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Food Blog no. 3 – why Gordon Ramsay’s F-Word is worth watching

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During the three years before my family emigrated to Canada, I attended one of England's most academically elite schools: Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls.

At the age of 12, along with Latin, French and German, I was taught some very basic life skills in my Cookery and Sewing classes. I built on these skills when doing field work on the shorelines of Hudson Bay. At 19, I took my turn in cooking meals in a field camp for up to 30 hungry field biologists (I was one of them). Today, I'll never compete in a top amateur chef contest, but pulling off a 4-course dinner party, in which every dish served is cooked by me, is no bother.

Sadly, Home Economics has been dropped from school curricula, not only in the UK, but in much of Canada. Jamie Oliver is the most famous TV chef  tackling the issue of food education for children, with his campaign to get British school kids to eat healthier lunches. The institutional history of British school food is fascinating. Jamie's latest T.V. show, the Food Revolution brings the campaign to the USA.

Jamie aside, for me, the most entertaining take on the whole "why can't people cook ?" issue is Gordon Ramsay, in his simultaneously hilarious and shocking F Word season 1 (the F Word is a programme about Food) campaign to get young British women into their kitchen. He got a lot of criticism for picking on women and was accused of being sexist. It certainly was mind-blowing to watch giggling young women admit to never having turned on their stove, but I can also attest to the fact that pretty much everyone I know who is under-35, male and female, with a FEW notable exceptions, lacks basic home economics skills. So, I'd have to side with the "Gordon was sexist" crowd on this one.

When a significant proportion of the younger demographic is not taught the basic ability to cook simple, nutritious food from scratch, and to plan menus and food budgets, why wouldn't we expect to see an obesity epidemic hitting the Global North from the USA to Europe? Lack of exercise is important, too, but for me, diet is as big a factor. Understanding food and where it comes from is also an essential part of educating for sustainability.

My extraordinarily busy family eats food mostly prepared from scratch, and we all pitch in, including my husband, a Julia Child afficianado. Forcing my kids into the kitchen has been a challenge. To do it, I had to run my own Home Economics course at home. Topics included how to clean a sink and toilet. And yes, I learned about basic hygiene back at Haberdashers'.    Dawn R. Bazely

Spring is here… too early

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This morning, the novelist, Rui Umezawa, who is a neighbour and who kindly reads my blogs, asked me why I have been so inactive on the blogging front. "Too busy", I yelled across the garden fences. This term I have been teaching BIOLOGY 2010, the Plants course, which I taught from 1991-97, before powerpoint and course websites. So, while all of those life cycles are forever burned into my brain, chalk and talk, as we call that style of lecturing, is, in science, pretty much gone the way of the dodo. I have had to create Keynote and Powerpoint lectures and to learn "moodle" which is the most comprehensive electronic classroom software that I have ever seen. This open source software has replaced the way that I previously accessed my course websites - namely through the very nice, and now retired Biology Department Lecturer who functioned as our webmaster.

Moodle has allowed me to teach this course as I always wanted to: skipping from chapter 1 directly to chapter 32, and then to 21, to chapters 2-8, to 11-12 and then 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13 in Raven et al's Plant Biology 7th Ed.  CRAZY, right? But in fact, moving through the material in this sequence always made more sense to me than the linear way that I was forced to teach in earlier versions of the course text book: i.e. start at chapter number one and proceed forward in a one-way sequence. The internet and moodle has provided me with the tools to lay out a completely different roadmap than that provided by the book's author's and index, and, in 2010, the students can follow my map and route through the text book. If I had tried to do this in the 1990s, supported by paper course handouts and chalk and talk lectures, there would, most likely, have been a revolution in the lecturehall. Students who missed classes would have been griping about the jumping around, and any deviations from the lecture schedule, when I found that I was not delivering planned lectures on the expected date. With moodle, I  constantly update the students about where we got to, and with podcasted lectures, they have more flexibility than ever before, to miss a class and still catch up.

I LOVE IT - but it's been a heck of a lot of work at the back end. Still, there's nothing like jumping into a new technology with two feet, and sinking or swimming. The York University support staff have been amazing and I have taken several mini-courses. And, the time involved, has meant no time for blogging here. But, I have sought to imbue the course with a large measure of sustainability thinking. This is easy to do in a course that is essentially about biodiversity, why plants are important to humans, and about evolution. Our lectures on the Carboniferous and the tree ferns and progymnosperms (ancestors of seed plants) that fixed enormous amounts of carbon, and which subsequently turned into fossil fuels, relate directly to human-produced greenhouse gas emissions arising from the burning of these fossil fuels. I found an amazing old You Tube video about fossils, from the 1950s or 1960s by Royal Dutch Shell (that's Shell Oil to you and me), that the students have watched.

