A new false solution has recently emerged, duly greenwashed in order to create confusion – and greater business opportunities, wrote the World Rainforest Movement in an article published by Australia’s EngageMedia.org Nov. 24. The story included a case study of a REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) project in Laos by one of the world’s largest paper companies, Oji Paper.

Between 2004 and 2006, said the article, Keith Barney (MES ’02), a York PhD candidate in geography and a member of the York Centre for Asian Research, carried out a study in the village of Ban Pak Veng in Hinboun District, Laos. Barney described the village as suffering a “double displacement effect”, the first caused by being downstream of the recently constructed Theun Hinboun Power Company (THPC) dam and the second by Oji’s plantations. “Through the land reform program,” Barney writes, “village degraded forests, which are crucial for village food security and swidden production, have been zoned for industrial plantation production and bulldozed.”

In 2006, Oji commissioned the Global Environment Centre Foundation to carry out a feasibility study to investigate how Oji could gain carbon credits through the clean development mechanism (CDM). The report described villagers as carrying out “illegal slash-and-burn (or swidden) farming,” and noted that they have “no other means to secure food.”

As Barney pointed out, the report omitted to mention that villagers in Ban Pak Veng were “undertaking swidden farming not out of timeless tradition, but largely due to the loss of access to lowland paddy from the THPC hydro power project.”

Barney added that the CDM feasibility study “ignores at least 20 years of research in Laos on the importance of upland farming and swidden-based, non-timber forest products in the rural economy.” Barney documented in detail the complex relationship the villagers have with their land and forests and noted that the state officials, who are responsible for producing the maps for the land reform program, “do not use anything like the same terms for landscape and forests as villagers do.”

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The cumulative impact of the relentless release of pollutants into the air from Canada’s "Chemical Valley" affects the members of Aamjiwnaang in a way that is fundamentally unfair, and is now argued to be unconstitutional, wrote Dayna Nadine Scott, professor in York’s Osgoode Hall Law School and co-director of the National Network on Environments & Women’s Health in The Sarnia Observer Nov. 8.

The mantra of the environmental justice movement that “some of us live more downstream than others” is a stark and obvious truth in the Chemical Valley. This area houses one of Canada’s largest concentrations of industry, including several large petrochemical, polymer and chemical industrial plants, as well as coal-fired utilities on both sides of the border.

When we consider this pollution and its effects on the health of residents in the context of their status as First Nations people on the reserve, then the violation of their constitutional rights comes into sharp relief.

The First Nation is tied to the land, confined to a small portion of their traditional territory. To this legacy of colonialism, they add the legacy of a century of petrochemical production. That they should be expected to endure these threats to their well-being, perpetuated by the ministry’s failure to enact an effective, health-protective air pollution regime, is unconscionable. That they should be forced to choose between subjecting themselves and their families to these risks or leaving the reserve at great social, economic and cultural cost, demonstrates that their equality rights are clearly infringed.

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Is your school as green as it could be? How would you deal with your school’s biggest sustainability challenge? Tackle that topic on video and submit it by January 21, 2011, and your team could win up to $140,000!

Here’s what you need to know:

Who can enter?
Anyone who is a legal resident of Canada and is currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program, full or part-time, at an approved Canadian college or university is eligible to enter.

What are the prizes?
1st prize: A $20,000 team prize and a paid summer internship with TD FEF (or another organization) for each team member, plus a $100,000 grant for your school to support on-campus sustainability initiatives.
2nd prize: A $15,000 team prize and $15,000 grant to support tree-planting initiatives at your school.
3rd prize: A $10,000 team prize and $10,000 to support tree-planting initiatives at your school.
4th prize — People’s Choice Award: From February 28 to March 11, 2011, your entries will be posted on TD’s YouTube channel and the public will be invited to vote for their favourite idea. The winning team will be awarded $2,500.

Where should I begin?

Please remember:
Your video cannot be longer than four minutes and has to be submitted in one of the approved file formats.
In your video, you need to clearly communicate a sustainability challenge facing your school and propose a unique solution that is realistic and viable. But by all means, please present a forward-looking idea. After all, you are our future environmental leaders!
When deciding on your wardrobe, logo-free clothing is the way to go. And, unless you composed an original score for your video, please skip the music. Be sure to read the full Rules for any restrictions, so that your video will be entered in the contest.

How do I enter?

How are winners selected?
For the top three prizes, videos will be judged on:

For more information regarding rules, deadlines and submission details, please click here

Three upcoming panels will look at social, economic, technological and political issues related to “automobility”, as well as the production, use and culture surrounding the car.

