As gas prices shoot through the stratosphere in a highly predictable pattern of price increases, followed by demand destruction, followed by price increases, the number of ‘how to save on gas’ articles online and in the newspapers has gone almost as high as the price at the pumps.
I would be remiss in my duties as a blogger, if I did not offer my three, fool-proof, iron-clad-guaranteed ways to reduce your weekly gasoline bill:
1. Ride your bike more.
2. Walk more.
3. Take public transit more.
Which leads me to a fabulous series of posts by John Michael Greer, who for the last four weeks has been systematically dismantling the credibility of the environmental/peak oil movement, and laying the blame for the mess we are in squarely at the feet of those who deserve it the most: Us.
In the end, he insists, there is simply going to be no form of energy that will be cheap, easy, and accessible enough to allow us as a society to go on consuming what we do now.
The only choice is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and all that they provide. He calls it ‘making do with L.E.S.S.’ – Less Energy, Stuff, and Stimulation.
James Howard Kunstler likes to say that “suburbia is an arrangement without a future.” If Greer is anywhere close to hitting the mark (and his posts – as are those of most writers in the Peak Oil blogosphere – are getting increasingly dark recently) it’s not just suburbia that’s unsustainable, but much of the way of life we take for granted.
So what’s a city to do?
How do we go about using L.E.S.S. as a city, as communities, and at the basic level of hardiness, as households.
Unfortunately, for many of us, we won’t have a choice. The price of gas is getting dangerously close to triggering another round of layoffs and downsizing, assuming you’ve found a job after the last round. My bellweather – the Phones, PDAs, Ipods section on Kijiji is displaying its telltale sign of economic hardship: A steep rise in the number of people pleading with strangers to take over the ball-and-chain cell phone plans they signed up for when times were better.
And for those of us who are still gainfully employed for the time being?
Well, regular readers will know that I just moved about 8 blocks from Strathcona to Kirkendall. In the process, we lost about 2/3s of the built in storage that we very much took for granted in our old house.
Our first stop? Ikea of course, which set off a small binge of consumption, where for me the simplest solution to every problem was to go out and buy what I needed to fix it.
Fortunately, my wife brought me up short last weekend, when she proposed a very simple workaround for a problem that I had thought was only fixable at Canadian Tire. I had been so caught up in the ease, the speed, and frankly the dopamine hit of the constant trips to the store, that I had lost sight of the much better ways of handling these very manageable situations.
Since then, we have resumed our pledge to only buy large items second hand or locally made, and have set about figuring out workarounds to the numerous challenges presented by moving in to a new home with a much different configuration than you are used to.
I guess my point is, that even for those of us who are committed to consuming less, and making do with less, and growing our own food, and taking public transit and so on; it is embarrassingly easy to get caught up in the consumer solution.
To paraphrase one of my favourite sayings, if your only tool is a debit card, eventually every problem starts to look like a big-box store.
In the end, the conscious choices we make every day make a huge difference in reducing our dependence on a steady supply of oil, food, injection molded plastic and particle board from far away.
But it’s the unconscious choices we make – the spending without thinking – that are going to be the things stand the most risk of sinking us in the end. And it’s the dependence on this unconscious spending-as-solution that will cause us the most psychological grief should our main identity in society – that of consumer – suddenly become lost to us as a lifestyle option.
To bring it all back to my original point, the best way to manage the increasing cost of gas, in an age when the demand for gas is clearly beginning to outstrip the supply, is to use less of it. Use less of it to drive, less of it to transport your food to where you buy it from, use less of it to transport your iPad from China, and less of it to manufacture the plastic and particle board solutions that we so very easily take for granted.
Use less of it by participating less in the global throw-away economy, and more in the locally sourced, or re-use economy, keeping more of the money here in town, spread out among people and businesses you may well need to rely on heavily before too long.
If we voluntarily simplify our lives now, then should the price of gas cause a major economic disruption in the near future (I’m thinking by Thanksgiving at the latest), the combination of reducing our ‘needs’ and strengthening the local economy will mean that the impact to our households, communities, and city will be far easier to bear.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
The Tipping Point
You can tell a lot about a person by the filters they see the world through. It's kind of a variation on 'when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.'
I was talking to a friend about some of the challenges he was facing in getting his message listened to, and my thoughts turned, as they do, to sales and Marketing. This friend (Michael) and I first met when he was a student in my Sales Training class, so it's a hat I tend to put on when I'm around him, usually subconciously.
The conclusion I drew, from our conversation, was that the reason his message, and indeed the whole message of the peak oil/conservation set, was failing to resonate; was because it had failed to articulate a benefit to the individual that was as compelling, and as comfortable as that of the consumption machine.
Then I started to get really depressed. Because really, how would any kind of message about reducing, living within our means, and consuming less gain any kind of traction without appealing to one's sense of the greater good? A sense fewer and fewer people seem to have.
Then the conversation at home turned to a blog post by Rebecca Solnit over at Tom Dispatch, where she writes about the 'tipping point' of things like the Arab revolutions, or even the storming of the Bastille.
Her hypothesis is that tipping points for sweeping societal change, are a) the result of a long period of things steadily getting worse for most people, and b) stubbornly impossible to predict.
In Hamilton, it has been argued well (by a number of people for a long time) that for the average Hamiltonian family, things have been on the decline for a long, long time.