Everything is connected. Teaching about flowering plants and pointing out to my students that trees are already flowering , has reminded me, every day since early March, that climate change is happening NOW. I told my husband yesterday that one is supposed to prune roses when the forsythia blooms, and today, I have seen forsythia flowers. My gardening journals from the 1990s tells me that in 1994, the forsythia was only just flowering on April 27. In the early 2000s, I was noting that the forsythia blooming in mid-April was just "too early" - and in 2010, it's been flowering since the 2nd or 3rd of April. Climate warming is here, and in fact, in the USA, the Gardening Zones were  adjusted in 2006 by the Arbor Day Foundation to reflect this.

Dawn R. Bazely

COP15: The entitled, the resentful and the powerless

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BY PROFESSOR STUART SCHOENFELD, CHAIR OF SOCIOLOGY, GLENDON COLLEGE, YORK UNIVERSITY ( schoenfe@yorku.ca)

From one perspective, the climate change conference in Copenhagen looks rational.  It’s about science – understanding the implications of the largest scientific project in history – and it’s about deliberation – well briefed representatives of 192 nations brought together to write an international treaty.  But the meeting is not so rational.  People come to the negotiating table not only with interests, but also with emotions.  The negotiators in Copenhagen represent some who feel entitled, others who feel resentful and yet others who feel powerless.  This play of emotions seems to be the story of the conference, a global summit of desires, fears, outrage and frustration.  Out of this mix of emotions, the challenge is to feel and act on the latent but powerful feeling of mutual responsibility.

The feelings of resentment and powerlessness come into focus when the feelings of entitlement are acknowledged.  No leader of any developed country can say to its citizens, “We are not entitled to our way of life.”  The point of view is implicit in the language: “we” are developed; those who do not share our prosperity are “developing” or “underdeveloped.”  Surely the road ahead, as the international development industry has taught for decades, is for others to model themselves on us, to work hard and succeed, just as we have.  “We” can help the underdeveloped.  Money is available for assistance in climate adaptation and mitigation.  There are intellectual and organizational resources as well to support the transformation of the global energy system.

All this good will does not challenge the feelings of entitlement in developed countries, or even admit that entitlement is an issue.  People have become accustomed to - and the economic system dependent on - transportation, food and building practices that are comfortable and satisfying, but unsustainable.  Even leisure activities that produce high greenhouse gas emissions – air travel, destination holidays, cruise ships – seem unlikely to change dramatically on a voluntary basis.  This sense of entitlement is understandable.  Prosperous countries have meaningful historical narratives of hardship, struggle and success.

It is precisely this sense of entitlement that is the focus of the resentments that have surfaced so strongly in Copenhagen.  China, India and the others in the G77 use the language of “historical responsibility” - greenhouse gases accumulated in the atmosphere when the West dominated industrial production.   The West has been responsible for the problem; the West has the responsibility to clean up the mess. Because the West’s prosperity is based on creating a global crisis, it also has the responsibility to assist others with the clean technologies that the global crisis requires.  To do otherwise is to ask the victims to pay for the damages.  The resentment gets even stronger.  Consider the history of the India textile industry.  When India was a colony, village weavers, using low GHG producing hand looms, were driven out of business by the importation of cheap cloth from British coal fired textile mills.  Now, India, with its impoverished multitudes, is being asked to restrain low per capita green house gas emissions in order for the West to continue its prosperity and higher per capita GHG emissions!  Perhaps the expressions of resentment are partly verbal posturing, intended to produce an agreement more favorable to the interests of the G77 plus China, but the outrage and anger are much more than tactics.

Some other countries, lacking the political leverage of China, India and a handful of others, are the beggars at the banquet.  The 39 members of the Alliance of Small Island States are, with the exception of Singapore, low income and vulnerable.  They can plead, but their ability to influence is slight.  The Alliance includes the most desperate, and the most frustrated.

The outcome at COP15 depends on more than the science, the negotiators’ clarity on national interests, and the skills at compromise.  The outcome, and even more the follow through, depend as well on the emotions that come out of the conference.  The perpetuation of entitlement, resentment and powerlessness jeopardize global success.  Rising to the challenge of climate change requires other emotions, of mutual care and concern, across the globe and across generations.  Success will ultimately come from shared personal commitments, and leadership that evokes them.

