We flew again this afternoon, not venturing very far at all, just for 20 minutes down the river and then back via Gatineau airport, but we both enjoyed it, in spite of the bitter cold while preparing the plane for flight before take-off and tucking her up afterwards. My toes went numb again, but the air was smooth and the sky was bright. Below us were the clusters of ice-fishing huts that are always to be seen at this time of year.
The modern mantra for waste management, about which we heard an excellent presentation this week from the City of Ottawa's Solid Waste Master Plan project manager, is REDUCE, RE-USE, RECYCLE! in that order. Recycling should be seen as a last resort, which means teaching ourselves to obey the other two commandments first. Sandra, in my Environment Action group, thought that we ought to publish tips on how to set about it. So, for reference ...
Tips For Reducing Waste
Almost unprecedented, a polar vortex is covering the whole of Canada this weekend, "from coast-to-coast-to-coast," as they say. The easternmost and westernmost provincial capitals, Victoria (BC) and St. John's (NFLD) have the warmest temperatures, in minus single digits, but the rest of us are considerably chillier. Ottawa's wind chill was -30ºC this morning. It's a holiday weekend in Ontario, Monday being Family Day, although I'm afraid many Ontarians have had enough of being stuck at home with their families and don't feel like celebrating this at all.
There'll be no Family Days for our family for a long while yet. 😒
In the virtual world, the environment is not so hostile. My sister Faith is undertaking a virtual walk across southern Britain, up hill and down dale, over bridges and through a few towns, from her front door in Wales to some undisclosed destination on an undisclosed date, counting the distance she covers in her immediate neighbourhood each day as "what-if" steps through an imaginary, Covid-free world, and allowing the rest of the family to follow her progress on maps that she posts to our private group on Facebook. She says that if she had done this last year, she'd have virtually reached Russia, arriving in St. Petersburg. Having slipped and fallen on (real) ice yesterday, Faith's progress across the maps might be impaired for a few days this week. What she's shared so far makes for a lovely escape for us all, through green fields and the gardens of stately homes, along some of the way.
Another thing that always lifts my spirits is my weekly Zoom meeting I host for the German conversation group. We concentrate on a different topic each time. The time before last (4th Feb) I got them reading and talking about makeshift shelters constructed by well-meaning volunteers for the homeless in Ulm, although one of my friends said they looked like coffins and probably weren't either safe or hygienic. That was ein betrübendes Thema, a rather depressing one, so yesterday we chose to talk about something a bit jollier: the Rhineland Karneval. There too, of course, the present circumstances prohibit traditional jollity in the streets, which is a disappointment for thousands of people, but it is for the best. We read an article about the 2018 festivities, pre-Covid. I admitted 16 friends from three continents to this meeting, signing in from Houston, Normandy, Dresden, Ulan Bator and Ottawa, and wished Sue (of Ottawa) a Happy Birthday. The group shared memories of carnivals long gone, in my case the experience of Fasching, as they called it there, in the Heidelberg region in February 1968 when at the weekend I watched the Heidelberg parade, then on Rosenmontag, if I remember rightly, I wore fancy dress (pyjamas) to school and on Faschingsdienstag unforgettably danced the Gallop with a boy called Harald Wipfler, at the Faschingsball. I was a sweet sixteen in those days.
On February 8 my Environment Action group met Rachael Jones, Project Manager of the Solid Waste Master Plan for the City of Ottawa. She told us that the rapid increase of waste in today’s world requires urgent action at all levels of society. A circular economy is a guiding concept for Ottawa, that’s now aspiring to attain zero waste by 2050. At present we are a long way from that visionary goal. To reach it, everyone’s attitudes and behaviour must change; citizens must realize that 58% of the garbage currently being thrown into landfills could be repurposed or recycled instead; packaging must be drastically reduced; companies using recyclable materials for their products must take responsibility for collecting the contents of blue boxes; construction companies must be consulted and must collaborate with the city. In Canada, a federal ban on single-use plastics is coming soon. When food companies take responsibility for the waste they generate, as will have to happen, the blue-box collection system is likely to be privatized or partly privatized. Municipal, provincial and federal authorities will work on better enforcement of new and existing regulations. Rachael gave an example of how law-enforcement does not need to be harsh: a courteous note left in someone’s blue box advising the owner to leave the right kinds of material for the next collection is proven to be effective. Because many residential blocks in Ottawa do not have a green bin collection service, only 17% of compostable waste is currently recycled; the province will bring in legislation obliging landlords to give this more thought. The conversion of waste to energy, or for agricultural purposes, is a big component of the city’s plans, so many recycling technologies, including experimental chemical methods, will be under consideration during Phase 2 (the present phase) and Phase 3 of the City’s Master Plan. However it is always better to reduce the amount of waste we generate in the first place, or to try to reuse what we have, than to recycle.
The City of Ottawa’s waste-management services have made much information publically available. The Solid Waste Master Plan page on the Engage Ottawa website is the best place to start researching this. We are encouraged send our comments, and Rachael also offered to answer our questions personally.
It’s assumed that liberal globalisation [spelled globalization in N. American English] suits everyone, she said, but not much attention is paid to those left behind. In fact liberal systems of governance don’t give much hope to some and liberals have failed to find a good way to connect with ordinary people, especially in rural areas of Europe, where the influence of the Catholic church is particularly strong. This is where the populists step in. They focus on liberal weaknesses and are organised transnationally, supporting, learning from and financing one another. Right-wing leaders like Marie Le Pen in France claim to stand up for those who feel alienated, saying that “traditional” social values and identities are being “destroyed” by global movements or by an influx of refugees or immigrants. Mid-Europe, where the majority of the population has been committed to democracy since the end of the Cold War, is a particularly interesting case of this phenomenon. In Poland and Hungary, the liberal norms are attacked. President Macron of France goes so far as to call it a European civil war, a threat to the future of Europe.
“Managerial elites” (as the right wing calls them) are being challenged. There are concerted attacks on the rule of law, on the institutions. The right reminds the people of its “Christian roots” and, using social media to spread the message, liberal projects are labelled as dangerous. To counteract internationalist ideas, right-wing leaders disseminate alternative stories about national identity, reaffirming the notion of an Empire of Christian nation states, presenting these as bulwarks of Christianity against Islam, thus contesting the liberal narrative of integration.
Women’s freedom of speech is questioned and women’s lives are impacted by right-wing attitudes. Anti-abortion campaigns are frequent, claiming to protect “the natural family as the only fundamental and sustainable unit of society.” Public health is already being affected by new legislation in Poland, for instance, where right-wing authorities have restricted access to abortion, “in order to fight the COVID-19 pandemic”. The populists have created a transnational, anti-feminist coalition, vehemently denying LGBTQ rights as well. (They declare the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights to be too liberal.) The International Organization for the Family (IOF), originating in the USA (with encouragement from sociologists at Moscow State University and supported by Matteo Salvini in Italy and Viktor Orbán in Hungary), claims to offer vulnerable women protection. This movement is spreading into Asia and Africa too. Needy women are faced with the dilemma of whether or not to accept financial assistance from populist, pro-family organizations. Liberals should be aware of this and engage with communities that resist such schemes; it would be beneficial if liberal authorities and NGOs provided alternative assistance for women at risk.
We should not dismiss the far right, said Dr. Gheciu; they are stronger than we assume. Are we prepared to address the challenges they bring? "There is too much silence on this matter," she added. "We need to be vocal."