Real wages have been steadily dropping, income security has all but vanished, and the middle class has been carved up, with a tiny group joining the top 1%, and the much larger majority sinking closer to the margins. Things are not looking good.
Indeed, one could argue, that with the flight of good jobs overseas, the squeezing of workers by foreign ownership, and a ridiculous balancing upside-down pyramid of a civic tax base, that Hamilton was ripe for a catalyst.
Do I mean to suggest that a wholesale shift to a more sustainable lifestyle - to shopping locally, to growing your own veggies, and to supporting one another in community - could happen here, more completely and suddenly than it has elsewhere to date?
Why not? All of the triggers are there: A community with grave structural problems, that prides itself on a long tradition of collective action and support. An increasingly economically disenfranchised group, living in strongly connected neighborhoods. A palpable sense that things are going to get worse before they get better, and a long tradition of (at least from a union point of view) 'taking matters into our own hands.'
There has been quite a bit of commentary since I started writing for Raise the Hammer just over a year ago, about how things will never improve in Hamilton because people are apathetic and self absorbed. I challenge that notion.
Were the people of Hamilton apathetic when they blockaded Stelco in 1946?
Were they self absorbed, when reeling from the horrors of a cholera outbreak, the dreamed of one of the greatest civil engineering projects in Canada of the day?
Were they lacking in vision, when they created the electric city, and transformed the nature of manufacturing in Canada?
I would argue, that what they had is a catalyst. What we need, is a catalyst. But as Solnit points out - these can usually only be seen in hindsight.
The key, then, for those of us working towards change is to continue beating the drum. To continue to put forward ideas, and to see those ideas challenged, and to rise to those challenges. To continue to grow our veggies, and buy the ones we don't grow at the farmer's market, and to support local shops, and to get to know our neighbors and strengthen our communities.
And to wait. To wait patiently for the catalyst. The one that stubbornly refuses to be predicted with any kind of accuracy.
I was talking to a friend about some of the challenges he was facing in getting his message listened to, and my thoughts turned, as they do, to sales and Marketing. This friend (Michael) and I first met when he was a student in my Sales Training class, so it's a hat I tend to put on when I'm around him, usually subconciously.
The conclusion I drew, from our conversation, was that the reason his message, and indeed the whole message of the peak oil/conservation set, was failing to resonate; was because it had failed to articulate a benefit to the individual that was as compelling, and as comfortable as that of the consumption machine.
Then I started to get really depressed. Because really, how would any kind of message about reducing, living within our means, and consuming less gain any kind of traction without appealing to one's sense of the greater good? A sense fewer and fewer people seem to have.
Then the conversation at home turned to a blog post by Rebecca Solnit over at Tom Dispatch, where she writes about the 'tipping point' of things like the Arab revolutions, or even the storming of the Bastille.
Her hypothesis is that tipping points for sweeping societal change, are a) the result of a long period of things steadily getting worse for most people, and b) stubbornly impossible to predict.
In Hamilton, it has been argued well (by a number of people for a long time) that for the average Hamiltonian family, things have been on the decline for a long, long time.
Real wages have been steadily dropping, income security has all but vanished, and the middle class has been carved up, with a tiny group joining the top 1%, and the much larger majority sinking closer to the margins. Things are not looking good.
Indeed, one could argue, that with the flight of good jobs overseas, the squeezing of workers by foreign ownership, and a ridiculous balancing upside-down pyramid of a civic tax base, that Hamilton was ripe for a catalyst.
Do I mean to suggest that a wholesale shift to a more sustainable lifestyle - to shopping locally, to growing your own veggies, and to supporting one another in community - could happen here, more completely and suddenly than it has elsewhere to date?
Why not? All of the triggers are there: A community with grave structural problems, that prides itself on a long tradition of collective action and support. An increasingly economically disenfranchised group, living in strongly connected neighborhoods. A palpable sense that things are going to get worse before they get better, and a long tradition of (at least from a union point of view) 'taking matters into our own hands.'
There has been quite a bit of commentary since I started writing for Raise the Hammer just over a year ago, about how things will never improve in Hamilton because people are apathetic and self absorbed. I challenge that notion.
Were the people of Hamilton apathetic when they blockaded Stelco in 1946?
Were they self absorbed, when reeling from the horrors of a cholera outbreak, the dreamed of one of the greatest civil engineering projects in Canada of the day?
Were they lacking in vision, when they created the electric city, and transformed the nature of manufacturing in Canada?
I would argue, that what they had is a catalyst. What we need, is a catalyst. But as Solnit points out - these can usually only be seen in hindsight.
The key, then, for those of us working towards change is to continue beating the drum. To continue to put forward ideas, and to see those ideas challenged, and to rise to those challenges. To continue to grow our veggies, and buy the ones we don't grow at the farmer's market, and to support local shops, and to get to know our neighbors and strengthen our communities.
And to wait. To wait patiently for the catalyst. The one that stubbornly refuses to be predicted with any kind of accuracy.
Monday, March 14, 2011
100 Mile Shopping
It has been suggested in this blog, on more than a few occasions, that the key to Hamilton’s prosperity in the long term, is the revitalization of local ‘production’, whether that be food, textiles, hard goods, or what have you.
Originally, I was prepared to vent at length at Hamilton Economic Development and their lack of obvious support for local manufacturers who were either starting up, or looking to make the leap from the garage to a larger facility.