Stuart is a long-serving member of the IRIS Executive.

Dawn R. Bazely

Accepting personal responsibility

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The front page of today's Globe and Mail has a story about how  staff and Board members at the Toronto Humane Society are facing various criminal charges for cruelty to animals. The story broke this past summer and I was appalled to learn how animals were being treated and how they were not being euthanized, even if they were suffering. An article today, relates how  some Board members were unaware that they might be facing charges and were surprised. Having sat on two non-profit daycare boards, I learned early on about my very serious responsibilities as a board member, and what their implications were, vis-a-vis my liability. The buck has to stop somewhere. For me, this story is as much about cruelty to animals, apparently perpetrated by self-described  animal welfare supporters, as it is about yet another segment of society unwilling to take responsibility for its actions.

Last week, I heard an amazing lecture by Dr. Daniel Krewski, from the University of Ottawa about assessing public health risks. It was the Morris Katz Memorial Lecture at York University.

Dr. Krewski made many excellent points, but one that stuck in my mind had to do with perceptions of responsibility. He explained  that when the public is polled about who should take responsibility for such crises as BSE (Mad Cow) and other health threats, they invariably respond that, it's "all of us" who bear responsibility for action. I saw this in the IRIS survey on climate change. BUT, BUT, BUT - Dr. Krewski told us, that when the public is asked whether government, or the agency  charged with acting to protect the public interest is doing enough, a majority invariably responds, that not enough is being done! Ahah, so ready to blame someone else.

This observation does not surprise me because, these days, I am very accustomed to having students blame their poor academic performance directly on me, their professor. There has been a significant shift in the last 20 years, in terms of how much responsibility students are willing to accept for their own actions. A very high number of students (not all, by any means) really just want to blame someone else. I see this tendency in my own children, and it's clearly become an entrenched societal norm. So - what does this mean for taking personal action on the environment, climate change and sustainability? Well... what do you think?

PLEASE THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND WHOM IT IS AFFECTING! Without that reflection, how will people truly be motivated to downsize their carbon footprints? On the other hand, if you are reading this, then you already know what I am talking about!

Dawn R. Bazely

Sustainability and exhaustion – don’t let it get you down

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[photopress:Messy_desktop1.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:Messy_desk2.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:messy_study_3.jpg,thumb,pp_image]Being a director of a sustainability institute and an academic is very tiring - even for a hyper Type A personality who can still put in a 16 hour field day. Not only am I always having to think about my ecological and carbon footprints, and where to buy good offsets, but in a world of greenwashing, scrutinizing everything for its authenticity is also de rigeur.  Uggh - AND THEN THERE'S THE BLOGGING. I have always had two settings - on and off. I like to jump out of bed and hit the ground running, but these days, I often feel like a car engine that's starting on a cold winter's morning. So, it's time for a mechanical overhaul. Here's what I have used  in the past, and will again, to fix the stalled engine:

These may also be helpful for those of you out there who feel overwhelmed by your life, the state of the world and the fact that Terence Corcoran in the National Post is still insisting that the science of climate change is suspect:

1. A life coach (I wrote about this in the article, Coaching for My Life, University Affairs, 2005) (I don't have time for this, these days, but you might).

2. Some great organizational and behavioural modification (often, from business) books. My ipod is filled with audiobooks such as Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy, The Golden Rule of Schmoozing by Aye Jaye, Ready for Anything by Dave Allen, The 60 Second Procrastinator by Jeff Davidson (may be out of print, so borrow it from the library), Your Management Sucks by Mark Stevens, Women and Money by Suze Orman, Crucial Confrontations and Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson and colleagues, Making Work Work by Julie Morgernstern (Oprah's organizing guru - and my favourite organization person to read, including her other book, Never Read Email in the Morning), What got you here, won't get you there! by Marshall Goldsmith (and, of course, The Art of War).

3. Podcasts. If you are a poor student and can't afford to pay for a life coach or audiobooks, then download some podcasts, such as Motivation to Move's Daily Boost, The Suze Orman podcast (on itunes), Marcus Buckingham (big time life coach) and Oprah's Take Control of Your Career and Your Life (itunes), and while you are at it, grab some Yoga lessons from Yogamazing (itunes), plus the Manager Tools podcast (itunes) will give you all kinds of sound advice on organizing things.

