Go to the link below and sign up!

http://earthhourcanada.org/earthhour/

Make every hour Earth Hour.

Polaris is organizing a very large push for Bottle Water Free day on March 11. Does your campus have plans yet?

For some awesome ideas check www.insidethebottle.org

Cheers!

Solutions: A Sustainability Network actively engages the students of VIU to think, propose and work on alternatives to lower personal and institutional greenhouse emissions. Thanks to the help and mentorship of GoBeyond, Solutions has supported VIU to becoming a leading university in sustainability. This includes the newly hired “Environmental, Sustainability Manager”, who’s role is to develop a long term plan to meet the mandated Bill 44 requirements to reduce carbon emissions and becoming carbon neutral. Since January 2009, VIU’s Energy Manager, funded by BC Hydro, has been working towards energy savings by reducing inefficiencies and developing campaigns for institutional awareness. Energy reductions will continue as the primary focus at VIU during the planning phase while the long term local initiatives and policies are put into place. Student participation and leadership roles continue to be fostered within the institution which continues to spread with the Nanaimo community.

The four winners of a $2,500 prize are: Marella Falat, Cherrie Lam, Karlena Lord and Rafael Tan.

The essay by Karlena Lord, Look to the Green Heavens (essay category, aged 13-17) recommends converting the roofs of multiple story buildings to green spaces, improving air quality and providing opportunities for urban gardening.

Cherrie Lam’s video Use the Grey, Save the Day! (video category, aged 13-17) argues that while Canada and B.C. have an abundance of fresh water, we should be doing more to reuse as much as possible. The image used here, of the sad Earth, is taken from Cherrie’s video.

Encouraging Sustainable Consumption: An incentive/tax based education program (essay category, aged 18-24) was written by Marella Falat. She proposes that all food — fresh or packaged — be taxed based on carbon footprint, taking into account cultural preferences.

Getting rid of aluminium cans is the central idea in From Vending Machine to Fountain Machine (video category, aged 18-24), a video submitted by Rafael Tan. His idea is that we should replace vending machines that dispense cans with fountain machines that can make use of reusable drink containers.

In addition to the four grand prize winners, there were also four Invent the Future entries that were found to be the People’s Choice based on the number of votes received. Each of them won a Flip Mino HD camcorder.

Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to everyone for participating.

The Capital Regional District’s Climate Action Program has launched a new Youth Climate Education Partnership for 2010. The partnership will work with The BC Sustainable Energy Association, the Sierra Club of BC, and the BC Campus Climate Network to provide climate change education to more than 3,600 students across the region.

The CRD Climate Action Program was established in 2009 and acts as a resource, hub and facilitator on climate change issues in the CRD. The program serves and works in cooperation with local governments, electoral areas, non-profit organizations, the public and private sector and local citizens to reduce emissions and build capacity for “future friendly” communities on Southern Vancouver Island.

The Partnership will engage youth and young adults in the region on climate change in order to reduce emissions and prepare for future impacts.

* The BC Sustainable Energy Association will deliver its Climate Change Showdown workshop to Grades 5 and 6 students in elementary schools across the region.
* The Sierra Club of BC will work with secondary schools, including Edward Milne, Belmont, Gulf Island, Stelly’s, Claremont and Parkland to deliver its Sustainable High School Program.
* The Campus Climate Network will engage in events and activities at Royal Roads, the University of Victoria and Camosun College through the Go Beyond Program.

Through games, training, mentoring, action planning and monitoring, the partnership will aim at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the region.

“By establishing relationships with three credible organizations to deliver established programs in our school systems, the Climate Action Program will help young residents, their families and their educational institutions achieve meaningful reductions at the local and regional level,” says Sarah Webb, Program Coordinator.

For further information on the Climate Action Program, please visit the CRD website at: www.crd.bc.ca

This is why the Teach-In is a key component in goBeyond’s tool kit of movement building. For each faculty member you sign up you are reaching anywhere between 20-300 students with an irreplaceable opportunity for learning about climate change.

It also offers a killer opportunity to connect with people for all faculties. Last year, professors from every discipline participated, creating a unique inter-disciplinary dialogue.

This year we aim to have 400 faculty participate, which means we would reach roughly 40,000 students. The is a pretty incredible number.

Asking all of your professors to participant will go along way to reaching those targets. Taking the next step and doing targeted outreach will help even more.

To learn more about the Teach-In and to pursue our fabulous tools and resources, check out our website!

On Dec. 9, 2009, I got a glimpse into the workings of the organization that powers 95% of BC population – and provides incredible support for goBEYOND. I’ll take you through it blow by blow.

8:15 am – Field & Plant Employees Quarterly Safety Call: More interesting than it sounds. I walked into a room filled with half the executive team, reps from the unions, and a half-dozen others seated around a couple phones. On the line were nearly 100 employees from across the province. The topic was safety, and these quarterly meetings provide a forum for people on the ground to raise concerns directly to top levels of the organization. I was impressed by the openness this demonstrated, and serious concerns were definitely raised. Bob chaired.

9:45 am – Human Resources Leadership Team Community Event: Bob gave a farewell speech to the HR team. He talked of vision, values, and his time as CEO. Bob is an adept speaker, and it was a pleasure to hear him talk. He received a glowing introduction, a gift of a talking stick, and a standing ovation. It was clear that there was genuine affection and respect for Bob, an impression I also got from others throughout the day.