DETAILS:

First Panel: Technological Futures- Automobility and Beyond
Monday, November 29, from 5 to 7pm on the 7th floor of the York Research Tower

Second Panel: The Changing Political Economy of the Global Automobile Industry,
Monday, January 24, 5 to 7pm on the 7th floor of the York Research Tower

RSVP: Please register in advance at ccges@yorku.ca

Hosted by York’s Canadian Centre for German & European Studies (CCGES) and organized by centre affiliates Professor Roger Keil (right), director of the City Institute at York University (CITY), and Professor Emeritus Bernard Wolf of York’s Schulich School of Business, the first panel – “Technological Futures: Automobility and Beyond” will take place Monday, Nov. 29, from 5 to 7pm on the 7th floor of the York Research Tower, Keele campus.

Keil and Wolf suggest that Europe an and North American societies of the 20th century were transformed and marked by the automobile more than by any other commodity. The car is the chief commodity of industrial society, at the centre of transportation in cities, at the core of household mobility and financial decision-making, the most iconic symbol of modern life and a lightning rod for environmental critique.

They say that due to accelerated shifts in the global manufacturing landscape and an unprecedented credit crisis, demands on ever higher velocity and connectivity, changing family structures and career patterns on more flexible and casualized labour markets, saturation with auto images and climate change, the car’s perceived role has changed.

Peter McIsaac, director of CCGES, says, “We’re extremely excited by the “Automobility” series as we believe that CCGES is well positioned to look at this important theme from a variety of angles. Through the expertise of scholars from the centre, York and the broader community, I expect that we’ll be able to approach these topics in unusual and productive ways.”

This series of panels will attempt to shed light on the most important shifts that are shaping both the auto industry and society’s relationship to it and its products – the continued impact of rapid technological changes, the evolution of auto production and the governance issues related to these changes.

The first panel, “Technological Futures: Automobility and Beyond”, moderated by Wolf, will feature Christian Feilmeier (right), vice-president, finance & administration for BMW Canada; Steven Logan, a PhD candidate in the York & Ryerson Joint Graduate Program in Communication & Culture; Robert Latham, director of York’s Centre for International & Security Studies; and Christopher Hume (BA ’73), architecture critic and urban issues columnist for the Toronto Star.

While technological change is a constant in the development and production of automobiles themselves, the revolutions and convulsions that surround the car are not restricted solely to the machine itself, but now extend to the way cities are built and people are moved. BMW, like other companies, is searching for ways to tie their vehicles into intelligent networks of traffic guidance, which are intended to reduce inefficiencies in the system, save energy and lower the number of accidents.

As citizens around the world witness shifts in car culture and weigh interventions, such as toll roads in municipal areas as a way of reducing congestion, angry drivers see any attempt to lure them out of their cars as an assault on their entitlement as “free citizens”. In the recent Toronto mayoral election, the slogan “stop the war on the car” had remarkable traction. This panel will consider the impacts which technological change is having on the auto industry and its products, and how it’s used.

Feilmeier is responsible for all finance, controlling, purchasing and human resources activities for the BMW and MINI brands in Canada. Prior to his arrival in Canada, Feilmeier was head of investor relations in Munich from 2000 to 2006.

Hume won a National Newspaper Award in 2009, Canada’s highest award in print journalism, for his columns about architecture and urban affairs. He was named Toronto’s best newspaper columnist by NOW Magazine in 2005 and Eye Weekly in 2006.

Latham, a political science professor, managed programs and conducted research in international affairs at the Social Science Research Council in New York, where he directed the program on Information Technology & International Cooperation.

Logan’s research interests include automobile culture, suburban history and critical theories of nature and technology. His doctoral dissertation compares Canadian and Czech post-war suburbs, particularly in relation to utopia, mobility and nature. From 2003 to 2007, he was editor of Carbusters magazine, one of the only publications dedicated to critiquing car culture.

Wolf, associate director of the International MBA program at the Schulich School of Business, has acted as a consultant and advisor to a number of multinational firms and the Canadian government.

This event is open to all, and light refreshments will be served. Attendees are asked to register in advance at ccges@yorku.ca.

The second panel, “The Changing Political Economy of the Global Automobile Industry”, will take place Monday, Jan. 24, from 5 to 7pm on the 7th floor of the York Research Tower, Keele campus. It will be moderated by Wolf with panellists Greg Chin, York political science professor and author of China’s Automotive Modernization: The Party-State and Multinational Corporations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Dennis DesRosiers of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc.; Scott E. Paradise, vice-president of marketing & new business development for Magna International; and Jim Stanford, an economist with the Canadian Auto Workers union

For more information, visit the CCGES website or call ext. 40003.