Cultural encounters of a hopeful Albertan kind

It's been a while since my last opportunity to sit down and start a new essay. Between my day job hanging above the Alberta landscape and my humble efforts at organizing as a candidate in the ongoing provincial election, it's been quite the ride over the last month or so. However, as the faction I am currently allied with has recently put forth it's substantial cultural policy, I thought it time to scribble down a few personal ideas that have been brewing for some time.
As most anyone in a G20 country can probably relate to, Albertans have been increasingly swept up in the new world (dis)ordering that neo-liberal globalization has served up as the dish of the last few decades. What this has effectively meant for the average person is that 'The Economy' has become the primary focal point, in mental and physical terms, for the prioritization of people's lives. As citizen has increasingly morphed into the self-involved consumer, one of the major opportunity costs as been the conceptual and real loss of the creative impulses of the human as an agent and arbiter of authentic, homegrown culture.

Though the Alberta Party has done a considerable job with its Creative Industry framework already, I feel that there are a few augmentations that could be made to round out the approach we take towards ensuring that the humans that breed, work, and play in this jurisdiction do so with the utmost of cultural richness, appreciation of beauty and the capacity to partake in the magic of artistic creation.

The first cultural priority I would add to the discussion around cultural vibrancy and political efforts at maximizing cultural dynamic quality in the province pertains to a fiscal measure that would channel revenue from an existing cultural trend with many negative social and psychological implications, advertising, towards building cultural mediums whose mandates aim at benefiting the public good, over the long term.

Before I go any further though, its probably essential to point out the fact that advertising in today's consumer capitalist system goes a long way towards manufacturing desire and making wants/needs out of things that were either previously widely available, free or non-existent. Indeed, the advertising industry can be directly linked to certain pathological tendencies in modern domesticated primate cultures and some jurisdictions around the world have effectively banned large-scale commercial advertising (much to the disappointment of multi-national corporations but general praise of resident people). Especially regarding the well-documented effects of advertising on children, the need becomes quite apparent that we would probably be healthier individuals and a saner culture with less advertising in our faces, or at the very least, by taking a small share of the profits of such endeavours and with it, balancing out the cultural equation.

So what do I propose? Nothing too crazy, just a small 2-5% excise on all public advertising installations in the province. This would most likely affect those companies responsible for and displaying on massive banners, screens, billboards and other such things that are now (overly?) commonplace on our highways, streets, and buildings. In focusing on these large scale installations, we differentiate between small businesses getting out a message for the local services/products they offer and wealthy firms that can afford to assault the captured public with messages containing constructed techniques of overt and hidden psycho-cultural manipulation.

The best sources to transfer this financial capital to would, in my opinion, be organizations with proven track records of promoting mediums that enhance the public's ability to make informed decisions on shared and emergent realities and those institutions that build a cultural heritage
for all Albertans. At the top of my list: new and existing public radio stations, local and independent publishers and newspapers, and local media, arts, and cultural foundations. By shifting some incentive away from private high-wealth advertising operations and to public, local journalists and demographics of the culturally creative, we'd go a long way in building cultural capital across this province.

The second of the cultural policy augmentations I would like to offer up is really a mandate that the provincial government could encourage municipalities incorporate into all further urban, suburban, and community designs: human scaled nodal development. It's been tried around the world and is even being promoted by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. It simultaneously increases connections between humans, nature, and places of interest and in so doing, it could help to further transform our municipalities from car-dependent, citizen-competitive environs to walkable, relaxable, and gatherable places.

Perhaps, in light of our goals to increase democratic participation, citizen empowerment, and local sustainability, we could again take a note from the permaculturalists. To host a handful of Village Building Convergences across the province and paint, plant, and placemake our way to a more responsive civic design would be a heck of a lot of fun and it could really go a long ways to make a culture of creativity and positivism an emergent reality.

It goes without saying that our settlement patterns reflect our values. And so, if we wish to really revitalize the culture capacities of the people in this province, we need to make changes that nurture physical and emotional connections in and to the places that we, the people, live. Some might argue that it is not the role of government to meddle in the cultural affairs of our communities, that my second cultural policy recommendation verges on 'social engineering'. To this, I would reply that we live in a time and circumstance where we are challenged by changing world conditions to make the ideal of democratic government act as a filter and focal apparatus for good design a 'social evolving' reality. That like in all other realms of public endeavour, we can make the power of government work through and for, us - always listening and ever adapting.

To wrap up this essay on cultural encounters of a hopeful Albertan kind, I would like to propose my third cultural policy focus. It has to do with a more radical approach than is often given thought or action to in our contemporary political culture for it somewhat undermines one of the hidden fears that snoozes in the oily bosom of industrial civilization; that, leisure time is dangerous and leads to the great sin of being unproductive.

Before coming straight out and making the recommendation, let us put aside, for reasons of brevity, traditional critiques of industrial work and anthropological questions regarding the effects of trading labour for interest-oriented currency. Instead, we can simply draw to mind (and from our own experiences) the fact that we in Alberta are working longer, harder, and with more stress than any other time in our collective history. Our households work more with less leisure time overall and as this study suggests, we have relatively low levels of feeling like we belong to our communities and they to us. These qualities alone, are enough to bring us to seriously consider what I am about to propose:

Let's take the first Monday of every month off from our day jobs.

Okay, whoa - I know, it seems like a bit of an ask, but then again, who are we to ask when we can legislate? Citizens of course; conscious creatures with the capacity to co-evolve a culturally rich civilization, to make things better for ourselves, our neighbours and our offspring not just now, but for the long term. And in my mind, there are not as many good reasons for as against denying ourselves a monthly Alberta Culture Day wherein we allow ourselves freedom from industrial work to pursue interests in the gift, volunteer, craft, or cottage 'economies'.