This was certainly Robert Land’s experience, and while he was in Guelph, the “this will never fly” initial assessment of his business was typical of the reaction many small producers face, in many jurisdictions.
The reason? The fact that Canadian made goods are often priced out of the range of what most Canadian consumers are willing to pay.
I may have mentioned before my experience working in a men’s clothing shop in Calgary, where customers would regularly rail against the lack of Canadian made goods, until they were ushered to the back of the store where the Cline Behar shirts were waiting. Made in Guelph, they were priced 2 – 3 times that of comparable looking shirts from overseas. The zealous customers would then inevitably mutter excuses, and slink back to the discount table at the front.
For many Canadians, purchasing only locally-made, Canadian-sourced goods would be not only prohibitively expensive; but unless one plans to wear only hemp clothing, pretty much impossible. Canada produces next to nothing in the way of wool, and even less cotton. The bottom line is that if you’re going to dress for the winter we've just experienced, you’re going to be buying something for which at least the supply chain started somewhere far, far away.
That’s why the recent article in The Tyee struck such a chord. It mentions the efforts of the B.C. Public Sector Union who are proposing that everyone purchase 10% of what they buy from either local stores, or ensure that those goods are made or sourced in Canada.
Many sustainability advocates encourage a wholesale shift to buying locally sourced/manufactured/sold goods, but this can be tricky. Close examination of my kids’ can of Roberstons’s Apple Juice shows that it is ‘processed’ in Canada – but common knowledge is that most apples sourced for this kind of thing are brought in from China and the far East. There, low labour costs result in much better margins, even after the cost of shipping the apples 1000’s of kms across the ocean. Emails to their Public Communications department as to the origin of their apples have so far resulted in a chorus of crickets, however my only other option at this point is fresh pressed cider from the Farmer’s market. I’m still working with the taste buds of a picky 6 year old on that one…
Looking at other commonly used items around my house, it becomes clear that a switch to buying all, or even a majority of items that were locally made or sourced, would result in a dramatic shift in how I live, from ‘low-impact’ to full blown asceticism. It’s a leap that should not be entered into lightly, especially when the only tangible personal pay-off for the sidelong glances on the playground and whispered remarks at the office is likely to be a not-very-lucrative book contract.
Granted, the ‘big-picture’ pay-offs are enormous, but time and time again, history has proven that humans are unwilling to experience short-term personal pain, in return for long-term societal gain. While such a sacrifice may be palatable to the hard-core, the lack of tangible personal benefit combined with probable ostracization is a serious barrier to entry for the majority of the population who desperately need to become engaged on this issue. Any solution that doesn’t address this problem head-on is simply doomed to fail.
The nice thing about the 10% rule is that it’s easy to calculate (This is my 10th trip to the hardware store in three weekends – don’t ask – so I’m going to go to Arruda’s instead of Home Depot), and it’s not going to drive most people into an ascetic lifestyle of denial of everyday comforts. That and the benefits to the local economy could be substantial, with up to 20% more of every dollar spent at a local store/on a local product staying right here in Hamilton.
Now there are some who would enthusiastically argue that an ascetic denial of everyday comforts is the only chance we have of fending off ‘something very bad’, but at this point it pays to remember both messages contained in Dr. Seuss’s classic book “The Lorax.”
The first, and most obvious message is that reckless depletion of natural resources leads to disaster. The other, and probably unintended message, is that shrill denouncement of the situation leads to the message being largely ignored until it’s too late.
Perhaps a “10% Local Shopping Diet” might be just the thing to reinvigorate local production in Hamilton, and help set us firmly on the road...or the rails/bike lane... to making the best of things; without the kinds of potential lifestyle shocks that usually lead otherwise well-intentioned people to sit on their hands in frustration.
Originally, I was prepared to vent at length at Hamilton Economic Development and their lack of obvious support for local manufacturers who were either starting up, or looking to make the leap from the garage to a larger facility.
This was certainly Robert Land’s experience, and while he was in Guelph, the “this will never fly” initial assessment of his business was typical of the reaction many small producers face, in many jurisdictions.
The reason? The fact that Canadian made goods are often priced out of the range of what most Canadian consumers are willing to pay.
I may have mentioned before my experience working in a men’s clothing shop in Calgary, where customers would regularly rail against the lack of Canadian made goods, until they were ushered to the back of the store where the Cline Behar shirts were waiting. Made in Guelph, they were priced 2 – 3 times that of comparable looking shirts from overseas. The zealous customers would then inevitably mutter excuses, and slink back to the discount table at the front.
For many Canadians, purchasing only locally-made, Canadian-sourced goods would be not only prohibitively expensive; but unless one plans to wear only hemp clothing, pretty much impossible. Canada produces next to nothing in the way of wool, and even less cotton. The bottom line is that if you’re going to dress for the winter we've just experienced, you’re going to be buying something for which at least the supply chain started somewhere far, far away.
That’s why the recent article in The Tyee struck such a chord. It mentions the efforts of the B.C. Public Sector Union who are proposing that everyone purchase 10% of what they buy from either local stores, or ensure that those goods are made or sourced in Canada.