11:00 am – Tour of Powerex Trade Floor: Wholly-owned BC Hydro subsidiary which trades natural gas and environmental products and markets Hydro’s surplus electricity. Brian Moghadam, Business Development Manager, was my guide. It was actually less of a tour than an economics lecture, one far more interesting than any class. Brian was quite candid about the market imperfections that fuel Powerex’s profits. He also had some strong predictions the future of North America’s energy market. There will never be another coal-fired power plant built in Canada or the US. Shale gas will keep natural gas competitive for the next century, even with ambitious carbon pricing. Interesting stuff, especially since it comes from a participant in the industry. The trading floor was a sea of massive computer monitors and big screen TVs set to BNN. It never closes.

12:00 pm – Lunch with Dana Hardy: Senior Business Strategy Adviser, Customer Care and Conservation plus a veggie burger at the Keg. Dana works with PowerSmart in Hydro’s demand-side management efforts. Although the program’s most visible efforts target residential users (“join team PowerSmart!”) the bulk of load reductions actually come from Hydro’s work with commerce and industry. Hydro subsidizes the financing for energy efficiency upgrades or, in some cases, pays for them entirely. I can’t remember all of the initiatives she told me about, but that’s what the internets is for. In general, Dana described Hydro’s current demand-side initiatives as picking “the low-hanging fruit.”

1:00 pm – Meeting with Patrice Rother: Environment Strategy Manager responsible for BC Hydro’s Climate Change strategy and policy direction. I was given an informal presentation of adaptation and mitigation efforts underway at Hydro. From what I could gather, Patrice is not extensively involved in the acquisition of power. I also got a chance to talk about goBEYOND.

2:00 pm – Tour of Cathedral Square Substation: Did you know there’s a substation under downtown Vancouver? Neither did I, until John Walker showed me around.

3:00 pm – Debrief on the day with Bob: I got a quick chat with Bob as we walked to his next meeting.

3:30 pm – Immigrant Employment Council Board Meeting: Bob chairs this board, and is staying on this year.

5:30 pm – Walk back to the office with Bob: We talked of leadership and his time as CEO. He told me that he didn’t know what he’d be doing next, but that we was feeling positive about his future and had few regrets about tenure.

My day was organized Andrea Travers, and thanks go out to her for organizing an excellent snap shot of the utility.

There was plenty more this day than I could put in this post, and I’d be happy to answer questions at ubc@campusclimatenetwork.org.

Now, I’ve got to continue preparations for another amazing year of climate at here at UBC.

Happy New Year!

So much time, energy and emotion was invested in the Copenhagen Summit because it was supposed to be “the end” – the moment when the world came together and created a deal that would set the solutions in motion, if not save the world entirely. The political strategy was that a strong global deal would empower people advocating for strong domestic action – regardless of what country happened to be domestic to them.

It didn’t happen, and in the process it has provided a lesson in raw power and resistance.

The Canadian and US governments came to the negotiations with targets that they and everyone else know would commit the world to climate catastrophe. The targets they brought are not shaped by science, not shaped by ethics and morality, not even shaped by a basic self-interested cost and benefit analysis – they are shaped by the power politics of countries where fossil fuel industries and anti-government ideologies have enormous sway. From Canada’s tar sands and anti-government minority government to America’s globally dominant oil companies with their lobbyists, campaign contributions and Manufactured Doubt Industry, to the conservative Democratic senators from coal states that hold US climate legislation hostage, the anti-climate action forces hold strategic levers in our politics. This is what raw power looks like, and I confess that it filled me with rage.

We could have had a bad deal that would have locked in these catastrophe targets if it wasn’t for the heroic resistance of some of the poorest countries in the world – led by small island and African countries who know they will suffer the worst catastrophes unless we peak emissions soon and get back down to 350ppm. These countries were backed up by global civil society, by tens of millions of people who rallied and organized to demand a fair, ambitious and binding deal that would peak emissions within a decade, provide support for the most impacted, and create a pathway to a global convergence of per person use of the atmosphere. I’ve never seen resistance like this, and it fills me with determination.

In Canada we set out to make climate leadership a major issue for Canadians, and to make sure that our government knows it. We’ve succeeded on both counts. Thousands of Canadians have taken civic actions for the first time. Millions of Canadians have been engaged by the issue and watched in horror as their minority government ruined their reputation and abdicated its responsibilities to protect its people and secure their prosperity. With countless phone calls and actions we’ve helped significantly shift politics in Ottawa, most obviously by getting the Liberals to join the Bloc and NDP in passing a motion that called for world class scientific targets to come from Copenhagen. As for the Conservatives, they are betting everything on the assumption that the movement will just dissipate now that the Copenhagen Summit is over. They are wrong.

Things have changed. There is a massive and mobilized movement of Canadians who are not going away. We have watched our minority government choose catastrophe and we’re never going to stop until Canada is a climate leader. We have learned from the Copenhagen Summit that we need to develop raw political power. We can let go of the promise of the Copenhagen Summit knowing that the Summit is now a beginning, and not an end. We can turn rage into passion. We can turn our sadness into determination.

What started as a movement to tell our government what Canadians wanted in Copenhagen must now become a movement to develop raw political power – the ability to put a climate leadership government in power and ensure that it follows through with policies that work for the climate and benefit people. In the new year it will be time to build a political movement with thousands of organizers that can engage millions of people in civic action. In doing so we will collaborate with our friends in the US, jointly working on our shared political challenges.

But that’s at least a couple of weeks from now, now it’s time to enjoy a well deserved rest. Willpower is like a muscle, over time it is strengthened by use, but in the short term it can be worn out. Half an hour ago I almost lost it because my power cord was tangled up with other wires and I couldn’t get it to go where I wanted it to. Sleep, fun and community are the remedy for near burn-out, and so in retrospect I am very glad that the Copenhagen Summit was scheduled right before the holiday season.

For now we can rest knowing that we’re in it to win it, and thanks to all the work that we did this fall we’re about to get a lot stronger.