Whether you are a musician who pushes paper as a legal assistant so as to afford the excitement of a downtown lifestyle or a poet who Journeyman pipe-fits to keep food on the table for his family - Albertans in all spheres of our society can use more time off to pursue their passions and weave a stronger community and cultural fabric. Interestingly enough, I think this will appeal to almost every citizen, regardless of their orientation along conventional political lines, and do more than any other single effort in revolutionizing our cultural capacities as active, informed citizens.

We can carry forward a bigger dream for this province. As my fellow candidates are demonstrating every day in their own campaigns, we can do politics differently. Part of this has to do with building upon the wonderful institutions and networks of creative impulse that both rise in the side-shadows and in the stage-lights of this province's musical, artistic, and intellectual scenes. Another part of doing politics differently, and indeed, carrying forward a bigger dream for this province, means being unafraid to act in elevating culture - the co-integrated patterns which we cultivate as social animals - to the core of the attitudes, values, and goals of our civilization.

Thanks for reading and be sure to get out your vote in the next few weeks!

जय सच्चिदानन्द

-KSE

A climate change policy worthy of Albertans: Part 2

In a modern philospher poet's New Declaration he states the climate change equation in the most basic of language: "If you burn carbon-based fuels, this carbon will go into the air, and have effects in the real world."

It's really quite this simple.

We try to complexify things so that we can avoid the uncomfortable. We mine extravagant data to support our own static patterns while ignoring the obvious logic. To solve the problems associated with climate change we need to address a multi-dimensional reality. Where nature, culture, and consciousness collide, we can find perspectives that can help us authentically 'step-up' to a more mature level of awareness and develop the courage needed to act honourably in the face of profound adversity.

In the first part of this essay I drew a rough picture of the state of global climate change science where a general agreement exists on the human-induced nature of imbalance within our planetary biosphere. I also proposed the first two steps in what I see as being the basis of a functional policy framework that could work in this most unique of geo-political jurisdictions.

The first had to do with a grassroots, interdisciplinary education campaign around the science, ethics, and possible future we are facing on this planet at this time in history. The second was the proposition of the establishment of a provincial Land Repair Initiative where outreach centres across the province would engage citizens in educational and demonstrative projects that would employ applied restorative hydrology, reforestation, and soil building efforts. In brief I sought to integrate the need to inform the citizen about the realities our local and global ecologies with the need to make available the tools, techniques, and knowledge to directly enhance the health and resiliency of landscapes and communities across Alberta.

Part 2 of this essay concerns itself with measures that many will find more politically unpalatable. Once again though, I must state that the intention behind this essay is not to dilly-dally within the boundaries of contemporary political thought, nor skirt around the dominant culture. Instead I try to challenge and evolve the potentialities of our political sphere through proposition of what my experience has concluded is closest to the objective best climate change policy we can get to building in this corner of the world.

If you disagree with the ideas contained herein, then by all means, argue with me. If you see a hole in my logic or a monkey on my back, please propose alternatives or, if you must, get to swinging. Regardless, the discussion around the topic of how to live in our altered world must move forward. I believe that an authentic democratic process where thoughtful dialogue and organic intellectualism are put to task can revitalize the spirit of the citizen and change the stories we tell ourselves about our place, potential, and purpose in the Universe. It is only in such a fundamental transformation of our beliefs and behavior that we will have a chance at thriving through the challenges of future evolution on this planet.

And so, now to the meat and potatoes of what we should be doing regarding this climate change thing:

In the February 2012 Issue of Alberta Oil, Mike Cleland, former President and CEO of the Canadian Gas Association, makes the argument that the true cost of energy use must be made evident in our policy. Besides doing away with subsidies that promote energy use he brings a perspective to our current topic that we may well adapt in our purposes:

"We should also add Carbon pricing. Carbon pricing has become a political dead zone and governments have substituted stealthier methods: intrusive, costly and largely ineffective. If we want to deal efficiently with carbon, we have to bring pricing back and do it efficiently with carbon taxes."

It's been proposed before by a federal party that had not-so-slight difficulties in communicating and gathering support for it. A version of it has even come into force in that left-coast province that bounds our western frontier with a significant degree of controversy. While to even mention the words "Carbon Tax" in an Alberta restaurant over breakfast may invite furtive glances from neighbouring tables.

Why then, would an educated and politically informed individual such as Mr. Cleland publicly propose it to readers whose first initial response would likely be antagonistic?

Well, because, given the objective of lowering carbon emissions and transitioning to a renewable energy economy as quickly as possible, a carbon tax is the simplest and most integral policy option at our fingertips.

Expanding upon Derrick Jensen's logic in the beginning quote: we burn fossil fuels - we change the real world, to account for and mitigate the negative changes and adapt to emerging conditions, we need to better incorporate the signals we are getting from the real world into our human systems so as to alter our patterns of settlement and livelihood. We can and should experiment with including other methods of dealing with greenhouse gases in our overall energy-environment platform - Cap and Trade is just one example that demonstrates certain efficiencies. Overall though, I believe a carbon pricing scheme similiar to that modeled by Sweden should be at the nexus of Alberta's climate change policy for a few reasons and I thus include it as the third step in a climate change policy worthy of Albertans.