Many sustainability advocates encourage a wholesale shift to buying locally sourced/manufactured/sold goods, but this can be tricky. Close examination of my kids’ can of Roberstons’s Apple Juice shows that it is ‘processed’ in Canada – but common knowledge is that most apples sourced for this kind of thing are brought in from China and the far East. There, low labour costs result in much better margins, even after the cost of shipping the apples 1000’s of kms across the ocean. Emails to their Public Communications department as to the origin of their apples have so far resulted in a chorus of crickets, however my only other option at this point is fresh pressed cider from the Farmer’s market. I’m still working with the taste buds of a picky 6 year old on that one…
Looking at other commonly used items around my house, it becomes clear that a switch to buying all, or even a majority of items that were locally made or sourced, would result in a dramatic shift in how I live, from ‘low-impact’ to full blown asceticism. It’s a leap that should not be entered into lightly, especially when the only tangible personal pay-off for the sidelong glances on the playground and whispered remarks at the office is likely to be a not-very-lucrative book contract.
Granted, the ‘big-picture’ pay-offs are enormous, but time and time again, history has proven that humans are unwilling to experience short-term personal pain, in return for long-term societal gain. While such a sacrifice may be palatable to the hard-core, the lack of tangible personal benefit combined with probable ostracization is a serious barrier to entry for the majority of the population who desperately need to become engaged on this issue. Any solution that doesn’t address this problem head-on is simply doomed to fail.
The nice thing about the 10% rule is that it’s easy to calculate (This is my 10th trip to the hardware store in three weekends – don’t ask – so I’m going to go to Arruda’s instead of Home Depot), and it’s not going to drive most people into an ascetic lifestyle of denial of everyday comforts. That and the benefits to the local economy could be substantial, with up to 20% more of every dollar spent at a local store/on a local product staying right here in Hamilton.
Now there are some who would enthusiastically argue that an ascetic denial of everyday comforts is the only chance we have of fending off ‘something very bad’, but at this point it pays to remember both messages contained in Dr. Seuss’s classic book “The Lorax.”
The first, and most obvious message is that reckless depletion of natural resources leads to disaster. The other, and probably unintended message, is that shrill denouncement of the situation leads to the message being largely ignored until it’s too late.
Perhaps a “10% Local Shopping Diet” might be just the thing to reinvigorate local production in Hamilton, and help set us firmly on the road...or the rails/bike lane... to making the best of things; without the kinds of potential lifestyle shocks that usually lead otherwise well-intentioned people to sit on their hands in frustration.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Cobbler's Children
We need to start re-skilling.
Now.
Not 5 years from now, once the price of gas has doubled, or a UK Bond Default has left the economy reeling, and the urge to repair vs. replace, and quality over quantity finally takes hold in North American markets.
Now.
For many years, I have had a bit of a shoe fetish. Not an ‘Imelda Marcos' kind of acquisition fetish, but a fascination with footwear; how it was designed, how it was made, and how it was repaired. It probably came from the 5 years or so after University where the only job I could seem to find was in shoe sales, but the curiosity has stayed with me for some time.
So for the first time ever, I finally had the convergence of time and resources needed to give shoemaking a try first-hand.
The teacher in question was none other than Robert Land. An institution if you’re at all into the historical re-enactment scene, he’s been making civil war/battle of 1812 reproduction shoes in his workshop near Guelph for years. His shipping terms are no-nonsense, but his commitment to quality is well known.
I made it to the workshop for just after 9:00 on a Saturday morning, and without even pausing for me to take my jacket off, Robert launched into a brief description of how we would be spending the day, and we were off to his shed looking for lasts (the moulds shoes are based on).
Over the course of the next 8 hours I stopped three times: Twice to pee, and once to eat a muffin. The rest of the time I was moving non-stop; cutting leather, sewing the uppers, gluing the uppers to the midsole, nailing, stretching, grinding and polishing.
In that time, I made one pair.
To be fair, Robert tells me that once he gets going, he and his helper can complete 15 pairs a day each – pretty good turnout for a small operation.
Here’s the catch: Robert is not an old fashioned ‘Pinocchio’ cobbler bent over his workbench with nothing but a sharp knife and pair of needles. No, he has what would probably be $250,000 worth of industrial equipment at his disposal. That is to say if he were to buy it new, and not at close out auctions as shoemaker after shoemaker in Ontario systematically fell under the weight of cheap overseas imports flooding the market.
With all of that equipment, and an unlimited supply of propane and electricity, Robert's two person shop can turn out 30 pairs a day. One piece of equipment in his workshop was rated for 400 pairs a day, but was so fiddly that neither of us could imagine such a high rate of production while using it.
Now imagine what it would be like if that equipment wasn’t there, or if it were prohibitively expensive to run, or if the parts simply weren’t available?
After a day of steep learning curves, the finished product you can see for yourself above, and I like to think I took to it fairly well.
Not bad handiwork considering it was the first time I had used a sewing machine, much less a double needled machine sewing through leather. Also, to be perfectly honest, he completed several of the most difficult tasks, including grinding the heel, and stitching on the sole using a McKay Stitcher - a large sewing machine that looked like something my Junior High Shop Teacher would have called 'the widow maker.'
I asked him though, based on what he had seen me do, if he thought it would be possible for me to sew a pair of shoes entirely by hand. No machinery.
His reply was ‘no’, he didn’t think so, because I (or at least most people) would give up in frustration.
“It’s possible, in theory, to make a pair of shoes with no tools other than a knife and some leather needles.” Robert explained. “The question is, would it look anything like what we currently think of as a ‘shoe’?”
So now, of course, my next challenge is to sew a pair entirely by hand. I’m going to start with a nice easy pair of moccasin style shoes (like a Topsider style), and work my way up from there.
