Rethinking Lifestyle

When we decided to move to the country, we became interested in the gardening philosophy of permaculture.

This week I’d like to write about a concept that has had a strong influence on me since I first heard of it some ten years ago.

It wasn’t so long ago that I looked forward to the new spring growth; the greening up of the world. Then it came on strong, nurtured by timely rains and the warm sun.

The decision by the Trudeau government to purchase the Trans-Mountain pipeline for $4.5 billion and the commitment to actually build the pipeline can hardly be seen as anything other than a massive subsidy to Oil Sands development.

It is a misty Manitoba morning and I like it that way. I have been to exotic locations but give me a prairie morning with a meadowlark greeting me with her rhapsody of song and the smell of the earth in the air and I will be content.

Spring is a most wonderful time of year. The shades of dirty white, black and brown give way to a proliferation of greens. The evergreens are the stable background green from which to judge the new growth, first the grasses then the poplar trees.

In a previous article, we discovered five psychological barriers that make it difficult to accept and act on messages about climate change.

I’m a child of the 40s; a baby boomer. So pretty massive changes have occurred during my lifetime.

It is said that humans are the most intelligent animals on the planet; after all no other animal has even invented the wheel, let alone gone to the moon. However we humans are also the most stupid animals on the planet.

On Saturday, May 5, Steinbach will again have it’s ‘Pick-up-and-Walk’ event, the spring cleanup day for the city. The effect of this cleanup activity on the city’s appearance is remarkable every year, and I’m sure this year will be no different.