Augmenting our existing 'capish and trade' system where intensity targets, extravagant offset mechanisms, and private-sphere investments are the primary measures of action, the type of Carbon Tax I propose would take into account the amount of energy and carbon in fossil fuels and would affect corporations at a quarter to half the rate of the population primarily to change behaviour rather than to raise revenue in the province. It would probably start at around $50 per tonne (just enough to put all those B.C.'ers who try to pigeonhole Alberta as `backwards` in an uncomfortable spot ; ) ) and within 5-8 years move to the more scientifically sound amount of around 150$/metric ton or 35 cents per litre of gasoline. Revenue would go to an expanded public arm of the Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation to be invested in public initiatives to be explored in step four of this essay (and of course, help fund, the rise of Land Repair Centres across the province).

One side of the coin of common sense in proposing a carbon tax similiar to that of Sweden's is that people need to have an incentive to change and that a change in the price at the pump or on the monthly electricity bill is the strongest indicator we have as a society that we need to seek alternatives. When we factor in the social and ecological costs to present and future generations in the everyday transactions of energy use, people are given another opportunity to wake up to the real and pressing concerns of dependency on non-renewable resources and the consequences of their use patterns on our local and global life systems. Hand in hand with popular education about climate change and the work of Land Repair Centre's across the province, a Pigouvian tax on carbon would spark creative responses to our shared energy-climate predicament while simultaneously growing our capacity to allocate resources to public initiatives that would enrich the environmental, economic, and cultural heritage we leave to those who will inherit our civilization.

This leads us to the other, and more tarnished, side of the common sense coin for introducing a carbon tax in Alberta. Where dominant political cultures will see the public as an obstacle to getting such a measure passed into legislation, I propose we utilize the ignorance, fear, and resistance that has built up around the topics of climate change and carbon taxes within the minds of humans that reside in Alberta as an opportunity to engage and establish a genuine dialogue around the future of our civilization. Really, I see the persuasion and implementation of a carbon tax here in the Province of Alberta to be one of the singularly most exciting challenges we have in aiming to revitalize the state of our democracy.

I say this because I sense an authentic hunger within many people within our province for a new organizing principle of societal existence. When we look at the history of humanity we can draw out substantial evidence to suggest that we are not happier when we consume more fossil fuels; indeed, I along with a growing movement of people across the planet, think that life could be better, overall, in a post-carbon society. Thus can it be seen that a carbon tax as policy measure not only affects positive change once it comes into action, but can do so also during its proposition phase in the public realm as part of an integral climate change policy discussion. Constructive talk where the interests of a carbon tax can be explored through democratic processes will help us to renew participation in both making decisions and getting things done, not only around the issue of climate change, but all the problems we face.

It is late in the climate change game. Had we been wiser and chosen a more mature path for the future of our province's economic evolution, we could've began implementing fiscal and monetary policy that steered us clear of climate changing developmental mechanisms in the 1970-80's. We didn't and hence do I call upon a economically sound and scientifically formulated carbon tax to give our proclivity of attachment to static patterns a kick in the proverbial behind. The convincing and the consequences of a Carbon Tax at the rates and timeline I suggest will require require sacrifices, but I do trust that, in the long run, we will be giving ourselves and our children a better foundation from which to build tomorrow's Alberta.

The fourth and final step to the climate change policy whose validity I am attempting to convince the reader of pertains to the field of Transition Investments and Adaptation Protocols.

Like my proposition for a Land Repair Initiative, Transition Investments and Adaptation Protocols encompass a wide range of societal measures that seek to simultaneously address local and global environmental and economic conditions in an effort to move us towards settlement patterns and cultural proclivities that can not only survive, but thrive, in the context of a climate changing planet. The following is not meant to be an exhaustive list of ways to invest our carbon tax earnings but it does attempt to demonstrate the extent to which we may have to begin re-ordering our households, our communities, and our provincial direction if we want to deal effectively with climate change.

I invite you to add, alter, and critique the measures on this list for it is in such causative efforts that we will end up with the highest degree of balance in our undertakings:

Provincial Net-Zero Shelter Standards - in the span of 5 years we could transition to all new commercial and residential complexes meeting requirements akin to and exceeding LEED Platinum standards. Instead of being energy sinks and resource drains, our buildings could provide energy, comfort, and ecological services to the humans and non-humans that exist in a given environment. Having designed and built my own small net zero dwelling in the Aspen Parkland bio-region of Alberta, I can attest first-hand to the myriad direct and indirect benefits we experience from taking the time to design passive solar oriented, super insulated, renewable electricity-powered dwellings.

International Land Repair Partnerships - a natural extension of our capacity building within the province in regenerative hydrology, forestry, and soil building is to bring our skills and resources to bear in areas on the planet that indicate global significance in issues of bio-diversity, human suffering, and ecological integrity. Whether it be through supporting novel international conservation measures, establishing alternative energy systems in areas of resource instability and strife, or providing financial and logistical support for reforestation efforts around the globe, Alberta could utilize its vast wealth and increased commitment to address climate change to move the world towards an age of environmental cooperation and international resource security.

Feed-In-Tariff Program - the transition to decentralized, renewable electrical generation is an essential component of responsible energy/climate change policy. Largely responsible for steering Europe's economic powerhouse away from coal and towards distributed solar, wind, and biomass generation, we in Alberta can learn from and adapt Germany's Feed-in-Tariff program details to work in our jurisdiction where electrical generation accounts for a massive amount of our per capita GHG emissions. A further benefit of a Feed-In-Tariff program is the development of trade-based private enterprise around installing and servicing residential and commercial electrical generation systems, thus diversifying our economy and the skillsets of the population.

Resettlement of the Rural - the trend towards mass movements of people and priority to the handful of large urban centres in our Province should be reversed if we wish to have prosperous local economies with high levels of regional food, energy, and cultural security. Lowering property taxes, building provincial institutions (health, education, infrastructural, etc) in rural municipalities, or setting contracting limits to the causes of urban sprawl are but a few directives that could be pursued in the interests of adjusting human settlement patterns to better resemble self-reliant nodal networks of natural, human, and technological capital able to deal with emergent global and local climatic conditions.