In the meantime, I will repeat my call for an increased return in Hamilton to learning those skills we will need in the near future. Not in a hobbyist’s context, although that is an important first step, but an industrial one.
If some enterprising handyperson who had a good knowledge of bicycles were to combine Kenneth Moyle’s article about the pleasures of commuting on a Dutch style Bicycle, with Undustrial’s ideas about making those bikes right here in Hamilton, some pretty exciting things might just happen.
I nominate Sean.
Unfortunately, if Robert's experience is one to judge by, governments and banks won't exactly be beating down the doors to help these new manufacturers get underway. That is a serious oversight that needs to be remedied while capital is still (relatively) abundant. Securing local sources of financing and expertise will be crucial to helping Hamilton find it's feet quickly should the ground underneath the global economy start to tremble.
As for you, is there an ‘old fashioned’ skill you have always been curious about? Have you jumped on the knitting bandwagon yet, or maybe even something more esoteric like spinning your own yarn, or marquetry, or herbal remedies? Perhaps the time to start learning is now, because if shoe-making is any indication, the ramp-up time for these skills may be uncomfortably long, and our leisure to learn them surprisingly short.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Hardy to Zone 6
I have been reading Eliot Coleman’s fantastic Four Season Harvest recently, and his wonderful instructions about how to harvest fresh veggies all year ‘round. It has me thinking quite a bit about the hardiness of various plants – especially with Coleman’s assertion that with simple protection from the wind and bitterest cold, we can grow many vegetables that are popular in the south of France.
Hardiness is an interesting term in the agricultural world. It speaks not to whether or not a plant will survive in a given climate, but whether or not it will thrive. That’s the discussion I feel we need to be having in Hamilton right now: With all of the changes that are certain to come, how will we escape the bunker mentality that is so prevalent in peak oil/climate change thought, and turn our attention to how we can thrive, and become a desirable and attractive community in the face of the ‘trifecta?’
The first step is, perhaps, to list our assets. It is widely acknowledged that as fossil fuels increase in price, and decrease in availability, certain forms of transport will quickly trump the current method of loading everything worth moving into Transport trucks. When it comes to rail and water transportation, Hamilton is almost uniquely suited in Canada in terms of not only access to the largest market in Canada, but relatively easy access to the largest markets in the U.S.
And make no mistake, even if stock indexes take a serious tumble, and the price of gas shoots up, and all manor of calamaties are made manifest, we will still be trading. We will still be producing goods and services of real value, in fact if Jeff Rubin is at all correct, we may be producing more of them. People have been trading between communities in some form or another for the better part of 10,000 years. No matter how bad you think things will get, it is foolish to think that every community will suddenly have to become totally self-sufficient.
So then what can we produce for these markets to which we will have almost uniquely easy access?
The first, and most obvious, is food. We live in the heart of one of the greatest agricultural areas in North America, and yet many of the ‘local’ food manufacturers – Kraft, Smuckers, etc, source virtually all of their raw materials from Mexico or California. Don’t even get me started on the ripping up of Peach Orchards after the biggest cannery in Niagara closed.
Local food, in an era of an unreliable power grid, and high transport prices, may not necessarily mean local fresh produce, and we need to start thinking about how we can preserve, can, and otherwise process all of our local produce for consumption over our long, cold winters, and those of our nearest neighbors. Some producers nearby are doing a great job of this, others are hamstrung by contracts with local grocery stores that demand prices lower than what Canadian labour laws will permit.
Even Mayor Bratina recognizes that food processing is a large, and largely neglected part of Hamilton's economy, and yet the list of tangible wins for helping home grown producers to develop those opportunities is rather short.
City Hall needs to be working closely with local farmers and growers to help them find local processors for their products, to get them into Hamiltonian’s cupboards, and not just their crispers.
Next, Hamilton has an enormous amount of built infrastructure that we need to keep in good repair. The steady decline of our electrical infrastructure, and the ongoing problems with waste water and sewage in the East End are glaring examples of what happens when we don’t maintain what we have. It is always important to maintain the infrastructure that supplies the services on which your citizens depend. But to neglect their repair at a time when the cost of repairs could double or triple in the next 10-15 years is worse than irresponsible, it’s reckless.
Finally, Hamilton’s leaders need to stop spending so much of their time and energy on attracting big employers and large factories to our city, who’s loyalty expires minutes after the tax breaks are amortized. The focus of our economic development team needs to be on supporting local companies that produce things people really want and need – and in the process re-skilling our community to be prepared for when those things are no longer available for $1.99 from Thailand.
Retail businesses and consulting firms are all fine and good, but there needs to be a renewed focus on small businesses that are producing tangible goods, and in the process relearning skills that will be vital in the near future.
This focus on the big 'front page' hit of employment opportunities is probably the first thing that needs to change.
I guess it’s the comment stream in my last post on Raise the Hammer that set this whole little rant in motion. The bunker mentality for dealing with the future – how will we survive – isn’t a very big tent, and not many people want to huddle under it. And I know that many people think that WTSHTF everybody will come running to them for help, but Millenarians have an atrocious track record of accuracy. While things will certainly be difficult, the comparison of what is to come with a Zombie invasion is not helpful at best, and alienating at worst.