4. Other people who are more swamped than me: and, you can see the incredible mess on my computer screen and in my home office (above), and feel a sense of superiority. I find that it's always comforting to know that someone else is worse off. Here's what I will be using today, in my surroundings to give me motivation and energy:

The 2006 farewell Globe and Mail article by Ken Wiwa about his decision to return with his family to the UK and to work with the Nigerian government,  pinned to the wall in front of me. The dried edelweiss flower that my former student, and current research collaborator, Andrew Tanentzap gave me as a gift, from a trip to Europe. The photos of past and present grad students and family that are part of the clutter: they make me smile and feel guilty at the same time - a great carrot and stick, combined into one item!

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Dawn Bazely

Markets and trading – part of being human

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Sitting in a research centre with a mandate to engage in sustainability-related research across the entire university, means that I usually get to hear all sides of arguments. And there is certainly debate about everything. While the lack of consensus, or diversity of opinion, that exists in academia, may often confuse members of our society who don't have the luxury of reading primary peer-reviewed literature, the fact is, that debate and argument are at the crux of what we do as academics. (And, yes, there IS overwhelming agreement in the peer-reviewed literature that human-created greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels are enhancing the planetary greenhouse effect).

These days, I frequently listen to divergent, and passionate opinions on whether carbon markets, carbon taxes, and carbon offsets  are good or bad. This debate is especially heated among members of the academic community interested in the link between climate change, ecological footprints, adaptation and mitigation, and poverty reduction.

My view, is that humans are hard-wired to trade stuff. Shopping, the souq, local farmer's markets, the Christmas bazaar, the summer fete, and the invention of money all come out of this fundamental behaviour. So, whether or not one thinks, that carbon offsets are the modern day equivalent of buying indulgences in the hope of saving one's soul, there will eventually be prices put on previously largely unpriced resources such as carbon and water. This will happen just as soon as we have agreed-upon ways of quantifying them. Advocates for human rights, justice and equity simply must ensure that they have seat at these negotiating tables. The fact that Canada's failure to endorse water as a human right keeps popping up as a topic at campus World Water Day celebrations, emphasises this for me.

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I have been very interested to encounter, in my role as IRIS' Director, in the last few years, businesses that aim at engaging with the practicalities of these incipient and emerging resource markets. For example, I recently received in my inbox, the XPV Waterview Newsletter for July/August 2009, which I actually opened, and read. After digesting the last line, "This should not be construed as an offering document and is solely intended to inform readers of recent developments with XPV Capital and the water sector.", I read the newsletter again. Then I discovered more of these newsletters buried in my inbox and they were great, too. My interest was piqued, and I then went to the website, to try and figure out exactly who had put together such an interesting and informative document with an amazing cartoon about beavers, that I will certainly refer to in my Ecology lectures.

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So, XPV Capital is, quite simply, a VC (venture capital) or investment firm with a great website, especially its "water facts" feed and news updates. I learned outfrom the "About" page, that:

"XPV Capital Corporation partners with entrepreneurs in emerging water companies by:

• Investing capital to ignite your growth; and
• Leveraging our extensive knowledge, expertise, and contacts to help build your business.

XPV is committed to helping you and your business succeed.  As experienced water entrepreneurs and investment professionals, we understand the unique opportunities and challenges of emerging water companies.  We work hard to give you the competitive advantage that only the right investor partnership can deliver."

Now, I am a biologist, who teaches the water cycle and has been showing the marvellous 1993 Dutch government documentary, "Troubled Water" in my 2nd year Ecology course for years. But, here are business people, aware of the same data and information as I am, and acting upon them in quite a different way. As Mr. Spock would say, "fascinating". The XPV website also told me on the investments page:

"The way we produce, manage, and use water is forced to change and is impacting governments, corporations, and citizens around the world. This drastic transformation in the water industry will create unprecedented investment opportunities as water transitions from a simple life sustaining substance taken for granted by many, into one of the most economically and socially valuable resources of the 21st century." Given our propensity as a species, to trade stuff, this is bang-on, and, to my mind, indicative of the obvious next steps to emerge, following the concerns raised by such books such as Marq De Villier's Water (2001), and Vandana Shiva's Water Wars (2002). Although, it's taken longer than I would have thought it would.

Even in Canada, we need to manage and conserve water more effectively - and I for one am delighted that XPV is generating business and investment in this area that highlights these needs. I look forward to reading more newsletters.

Dawn R. Bazely

PS Troubled Water, the documentary, reports how "In a fictitious newcast from the year 2018, reporters discuss a future where water is scarce, and the causes of the crisis are found in the past, in poor management and lack of understanding of the many uses for water, for food through recreation, that have to be managed as well, in order to conserve water for the future." (Video 0572 in York U's Sound and Moving Image Library)

“Whatever happened to the paperless office, anyway?”