Roadway to Railroads - when it comes to marginal efficiencies of moving domesticated primates and our goods around, transportation by rail vastly outperforms transportation by truck in all situation except where liquid fuels energy is cheap & plentiful and settlement patterns have succumbed to the pressures of suburbanization. With revenue generated and rearranged by a suite of fiscal adjustments (including a provincial carbon tax) we can begin to rebuild a network of publicly owned and operated rail lines throughout and between our municipalities. Though it flies in the face of the 20th century trend towards individuated motion machines and threatens the average person's attachment of the ego and the car, the integration of various policy incentives and disincentives could enable Albertans to affordably travel and trade within and beyond the province long after the demise of the age of the combustion engined automobile and cheap flight.

Organic Agriculture- contrary to what many agronomists and agricultural outreach coordinators will tell you, our energy-intensive, high-pollution approach to agriculture cannot be sustained; it has no place in our long-term future of energy decline and rising climate instability and it cannot rival an organic agriculture when all inputs and outputs are taken into consideration. Instead of subsidizing and proselytizing an export-oriented industrial form of meeting human nutritional needs where chemicals controls are intrinsic and unnatural conditions are maintained, I would argue that an effective climate change policy and intelligent Alberta government would do all it could to promote a diversified agricultural sector where the ethics and principles of permaculture combine with the phenomenal advancements made in the science of organic food production. Though it might lower the GDP a little bit, the improved health of the public, the enhancement of our natural environment, along with more sustainable producer-consumer relationships definitely favours the pursuit of policy that fosters organic agriculture.

Shorter Industrial Work Week - inspired by hunter-gatherer cultures and many modern European countries, Alberta should move to lower the average work-week of citizens of the Province (from 44 to 32 hrs). At first glance, this does not seem to be directly related to the subject of climate change policy, however upon thinking of the potential consequences of such an action it is not difficult to see how many benefits could arise. Citizens would not have to commute as much; they could spend more time in their communities making life better while engaging in community projects that benefit the people and ecosystems they rely upon. With more leisure time people would probably become more educated and politically engaged; there would be more time to organize and develop local networks of democratic decision-making. Furthermore, the culture of work here in Alberta (one that is currently inundated with feelings of a desperate struggle to get by) would be altered dramatically with the grasp for money taking a subsidiary role to that of enriching the gift, cottage, and salvage economies.

These ideas are but the tip of a melting iceberg whose strength for a to call to action, I believe, is becoming greater and greater, day by day. As mentioned in Part 1 of this essay, we cannot be certain where we are in the timeline of global climate change nor even can we assume that our honest efforts in this Province will amount to anything more than a brave effort by a small minority of an immature species destined for a very unpleasant few millennia. To me, it doesn't so much matter and so I ask you, the reader, to set aside the cynical doubt promoted by our culture of excess and fear, become involved, and join your fellow citizen in a genuine engagement with the monumental crisis emerging as anthropogenic climate change. As a political sage once said "If thy aim be great and thy means small, still act; for by action alone these can increase to thee."

My aim, throughout this essay, has been to develop an honest set of means by which we can minimize our contributions to a future of climate chaos while maximizing the likelihood of democratic renewal, economic diversification and relocalization, and an enlightened evolution of our cultural tendencies. To address the challenges that climate change poses for us, we need to reconsider our blind pursuit of material progress and reorient ourselves towards balanced societal action and a cultural awareness of our own capacity to create a viable future for the human and non-human systems that call Alberta home.

A climate change policy worthy of Albertans will pursue a popular education campaign designed to inform and engage people in the role of citizens around the causes, problems and solutions associated with climate change. It will establish some semblance of land repair initiatives that seek to better the conditions related to our water, our land, and our soils. It will incorporate a very tangible measure by which people are able to gauge the true costs of continuing to base the patterns of their household and community livelihoods on non-renewable, climate changing sources of energy. And finally, it will seek to employ a set of measures that will promote a transition to regenerative, rather than degenerative human settlement patterns while helping households and communities adapt to more resilient ways of sustainably meeting our needs locally well into the future.

In this upcoming provincial election and over the course of the next few years, we will be granted ample opportunities to take a step back, look at the options before us, and begin making our way away from the insanities of business-as-usual and towards a maturity of perspective and preparedness in how we choose to live our day to day lives. In many ways, I see climate change as a defining issue of our time; everyone has already been touched by it while it, along with a host of other crisis, will come to increasingly dominate what we see and experience of the real world. One can only trust and act intentfully that we will come to identify the real from the unreal, the genuine from the fake, and the wise from foolish in time to salvage what makes this province and planet a place worth living in.

जय सच्चिदानन्द

-KSE

A climate change policy worthy of Albertans: Part 1

Our planetary biosphere is changing. The chemical composition of our atmosphere has been altered. Though always containing a certain intrinsic dynamic quality, the parameters that govern the climatic regime of planet Earth are undergoing fluctuations at rates that are unprecedented in the expected patterns of normal evolution.

Healthy debate continues to exist around the subject of climate change, however, the causes and general tendencies are not so much members in the discussion. Contrary to what corporate media and many a professional talking head will tell you, the debate that exists concerns itself mostly with details, thresholds, and potential trajectories. PPM tipping points, positive feedback possibilities, and migratory patterns of flora and fauna are good examples of how, for most educated and interested citizens, civilized engagement with the reality of anthropogenic climate change has moved beyond the stage of skepticism to that of exploration.