So instead of focusing our efforts on how to hunker down and just ‘survive’ the challenges we know are ahead, can we please have a conversation about how we can prosper; how we can thrive; how we can be the best place to live, work, and raise a child? Even in the face of triple digit oil?
Hardiness is an interesting term in the agricultural world. It speaks not to whether or not a plant will survive in a given climate, but whether or not it will thrive. That’s the discussion I feel we need to be having in Hamilton right now: With all of the changes that are certain to come, how will we escape the bunker mentality that is so prevalent in peak oil/climate change thought, and turn our attention to how we can thrive, and become a desirable and attractive community in the face of the ‘trifecta?’
The first step is, perhaps, to list our assets. It is widely acknowledged that as fossil fuels increase in price, and decrease in availability, certain forms of transport will quickly trump the current method of loading everything worth moving into Transport trucks. When it comes to rail and water transportation, Hamilton is almost uniquely suited in Canada in terms of not only access to the largest market in Canada, but relatively easy access to the largest markets in the U.S.
And make no mistake, even if stock indexes take a serious tumble, and the price of gas shoots up, and all manor of calamaties are made manifest, we will still be trading. We will still be producing goods and services of real value, in fact if Jeff Rubin is at all correct, we may be producing more of them. People have been trading between communities in some form or another for the better part of 10,000 years. No matter how bad you think things will get, it is foolish to think that every community will suddenly have to become totally self-sufficient.
So then what can we produce for these markets to which we will have almost uniquely easy access?
The first, and most obvious, is food. We live in the heart of one of the greatest agricultural areas in North America, and yet many of the ‘local’ food manufacturers – Kraft, Smuckers, etc, source virtually all of their raw materials from Mexico or California. Don’t even get me started on the ripping up of Peach Orchards after the biggest cannery in Niagara closed.
Local food, in an era of an unreliable power grid, and high transport prices, may not necessarily mean local fresh produce, and we need to start thinking about how we can preserve, can, and otherwise process all of our local produce for consumption over our long, cold winters, and those of our nearest neighbors. Some producers nearby are doing a great job of this, others are hamstrung by contracts with local grocery stores that demand prices lower than what Canadian labour laws will permit.
Even Mayor Bratina recognizes that food processing is a large, and largely neglected part of Hamilton's economy, and yet the list of tangible wins for helping home grown producers to develop those opportunities is rather short.
City Hall needs to be working closely with local farmers and growers to help them find local processors for their products, to get them into Hamiltonian’s cupboards, and not just their crispers.
Next, Hamilton has an enormous amount of built infrastructure that we need to keep in good repair. The steady decline of our electrical infrastructure, and the ongoing problems with waste water and sewage in the East End are glaring examples of what happens when we don’t maintain what we have. It is always important to maintain the infrastructure that supplies the services on which your citizens depend. But to neglect their repair at a time when the cost of repairs could double or triple in the next 10-15 years is worse than irresponsible, it’s reckless.
Finally, Hamilton’s leaders need to stop spending so much of their time and energy on attracting big employers and large factories to our city, who’s loyalty expires minutes after the tax breaks are amortized. The focus of our economic development team needs to be on supporting local companies that produce things people really want and need – and in the process re-skilling our community to be prepared for when those things are no longer available for $1.99 from Thailand.
Retail businesses and consulting firms are all fine and good, but there needs to be a renewed focus on small businesses that are producing tangible goods, and in the process relearning skills that will be vital in the near future.
This focus on the big 'front page' hit of employment opportunities is probably the first thing that needs to change.
I guess it’s the comment stream in my last post on Raise the Hammer that set this whole little rant in motion. The bunker mentality for dealing with the future – how will we survive – isn’t a very big tent, and not many people want to huddle under it. And I know that many people think that WTSHTF everybody will come running to them for help, but Millenarians have an atrocious track record of accuracy. While things will certainly be difficult, the comparison of what is to come with a Zombie invasion is not helpful at best, and alienating at worst.
So instead of focusing our efforts on how to hunker down and just ‘survive’ the challenges we know are ahead, can we please have a conversation about how we can prosper; how we can thrive; how we can be the best place to live, work, and raise a child? Even in the face of triple digit oil?
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Nature fights back.
With all of the talk in Hamilton recently of Snowmageddon, SNOMG, or Snowzilla, my thoughts were naturally turning to disaster planning and personal resilience... or as I like to think of it, 'hardiness'.
Taking a step back from the relatively minor effects of a snowstorm in winter in Canada, one needs only to look at the latest drubbing an increasingly enraged Gaia has been laying on the people of Queensland to see the enormous disruption that can be caused by a planet steadily warming towards the tipping point.
So what kind of preparations have been made here at home? Well, in Hamilton, there has been a fairly standard urban disaster plan on the books in it's most recent form since 2006. It outlines how various civic agencies will work together to coordinate the response to the 10 most likely disaster situations in Hamilton:
1. Chemical Spill – Fixed Site
2. Chemical Spill – En Route
3. Water (health) Emergencies
4. Health Emergencies
5. Terrorism
6. Civil Disorder
7. Violent Wind Event
8. Explosion / Fire
9. Transportation Accidents
10. Special Events
Now those of us who spend our precious free time reading about how the biggest challenges of our age will come from either sovereign debt default, global warming, or energy shortages may be somewhat surprised to see that two of the most serious threats as seen by City Hall are in fact industrial accidents. And these are no small threat. Indeed it was just such an incident that secured a young Hazel McCallion's place in history, and job prospects for years to come.