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I was browsing through topics on sustainability on The Global and Mail website and I came across an article describing something with which we have a love/hate relationship: paper.

It passes through our hands at least a dozen times each day, often simultaneously giving us headaches (not to mention paper cuts!). It has the power to give us pain or pleasure (or both). It bridges the gap between hands and minds. We have designed elaborate systems and products for organizing, storing and presenting it. These facts ring particularly true in the office, where paper has virtually become a defining component.

This really makes you wonder: is it a tool in our service, or are we the ones being enslaved?

This article discusses growing initiatives in companies to reduce paper usage (and ultimately, disposal) for environmental, as well as financial reasons. Ironically, despite the rise of technology and the sparkling visions of digital texts, Statistics Canada has found in 2006 "that Canadians' paper consumption 'more than doubled between 1983 and 2003' and that 'the production and use of paper products is at an all-time high'" (Silverman 2009). These statistics, however, need not overshadow the reality of tactics and technologies that are being developed and applied to ease our obsession. In addition to the option of electronic pay statements, companies can now provide Web-based time-sheets (offered by Nexonia, a Toronto company), snail mail by email (Earth Class Mail, in the United States), and a digital archive of a company's paper receipts (Shoeboxed). Here, we must insert another "however"; our generation still clings tightly to these artifacts of our culture. Only 35 per cent of employees at Indigo have subscribed to electronic pay statements. The University of Calgary is still towered by the 20,000-feet stack of paper it produces per year. As much as I cringe at the sight of new pages spilling forth to correct a single word, I cannot yet imagine a world without our fine printed friend. I don't believe there is a need to. Like other issues in sustainability, the first step should be awareness, followed by reduction and moderation. In this vein, the article closes with a more realistic perspective on the situation, proposing the more reasonable goal of shifting to the 'less paper' - rather than 'no paper' - office.

By the way, I found it very interesting, almost touching, to see the dedication of a Xerox executive (François Ragnet) to the future and sustainability of his company's product. His blog, titled The Future of Documents, can be found here.

New international green building course at York

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Students from across Canada and around the world are enrolled in the course. From left, students from Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico; Jadavpur University, India; University of São Paulo, Brazil; National University of Costa Rica; Waseda University, Japan; Waterloo University; and York University

Students from across Canada and around the world are enrolled in the course. From left, students from Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico; Jadavpur University, India; University of São Paulo, Brazil; National University of Costa Rica; Waseda University, Japan; Waterloo University; and York University

The following appeared in the Monday, July 6, 2009 edition of Y-File:

York University has launched an international summer course in green building design in cooperation with the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC). The official launch was held at the Earth Rangers Centre at the Toronto & Region Conservation Authority’s (TRCA) Living City Campus, at the Kortright Centre for Conservation in Woodbridge on Monday, June 22.

Design for Sustainability in the Built Environment: Interactive Workshop, is a three-week pilot course, running from June 22 to July 10. Third- and fourth-year undergraduate students from a variety of disciplines from Canada and around the world are enrolled in the course, which features an international and interdisciplinary approach and reflects a growing understanding that environmental problems are complex and require thinking that transcends all political borders.

The course is part of York's Faculty of Environmental Studies and was created in conjunction with the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) and York International. The WorldGBC is a union of national green building councils aiming to accelerate the transformation from traditional, inefficient building practices to new generation high-performance buildings. “By bringing together the next generation of green leaders from a variety of disciplines and from around the world, we are working to create a new language for green design; one that is open, inclusive and global in scope,” said Andrew Bowerbank, executive director of WorldGBC.

York University in conjunction with the World Green Building Council launched the new course in summer 2009

York University in conjunction with the World Green Building Council launched the new course in summer 2009

The green building design course was made possible thanks to financial support of $101,000 from the Ontario Power Authority’s Conservation Fund. “We are delighted to support this course in green building design, helping to provide a new generation with the skills to lead Ontario to a greener, more energy-efficient future,” said Bryan Young, manager of Conservation & Technology Development Funds at the Ontario Power Authority (OPA). Since 2005, the OPA’s Conservation Fund has provided more than $10 million in funding to more than 70 innovative electricity conservation initiatives, acting as test cases for more broadly based conservation programs and building market capability for the uptake of conservation programs in Ontario.

The Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation, Earth Rangers, PowerStream, TRCA and the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges & Universities have also generously supported the course.

The green design building course has attracted worldwide interest with students registered from Japan, India, Brazil, Mexico and Costa Rica, as well as from the Greater Toronto Area. Students participating in the course represent a diverse array of interests, which include visual arts, mechanical engineering, biology, design, architecture and environmental studies.

Some of the program's classes will be held at the Earth Rangers Centre, a facility that has earned the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification, which indicates its exceptional green building design.

Students in the intensive three-week workshop are exploring themes related to sustainable building design including: the historical and cultural perspective, the business and policy case, green building rating systems, the ecology of green building and next generation opportunities for creating regenerative buildings. “We’re not training architects,” explained course director Arlene Gould. “We want to inspire new leaders that will be aware of the wide range of issues involved, so they can go out into the world and be champions for green buildings.”

The course will culminate in a “charrette”, which Gould describes as a concentrated brainstorming session in which all the stakeholders in a design project come together to work out their issues. The focus in this case will be the design of a new building for York’s Las Nubes Centre for Neotropical Conservation and Research in Costa Rica.

Creation of this green design course falls within York University’s priority to invest in pioneering programs and research – known as Innovate50 – and is supported by York to the Power of 50, York’s 50th anniversary fundraising campaign. York to the Power of 50 is now more than $185 million toward its $200-million goal.

More about the World Green Building Council

The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) is a union of national councils whose mission is to accelerate the transformation of the global built environment towards sustainability. Current member Green Building Councils (GBCs) represent over 50 per cent of global construction activity, and touch more than 10,000 companies and organizations worldwide. GBCs are consensus-based, not-for-profit organizations that are highly effective at engaging leaders across sectors to transform the built environment. For more information, visit the WorldGBC Web site.

Y-File: Osgoode Law School receives stellar marks in Corporate Knights survey

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The following appeared in the Friday, June 26, 2009 edition of Y-File:

Osgoode Hall Law School has been ranked second out of 21 law schools in Corporate Knights magazine’s 2009 Knight Schools Survey – up two spots since last year’s ranking.

The ranking, which appears in the Best 50/Education issue of Corporate Knights, was distributed nationally in The Globe and Mail newspaper on June 22.

The sixth annual Knight Schools ranking analyzed how Canadian law programs fare in integrating sustainability into the school experience. It used a broad definition of sustainability that encompassed environmental and social concerns such as issues of social justice, human rights, professional ethics, cultural diversity, climate change and conservation.

The survey, modelled after the US-based Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey, scored the programs in the areas of institutional support, student initiatives and course work.

The top 10 highest-scoring law programs were:

1. University of Toronto: 91 per cent
2. York University - Osgoode Hall Law School: 81 per cent
3. University of Ottawa - Common Law: 79.67 per cent
4. Dalhousie University: 78.75 per cent
5. University of Victoria: 75.5 per cent
6. McGill University: 73.42 per cent
7. University of British Columbia: 71.67 per cent
8. Université du Quebec à Montréal: 67.75 per cent
9. University of Windsor: 63.42 per cent
10: University of Alberta: 56.17 per cent

Also in the education issue, Osgoode's Ethical Lawyering in a Global Community course was identified as one of the best sustainability-related courses.

As well, in an accompanying article titled “Legal Eco-Beagles” about exciting sustainability-related work that is being done, Osgoode Professor Aaron Dhir was singled out for his involvement in developing a legal framework with United Nations Special Envoy John Ruggie to ensure respect of human rights by transnational corporations. Osgoode Professor Dayna Scott was recognized for her work with Health Canada’s Women & Water in Canada project and Osgoode Professor Stepan Wood was acknowledged for his role on the Advisory Committee on Social Responsibility at the Standards Council of Canada.

"The law school is very proud of the exciting inroads we are making in incorporating the idea of sustainability in our programs," said Osgoode Dean Patrick Monahan. "We are a socially engaged law school that aspires to make a difference in the world and you can see that reflected in what we do."

To see the result of the national survey, visit the Corporate Knights magazine Web site and click on "Reports".

HOME – we only have one planet

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As illustrated (I hope) by IRIS blogs, You Tube CAN be educational (although I am prepared to bet quite a lot that most people aren't being much educated while logged on to on the site). 

I recently learned from You Tube, that a there is new doc out from photographer extraordinaire, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, called HOME. You can watch HOME on You Tube for a few more days. If you don't know about his book, the Earth from Above, please, do check it out - it's amazing.

Dawn R. Bazely

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