This two-part essay postulates policy that I think will work for Alberta in the context of the dominant scientific hypothesis that humans are causing significant disruptions to the normal functioning of global climate systems, that we are beginning to experience the effects of such changes, and that we can expect to feel them increase exponentially over the next century (and probably millenium). I have thought long and hard about 'political realities' here in the province and have concluded that if there is one area of policy that we cannot afford to 'beat around the bush' on, it is that approach we take to mitigating and adapting to life on a climate changing planet.

I propose that by making a genuine attempt to mobilize our democratic, intellectual, and material resources in coordinated efforts of response to this massive (and currently, overwhelming) issue, we can set a tone of ethical maturity and a level citizen involvement that will provide a nexus for social cohesion and a shared common purpose well into the end of our current century. All the while, we will be giving ourselves and those that come after us the best possible foundation to work from in building during uncertain times.

What follows is a rough overview of a few legislative and institutional innovations that I believe hold positive potential for our culture, economies, and communities in navigating at least the next 50-100 orbits. Some are well-known adaptations that other jurisdictions across the world have already employed. Others are the results of personal and peer-discussed thought experiments whose non-conventional nature require further discussion and formulation. And so, as an acrobatic plumber once said: Here we go:

The first step in our climate change policy should be the development, funding and mobilization of a publicly-funded Popular Education campaign centered around anthropogenic climate change.

From my sustained efforts at creating dialogue with my fellow citizens around the concept of a human induced, warming world I have concluded a few things regarding the degree of familiarity and depth of knowledge that the average person holds concerning said topic here in the province. The first is that mere exposure to the data and perspectives offered up by mass media outlets regarding the changing of our planet's climate systems is insufficient to inform individuals about the seriousness with which we should be engaging this issue. Secondly, I've noticed a general resistance to speaking about this subject matter in anything other than academic circles or in passing as small-talk with familiars.

The only way I see us overcoming both tendencies in the time-frame required to act capably to stem and adjust to our emerging global reality is through a sweeping and sustained popular education campaign facilitated by a passionate group of local and international scientists and educators whom are steeped in the intricacies of the issue. The continued ignorance of our society about climate change is unproductive and frankly, dangerous. Lack of awareness will only result in disorganized fear-based social behavior, fruitless efforts of disaster management, and ultimately, a prolonged state of harsh change brought about by rising levels of chaos in the patterns of local and regional weather forces.

Following the trail blazed by the philosopher, Paulo Friere, an interdisciplinary troupe of intellectuals, activists, and entertainers would travel throughout the province enacting a curriculum of participatory public education. The development of a robust appreciation for the collective potentials of being response-able humans in the pursuit of social and environmental justice as part of a future-oriented, ecological vision, would be made central to the medium and message of a public venue for learning. The pedagogy of ecoliteracy, biotic planetarity, and the effects of anthropic evolution can and must form the nexus of an authentic attempt at climate change popular education.

We can give ourselves and our communities a fighting chance at living in the world conditions that are emerging on our shared horizon. However, to do so, we must first overcome the hurdles of laziness, cowardice, and cynicism that have stigmatized anthropogenic climate change as a subject best avoided in polite company. Popular Education is the first and most important step we can take in preparing the citizens of our province for the challenges ahead. If we do this right, the following steps I recommend will be more attractive, effective, and ultimately, enjoyable.


The second step that I will cover in this part of the essay revolves around an idea that I have adopted from the global permaculture movement: Land Repair.

Part and parcel to the changes that are ongoing in our planetary climate regime is the reality of every terrestrial life system being subject to disturbance patterns that are increasingly compromising the long-term viability of the organisms and relationships that compose those systems.

We can speak of an industrial agriculture that slashes and burns forests, drains and tills wetlands, and overwhelms the local landbase with the impact of concentrated livestock and monocropping operations. We can talk about urban sprawl and the deleterious effects that our settlement patterns have on the stocks and flows of natural capital around our communities. Or we can examine the cumulative impacts that arise from our tendency to push further and further into wilderness, building roads, clearing land, searching for untapped concentrations of non-renewable resources to feed the hungry corporations that dominate our present-day economy.

Whatever benchmark we use, it is an inarguable fact that human civilization in the province of Alberta demonstrates an increasingly large array of disturbance patterns on our land, water, air and resident life systems. Coupled with the unpredictable and potentially catastrophic effects of climate change on these same spheres, it is imperative that we begin the restoration of abused and degraded areas using Permaculture Principles (principles derived from observing nature) to support and re-establish balanced, diverse and resilient eco-systems capable of supporting productive, sustainable life systems and durable ecological services.

Land Repair would be effective in dealing with localized environmental degradation while preparing humans and wildlife to adapt best to the long-term conditions brought about by global climate change. The expansion of existing agroforestry and woodlot extension programs here in the province would be an essential first stage of capacity building that would be followed by the establishment of local, government-funded Land Repair Outreach Centres modeled after the national Agroforestry Development Centre. These would provide consultative, educational, and resource provision services with the aim of building ecological literacy, imparting proven methods of environmental rehabilitation, and providing Albertans with the tools needed to 'dig swales, plant trees, and grow soil'.

In my experience, Land Repair is primarily composed of three realms of activity that assist us in working within the limits of natural processes while simultaneously building natural capital and resiliency in the systems that we depend upon.

The first is what may best be described as an applied restorative hydrology. Teaching people how to work with and alter the conditions of the land to provide maximum catchment, distribution, and recharge of falling/flowing water is profoundly powerful. Keyline design, regenerative earthworks, and watershed restoration are all wonderful examples of how moving from 'dehydration models' to 'rehydration models' of water management benefit plants, animals, ecosystems and people on household, farm, and community scales.

