Metro Vancouver, Future of the Region (November 28, 2013)

Attended another Metro Vancouver event on Thursday, part of their Future of the Region dialogues.  The talk discussed the planning necessary for the Metro Vancouver region in order to make it an economically robust, culturally rich and socially equitable place to live, work and play.

The panel members included former Vancouver city councilor Gordon Price, Bev Grieve (Director of Development Services, New Westminster), Tim Savoie (General Manager, Development Services, Port Moody), and Gary Pooni (President, Brook Pooni Associates).  I’ve attached a scan of the bios that was provided at the dialogue.

The bottom line message, repeatedly emphasized by Gordon Price, was that the future of the region is going to be decided by the Translink referendum.  If the people do not vote to support Translink, then more roads will be built to support a car oriented society.  Over a million more people will be coming to the region over the next 25 years and developments will have to increase density but without proper public transportation, it will be very difficult to move the people as needed.  Price also emphasized that the transit system is at its limits already, with the 99 B-Line unable to meet demand.  The Marine Gateway project and the proposed Oakridge redevelopment will also place increased pressure on the Canada Line.  However, without increased funding to meet the transit needs of the increasing population, things will only get worse and push people into cars.  This is the wrong direction for the region to take and hopefully people will recognize this and vote appropriately when the referendum does come around.

Metro Vancouver Sustainability Breakfast - Food Waste

Attended the Metro Vancouver Sustainability Breakfast today.

Today’s topic was the challenges and opportunities presented by the upcoming ban of organics in the waste stream in 2015.

Todd Jeanotte of the Four Seasons hotel presented how the hotel works to minimize food waste in their different restaurants and catering business.  This involves staff engagement, menu engineering, preference reports, collaboration with suppliers, forecast management, and accurate measurement of input and output.

Erin Nichols represented the Vancouver Food Bank and spoke of how the organizations Food Runners program helps divert food that is near the expiration date from over 200 donors to those that can make best use of the food.  The interesting point made was that there is no liability for businesses that donate food which was a concern in the past.

Stuary Lilley of Enterra Feed described the process of how they take food waste and convert it into feedstock for chickens/farmed fished, oil and fertilizer.  Their process is described as a bioconversion process which uses the food waste to feed black soldier fly larvae which are then processed to make animal feed and fertilizer.  It helps close the loop in terms of minimizing waste and putting back the nutrients used to grow food into the agricultural process.

Steve Harpur, founder of Earth Renu, described how his company takes food waste and processes it into natural gas or biodiesel.  His main message is that there should be no food waste (packaged or unpackaged) going to landfill.  There are sufficient technologies capable of dealing with the waste and by locating his facility on Annacis Island, he reduces the distance that waste needs to travel – rather than the 700 km round trip to Cache Creek.

There was also a representative from Recycle Smart, a company that connect sustainability and business.  Many businesses do not know where to start, especially in dealing with the upcoming organics ban.  They also demonstrate that working towards meeting these requirements is not that costly and may actually save a business money by reducing waste collection fees.  Your waste may actually be a resource for another company.

The main message is that food waste represents nearly a third of the food produced in the world and that being organize material there exists the means and technologies to make use of this material rather than sending it to landfill.

Credentialism runs its course

Has the value of the college/university education diminished in the last twenty years?


I began reading College (Un)Bound by Jefffrey J. Selingo which looks at the future of higher education and how it has changed in the last twenty years with those born in the 1980s and 1990s attending post-secondary institutions.  In one part of the book, he looks at whether students are benefiting from college in a meaningful manner and refers to the book Academically Adrift by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa in which the authors looked at Collegiate Learning Assessment scores for recent graduates.  In their analysis, 45% of students after two years of study made no gains in writing, reasoning and critical thinking skills.  While after four years, a disappointing 36% made no progress.  Sadly, many students and parents blame the institutions for their failings.

I graduated with my undergraduate degree almost twenty years ago and my masters degree almost fifteen years ago.  Was it worth the time and cost?  If that is judged based on me working in the fields I studied, then no but if it is judged on me making use of the skills I learned then yes.  I started off with an undergraduate in biology and a my masters was in pharmaceutical sciences.  I am now a researcher and project manager for a shared value/sustainability consulting group.  How I got from there to here is a convoluted trip taking me from working as a lab technician, to a shipper/receiver, to managing a pharmacy teaching lab.  I never truly focused on grades, as the knowledge and skills I learned were much more interesting.  And I would rather have a good night's sleep rather than trying to squeeze out those extra few percentage points.  Not that I didn't take pride in doing well, but it really wasn't about the marks.