And what are we to think of this at the most basic unit of hardiness, the household? Well, the federal gov't has some great resouces on their site dedicated to the subject. It's a great place to start.
I think, though, that the most vital preparation a household could do would not be gathering flashlights, candles, and canned goods, but instead to start having conversations about 'what would we do if?' Sensible conversations around the dinner table, away from the hyperbolic warnings of Snowpocalypse on the TV are probably the best place to start.
Tune out all the yelling in the background, and hash out what you would do as a family/household if there were a chemical spill from a derailment while you were scattered at home, school, and work. Where would you meet? What numbers would you call? How would you communicate if an ice storm disabled the cell towers? What would you bring if you had to leave quickly due to an explosion, or high wind event?
Really the best preparation you can make is psychological, because if you have at least some sense of what you're going to do when disaster strikes, it's much easier to recall your plan, than to make one up on the spot.
The next step, is to start the conversation with your neighbors. Not in an 'are you ready for the rapture?" kind of way, but just so it's understood that you'll be looking out for each other.
For a few months over the summer, my retired next door neighbor was having me over two or three times a week to fix his TV reception, or his cordless phones, or his wifi. He and his wife lead a very frugal life, and part of me was concerned about what would happen to them in the event of a major disruption.
Then one day he took me downstairs to show me something in the basement, and on a shelf down there he had what must have been 3 months worth of canned goods. It occurred to me that he would probably have been a child during WWII, on the wrong side of Hitler's 'Bombs not Bread' campaign. He has been through hardships worse than I hope I will ever have to endure, and in the end it will probably be me coming to him for help if the lights go out for more than a couple of days.
So yes, have your canned goods, and your candles, and your source of heat, but more importantly, have the conversation, while it's easy to have it in a calm, rational way. "What would we do if?" And if you're having the conversation in the run-up to a fairly minor 15cm snowstorm, make sure you have it with the TV off.
Taking a step back from the relatively minor effects of a snowstorm in winter in Canada, one needs only to look at the latest drubbing an increasingly enraged Gaia has been laying on the people of Queensland to see the enormous disruption that can be caused by a planet steadily warming towards the tipping point.
So what kind of preparations have been made here at home? Well, in Hamilton, there has been a fairly standard urban disaster plan on the books in it's most recent form since 2006. It outlines how various civic agencies will work together to coordinate the response to the 10 most likely disaster situations in Hamilton:
1. Chemical Spill – Fixed Site
2. Chemical Spill – En Route
3. Water (health) Emergencies
4. Health Emergencies
5. Terrorism
6. Civil Disorder
7. Violent Wind Event
8. Explosion / Fire
9. Transportation Accidents
10. Special Events
Now those of us who spend our precious free time reading about how the biggest challenges of our age will come from either sovereign debt default, global warming, or energy shortages may be somewhat surprised to see that two of the most serious threats as seen by City Hall are in fact industrial accidents. And these are no small threat. Indeed it was just such an incident that secured a young Hazel McCallion's place in history, and job prospects for years to come.
And what are we to think of this at the most basic unit of hardiness, the household? Well, the federal gov't has some great resouces on their site dedicated to the subject. It's a great place to start.
I think, though, that the most vital preparation a household could do would not be gathering flashlights, candles, and canned goods, but instead to start having conversations about 'what would we do if?' Sensible conversations around the dinner table, away from the hyperbolic warnings of Snowpocalypse on the TV are probably the best place to start.
Tune out all the yelling in the background, and hash out what you would do as a family/household if there were a chemical spill from a derailment while you were scattered at home, school, and work. Where would you meet? What numbers would you call? How would you communicate if an ice storm disabled the cell towers? What would you bring if you had to leave quickly due to an explosion, or high wind event?
Really the best preparation you can make is psychological, because if you have at least some sense of what you're going to do when disaster strikes, it's much easier to recall your plan, than to make one up on the spot.
The next step, is to start the conversation with your neighbors. Not in an 'are you ready for the rapture?" kind of way, but just so it's understood that you'll be looking out for each other.
For a few months over the summer, my retired next door neighbor was having me over two or three times a week to fix his TV reception, or his cordless phones, or his wifi. He and his wife lead a very frugal life, and part of me was concerned about what would happen to them in the event of a major disruption.
Then one day he took me downstairs to show me something in the basement, and on a shelf down there he had what must have been 3 months worth of canned goods. It occurred to me that he would probably have been a child during WWII, on the wrong side of Hitler's 'Bombs not Bread' campaign. He has been through hardships worse than I hope I will ever have to endure, and in the end it will probably be me coming to him for help if the lights go out for more than a couple of days.
So yes, have your canned goods, and your candles, and your source of heat, but more importantly, have the conversation, while it's easy to have it in a calm, rational way. "What would we do if?" And if you're having the conversation in the run-up to a fairly minor 15cm snowstorm, make sure you have it with the TV off.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Whither the Jitney
There has been a bit of discussion recently about the potential cost of a $130 million LRT line, with several city councillors and armchair urban planners seeming to dismiss the idea entirely out of hand.
While the need for LRT goes far beyond just the need for more frequent, accessible, desirable transit along the King St corridor, it does address one fairly important fact about public transit in Hamilton. Namely that the 30 -60 minute headways on some routes are nothing short of an active discouragement to using the system to go about your daily life. While the frequency of buses on King street is much greater than that, in theory the LRT would free up drivers and vehicles to better serve other routes, thus triggering a joyful cascade of peace, understanding, and more reliable service.