Land Repair initiatives would foster the dissemination of theory and the empowerment of practicing applied restorative hydrology at local outreach centres throughout the province. In so doing, we in Alberta would be performing our due diligence to avoid being left high and dry as the onslaught of climate chaos begins to rear its ugly head and puts ever greater stress on our already struggling water supplies.

The second realm of Land Repair focuses itself with the increase of bio-diversity and hence, eco-systemic resiliency, through the reforestation of degraded and marginal lands. A Land Repair programme would teach citizens how to plant native and naturalized flora in ways that work with the process of ecological succession to bring barren bio-deserts into complex communities of climax forests. It would encourage private citizens, non-profit organizations, and municipalities to move private and public lands away from wasteful land-management practices and towards intelligent designs of sustainable utility.

Acting as plant nurseries, educational facilities, and experimentation plots, Land Repair Outreach Centres could help farmers, landholders, and decision-makers transition the land under their care into low-input, high-output equations. Where long-term planning and systemic health takes precedence over short-term fiscal priorities, we would see a Land Repair initiative not only help plant and animal communities adapt to changing environmental conditions brought about by climate change, we would build vital knowledge in our citizenry while taking a significant step towards developing self-reliant, diversified local economies.

The third realm of Land Repair has to do with the medium of life upon which every human civilization rises and falls: the Soil. Today, in Alberta and across most of the world, the trend is towards erosion and depletion of our soil. To reverse this, it is essential that we dedicate significant human and material resources to mobilizing knowledge and technology. Restorative hydrology and reforestation efforts can help in growing soil but there are many other measures that remain unexplored or non-integrated into the fabric of Albertan society.

The scientific art of composting is perhaps foremost among these. Though world class efforts have been initiated here in the province with regards to organics recycling, there is still tremendous capacity to involve individual households, citizens, and smaller municipalities in both low and high-tech means of improving the quality and quantity of our soil through the generation of humus. From the simplicity of planting deep-rooting plants that mine minerals in the sub-soil and bring them to the surface to decompose in the form of leaf litter to creating a provincial movement around household composting systems, a Land Repair programme would do wonders to instill the idea that organic waste is, optimally, a resource for growing soil.

Indeed, with 'underemployed' citizens working through Land Repair Outreach Centres to build and sell appropriate technologies like worm bins, compost tumblers, and pyrolizers it is not unfeasible to imagine Albertans decreasing unemployement, building topsoil, and sequestering carbon all at the same time!


And so, to summarize: the first step in the climate change policy I am proposing has to do with authentically engaging Albertans in the science, ethics, and possible implications of climate change. The second step has to do with assembling and making ready grassroots solutions in water conservation, reforestation, and soil building through local outreach centres around the province.

It might seem odd, at a glance, that these measures are proposed as the basis of the recommended policy. Especially to the active environmentalist who has been campaigning to limit greenhouse gas emissions it will be counterintuitive. However, this type of unconventional 'bott0m-up' approach, I feel, is not only optimal, but necessary given the unique socio-economic situation and cultural tendencies that my fellow citizens here in Alberta exist within and exhibit.

I believe that if we can phrase climate change as a challenge, an existential learning curve, that is calling us to step up to the next level of citizen participation, cooperative enterprise, and resilient re-localization, we will not only get people on-board for the sacrifices that have to be made but we will also rediscover a love of life and an appreciation for nature that each of us is yearning to experience.

Stay tuned for the second part of this essay where I will delve into the interesting and rewarding steps of Transition Measures and Adaptation Protocol.

जय सच्चिदानन्द

-KSE

Benchmarking our decision-making

The dominant culture in today's Alberta politics and institutions is prone to justify our individual and collective decision-making based on a set of rather narrow and sometimes contradictory premises. Why do we barrel full steam ahead with non-conventional hydrocarbon exploitation when it is directly pushing certain species to the brink of extinction and jeopardizes the health of our land and water supply? Why is it possible for a high-school dropout to move to Ft. McMurray, start driving a monster motion machine for a fossil fuel company, and make many times the wage of a student nurse in a municipal hospital or caregiver in an old age home?

The logic of how we gauge 'progress' is flawed; with an incomplete equation informing a bias that has its root in the human desire for simple solutions, our society propels itself into the future with an inadequate indicator at the helm: GDP.

Gross Domestic Product became widely used in an attempt to gauge the industrial (and thus, military) capacity of warring nation-states during World War II. The history of GDP as an amoral indicator of economic output is demonstrated in how maximization of production and mobilization of tanks, battleships, machine guns, and ration packs took precedence and the application of such production was externalized. For those who first began to measure GDP and base their decision making upon it, there was no time, no room, to ask questions pertaining to the ethical, environmental, or cultural ramifications of needing to increase indices of production and consumption; they needed more bullets to kill more people, quicker.

The problem for us is that the logic of a war-time economy never left the paradigmatic impulses of our social design. Instead of transitioning to methods of integral socio-economic management, we myopically shifted our mining, production, and manufacturing from producing war materielle to producing consumer goods and inordinate amounts of fiscal wealth for a small minority of human beings. Pushed by corporate media, advertising firms and an investment class that found a way to extend the windfall of war-time profits, our elected representatives and academic institutions did little to question long-term implications of post-war planning. And so, instead of redirecting our creative energies and critical thinking to the task of building economic institutions that bolstered democracy, improved local resiliency, and accounted for the unintended and unseen of externalities, we have steadily degenerated into a deluded culture of comfort-loving primates that go to extreme measures to uphold a broken metre stick.