But I guess I'm also a little different from most people as I've taken some sort of academic or continuing education course every year since I graduated from high school except for 2002.  That's twenty years of additional formal learning that many people wouldn't even consider.

What am I getting at?  That school isn't about the grades.  It has been demonstrated that educators from grade school, high school and beyond participate in grade inflation such that the value of an "A" is diminished.  If everyone does well in school, how come so many graduates seem to know nothing when they enter the working world.  I've had to deal with PhD's trying to get packages from Vancouver to Belgium in less than twenty four hours - it was brought to me at 4:00 PM (PST) and had to get to Belgium for the next morning.  It stunned me the incapacity to realize that Belgium is 9 hours ahead of Vancouver which meant it was already 1:00 in the morning there when I received the package.  Flights to Brussels direct from Vancouver take at least 13 hours - thus, if you eliminate all processing and ground transport times, the package would at earliest be there at 2:00 in the afternoon in Brussels.  Alas, all FedEx packages go to Memphis first for sorting and then to Europe.  There was no way this was getting there the next day unless this researcher bought a ticket and got on the plane themselves.  This to me was a clear case of a lack of critical thinking or analysis skills and brought to mind me expression that incompetency on another individual's part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

So, yes, I believe that schools are failing our children and I struggle on a daily basis to help bring understanding to the world, one college graduate at a time.

Dear. Mr. Watterson

Interesting to see that there is a documentary out about the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.

Googling it, one finds there are several reviews, but the one that caught my eye was the one in Christianity Today.  Now, I never knew about this website before today but it fascinates me that they do movie reviews.

I named my son after the little boy who has adventures with his tiger.  He even reads the comic strip himself now - hopefully he doesn't try to imitate the toboggan adventures.

Remembering Veterans

It would seem that once again, some retailers like Costco and Target take objection to those that wish to sell poppies during the period before Remembrance Day.

My mother-in-law's husband, a World War II veteran, passed away last week at the age of 94.  He volunteered to serve his country in a war against the Germans.

My son has a fairly good understanding of the sacrifices that soldiers make and the story of the big box retailers diminishes these acts.  The representatives and public relation talking heads will undoubtedly put a spin on the whole issue but it will not mean much to me.

I personally object to the reasons some wars are fought but support those that are willing to put their lives on the line in service of their country.  I can't convince you to avoid shopping at Costco but is that big box of socks really what people have died for?

The Battle for Sustainable Cities – Blog | SustainAbility

 The Battle for Sustainable Cities – Blog | SustainAbility

Over 50% of the world's population lives in cities.  Establishing a sustainable urban culture is important in ensuring that cities will continue to be able to serve as a place for people to live.

Huge elephant in the room

I typically disagree with the Margaret Wente's opinions in the Globe and Mail but her piece on Toronto mayor Rob Ford is bang on.

He won't quit and there is no mechanism to remove him.  He lacks the ability to run the city with all the controversy surrounding him but as long as he stays in office he can command the resources of his position to defend himself.  How does that serve the people of Toronto?

He's mocked on every late night show and is an embarrassment for Canada.

I hope he comes to his senses either resigns or steps back to get some help.  Only time will tell.

What will it take?

Shooting the s**t after hockey on Sunday with tales of working in cold climates such as -30 C in Edmonton or one guy saying it was near -70 C up in the Yukon once.  And then someone pipes up that with places being that cold this whole global warming thing is bunk.

In past I would have tried to reason with him but the fact is that people will believe what they want to believe.  Stating facts and evidence from the latest scientific reports won't do a thing because in general, people know so little about science that they go to the extremes of not trusting it.

State sized chunks of ice falling off Antarctica and longer ice free periods in the Arctic are enough for me to believe.  But for me, it is common sense.  If we burn thousands of gallons of fuel a day, that exhaust has to go somewhere.

Some of it is natural but humans play a role in climate change.  If you don't want to accept that then get out of my way because I'm here to do something about it.

 

Math Problems

In our homeschool math group we work through different math exercises to help better the math intelligence of those involved.  It is an interesting group consisting of an older group of two teenagers, a middle group of five ten year old boys and four younger children.

We present the same problems to each group and it is wonderful to see the different thought processes used to attack the problem.

This past week we were working on river crossing problems, beginning with the basic wolf, chicken and grain.

The young ones initial solution was to take the chicken across.  Then they came back for the grain and stated that the wolf would swim along side the boat thus getting everything across the river.  It was interesting this "out of the boat" thinking and a lesson for the parent leaders to clearly define the parameters of a question.

This week we move on to magic boxes, similar to sudoku but involving sums.