Instead we are left with a system that serves some riders’ needs fairly well during rush hour, but for most of the rest of the day, leaves most of the city high and dry.
The obvious solution is more public money, but I think Australia, Nova Scotia and New York City this winter are all great examples of how as climate change continues to wreak havoc on local weather systems, there’s going to be less and less money to go around. To say nothing of what would happen to public levels of investment should Spain, the U.K. or (God help us) the U.S. suddenly default on a bond payment.
So even if it’s not the obvious solution, the practical solution may just be private transit.
Now, before you dismiss the idea out of hand, consider the humble Guagua, or Dollar Van. A major source of transportation in New York and New Jersey for neighborhoods that are grossly underserved by public transit, these are state regulated, but privately run.
Running simple 15 or 29 passenger Ford Econoline Vans, they ply routes up and down the boroughs of New York looking for people trying to get from point a to point b quickly. They haven't replaced the municipal buses, but in local areas they are the de facto transit system, and are famous for being more frequent, more convenient, and less expensive than city-run vehicles.
The buses are also famous for loud music, erratic drivers, and the occasional fight between drivers looking for fares. The model, though, deserves some investigation. Not by the HSR, but by any enterprising businessperson who owns either an old Econoline van or small schoolbus, and would like to make a tidy little business for themselves.
That would never fly in Hamilton, I hear you say. It wouldn’t be allowed. Why not? It would require only an application to the Taxi Commission to get the license. According to my reading, however, after the initial license was acquired none of the other taxi regulations would apply,because of the way the by-law is worded.
Now clearly you’re going to want a city staffer who is intimately familiar with the by-law to walk you through it, but it appears at first blush that Dollar Vans would fall most of the way through a loophole.
Such a route could indeed be profitable, either following the 1 King or B-Line around and scooping up whoever was left waiting once the bus was full, or plying a mountain route on the opposite half hour from when an HSR bus ran.
The only other question would be: How much damage would an effective, frequent, convenient Dollar Van service do to the HSR?
That’s a question that will certainly be the subject of some public debate, should a Dollar Van ever appear plying the streets of Hamilton looking for fares. By that point, though, it will be mostly too late. The genie will be out of the bottle, and the city will be fighting a rearguard action against the spread of people-centric privately-run, public transportation.
Perhaps it's time to have an open, creative discussion on how we provide and fund public transit in Hamilton, before some quick thinking entrepreneur makes the decision for us.
While the need for LRT goes far beyond just the need for more frequent, accessible, desirable transit along the King St corridor, it does address one fairly important fact about public transit in Hamilton. Namely that the 30 -60 minute headways on some routes are nothing short of an active discouragement to using the system to go about your daily life. While the frequency of buses on King street is much greater than that, in theory the LRT would free up drivers and vehicles to better serve other routes, thus triggering a joyful cascade of peace, understanding, and more reliable service.
Instead we are left with a system that serves some riders’ needs fairly well during rush hour, but for most of the rest of the day, leaves most of the city high and dry.
The obvious solution is more public money, but I think Australia, Nova Scotia and New York City this winter are all great examples of how as climate change continues to wreak havoc on local weather systems, there’s going to be less and less money to go around. To say nothing of what would happen to public levels of investment should Spain, the U.K. or (God help us) the U.S. suddenly default on a bond payment.
So even if it’s not the obvious solution, the practical solution may just be private transit.
Now, before you dismiss the idea out of hand, consider the humble Guagua, or Dollar Van. A major source of transportation in New York and New Jersey for neighborhoods that are grossly underserved by public transit, these are state regulated, but privately run.
Running simple 15 or 29 passenger Ford Econoline Vans, they ply routes up and down the boroughs of New York looking for people trying to get from point a to point b quickly. They haven't replaced the municipal buses, but in local areas they are the de facto transit system, and are famous for being more frequent, more convenient, and less expensive than city-run vehicles.
The buses are also famous for loud music, erratic drivers, and the occasional fight between drivers looking for fares. The model, though, deserves some investigation. Not by the HSR, but by any enterprising businessperson who owns either an old Econoline van or small schoolbus, and would like to make a tidy little business for themselves.
That would never fly in Hamilton, I hear you say. It wouldn’t be allowed. Why not? It would require only an application to the Taxi Commission to get the license. According to my reading, however, after the initial license was acquired none of the other taxi regulations would apply,because of the way the by-law is worded.
Now clearly you’re going to want a city staffer who is intimately familiar with the by-law to walk you through it, but it appears at first blush that Dollar Vans would fall most of the way through a loophole.
Such a route could indeed be profitable, either following the 1 King or B-Line around and scooping up whoever was left waiting once the bus was full, or plying a mountain route on the opposite half hour from when an HSR bus ran.
The only other question would be: How much damage would an effective, frequent, convenient Dollar Van service do to the HSR?
That’s a question that will certainly be the subject of some public debate, should a Dollar Van ever appear plying the streets of Hamilton looking for fares. By that point, though, it will be mostly too late. The genie will be out of the bottle, and the city will be fighting a rearguard action against the spread of people-centric privately-run, public transportation.
Perhaps it's time to have an open, creative discussion on how we provide and fund public transit in Hamilton, before some quick thinking entrepreneur makes the decision for us.
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