In provincial politics, the time for the adoption of an alternative progress indicator has come. From the pioneering work of local ecological economists and non-profits to the revolutionary pursuits of global movements and institutions, concerned citizens have a vast sample of thought and action to draw upon in coming up with alternative models of measuring and evaluating wealth, health, and natural capital. There are many options available to us in this regard; we can:

- engender a provincial ecological footprint monitor as a crown corporation or branch within an existing government agency for policy pursuit and the establishment of limits to harmful forms of development.

- seek to integrate the data and pursuits of different ministries into a government-funded Alberta Genuine Progress Indicator that offers the public and government transparent annual summaries of social, economic, and environmental parameters for progress benchmarking.

- endeavour to increase citizen participation in the direction and review of municipal and provincial matters through adaptation of direct democracy and feedback mechanisms. Citizen surveys, participatory budgeting, and the evolution of systems that allow citizens to direct the focus of society's progress are but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how we can simultaneously revitalize democracy and deepen the notion of what 'progress' means.

As a provincial election looms on the horizon, I am reminded that our role as citizens must grow to encompass a larger definition of what a 'life well lived' and a 'civilization well built' entails. If we support the candidates that are open to and proponents of revising the progress indicators we use on a day to day basis to judge whether we are doing the right things, I have little doubt that the future we get will much more accurately reflect the one that we, and future generations, would want.

जय सच्चिदानन्द

-KSE

Let's tax soda pop and candy bars and direct the funds towards Preventative Health Care

It's an idea worth discussing.

Drinking carbonated sugar water is not good for our organisms and it is quite reasonable to conclude that, to some extent, processed junk foods are making us sick. Why not then utilize the very logical solution of targeted excise taxation and establish wellness programs with those collected funds.

Though it might not affect disease in the short term, to legislate a tax implement, whereby 2-5 cents on every dollar spent on soft drinks and junk food in the province of Alberta goes to public coffers for investment in preventative health care, will help us in the long view. Especially when we think of how we could creatively use such excise tax income, the attractiveness of a 'junk food tax' policy offered to the Alberta public may indicate that the AP is engaged and willing to think outside the box of the current debate around health care.

The medical community agrees that the more we promote preventative health care and wellness programs amongst the population, the healthier we will be. Imagine a society where, in any population centre, you can go to a yoga or tai chi class for next to free because our 'junk food tax dollars' work to provide such activities on a not-for-profit basis. Perhaps you come from Asia and would prefer to see someone whose health care approach more relevantly addresses your traditional worldview; wouldn't it be great to see the traditional chinese doctor or ayurvedic physician down the street and not break the bank? Maybe its simply the support for increasing funding for cutting edge research and development of genetic testing and disease screening that helps to empower the individual in making more informed decisions regarding the health of themselves and their families.

Those that want to drink lots of pop and binge on chocolate bars laced with all manner of interesting ingredients are still free to do so. Its just that a negative feedback mechanism will prevent all of the externalities of such behaviour from going unaddressed and also work to nurture a healthier population that is less of a burden on our existing institutions.

It is my hope that the AP and its candidates integrate this idea into the evolving discussion around policy and platforms of debate for improvements to our health care system. I think this would effectively address multiple elements in the health care debate and simultaneously pickup significant public support while sparking some much needed media attention.

जय सच्चिदानन्द

-KSE

A Response to Glenn Taylor's "Alberta Government Has Role in Keystone XL Pipeline Rejection"

I am a Member of the Alberta Party for a good many reasons. Foremost among these is the general respect I have for the human beings whom have taken it upon themselves to create a viable progressive political alternative here in Alberta. From Michael Walters' creative support for entrepreneurship and small-business to Sue Huff's ability to constructively critique government plans, the AP is bristling with talented citizens whose care for the future of our Province is made manifest in their thoughts and actions.

Another large factor in my decision to support and contribute to this political faction is the feeling that my perspectives and arguments will not fall on deaf ears. This may, at first, seem quaint but for someone who seeks the 'middle-path' and yet often finds himself positioned with hypothesis, data, and conclusions that largely contradict the received wisdom of the status quo, this is no trivial thing. In feeling that the larger discussions of how to govern our society are available to me, I do not fear offering up my thoughts on important issues, even when they do contradict the majority's opinion within the AP (or the public at large). This essay then, though opposing many of the leader's notions, stems from a respect for transformative dialogue and the quest to re-vitalize democratic participation here in Alberta.

First, let me honour the fact that Glenn Taylor's response to the current geopolitical situation regarding the Keystone XL pipeline appears as the most authentic and comprehensive available from all of the province's political parties. Compared to the other party leaders statements that I've come across, Taylor's message is one that has not been pre-packaged by public relations professionals but rather has been composed out of the genuine reflection of his own person and the balancing of forces needed to address the many concerns involved. It is, I believe, such dedication to providing personal responses to current events that helps to set the AP apart from other factions.

This being said, I feel obliged to address some of the ideas that Taylor shares in the hope that a more integral response to the challenges we are faced with may be developed.

I largely agree with Taylor that a "stronger role for government in enforcing and ensuring responsible stewardship of our resources is crucial" but see a falsehood when he states "environment is not a cost of doing oil sands business. It is integral to the business". I say this because to understand the raison d'etre for the oil sands industry is to know that they are in the business of eking out every last drop of stored sunlight from one of the most sensitive recoverable deposits of hydrocarbons on the planet with the primary incentive of short-term fiscal profit.

Observation by scientific method is blunt: nearly every living system in the direct vicinity of industrial-scale extraction, refining, and transportation of bitumen suffers deleterious effects. Sure, the outputs and impacts of hydrocarbon exploitation can and must be minimized but general and lasting harm cannot be negated. Thus, it should be understood, and this goes for all fossil-fuels, that the longer we base our economies on their utilization, we will be, barrel by barrel, well by well, increasingly compromising the health of our environment and the communities of organisms within it.

With regards to stewardship of the environment, the Alberta Party can do profound good here in the province but before we can do so, it is imperative that we move from the economic to an ecological land ethic in our deliberations and our policy-making so personified by Aldo Leopold. This tradition, where 'a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community and wrong when it tends otherwise' will aid us in setting limits to resource exploitation and embolden protocol that guides us in the transition to a post-carbon society.

Another issue that I found in Taylor's post which speaks directly to Alberta Party policy is the support for the development of a pipeline corridor and a west coast liquid and natural gas facility. When he states that the "development will allow access to markets for our oil and gas production" he falls prey to the conformism of 'The Unconscious Civilization' where we "fling down and fling up the structures of our society as the marketplace orders." In other words, it appears as though Taylor's priorities (and those of AP policy) mistake the directives of economic globalization for the best interests of Alberta and dominion of Canada.

Leaving alone the fact that it will be very difficult to 'honour and preserve our unique natural ecosystem' while building and maintaining thousands of kilometres of new pipeline and fossil-fuel infrastructure, it seems a mistake to prioritize the enterprise of international trade of our resources over the creation of resilient systems that would serve our long term regional and national interests first. David Suzuki's recent article, along with providing convincing logic for opposition to projects such as Northern Gateway, does suggest alternative policy pursuits that more fully reflect the real and pressing needs of Canadians.

We can, as Albertan's, spearhead the design of provincial and national energy plans that helps us to:

• create jobs in Canada for refining and transporting our hydrocarbons from coast to coast
• reduce our reliance on 'un-ethical' oil from overseas and ensure long-term national energy security through conservation measures and efficiency standardization
• eliminate subsidies for fossil fuel companies and fund renewable energy infrastructure
• weather global economic and climatic turmoil by providing strong regional and national energy and resource support systems

Finally, the last subject of contention, and one that readers of my previous posts will no doubt recognize, is Taylor's insistence that we can and should "continue to grow our economy in a responsible, sustainable manner for the future." As a student of economics and a practitioner of an ecological design science I hazard to suggest that as attractive this goal is in the eyes of the public, business and much of academia, it is a fool's errand. The notion that we have an economic theory that contradicts multiple factors of reality or that a grande misconception of the true source of wealth is afoot in our civilization, is unkind to the sensitivities of the modern domesticated primate but a pill that we have to swallow.

For, in sitting down and talking with our friends, families, co-workers, or even complete strangers, it becomes evident that an economics of happiness is a much better fit for us here in Alberta and indeed across the planet. That the current monster of theory that parades around making life on planet earth more crowded, dirty and mean must be killed so that we may indeed have a sustainable and responsible future economic order is without a doubt one of the highest callings I feel we can have as citizens at this point in history. For, in order to become leaders in relocalization, conservation, and cooperation it is imperative that we drastically rethink the form and function of our current economic policy apparatus and strive to progressively implement measure that will foster a steady-state orientation.

During AP leadership debates I recall Glenn Taylor as saying something along the lines of:

"It is not enough to invite [young dynamic people with new perspectives] in occasionally. This is about meaningful, authentic engagement in the development of the policy and the party."

It was statement's like this that convinced me that he was the best candidate for leader of the party and helped to embody that refusal to accept the static patterns of power and perspective that have governed politics in this province for far too long. I am grateful to all the members of the AP and citizens at large who too, are willing to listen to thoughts such as mine and share their own in the discussion about how best to proceed on the path ahead.

जय सच्चिदानन्द

-KSE

Thoughts on Premier Redford's Global TV Interview

So I had a chance to watch Global TV interview with Alberta's Premier Alison Redford and I thought I'd jot down some of my observations and reflections on what I saw:

I think one of the greatest accomplishments of the Progressive Conservative Party here in Alberta over the course of the last decade has been in marketing themselves as moderates following the path of inevitability. Personified in their new leader's response of preferring incremental change over the other approach, “pitted political dogfights”, I can't help but reflect on how their tactics give the impression that the dominant political party, processes, and culture is really the only option there is. By conveying the message that the best thing to do is 'keep doing what is being done, just a little better', she (they) dissolve themselves of the possibility that fundamental flaws exist. They are able to avoid serious discussions on the underlying logic of their stated visions and goals by functionally dismissing the potentiality that they could be wrong; by telling you there is no closet, they don't have to look inside to see if there is a monster.

The other notion that struck me whilst watching the interviewer and Redford giggle and chat was that all subject matter contained in the discussion - the Northern Gateway Pipeline, Health Care funding, foreign influence on domestic policy – was simply the news of the day as dictated by the Overlord of Economic Growth. In other words, what I saw in the interview was that, all the priorities of governing officials, all mandates pertaining to political institutions, are in service of the uncontested, unquestioned pursuit of economic growth. The narrative of progress that resides at the centre of our society's hopes, dreams, and fears primarily depends on the continuance of a type of business-as-usual where production, consumption, and monetization increases, continually. Hence, when Redford states the patently untrue – that the growth of non-conventional bituminous sands exploitation can be “managed” and that it “benefits the quality of life of all Canadians” - she does so with the most honest of intentions: propping up the imperative of economic growth.

As our world continues to slip down the slope of peak oil and is more frequently faced with the hard limits (and responding blow-back) of a finite planet pushed past the point of its carrying capacity, I shudder to think of the exponential rise in contradictory rhetoric that will emerge to draw our minds away from the realities we are faced with. This interview further convinced me of how politically unprepared we really are here in Alberta for the future that awaits us and how much hard work we have ahead.

जय सच्चिदानन्द

-KSE